Missed Classic: Enchanter - Won! and Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last time out, I inched closer to discovering the Warlock’s inner sanctum and figuring out how to defeat him. In the process, I survived being sacrificed, watched a turtle be a ninja a full year before that would become a thing, and completely screwed up the Zork timeline by teleporting my character from the first games into an adventure that he wasn’t expecting. It’s been a great ride, if a bit frustrating at times. I’m not sure how I should think of a Warlock who leaves so many useful scrolls hidden all around his castle for a novice adventurer to come and defeat him with…

The first thing that I did in this session is to experiment with “melbor”, the protection from evil spell that I picked up at the end of last week. It doesn’t help one iota getting through the guarded door, but it does seem to prevent the cultists from finding me. With that, I have been finally able to access the eastern exit from the Junction… yay! This leads me to a landing and then a winding stairwell going infinitely up and down in both directions. I try to see if it repeats by dropping an object and seeing if I see it again later, but it really does seem to go on forever. With nothing up and nothing down and no spells that seem right for this occasion, I’ll have to come back later.

Missed Classic: Enchanter - The Terror that Flaps in the Night

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last week, I finished exploring nearly all of the Warlock’s castle but left many mysteries unsolved. We found a deathtrap with hammers and spears, a mysterious rainbow turtle, a man in a mirror, an excessively guarded door, and many other little mysteries. I’m going to have to put some of these puzzles to bed if I want to fight my way to the Warlock. You may have noticed that this isn’t a “Won!” post. Except for the original Dungeon (which was enormous), this is the first game in our marathon to require a fourth post. I’m still going to push to have each game done in three or less, but it seemed better to let this game breathe as much as it needed to. There are a lot of puzzles!

Just as with last week, my big break happened almost immediately after I stopped scrawling my notes for the last section. I put the game down, came back, and figured out a huge trick: napping. I have said this before, but when I write about these games, sometimes I sound smarter than I am. For every correct choice, I can spend enormous amounts of time wandering around or trying randomly stupid things which I do not always mention. Keep in mind that for every solved problem there is a strange man yelling at his computer screen about a thirty-four-year old game. Finding the clue I needed while napping was one example of said screaming.

Missed Classic: Enchanter - Magical Mystery Tour

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last week, I started my explorations of Enchanter by breaking into an ancient castle inhabited by an evil warlock. It seemed to be going well at first except I was too tired to memorize any spells, failed to find a safe place to sleep, and then was captured by cultists and sacrificed on an altar to a bloodthirsty god. I did manage to learn two new spells (one to open doors and another to repair damaged objects), found a mirror leading to the original Zork games, and encountered a door so heavily guarded that it’s defenses had defenses. Fort Knox would be easier to enter! The game is a ton of fun so far but I’ve barely cracked the surface. How am I going to find and defeat the Warlock? Will I win by opening a stuck door at him?

I will start this week by saying that I solved the sleeping issue immediately. Not really having any better ideas, I tried sleeping immediately after restoring from my trauma and that worked for some reason without any hassle. I have to assume that it’s a random event and I was just unlucky the last time, but I honestly have no idea. Did I just sleep in the wrong room? At the wrong time? Who knows but at least I can memorize some spells and start a less haphazard exploration of my environment.

Missed Classic 43: Enchanter - Introduction (1983)

Written by Joe Pranevich

It seems like forever since we played Zork III, but we are finally returning to the unambiguous portion of our Great Zork Marathon with Enchanter, the first game in the second trilogy. It seems a waste for Infocom not to have taken advantage of the well-established brand name, but I am sure the marketing team had their reasons for not wanting to do so. Zork IV: The Enchanter would have been a fantastic title! I enjoyed the Zorkisms that we found in Starcross and Planetfall, but it feels good to be back on the main road. Like many of the games in this series, I vaguely remember starting this game (or one of its sequels) more than twenty years ago. I know that it has a magician protagonist and that finding and casting spells will be a key component. I also know that at some point in this series you “meet” your player character from the first Zork trilogy, but it might not be this game. I look forward to finding out!

This game both starts and ends an era for Infocom. This is the final game jointly designed by the team of Marc Blank and Dave Lebling. Marc remained at Infocom until 1986 but did not have time to develop any other games; he would return to produce Battlefield and Journey in 1988 and 1989. Dave will write four more games but we aren’t quite done with him yet. We will be looking at his Spellbreaker, the third game in this trilogy, in a few months. (Steve Meretzky of Planetfall-fame will be given the helm of the second game, Sorcerer.) Enough introduction, let’s play!