Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Final Rating

By Aperama

Still don't know if Ernie is frightened or aroused...

I've really got the idea that Spellcasting is going to score lower on this than it perhaps should. This comes down to the fact that moreso than anything, it's not a graphical adventure game - it's a text adventure with a graphical interface tacked on. Really, the game would have been just about identical if it had no imagery whatsoever (and in some cases it likely would have benefited more than hindered) and while the point and click verb-noun interface is an interesting touch, I found myself never really tempted to use it. It was just simpler to type in all of the commands the majority of the time. This isn't to say that I haven't enjoyed Spellcasting in its own right – but it's just a hunch that the PISSED rating system might not look too favourably on it. Anyhow, enough conjecture. To the meat and potatoes!


Puzzles and Solvability

Spellcasting certainly has puzzles. Unfortunately, they range from those that are less than obvious and lacking in substance (for instance, the island of KABBULing random names obviously had the 'fairies' tacked on near the end as an effort by the QA team to make it slightly less horrid) and those that are simply far too easy (the island of 'repeating the above command backwards for twenty moves'.) It hits a happy medium a few times, though. I quite enjoyed the maze, which is something definitely worth noting given how much I tend to utterly hate them – in fact, just about everything in the first two chapters was quite fun, with it feeling like they ran out of good ideas as soon as Ernie mounted his surfboard. (Sorry. GOT ON his surfboard. It doesn't like the word 'mount'.) I've also got to give it full credit for the fact that the opening screen has three ways to escape and gives a plentiful amount of time to fiddle around with the interface and work your way out. It's just unfortunate that a game which started so strong finished so weakly. Were the entire game like the opening two chapters, I'd happily give it a 7 or an 8 – but overall, the game doesn't hold true to this.
Rating: 5

This is the style of puzzle I can get behind. It's not incredibly straight forward to a point of being unworthy of my time, but my mind immediately took it in and ran with it

Interface and Inventory

This could very easily be a place where Spellcasting falters. As a graphical adventure game, I found often that were it not for the mixture of both the item list on the side and the room descriptions, I would very easily have missed things. Now, I know what you're all thinking – why isn't this a positive instead of a negative – after all, the interface allowed me to find things? Well, if you list an item and just have a random picture to correspond to it, it's not guaranteed to actually be of any help. So when you have to KABBUL MIKE and the clue given is 'a device for recording sound'? I could be fine with this. All this would be requiring would be a picture of a microphone – plain and simple. Unfortunately, it instead has a random picture of some musical notes as though that were supposed to be enough (see below) – I can only consider this a failing when the interface could give some form of correspondence to clue you in to 'microphone' instead of just depending on either guesswork or for you to wait for a hint. I also have to deduct a point for not being able to scroll back over text in a game clearly designed to be played by mouse. Particularly given the default obscenely small text window, it's nigh inexcusable to have to remember three to four pages of text and simply remember what's there (or work off of the 'SCRIPT' command as I ended up having to). I also had to run through a part of the game twice because of inventory limits that were rather arbitrary (you could have dozens of items on one island, then the next wouldn't allow much more than wearing clothes and holding a lead-plated sword) so I couldn't claim to approve of this. On the plus side, though, certain items do at least exist in the image as something to remove or add or interact with by mouse – and the novel idea of including a mouse-interactive parser that corresponds to things in the small image window is at least worth a nod to, even if in practice it doesn't work very well. (I actually found that the mouse often just caused an error message when used – but that might just be my experience, admittedly.)
Rating: 4

I understand the design decision, maybe – but that doesn't make it a good one. This is by no means the only room where the picture was just of no help, and that means it's 100% down to the text

Story and Setting

Were the interface a worry for me, the story feels like it should definitely be a place where Spellcasting makes its way back... but maybe not. The points I want to give it here are entirely more about the atmosphere surrounding the game than the story that the game follows. It's clichéd, covered in meaningless MacGuffins and is more of a vehicle for a joke than anything else. My last game was Countdown, where I felt a rich plot was unfolding around me – in this, I can essentially boil the entire plot down to a single runon sentence. 'You, Ernie Eaglebeak, are a fabled person of prophecy (or something like that, so long as it sounds cooler than it actually is) – and you must journey to save the Sorcerer's Appliance from Fort Blackwand and kick your evil stepdad's butt!' In some games, a cliché will fit well and feel like the intent – in this, it feels more like this is the best excuse they could find for writing a character who is virtually Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds with a little more social ability and a more successful love life from the getgo. The setting itself feels like it belongs in a Discworld novel, though, so that's definitely a positive – but the setting rarely plays into things and where it does it's largely just as a set up to either a joke or a puzzle instead of feeling like being an organic part of Daventry, for instance.
Rating: 4

I'm not saying that they had their main character written for them – Ernie is more of a stand in for most of the game for bad things to happen to him – but the resemblance is uncanny

