Eric the Unready - Final Rating

By Ilmari

I am in a difficult position of having officially played only the last few scenes of the game, while the majority of posts have been written by the Brown Dragon. Although it will be difficult to integrate my playing experience with what TBD thought about it, I’ll try to take his statements into account at least in some measure. Let’s begin!

Eric the Unready - Won!

By Ilmari

What happened last week

And what I am facing now

Eric the Unready - To Baldly Go Where All Hair Has Gone Before!

By Ilmari

The end of previous post

Time for some spring cleaning! I’ve agreed to finish Eric the Unready, which TBD set out to play a while ago. Fortunately, the end is already near, as we are facing a group of rather familiar swamp rafters. The atmosphere is full of jokes, some more good than the others. Captain Smirk speaking to a real log made me smirk and so did a skeleton called Bones, while Doctor Spock’s lines with paediatric twists sparked even a few snortles. Dressing Scotty in a kilt and making the helmsman a literal Zulu… not so much, and when I understood the rowing Native Americans were meant to be the engines, I wondered why I had to be punished so hard.

I boarded the raft, which took off to the swamp, but quickly got lost in the fog. The helmsman could clearly use some roddenberries that improve sense of direction. This joke welt flat, since, to be frank, Star Trek franchise was often better without Roddenberry’s sense of direction.

Eric the Unready - The Gods Must be Crazy

Written by TBD 

I'm back

Eric the Unready – Like A Virgin

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready Journal Entry #5: I've finally defeated the Stygian Dragon, and all it needed was the right clothes. And now I'm hanging out with various Gods at their Mountain - and they're not exactly filling me with awe.

Day 5: Stygian Dragon – To Cover My Arse Continued

When we last checked in with Eric the Unready, all the way back on 18th May, I'd been helplessly stuck and asked for assistance in covering my butt to protect me from dragon fire. I'd surmised that I'd need the chamberpot from the Pavilion of Tomorrow, but hadn't been able to get it due to a hungry spitting snake.

Vetinari came to my rescue by mentioning that I needed to use the rubber band.

1. You are right, it's a babelfish puzzle.
2. The first step is closing the shade (which you did), the second involves blocking the snake from swallowing the marble.
3. You need an item that you have, but it's not one of those you mentioned at the end of your post.
4. It's the rubber band.

With that information the obvious answer seemed to be to close the viper's mouth by wrapping the rubber band over it. A check of previous screenshots showed me that I had fleetingly had the idea, but when “tie rubber band on viper” hadn't worked I had quickly moved on to other things. Knowing the rubber band was the correct solution I persevered and quickly found one of the correct commands.

Mmphmftk to you too, snake who kept me stuck by trying to eat my marble.

Eric the Unready – Fair and Fowl – Request for Assistance

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready Journal Entry #4: I found myself in a fair near a fire-breathing dragon. And the dragon's protecting the Steak of Eternity. Seems simple enough - just need to cover myself from head to toe in fireproof armor and steal a hungry dragon's meal. I've got most of it covered but I still need one more item...

One final Monty Python reference left over from the previous mission

Eric the Unready – Secret of the Snooze

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready Journal Entry #3: My nightmares are filled with turtles – small turtles, tall turtles, elderly turtles, teenage turtles, ninja turtles. Hopefully Lorealle can stay safe while I collect a seemingly random collection of objects...

Day 4: Blicester Castle – It's Only a Model

While the previous mission spent a lot of time referencing Zork, this mission was full of references to one of my favourite comedy movies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Eric the Unready – The Acceptably Decent Underground Empire

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready Fondor Bindlecrank Journal Entry #2: I'm well on the way to rescuing the princess. My magic banana worked, I think. It took me to the location of one of the items that Bud the Wizard told me I'd need to complete my quest. I had to pretend to be someone I wasn't, but with my cunning disguise, some people randomly giving me needed items and a little ingenuity, I now have the pitchfork I need. One down – four to go.

Greetings all. Hope you're doing well. This week I took a break from randomly reorganising all the rooms of my apartment and played a bit of Eric the Unready. Let's see what happened...

Day 3: Enchanted Forest – The Air Down There

After my magic banana had me dropped off at my next mission, I find myself in a cemetery.

The occupant of the sepulchre must have paid for an extremely long-term newspaper delivery before he died.

Eric the Unready – As Happy As A Pig In ... Let's Say... Mud

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready Journal Entry #1: My first real assignment! After defeating the Knight of the Black Pauldron, I was given another important job where I met the most adorable creature I've ever seen - I also met a princess!

Day 1: How do you like them apples?

After the introduction, Eric was given his first quest – to kiss a farmer's daughter who'd been turned into a pig. I immediately get to work, go to the farm and try to kiss the pig. Seemed like an easy job, but the pig fears my tender lips and runs for the privy. Not the most romantic of places, but I won't give up when I've got a job to do, so time to enter the toilet to molest a farm animal.

For my first move I talk to the farmer. Being the first time I spent a lot of time with the Legend parser, I'll describe it a little bit now.

You can click on the words on the left to do things. The word list contains the usual suspects, as well as many less usual verbs - The list changes based on where you are, so most likely used verbs will always be near the top. The manual tells me that I never need to use items below the separator line to proceed, but it might be fun to do so.

Apart from the word lists, you can also click on the picture – for example, I can click on TALK, then click on the farmer in the middle of the picture instead of the word FARMER. It's not something I find overly useful, but it's nice to have the option – I at first thought that might be useful for identifying unknown objects, but it appears that when I click on a verb, all possible objects on the screen or in my inventory are listed. It may still be useful, but my guess is that it's just an alternative for those who prefer their interfaces to be slightly closer to the standard point-and-click interface.

Once I talk to the farmer, I get my first look at the conversation screen. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Bestiality humour

Game 118: Eric the Unready (1993) - Introduction

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready is the next graphic adventure game from Legend Entertainment, and the highest rated adventure game ever, according to Computer Game Review.

A quick glance at a screenshot shows that it uses essentially the same interactive fiction (with graphics) engine as Legend's other games, Spellcasting 101, Spellcasting 201, Timequest, Gateway and Spellcasting 301.

This is their penultimate[1] game using that engine, with the final game Gateway II: Homeworld, coming later in 1993. Their other game in 1993 is Companions of Xanth, which is a more standard 1990s graphic adventure.