Spellcasting 301: Spring Break - Final Rating

By Deimar

And here we are, another game in the bag. In retrospective, I have a good feeling about the game in general, although it is worse than when I started. The first sections of the game, where you are exploring such a vast land, getting to know the different ecosystems and its people, is truly great. But very soon you start to notice some stagnation, exploration becomes sparse and, simply put, there is not that much to do or enjoy.

It doesn’t help that the humour fell completely flat on me. I didn’t find any of the situations the game places you in worth a laugh, at most just a giggle or a smile of complicity. And I am a bit conflicted about the reason for that. The Digital Antiquarian for example simply states that this game is not that fun regarding its style of comedy. Not even as a product of its time. However, reading some reviews and comments in other sites, like for example Adventure Classic Gaming, seems like the game has a fan base. On my part, I tend to agree with the former. Comedy, as most other things, evolves with time and what at some point might have looked hilarious and daring can now be seen as quite plain and boring. But I don’t think this is the case here. I really think this game was not that fun to begin with even on release.

Weiner jokes, that’s a low bar even for 1992

Spellcasting 301 - Won!

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #5: And so, once again I have saved the day. From my old nemesis/stepfather Joey Rottenwood. Again. And almost got to meet Lola, my long lost love. Again. I am beginning to note a pattern here. We even managed to win the contest by quite a margin in the end. And I say we, because my brothers really came through in the end. I really hope we can get another Spring Break like this next year.

I am a bit disappointed with the final stretch of this game. It seemed to me like there is a lot of time between some of the contests that serve little to no purpose. I reckon that might be because I reloaded a lot during the first stages of the game so I could do as much as possible. However, each contest should open new opportunities, new places to explore before the next one. It was not the case, and at this point you just have to wait from an event to the next one as there is nothing to explore or to open up.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Last time we left with Ernie just leaving the Sheriff office through digging a tunnel after having been incarcerated for freeing a raging bull on the city. I really hope you are up to date and that phrase made sense. So let’s start with...

Murder at the dance floor

The next event in the schedule is an off-tournament night out with the boys at the dance club. When we arrive there at the designated time, our brothers are already waiting for us, ready to pick some girls. Or try at least. Wanting to feel like belonging to the group, I tried my luck by following the club rule: hitting a woman with a foam club to ask her to dance. I was as successful as my brothers but it was at that time that our rivals, the GLYs arrived to the party.

I think the real draw of the game is seeing the next title card

Spellcasting 301 - Wet T-Shirt Nite

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #4: This contest is never going to end. It is contest on contest on contest to battle for the right of coming to Fort Naughtytail for the next five years. Our opponents, the cow wizards from the GLY fraternity, are stronger, more handsome, and frankly better at all of the test, but they are not as keen as us on cheating. I mean, they are not as wise as we are. Or I am. It is not as if any of my brothers were doing anything to help. But here we are now, having beaten them at weight-lifting, partying, sand castle building, belly flop jumping, drinking contests, bull fighting and even on an improvised bar brawl. I am starting to feel like Hercules, being tasked with my own naughty version of the twelve tests.

Oh, almost forgot. I think I have made a new friend. The sheriff and I are becoming quite intimate and I think he is getting more and more fond of me. Only time will tell.

Last time I was complaining about finances when I was just about to tackle two contest, the belly flop and the drinking one. Spoiler: I’ve beaten them and two more contest.s However, some of the challenges ahead have been a pain in the ass. So allow me to tell you how much I hate casinos in adventure games or a not very intuitive puzzle.

Solving my financial crisis

After hitting my head against the wall for a while and realizing that I was going to be very money constrained or plan very well how I had to buy and sell every item available, I decided to read Ilmari’s suggestions about how to ease my financial problems. The clue that got me the solution was that I had to “uncrook” the casino. Oh boy did I feel stupid after reading that sentence. You can UPPSSY (spell of opposites) the casino from the plaza to make it straight. Simple. Efficient.

Perfectly balanced as all things should be

Spellcasting 301 - Sand Castles in the Sand

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #3: Beating the GLYs is proving to be harder than we anticipated. Of course, we had already beat them at weight lifting and partying, but now we have to build a sand castle, belly flop and a drinking contest. And that’s not even the end of it. But we can’t stand down now. Afterall, we are fighting for our right to PAAAaaaaaaaaaartyyyyyyyy.