Sound and Graphics

The games of 1990 are getting to a point that they are no longer just 'alright for their age', but legitimately not too hard on the eyes even from a modern standpoint. You only have to look at the modern obsession behind pixel art to realise that there is a definite style in 'less realistic' styled graphics – and in spite of not looking fantastic, you can look at someone who is supposed to be a 'person' in Elvira and immediately go 'that's a person'. This is true of Spellcasting, too – but nothing actually looks 'good', and I doubt it did back then either. Everything looks as though it were drawn by someone with a minimal knowledge of computerised art to my eye. It's a subjective thing – but I would almost have preferred this be the true text adventure it was put together as. The sound, on the other hand, was pleasant and forgettable at its best – and grating/annoying at its worst. A high-pitched shriek of a 'beep!' comes out every time you misclick on something you shouldn't have, and the music turning into what sounded to be one octave off randomly, particularly on the Amazon island, just made me want to claw my eyeballs out. (This may possibly have been the fact that this game only allows for MT32 or Adlib input. Adlib only gives music in the opening screen, where MT32 gives music throughout the entire game.) Still, I can only rate from my experience – less than appealing but functional graphics and less than pleasant sound. That said? There were animations in the imagery (e.g. blazing fire), so I'll mark it up one from my mental picture of three to four. Not looking good, Mr. Meretzky!
Rating: 4

This is all legible and readable. It's also not very appealing at all to me.

Environment and Atmosphere

Finally, this is where I can give the game some full-blown credit. Spellcasting makes you want to play it – but it doesn't quite make sense that you want to do so. The game doesn't add up in this way. The first two hours of gameplay were by far my favourite – soaking in the rich lore surrounding the game, finding new things – sitting down and watching Ernie's dorm mates play a game of Malls n' Muggers. Sure, there wasn't an incredible amount of it – the 'game' loops after about thirty actions, the sporting events you can watch are pre-scripted affairs that only happen one way, the newspapers are short and sweet – but I am being perfectly honest when I say this was what kept me interested in the game. I was really just hoping that the game would go back to its strength in encouraging more of this out – but in spite of the hugely muddled end where everyone suddenly pops out and everyone is happy at least giving moderate lip service to what had taken place? I can't really fault it. It left me wanting more of the same – and that's really what any good designer should be aiming for.
Rating: 8

The college newspaper was taken over by Mr. Rottenwood's cronies midway through Ernie's education, and it showed upon a reading. Great stuff. 

Dialogue and Acting

I'd like to say otherwise – but it's almost difficult to find many places in which Spellcasting actually allowed for dialogue. There were several instances in which people spoke to Ernie, and several more places in which you could interact with characters.. but only a couple of times did I find an interactive character that would allow me to 'speak' with them over things. This is more a design issue than anything – there are probably a few people you could speak further to were it not for the tight window of opportunity used in puzzles. Text adventure stalwarts and parser lovers alike will understand the sorts of conversations that tend to be had with a character in a game like this – and when I ASKED the Amazonian leader Ursula ABOUT the ATTACHMENT, it worked and gave a response. The majority of other times I tried to speak to people, however, I just received a 'blah, blah, blah...' message to tell me I was barking up the wrong tree. Still, the writing was clearly the star of the show here – and it succeeded quite well. Most of the characters felt fluid. I just can't conscientiously rate it as I would, say, a Monkey Island or King's Quest where several pages of dialogue were put together and were made into an interactive experience – dialogue was clearly a secondary worry here, but where it was it fit well enough.
Rating: 4

The Professor was probably one of the easiest to find conversation topics with. If only more were like him..

As my simple math goes, 5+4+4+4+8+4=29, which when divided by 0.6 gives a score of 48 – and that's probably about where I think Spellcasting sits, honestly. It achieved a touch better than I felt it would after fully thinking it over – at its core it is more IF than adventure game with several IF tropes (continual time-based puzzles and finicky wording taking the place of pixel hunts and awkwardly positioning a character as the primary irritations) taking over. Not having Ernie on screen also makes it quite difficult to relate to him just as good ol' AFGNCAAP from Zork felt.

According to the ol' database, that means that Canageek has guessed right and received both the CAPs reward and a little something I decided to spring for myself. There's a GoG copy of the Zork Anthology waiting for you if you'd like it – it's the closest I could find to anything of the old Legend-styled games for purchase.

CAP Distribution

100 CAPs for Aperama

• Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - For blogging his way through game for our enjoyment

20 CAPs for Mad Welshman

• What's Your Story Award - 20 CAPs - For giving his answers to WYS question

15 CAPs for Fry

• Spelling Bee Award - 5 CAPs - For having the balls to correct spelling errors of Aperama
• Art and Noel Award - 10 CAPs - For suggesting puns before they were needed

12 CAPs for Kenny

• Corny Pun Award - 10 CAPs - For winning the caption contest
• Couple of Gigantic Spoilers Award - 2 CAPs - For failing in his attempt to con Aperama

10 CAPs for Canageek

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For getting the closest guess for the final rating

10 CAPs for Corey Cole

• Pizza Award - 10 CAPs - For revealing the story behind fifth element

10 CAPs for Ilmari

• Helping the Player Award - 10 CAPs - For giving two hints to Aperama

5 CAPs for TBD

• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a sale on Steam

I'm quite glad that both Deimar and myself ended at exactly the same time by sheer fortune, as I can now say without a thought of how it might otherwise go to say – on to Rise of the Dragon!

Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Won!

By Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #6: “Well, that went faster than I'd thought! I'm an honest-to-god hero! I'm gonna save the world! I've graduated! I know all sorts of spells! Well.. I did before I burnt my spellbook. Back. Back, back. After I found the picture of a boa on the surfboard, I realised why it was hidden – it was the way to the very Isle of the Gods itself! After.. doing my humanly duty with Ocarina, Glockenspiel was quite upset that his wife was willing to spend more time with me – but all of the gods forgot pretty quickly when I wiped the legendary garbage dump of the gods clean. I worked out from the brazen trail of breadcrumbs that were left that I was going to have to head down to Fort Blackwand – and sure enough, everything all came to a head. I fought not one, but two mythical beasts, saved my beloved Lola Tigerbelly, and even found out that Joey Rottenwood was the one behind it all after everything! It was pretty satisfying to not only foil his plans, but to cover him from head to toe in whale poop. Anyhow, enough of this journal schtick – it's time I got to know my Lola's.. shopping habits. Sigh. The chores of being a hero..”

Level 5! If only I had some level 5 spells to cast..

I'll admit that while it's felt like a slog from time to time, Spellcasting has actually been quite enjoyable and hasn't actually dragged as much as it has felt it has. All of the puzzles have been largely logical, albeit hindered by the parser and often difficult to work out from what information was given all too often. Not being crazy long is doubtless its strong suit, though. I reckon that with my list of KABBULed names (I kept them all in a separate set of notes) I could probably beat the entire game within about 20 minutes of rote typing now. Anyhow, enough bragging. The opening to the Island of the Gods was quite difficult to comprehend to me – the island is 'locked'. How do you lock an island? Yeah, I'm not sure on this one either. (There's no keyhole.) However, back at the Isle of Bad Puns And Typing 'KABBUL' Heaps – er, the Isle of Lost Soles – we received a 'key'. It wasn't a key to their township, their island, themselves – it was just the only key they could find to give me out of appreciation. But sure enough? It's the key to unlock the very ISLAND OF THE GODS!

All too often this happens! It literally gives you an exact word on screen then won't react to it.
Also just missing in this screenshot: 'You see nothing special about the Condo of the Gods'. ARGH!

The majority of the rooms within this area are actually quite benign. I'm willing to give it credit for at least thinking of a few clever lines – you can VAI (heal) all of the flowers and bushes et al in the Garden, but on trying to GUB (disease) them they either give 'it must be a GUB-resistant strain' or 'I hope you don't think we'd bother making a version of this picture without the flowers just so you could go around casting the stupid GUB spell.' There are lots of things to interact with (well, look at) – but unfortunately, there's not much more to them. The opening room to the Condo of the Gods is a large chamber with entrances to the Garbage Dump of the Gods to the north (living for all of eternity creates quite the landfill, y'see), the room to the east with the condo of Bagatelle, Goddess of peace, and Baccarat, God of war (split perfectly in the center like any number of old sitcoms where 'lines were drawn' between two characters).. and a similar line created between Ocarina, Goddess of Beauty, and Glockenspiel, God of Ugliness, to the west. If one was to have been paying attention back in class (or had they read Ernie's notes), they'd know that both of these two halves were the lovers which created the realm of Peloria through arguments, death and marriage. Essentially, to give a contemporary example, the entire creation of Ernie's home world was an episode of Game of Thrones.

… 'the same headache for sixteen hundred years?'
I'm suggesting that she could do with some really good paracetamol.

Turns out that the Goddess of Beauty doesn't share my love for naked jogs through gardens...

Upon hearing arguing voices, Ernie has the opportunity to hide behind the drapes and ignore the sounds of a lovers' tiff. See, it turns out that Glockenspiel believes that Ocarina has been enjoying herself with other men while ignoring her poor Godly husband. Being the embodiment of Mr. Eaglebeak, I do my utmost to be the true gallant gentleman and offer her the opportunity to show Mr. Glockenspiel that his worries are unfounded – she instead goes on to swiftly turn Ernie into a seven foot tall weightlifter with, as I quote from the game, 'a little love monkey that turns into King Kong'. (Un)fortunately, this only lasts rather shortly – Ernie deflates in more ways than one after enjoying himself with the Goddess.. who steals one of his cigarettes. (He's not even a smoker. I'm beginning to think he's getting advantage taken of him!) She gives him a GWEEK spell box for his troubles – 'shrink inanimate objects'. Glockenspiel chooses now to run in on Ernie – and in trying to find a suitable punishment decides that he can spend the rest of eternity cleaning up the venerable Garbage Dump of the Gods!

Or, y'know, he can just GWEEK the garbage to tiny-size,
then BUNDEROT it to decompose it into nothing. Works, too.

