By Ilmari
Happened last time: the goblins were asked to collect three magical reagents - Airain’s Mushroom, Arachnide’s Elixir and Bald Plant - which the wizard needed for curing the goblin king.
In this level the obvious goal was to get past the Igor wannabe. The basic solution was pretty simple.
By spelling the weirdly shaped antenna on the coffin, I could woke a zombieish creature, who was able to frighten Igor away. Behind Igor I found also Airain’s Mushroom. The problem was that the zombie frightened also the goblins, which ate a lot of their energy. It was back to square one, if I wanted to get through unscathed.
This time the key to the solution was hidden in the statuesque figure at the center of the screen. Near the hand closest to Igor grew a some sort of plant. When Hooter tried his skills with it, the plant grew roughly double its original size. Only BoBo was able to climb the plant and get to the hand of the statue. Punching now the face of the statue revealed a tongue coming out of the mouth, and another punch hid the tongue back in mouth. The solution was to put the two remaining goblins on the tongue and punching them to safety before the zombie could overtake them.
The next level was all about spiders.
Like in the previous level, I had two goals: to get out of the cave and to find Arachnide’s Elixir. The first task was this time quite simple. There was one spider guarding the second bridge - when enchanted, it climbed upper - and a second spider guarding the cave - it had to be shot with the pistol found on the cave floor.
The elixir was a bit harder. It certainly wasn’t the bottle you can see in the screenshot - that one was just full of small spiders. Instead, it was in the possession of the middle spider, and second spell made it drop the bottle. All I had to do still was to find something soft to soften the fall of the elixir. This I could find by shooting the leftmost spider, since there was a pillow hidden behind it.
At the next level, I had to play the gardener to get the Bald Plant.
There was a bag of seeds up in the tree, but I couldn’t just take it.
The trick was to let Hooter do some magic, which moved the bag to a better position, where Dwayne had the chance to take it. Next I had to just plant the seeds and the plant would grow by itself, right?
I had to punch the scarecrow, which would move and scare the birds before they could eat all the seeds. Still, the plant wouldn’t grow, what should I do?
After getting the plant, an old friend arrived.
The wizard had tricked us, as he has needed the reagents just for his nefarious purposes and some spell had prevented him from getting them himself. It was off to the dungeons for the poor goblins…
Session time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 3 h 40 min
Happened last time: the goblins were asked to collect three magical reagents - Airain’s Mushroom, Arachnide’s Elixir and Bald Plant - which the wizard needed for curing the goblin king.
 |
| I hope his ears are waxless |
In this level the obvious goal was to get past the Igor wannabe. The basic solution was pretty simple.
 |
| No, it did not involve the monster mask lying on the path |
This time the key to the solution was hidden in the statuesque figure at the center of the screen. Near the hand closest to Igor grew a some sort of plant. When Hooter tried his skills with it, the plant grew roughly double its original size. Only BoBo was able to climb the plant and get to the hand of the statue. Punching now the face of the statue revealed a tongue coming out of the mouth, and another punch hid the tongue back in mouth. The solution was to put the two remaining goblins on the tongue and punching them to safety before the zombie could overtake them.
 |
| Like this! |
The next level was all about spiders.
Like in the previous level, I had two goals: to get out of the cave and to find Arachnide’s Elixir. The first task was this time quite simple. There was one spider guarding the second bridge - when enchanted, it climbed upper - and a second spider guarding the cave - it had to be shot with the pistol found on the cave floor.
The elixir was a bit harder. It certainly wasn’t the bottle you can see in the screenshot - that one was just full of small spiders. Instead, it was in the possession of the middle spider, and second spell made it drop the bottle. All I had to do still was to find something soft to soften the fall of the elixir. This I could find by shooting the leftmost spider, since there was a pillow hidden behind it.
 |
| Things I’ve learned in adventure games: if you need to drop a vase or other easily breakable objects, you can always find a pillow designed for just that purpose in a dark cave |
At the next level, I had to play the gardener to get the Bald Plant.
There was a bag of seeds up in the tree, but I couldn’t just take it.
The trick was to let Hooter do some magic, which moved the bag to a better position, where Dwayne had the chance to take it. Next I had to just plant the seeds and the plant would grow by itself, right?
 |
| Wrong |
I had to punch the scarecrow, which would move and scare the birds before they could eat all the seeds. Still, the plant wouldn’t grow, what should I do?
 |
| Let there be water! |
After getting the plant, an old friend arrived.
 |
| I don’t like that grin |
The wizard had tricked us, as he has needed the reagents just for his nefarious purposes and some spell had prevented him from getting them himself. It was off to the dungeons for the poor goblins…
Session time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 3 h 40 min
You know, what this kinda reminds me of is Lost Vikings, except that was more of an actiony platformer (and was released in 1993). But a similar thing where you have three different characters each with their own abilities.
ReplyDeleteYes, another commenter pointed out Lost Vikings as a similar game in the platformer genre.
DeleteReally odd is that Lost Vikings, together with Lemmings, were apparently inspiration for Warcraft: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/warcraft-was-conceived-in-part-thanks-to-lost-vikings-and-lemmings
I did not know about the vikings/lemmings origins, there were and still are people who claim that Blizzard was trying to make a Warhammer clone though. Officially debunked (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://kotaku.com/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-5929161/amp&ved=2ahUKEwjsiuzWoOjgAhWjzYUKHfEKDzwQFjACegQIDhAP&usg=AOvVaw0hdrGneie4zpxRFNsfGQ28&cf=1), though many still think it's just Blizzard covering themselves legally.
DeleteJust because a game was inspired by something doesn't mean it at all resembles that inspiration. As that article suggests, the only thing Warcraft has in common with TLV or with Lemmings is that there are lots of creatures (just like in Lem) and some of them look like vikings (just like in TLV). But in terms of gameplay, the three are nothing alike. You might as well claim that boardgames like Twilight Imperium resemble Settlers of Catan because "they both have hexagons"...
DeleteYes, of course, inspiration does not mean resemblance. Still, it's odd to think how one gets from playing Lemmings and ends up creating Warcraft.
DeleteI always assumed Warcraft was "inspired" (to say the least) by Dune 2.
ReplyDeleteYes, that much seems obvious.
Delete