Source:Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, March 1999
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, March 1999 issue. |
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March 1999 |
| Author |
Eamon Adventurer's Guild; Tom Zuchowski (editor) |
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild
March 1999
Annual Financial Report
EAG Finances for 1998
| Starting Balance: | $237.19 |
| Income | |
| Back Issues: | $12.00 |
| Renewals: | $135.00 |
| Updates: | $2.00 |
| Total Income: | $149.00 |
| Expenses | |
| Copier: | $189.86 |
| Postage: | $88.95 |
| Supplies: | $19.59 |
| Total Expenses: | $298.40 |
| Ending Balance: | $87.79 |
A net "loss" for the year of $149.40. This probably looks like the impending collapse of the EAG, but I guarantee that it is not. 1998 was an unusual year. It saw two membership extensions, plus the special insert included with the September issue. In terms of income versus outgo, 1998 saw the equivalent of 15 months of expenses and 6 months of income. I fully expect to do another membership extension in 1999 as income catches up once again.
The EAG membership is presently just under 40 members and is seeing very little erosion. That's pretty much where it was for most of 1998, and it looks like those of us who are left are in it until the lights go out. Quite a few Eamonauts no longer have Apple II's and are now using emulators on their Macs and PC's.
The most remarkable item I see in the detailed 1998 financial summary is 64 cents for correspondence postage. I am stunned to realize that I mailed only two EAG letters in all of 1998! Five years ago, I had mailed almost 100 letters! I still exchange one or two Eamon letters most weeks, but it's all in email now.
John Nelson has moved! You'll find his new email and postal addresses in the Correspondent's Corner inside. John is still deeply involved in the development of his PC-Eamon system.
I keep messing up Kulasoft's web page address. I most sincerely apologize to Mike for doing this. But there are two reasons for this chronic problem. The first is that there is a bug in Appleworks 4.3 that hangs the computer when it reaches Kula's web address while printing the text to a disk file (part of the process of transferring the text to my PC for printing.) I get around this bug by temporarily converting all of the slashes in the address to spaces. The second reason is that I am apparently too stupid to correctly re-convert the spaces to dots and slashes again. Sheesh. Just for the record, the correct address is: http://www.angelfire.com/hi/kulasoft.
Matt Vigor's Eamon web page at www.ecnet.net/users/mumbv/pages/eamon/index.shtml has closed. Matt plans to reopen it at another site in the near future.
I recently upgraded my PC’s printer to a Hewlett-Packard 722c. The old Canon BJC-210 did a fine job on text such as this newsletter, but my wife Tina has gotten interested in manipulating photos and making greeting cards, and the Canon was not top-drawer in that regard. The HP does a wonderful job with photos. So if you notice some minor differences in the appearance of the newsletter, it’s probably the new printer.
Eamon Adventurer's Guild
Thomas Zuchowski, Editor
Membership/subscription fee for 4 issues:
US-Canada: $7.00; foreign: $12.00; in U.S. funds
This newsletter is published 4 times per year, in March, June, September, and December.
This newsletter was composed in its entirety using Appleworks 4.3 on an Apple IIgs computer. It was then transferred to a PC for printing on a Hewlett-Packard 722c inkjet printer.
We are always looking for new material! If you would like to publish your own letter or article in this newsletter, feel free to send one in.
If you would like to add your own Eamon adventure to the EAG list, send it on a disk to the above address. It will be assigned an Adventure number, and tested for bugs and other problems. An informal critique and disk with bug corrections will be returned for your final comment, action and approval before release.
Back issues
NEUC Adventurer's Log:
Mar'84, May'84, Aug'84, Oct'84, Jan'85, Mar'85, May'85, Aug'85, Oct'85, Jun'86, Jan'87, Oct'87
EAG back issues:
1988: Jun, Sep, Dec
1989, '90, '91, '92, '93: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
1994, '95, '96, '97, '98: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
Price:
EAG members: $1.00 each
non-members: $2.00 each
Our mail-order Eamon vendor:
Eamons are available online at various sites. Some I can recommend are GEnie, ftp.gmd.de and ground.ecn.uiowa.edu.
EAG Eamon Disk Offer
EAG members can obtain the complete Eamon set from the EAG. This contains both the DOS 3.3 and 80-col. ProDOS Eamon collections archived to 3.5 disks. These are ShrinkIt archives. To access the ProDOS titles, you must at least one 3.5 drive. The DOS 3.3 titles require both 3.5 and 5.25 drives.