The puzzle itself wasn't particularly difficult to solve, so a quick zap or two and all that's left is a GOBERDUNA spell box – 'tie or untie mighty knots'. As it's unlocked, dozens of gods begin to flock out into the newly-cleaned Big Empty Field of the Gods (patent pending), all declaring that they have their own thoughts as to what this new empty swathe of space could be used for. As they begin to fight, Ernie decides to invoke the better part of valour and run while the going's good. As I've gotten through everything on the map, it's pretty clear that the next stop is the place noted in almost every island that has mentioned what happened around about the time their individual Great Attachment™ to the Sorcerer's Appliance – they had a visit from the seamstresses over at Fort Blackwand. It's one of the only three visitable places on the map that is inland and not shown by a symbol rather than a little 'shield' map dot in the game – there are about a dozen red herring areas to make the game look far larger than it actually is to the outside observer.

Only problem with this plan is the gigantic sea monster..

The Loch Pik Monster was one of those covered in Ernie's General Magic 101 class – it was considered something of a legend. I didn't even have the opportunity to puzzle over it – there wasn't much information given by looking at it, and I just randomly started casting some spells on it to see if it made any difference. Turns out it's quite long, though, and to 'tie a mighty knot' with it is enough to snap its neck. GOBERDUNA Loch Pik monster? RIP Loch Pik Monster.. oops. Plus side? Chapter eight!

I don't understand what screwing has to do with sorcery.
Did this become Handyman's University 101: The Quest To Fix IKEA Furniture?

The game drops us from the lagoon into a room that.. looks identical to the rooms given in the Simulation Lab back at SU! Hope that you weren't like me and didn't leave the sword in the Amazonian shop! I figured I could always go back given the encumbrance kicked in when I tried to pick it up.. instead, I speedran back from first landing on their island. (I lost the lipstick so I couldn't escape the island after retrieving it without restarting.) So after replaying the previous two posts or so.. GUB tree. ZEM me. South. Kill dragon with lead-plated sword that I totally didn't leave back there and ruin Ernie's chance of being the hero with. VAI ivy. Climb ivy. Pull lever. Unchain damsel...

Find childhood crush. Proceed to wonder if unchaining her is the right move
(clearly, because her captors will work out she was unchained – not for any other reasons!)

Turns out that 'he's' down a trap door with 'that machine', or so Lola tells us. The 'machine' is clearly the Sorcerer's Appliance, so the only real question here is as to who exactly 'he' is. I'll admit that my mind innately came up with a few ideas regarding some sort of rival we'd made in our opening few weeks off screen – or, indeed, an angry professor who was somewhat less than impressed with the present establishment of SU. After trying to.. show my appreciation for Lola's fine assets (which in a first was not successful), I found her purse – filled with the essentials. A compact (which Ernie is quick to assure himself he is quite spiffy looking with), a credit card, a tampon, a flame thrower. Just the typical stuff most girls keep in their handbags, I'm fairly sure you'll find. Still, down the trapdoor? A puzzle! It's pretty obvious, though it very nearly again stumped me. There are three coloured 'x's with three correspondingly coloured gates. They each need to be stepped upon to bring up the gate. Ernie's one, and Lola climbed down with us, which just leads us needing a third person or something heavy. I've already lost the lead-plated sword from killing the atomic dragon just prior, so there's nothing in my inventory of note, and BLUBBA just kills us both by flooding the room with whale meat. The only thing in here is a painting of a landscape with a lamp pointing towards it inside..

Three points if you thought of this as soon as you heard I needed a third body

But more importantly – the EVIL END BOSS!
(The graphics often invert every time the 'loading' screen comes up and I'm not sure why)

Thanks for letting us know, Lola! Thanks a bloody well lot!

It turns out that instead of being an angry professor or the like, it's a scorned ex-student that was expelled – and that someone is Joey Rottenwood, Ernie's awful stepfather! He knows of the little prophecy that our mother was trying to let us know about, which is exactly why he married her – it doesn't exactly explain what that prophecy is – but I digress. Joey's plan is to use the Sorcerer's Appliance to supercharge himself with magic, create a rival school to SU and show them how great he is. The problem with his little plan is that nobody actually knows what this is likely to do (hint from if you allow him to: they name the resultant mess that clears out the majority of southeastern Peloria as 'Rottenwood Crater') – he's just learned how to use it in the terms of 'making it work'. In the same way that George W. Bush probably knew that the red button under his desk 'made the nukes work'. Trying to cast any spells results in Joey smacking us for our efforts – and even with ZEM cast, Ernie's not ready to undo years upon years of ingrained beratings and beatings alike and just smack him. The flamethrower doesn't work, either.

 

The final puzzle of the game. We needs us some whale poop! Problem? Three turns!