Will I find some of these chapter’s photos in Shutterstock?

Spellcasting 301 - The Party

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #2: This is not the spring break I had dreamt of. But it is getting close. I mean, I am getting to know very hot girls and even rekindle some old passions. However, there is this part about having to compete with the SWAM boys, the YUs, for the priviledge of coming to Fort Naughtytail for the next five years. And it seems like, as always, it all depends on me. I don’t even know why I am part of a fraternity anymore. Lucky for them, I managed to trick some bimbos into coming to our party because otherwise I am sure we would have lost the first game: getting the hottest girls to the Pharts party.

Seeing this screen I can’t avoid by thinking about this

Allow me to start this post by saying that advancing is veeeeery slow. As I predicted in my last one, I have had to replay the first two days several times until I was able of doing everything needed to win the first competition of the tournament, and even then I am still left with the feeling that I am missing something.

It doesn’t help that I am constantly fighting the interface. Specifically, the look verb. I am playing mostly using the keyboard because I didn’t find the verb and item menu all that useful. The problem is that when you “look” in a location you don’t always get the complete list of items there in the description. The game expects you to look at the graphics to learn more, which is fine. With the only problem being that objects are not always depicted in the picture, or are only painted from a perspective from where you can’t interact with them. Case in point, you can see a board and a calendar from your jail in the police station but you can’t interact with them until you get out of the jail. At that moment, you stop seeing them as they are next to the door and the perspective changes to seeing things from the office door, hiding them. In the end, this means that I am getting into the habit of typing “take all” in every single location to see the list of interactible items.

Now you see us

Now you don’t

Spellcasting 301 - The Beach Boys

By Deimar

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #1
“I just can’t believe I am still friends with these guys… First, they got me to drive the carpet to our spring break destination, Fort Naughtytail, alone for hours on end while they slept. We arrived safe and sound, but then they blamed me for saving their lives by throwing away everything that was not them during our flight. Ungrateful pricks! They even had the courage to charge me twice the amount they paid for the hotel as a penalty! But when they get tangled against another fraternity in a tournament for the rights to come here on spring break for the next five years, who do you think they call?”

Hello people! I don’t know why I feel the need to greet you again after my rocking introduction post for this game but here I am again ready to continue!

Pictured here: Totally Voltgloss

What? Did you say I am not Voltgloss? How did you manage to see through my impeccable disguise? Sadly for you, Voltgloss had some issues that prevented him from finishing this game so you are stuck... with me!!. A non-native English speaker which has played as many as three (allegedly) parser-based adventures in his life and that hates time-based games because he likes exploring at his own pace. Clearly the only good choice to play this game.

Resuming the game from where Voltgloss left it, the prologue ends with Ernie in the main Plaza of Fort Naughtytail, just in front of the Hu Delta Phart’s hotel, the Royal Infesta. Our brothers are set on going to the rooms so that seems like the best course of action. Once inside, the group pays the fee, with Ernie paying twice the price for his room in punishment for throwing away all the HDP’s things during the flight.

Maybe you should know that Ernie’s room is the cheapest, with views to the dumpster and only costs 20 pieces...

Game 97: Spellcasting 301: Spring Break (1992) - Introduction

Written by Voltgloss

Hello folks, Voltgloss here, ready to start my first mainline Adventure Gamer playthrough after cutting my teeth on a couple of Missed Classics. And what better way to do so than tackle the final chapter in Steve Meretzky’s post-Infocom magnum opus, that I described to my wife as “Harry Potter meets Animal House”: Spellcasting 301 - Spring Break! Having been an avid player of all things Infocom back in the day, but having never experienced the Implementers’ post-Infocom works, I’m excited at this opportunity to continue the journey started by Aperama while he is off for paternity leave.

Comparing this game’s credits to those from the first two games, the one significant change I see is a bevy of additional “artmasters”: a total of 10, way up from the 4 of Spellcasting 201 and the 1 of Spellcasting 101. I expect this is due to the game’s being the first in the series to introduce VGA graphics. According to MobyGames I can also expect “continuous music tracks” and “slight changes to the interface.” Let’s plunge in and see what there is to see!

Just… how are you wearing that? Electrical tape?