The EAG members' price for the entire set is $25.00. To take advantage of this offer:
- This offer requires that you supply the disks. You must include 19 DD 3.5 floppies with your payment. NOTE that these MUST be DD disks. My drives cannot read nor write to HD disks!
- You must use a shipping container that I can re-use to return the filled disks to you.
- The $25.00 price includes formatting the floppies with ProDOS If you format the disks for me, the price is $20.00. This reflects the time savings I get from not having to do the formatting. It doesn't matter what ProDOS volume name you use since they will be rewritten.
- If any of the above requirements are not met, the disks will be returned unfilled, and the shipping cost will be deducted from your refund.
- Both versions of 8-bit ShrinkIt and basic instructions are included with the set.
Purchase of the set puts you on a mailing list that automatically gets free updates about twice per year.
Playing Original Eamon Adventures in Your Modern Home Computer
by Matt Vigor
I was introduced to Eamon adventures by my four-year-older cousin, Joe. The year was 1984 and I was nine years old. We bought our 5 1/4 inch floppy disk copies of Eamon Adventures from a mail-order company called the Apple Avocation Alliance for $4 each. At the time there were already 90 games and four utility disks. Obviously we didn't have the budget for a complete set. I remember loving games such as Cave of the Mind, The Sewers of Chicago, and The Jungles of Vietnam. I also loved to copy and reprogram the master disk so that I would automatically get advanced statistics. I have so many wonderful memories of my old Apple IIc.
But kids get new toys, and I got a new computer. I've had six or seven different computers since 1984. Modern computers have so much more power that it's easy for them to emulate an Apple IIc, II+, or even an Apple IIgs. In this article I will show you just how easy it is.
An emulator is a software program that performs most of the functions of a piece of hardware, usually out-of-date hardware. An Apple II emulator is a software program that will run on your PC or Macintosh computer that will let you use Apple II software. However, you can't run the software right off of the original disks, that would be difficult considering that no new computers in the last four years have had 5 1/4" disk drives. Instead of floppy disks, you use "disk image" files. More on those later.
The Apple II emulator program that I prefer to use on my Windows computer is called ApplePC and it was programmed by David Ellsworth. ApplePC will run from the command prompt if you don't have Windows. When you start ApplePC, you will see a screen full of options. It is from this option screen that you "load" the virtual disk drives of the Apple II computer with files called "disk images." Disk images can be made for 5 1/4" disks, 3 1/2" ProDOS volumes, or even 32MB ProDOS formatted hard drive volumes. If you no longer have an Apple II, you don't have to make your own disk images, you can just download them from the internet at sites like ftp://ftp.gmd.de. Please observe copyright law when downloading non-public-domain software.
After starting ApplePC, press 'M' to change the emulated Apple's mode. The default is Apple II+, but you get best emulation with Apple IIe. To play an Eamon adventure, on ApplePC's option screen, press 'D' for Drives. Notice that you now get a new screen listing two drives in the virtual Apple computer's "Slot 6." If you want to play from a 5 1/4" disk image, press '1' for drive 1, and then select the name of the disk image file that you want to load, the Eamon Master Disk. If you want to play Eamon adventures from the ProDOS hard drive image that I have made, press 'S' for Slot and the load "Slot 7, Drive 1" with the hard drive files. Press ESC to begin the emulation.
The screen goes blank and then the familiar Apple II startup screen is displayed. Soon, you see the Eamon Dragon. From here on out, you wouldn't know the difference between your computer and your old Apple II, except depending on the speed of your computer, your virtual Apple II will run much faster than a real Apple II.
You can create a character, take him through the Beginners Cave, and even save your game. If you want to go on another adventure, though, ApplePC's emulated Apple II will prompt you to insert another adventure disk. Simply press F10 to bring the ApplePC menu back onto the screen, "load" a disk image file into whichever virtual drive it is needed in, and press ESC again to resume the emulation.
I have prepared a ProDOS hard drive image that contains many of the ProDOS Eamon adventures. I am currently in search of someone who would be willing to make disk images for me for several dozen ProDOS adventures that I do not have.