We distract Joey by giving him the popular book back from the SU library which is simply too good for him to put down, stopping him from pushing both buttons of the Appliance at once (the explosive option) – but as he settles down to read, he hits the red self destruct lever next to the Appliance. Nobody offers to help out, naturally – we're the protagonist in an adventure game! Dammit, we're the only one who can do anything. So, we need to drop seven tons of whale poop into a convenient receptacle of the Appliance – in three turns. BLUBBA and EKLAKSIA are the clear solution – but there's a problem. Casting BLUBBA has the pressure of a whale dropping from the air force the spellbook out of our hands, and EKSLAKSIA on the ground is clearly what we need to do on it from there. This one took me a little as the nature of 'spell boxes' was never really explained, but it appears that they search for the easiest place to ply their trade once invoked through the book – the obvious stopping spot being a spellbook. After casting BLUBBA to put the whale in its place, we need to use Lola's flame thrower on our own spellbook – then, as we open the EKSLAKSIA box, everyone is given the impetus to begin losing the contents of their collective stomachs.. including the whale, who overfills the receptacle and then some to spray over Joey. Oops! The collective entirety of SU turns out to have been captured around, so everyone gets freed – including Ernie's true dad, who hadn't died after all! A happy ending! Well, sort of..

Fourth wall breaking plot twists? Check!

Can't say I wasn't thorough!

Session Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 7 hours

Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Have Surfboard, Will Travel

Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #5: I managed not to get myself killed by being the preferred chewtoy of an entire island of Amazons after all. I, er.. through my cunning use of what little they had to offer, I managed to find myself back to my trusty surfboard (it's pretty much mine now. I mean technically I'm just borrowing it. But after all I'm doing for the Professor I'm pretty sure he'll let me keep it!) and head off to.. somewhere else. My map had a picture of an hourglass, and.. I had a backwards game of chess, a mudbath, found another.. god, I don't even remember exactly what happened. After the director told me to drop a BUNDEROT spellbox, I ended up with it in my hands, and I was back on the Amazon island again! Of course, I had to get away pretty quick before any of them realised their precious man was missing, so I headed down to the Restaurant at the End of the Ocean. Minus side? My tutor was right, restaurants fall apart really quick. On the plus side, I got about two bites of some pygmy shark and a MAJJELLO spell box. Turns out that 'BOA' was just hidden on the surfboard by a spell! Guess I know where I'm headed to now...

Our last puzzle was simpler than I'd thought!

As I've written a few posts up for this blog now, I can't help but think about the obvious comparisons to the way in which Trickster always wrote his posts up as against Chester's at the CRPG Addict. There's a few reasons why I always preferred Trickster's style, but I can't help but feel that I'd be benefited by following Chester's today. The following post was almost under half an hour of gameplay, but seemed like I made my way through enough significant bits and pieces to actually warrant a gameplay post. Were this the CRPG Addict, however, it'd be time to talk about the combat interface or anything other than what I'd just seen – two extremely railroaded series of puzzles that in my humble opinion just weren't fun at all. It's not like they were nonsensical, and they didn't grate on my nerves – they just weren't very good! I played through them, frowned and then just hoped that the game will come back to the fun of sitting in class writing notes and taking in the game's lore. Anyhow, enough whining. On with the show!

Escaaaape!

The last suggestion I had given to me in the comments was that I had to prove that I had the same 'gigantic spoilers' as an Amazon. I'm quite glad that I didn't choose to pay attention to Kenny's suggestion, however, as they really weren't looking for the shapely curves of a fellow Amazonian woman – they're used to having other, non-Amazonian women around the island. It's just 'not looking like a man' that was the key here. After giving up on attempting to bribe the shopkeeper or hide in things (I figured maybe hiding underneath the bed might help), I realised something – we're playing a game with a spellbook! I didn't see any obvious things that could come out of BLUBBAing in the Amazonian Queendom, though, and ZEM proved rather futile even with the lead-plated sword in tow – so I started to FRIMP random objects, starting with my cloak as I was sure that it had something to do with the outcome – but as it turns out.. there was a bonnet hidden underneath the bed in the VIP room. Oops. Cross-dressing away, and we're outta there!

That's a strange name for an island..

But I can think of a reason or two as to why

This is really not a series of puzzles to come. It feels sorta like Mr. Meretzky was a little lost as to how to make the gameplay stretch out and just looked for very simple puzzles. The series of name-based puns weren't the worst the game has to throw! Indeed, after the seemingly largely useless Amazonian island (the only potential items I can think of that might come in handy from there are the pomegranate and the lead-plated sword I left there) I ended up in the Island where.. time.. runs.. backwards. This is the equivalent of a running quick-time event. Instead of telling us to push X at a contextually sensitive point, though, it tells us to reverse every single command. I'd be okay by this series of puzzles if it allowed for failure! Instead of doing so, it continually lists a command or a thing that has been done and has us react to it. So, after 'GET ON THE SURFBOARD' pops up, you need to type 'GET ON THE SURFBOARD'. (Well, this particular example isn't truthful – we actually get told that some waybread falls into our hands and we need to drop it.) However. Say, for instance, you want to look at the waterfall instead?

Evidently, wanting to not follow the path is cause for DEATH

As such, there's no actual 'gameplay' within this section. Repeating each command leads Ernie through a faux Goldilocks-styled scene, complete with a director on the beach sending him off to do so. Sending him out (well, sending him in) by having him pick up (drop) an object from the beach, he ends up launching himself from the ground to the second floor of the roof – well, he was thrown out of it, in truth. So, by 'heading south' (moving from the north), it leaves Ernie suddenly feeling an awful lot less beaten up from the rapid smacking he received directly prior to. The three steaming mud baths he tried (one too cold, one too hot and one just right) led him to have a nap in the baby.. mud devil's home. Mud devils, I remember from Ernie's classes, were one of the nasties that we have no real defense against. The advice given was 'Avoid, avoid, avoid!' Of course, technically, we're not doing anything.. we're just resting to have the previous action take effect. Confused? Good. Returning downstairs after the mud devils discover us, we find a chess set, three meals of waybread and three concubines...

The notion of Ernie having his excitement return BACK into him made me turn to the 'nice' mode. Instead of concubines? Nuns. Nuns who want to play chess with Ernie.

Sampling the waybread (uneating the small piece, finding one of the other hard and the other too soft) and the.. nun chess matches? Ernie un-enters the cabin in the woods, ending up in front of one of the Great Attachment pedestals, the 'Nozzle of Blather'. He even looked at it for us to actually let us get some more information on it! This is my real problem, honestly – were the game to allow us to actually take in the surroundings even if it wouldn't let us do things without time undoing itself, I'd be okay by this puzzle – it'd be fun and quirky instead of quite annoying. Undoing everything he does, we end up un-dropping a BUNDEROT box ('decomposition'), setting the surfboard we got on back to the co-ordinates we started by going to, riding our surfboard backwards and ending up back on the island of Amazons once more. With an extra spell box. Woohoo! So now, we're stuck with only one location – the 'EATS' sign on the map. Not only was the quote from the previous chapter from Douglas Adams..

But the next isle was quite reminiscent of him too

As Kenny and Ilmari both alluded, the rather large degree of 'steps in restauranteering' training taken back in class at SU comes out to make some sense. Well, it does now, anyhow. There's not an awful lot to this island – if the last we were on was to be considered short, this is amazingly so. There are quite literally two screens to it. That said, simple isn't necessarily terrible. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I may have been forced to play it in this order – it turns out that the BUNDEROT spell obtained in the last island is critical here. (I also found that I couldn't re-enter the restaurant after our first visit.) The opening screen has a harbour, a restaurant and a MAJJELLO spell box. Naturally, I go to claim MAJJELLO for our own – but things don't quite go the way I'd expected..

They SCREW you at the sail-thru. They know you're gonna be miles away before you find out...

As soon as we go to pick up the MAJJELLO box, the restaurant we're standing out the front of happens to decide to open rather abruptly. It turns out our SU professors really knew what they were talking about! The six steps of restaurant evolution take place before our very eyes. We walk in to a restaurant that, having just opened, has great customer service, good and cheap food – everything is good! As we're seated and read the menu (one of which just happens to list 'freshly caught pygmy shark'), the place gets extremely crowded. As we receive our meal (given that it came in five minutes, I've got to admit that this is pretty impressive), people start grumbling about the prices and portion sizes. (We received our portion sizes early enough for this not to be a problem, though.) As we BUNDEROT our meal (I found it wasn't really a choice – having a bite of the apparently rather tasty food makes it impossible to finish off the 'puzzle' within) we receive an under-digested spell box, leading us to the MAJJELLO from the beach. The restaurant remains closed afterwards, so we're stuck with what could be no clear direction – except for MAJJELLO, 'show hidden information'. As I alluded to in the previous post, there's a missing dial from the surfboard as it corresponds to the map. The 'BOA' I was missing, it turns out, is found with a MAJJELLO, and it then directs me to the one thing on the BOA line, the small pictograph of a thunder cloud...

And we have our destination for our next post!

As I say, there really wasn't much to these two chapters of gameplay – they're fine little bits of fun and all, but they're just not 'puzzling' – it's not like I was scratching my head and thinking over things. Instead, I was railroaded into the realms of not really getting to choose what happened. Six turns in the restaurant and it closes, even if you want to look around and do other things. If the game just allowed for a little more playing around instead of giving you limited to no opportunity to stuff up, these last two chapters could have been really enjoyable. Anyhow. The game can't have too much longer to go, and it still has every opportunity to finish up strong, now that my inventory has swelled to two extra spells..

Session Time: 30 min
Total Time: 6 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Eaglebeak's Erotic Amazonian Adventures

Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #4: Okay, so my problems aren't the ones that I'd expected. After infuriating myself around the Isle of Lost Soles, I managed to finally free all eighty of them. Silly guys, the lot of them – some of them were even in a human form.. I wonder why they didn't try to free themselves! Still, it seems like the Isle is pretty much a dead end. There's nothing much left to do here – honestly, I think I KABBULed all of the fun out of them, as they just ran off to attack their accountant. My trusty map came into play again as I pretty well picked a point at random and made my surfboard fly off there – it was strange, because the surfboard doesn't align with 'BOA', which is clearly half way down the map. Still, the next isle was easy enough to get to. I knew I was in for a little fun when I looked at the galleys out there – I know an Amazon design when I see one! Unfortunately, uh.. yeah, they're very.. willing to meet me. I'm not sure I can take much more of this.. oh great, another one. I'm just a piece of meat to these women!

Thanks, Ilmari! (I still say that 'bristly pad' is nigh-unsolvable...
 I've never heard of a doormat described as such)

Ever feel like you've wasted an hour of your life? I think of all of the things I could be doing other than traversing this stupid island. I was at least happy that I managed to find a different couple of screens (I seriously struggle to notice the 'down' arrow, and the long descriptions of the rooms only come up once) – but it goes without saying that this is the sort of thing that, were I not playing for the group, that would have turned me off of the game altogether. I can only imagine that this is true of a lot of people who played through these games. Given I don't have feeling that I need to finish something bought at retail for a considerable amount (even if it was purchased, I imagine it would have been quite cheap these days), it's not like there's a real impetus to keep going. Only two things have maintained my sanity. One, waiting about an hour and a half by repeatedly pushing 'z' or 'wait' gives a direct clue from a fairy (which I used incessantly). Two, all of the objects that correspond to a soul give the same message informing you that the KABBUL spell doesn't work by naming the object, but the person (so MATT, not 'bristly pad'.)

But that doesn't mean that I understand how 'Pierre' is a 'stuffed moose'...
Admin's explanation: Reading the will tells that the stuffed moose 
will inherit a small green round vegetable. So, the moose is a "PEA HEIR"

So, I left off last time around slightly over 40 of the 80 required and a small handful of the number that I had yet to solve. I did my best to actually make it through the puns as a puzzle as opposed to using the simple cheapness of repeatedly waiting for names to pop up. (It would have taken almost as much time to get through them unfairly as it did mostly fairly, to be completely truthful.) I managed to puzzle out some of the names in the outer screens already shown fairly – for instance, 'DAWN' was in the forested area in the description. LEIF was a pretty obvious jump from there, given I was just listing off every last 'forest-related' pun name I could think of. KNUTE was a fluke that popped up almost perfectly in time after looking at the first hint given by Ilmari in regards to the salamander I picked up (which makes me come up with all sorts of bad jokes about lizards being in pockets, naturally.) And then, after managing Pierre off of another fluke fairy namedrop (I simply ran the name in each screen until the moose jumped off of the wall). And then, I saw the 'down' arrow at the top left of the screen..

The room full of bad puns ending in 'e'.
I got half of the names before even looking at the descriptions

GABBY, the loudmouth. HARDY, the 'tough seeming e'. GOLDIE, the one 'made of a shiny yellow metal'. LUCY, the trampy letter. LACEY, the one with a 'fine white tatting'. ARCHIE, the one that 'forms a large curve across the room, like some improbable stone rainbow'. CONNIE was the one who was putting down bets on a gambling match on the phone. DUSTY I got again from a fairy later on (the description being 'covered with a thin layer of powdery substance' – I might have gotten this one fairly if it weren't for the terrible description used to intentionally make it difficult to follow this.) DAISY, similarly, the confused (or 'dazed') e.. I picked this up less from the description given than the desperate listing of names that seemed like they'd fit in with 'bad E puns'. There was also a 'conventiongoer E' – but when I tried to KABBUL that on its own, it came up with the 'guess this isn't a lost soul' prompt and led me to continue exploring the rooms..

I've never heard of anyone called 'Gaylord' before, but maybe I'm just ignorant like that

And from the 'room full of e's' to.. 'British Aisles', the room full of bad puns related to British names. There was only the one difficult name here (as listed above, GAYLORD) – the rest of them in here were really pretty easy. BOBBY is, of course, a British policeman's uniform. LULU, a pair of loos. (Okay, already having that one listed in the clues didn't hurt.) The broken toilet seal? A LUCILLE, of course. BILLY? A billy club. A 'truck' was almost a little difficult to work out, but after a quick think, a LAURIE (a lorry) and I was out of the room almost immediately. Now feels like a good point to state that the game has a sincere issue with the in-game script not being scrollable, given that an extra five minutes is taken every time you use the 'look' command – the fact that I've been using the 'script' command to keep a log of everything that happens is quite helpful for this, repeatedly opening up the log in notepad while playing to re-read.. but not giving the opportunity in-game is just silly, particularly as it comes to this area with writing all themed towards being obtuse in favour of bad puns often creating three screens of text to read.

I was already pretty deep into my list of eighty by this point,
but reading this immediately made me think of a (christmas) CAROL.

The vacuum tube that was bizarrely without noise, of course, was HUM PHREY. A MIKE was hanging over the recording room, and a MELODY was playing throughout the room. I'm not entirely sure why, but 'NOEL' worked in here – I'm still not sure exactly what it was in relation to as I had no interactive object to deal with. (I looked back through my log, and even ticking off each item in the room, I was able to tick off each.) Sure enough though Fry, it gave a little speech with the very predictable joke - "It's a peasure to meet you. I'm much obiged for heping restore our ost sous. Someday I wi repay your kindness..." I'm more than perfectly willing to admit that I'd lost count by this point and was just hoping not to get stuck at 79 or something similar. ADLAI popped up by fairy-gram in the room I walked downstairs in from an advertisement on the wall – it might have been easier if I'd ever heard the name 'ADLAI' before, indeed. WOODROW, a row of trees, and I'd KABBUL-ed almost everything I could find. CLIFFORD and SANDFORD in the valley area left me with just the following: “A wooden structure spans a dried-up stream bed. A pronoun stands atop the structure.” (I needed the clue to finish up this degree of hell and find BRIDGITTE and my way out of this god-awful place..)

My reward? A key!

The next closest island seemed to be on the 'BOA' line of the map
 – but that seems like it'll have to come another time..

So we go to the next best pla--

So, going from the island of horrible puns to.. an island with a slightly different view on things. I wasted most of my play-time in the previous area in truth – landing on the dock of the 'Island of Horny Women' was nearly as far as I managed to get after the severe burnout in trying to learn names like ADLAI and GAYLORD. The opening dock has a few 'large galleys' which 'indicate the boats to be of Amazon design, featuring all-women crews'. How Ernie manages to see this much from the distance of the dock is beyond me – but anyhow, we go on happily enough. Unfortunately, a gust of wind happens to shoot up over our cloak, covering our face from the impending horde of Amazonian VGA beauty. It's soon drawn down by the Amazon leader, Ursula Unquenchablefire, though.. and all of the Amazons then exclaim the same thing - “A Man!”

Ursula, in case you were all wondering, is the one in the red..

And has called first dibs on us. (And given our next destination, methinks!)

There's nothing wrong with this, and all – there's more than enough Ernie to go around! The first woman goes down without a problem.. and the next is kicking down our door before I even get to look around the room. There's obviously a key to pick out of Ursula's uniform, but she's far stronger than us – even a quick ZEM on ourselves isn't enough to give the additional vigour that we'd clearly need to wear her out and pinch the key. Turns out she's just locking up the door that leads to the no longer present Attachment to the Great Appliance, anyhow.. and she leaves rather quickly after joining us, given we're literally thrown down to the bed (or the ground) by each and every woman around here! Opening the 'Hope Chest' in the room produces a pair of high heels, and the idea of what we've clearly got to do now is quite clear as another woman jumps out and has their way with us. Ernie's beginning to find this painful, Kenny! Climbing 'up' leads to a different room with an armoire (or as the game so eloquently calls it, a 'whaddyacallit') for Somewhat Important People...

I'm not sure whether this is a joke, or if Mr. Meretzky just got lazy here

Another item pops up inside the closet – a gown. So, it seems pretty clear to me here that we're playing the old 'cross dress our way out of trouble' card. The last game I can think of with a similar theme was dressing up in a loaded bikini and a wig in Leisure Suit Larry 2 to get past the KGB – so it's been a little while since we of the adventure gaming clan were forced to pretend we were the opposite sex for the sake of escape. (Technically QFG2 with Zayishah, sure, but not as a main character doing so.) We're allowed out of our room regardless (though trying to move around within the Somewhat Important People's room just leads us to getting jumped at by a happy chambermaid who starts to apologise – then sees our masculine shape and decides she's less than sorry. Back out into the parade grounds and all we get is a healthy amount of groping, though sitting in public does at least allow us not to be sexually assaulted. Head south from there? We end up in a shop where it appears we're paying...

In enthusiasm, I suppose?

The store has a few items, and the game chooses now to mention that there's an item weight limit. The 'lead-plated sword' within (another atomic dragon to slay?) I can't pick up, but after a touch of re-jigging my inventory, I'm able to at least end up with most of the shop's items. Dropping my SU registration form and Gretchen's scribbled note in exchange for lipstick, a pomegranate and 'the current issue of "Amazon Monthly." The lead article is about a group of seamstresses from Fort Blackwand coming to the island to study the Amazons' collection of intriguing local etchings.' (Obviously, Fort Blackwand is where we're going to end up at the end of the game!) I've got to point out that the normal 'sexy music' on emulated Roland MT-32 is beginning to go weird by about the third time it plays, making a grating set of noises that makes me very glad for the 'MUSIC OFF' function. Still, after quite a bit of bumping around, I couldn't work out how to hide my masculinity fully, even wearing my gown, high heels and lipstick. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something with the cowl of Ernie's cloak, but I'm a touch lost as to how to use both at once – attempting to leave in the cloak but not the gown leads to 'Look at that body! A man! Don't let him get away!' and the vice versa leads to 'Look at that hair! A man!'.. Oh well. Perhaps it's just time we give up and let fate set in..

Plus side? Ernie doesn't have to go through all of these smokes the Amazons are stealing off of him! Perhaps Sir Lancelot was right about all of the peril after all, though..

I'd list inventory here, but I am sensing it's going to become very redundant if the weight limits are truly of concern and I have to start jettisoning things to pick up lead-plated swords. Spells are all the same since last post, and all of the new items that I have access to are a key given to me by the Isle of Lost Souls, a pomegranate, a magazine, a gown, some lipstick, high heels and a lead plated sword.

Session Time: 1 hour 30 min
Total Time: 5 hours 30 min

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!