ApplePC and its related files, the virtual hard drive disk image, and several 5 1/4" disk images can be found on my Internet website, located at: http://members.tripod.com/~hacksncracks/eamon/index.html (note the change of address.)
(Editor's note: the "missing" Eamon adventures that Matt wants to obtain are the redundant 40-column ProDOS Eamons. Every 80-column ProDOS Eamon has a corresponding 40-column predecessor. When I made and uploaded the Eamon ProDOS "DSK" disk images to the Internet, I made a complete DOS 3.3 set and a complete ProDOS set. However, since emulators do a beautiful job of displaying the 80-column Eamons, I saw no reason to supply their less-enjoyable 40-column counterparts. Matt is not missing any Eamon titles, but he desires to have a complete set of every existing ProDOS Eamon, even the redundant ones.
I should also perhaps add that ApplePC is not the only Apple II emulator available for the PC. While ApplePC is the most versatile emulator, it is also DOS-based and has a correspondingly steep learning curve. PC users who are uncomfortable using a DOS program might prefer another emulator named AppleWin. AppleWin is a pure Windows program with a familiar Windows graphical interface. However, AppleWin does not support large virtual ProDOS volumes, but only supports two 5 1/4" virtual drives. In sum, ApplePC is the better emulator, but AppleWin is somewhat friendlier to use.
On the Mac side, an emulator called Bernie II the Rescue does an awesome job of fully emulating an Apple IIgs. I don't have a Mac, but I've seen amazing accounts of the power of this emulator. —Tom Z)
Eamon Walk-Through
A Walk-Through of Eamon #77, Temple of the Trolls
We are on a Quest to have a superior weapon made for us by Grommick, the Trolls' master armorer.
If you want to solve it yourself, here are a few clues:
Look before you leap.
Ulik can be sidetracked easily if you do something unexpected.
The dead adventurer merits closer inspection than you might think.
The HANSWORD is a 2D10 weapon.
That's enough clues. Let's get started!
This walk-through will hit every room and feature, even the ones not necessary to complete the Quest.
The intro spoke of an old map that we had obtained. Let's try doing an inventory and see what we have. Aha. READ MAP. OK, now we know what we will need to get our weapon made.
Go N, and LOOK around. You find a sword blank of excellent quality. How convenient! Get it.
Read the runes. What's this all about? Let's see if it's a magic word: SAY TREZORE. Yep, that's a good one!
(Note: there are a lot of Trolls wandering around this place. Many will be friendly, and many will not. I will mention them in this walkthrough and will leave it up to you to handle them as necessary. By the way, the KISS command is somewhat effective in winning enemies of the opposite sex to your side.)
Go N and kill the Sentry. GET BOTTLE. EXAMINE BOTTLE. Good, a healing potion. We'll want some light too. How about that torch on the wall? EXAMINE TORCH. Aha. GET TORCH.
Go E twice. Let's find out what that dead Adventurer is all about. LOOK. Aha. GET TOKEN OF PEACE. Let's look some more. EXAMINE CORPSE. He's got something in his hand! EXAMINE CORPSE a second time. GET SCROLL. READ SCROLL. This peace offering should be useful!
Go S twice. Let's check the hole for trouble and do a LOOK. A ledge! Go S onto the ledge.
Hmm, what's the point? LOOK. A secret passage West! Go W twice. Get the MAGIC AMULET. READ WALL. The wall says PRO EC ME. Could that be PROTECT ME? Let's try it: SAY PROTECT ME. Not bad!
Go back E twice to the ledge. JUMP over the pit. (There is a random chance that you will fall into the pit below. This merely puts you into a different place in the map. This is quite playable, but we are not going to handle that possibility in this walk-through. If you fall below, you need to get back up top to stay with this guide. You can do this by halting with a control-C and then typing: MD%(0,13)=0:R2=8:POKE51,0:GOTO3500.)
You encounter the king of the Trolls!
King Holfane is undoubtedly the desired recipient of the peace offering. Give the scroll to him, then give the Token of Peace to him. He responds favorably by teaching you a magic phrase. Remember it well! (This phrase changes each time you play, so there is no point in naming it here.)
Now what? This is a dead end. Try LOOK. A secret stair to the south!
Go S, S, W and meet Halfjac. Then go S and meet Wenda. Then go E twice and meet Timik. Go N and encounter Brodjac. Go W, W, S to the room where you met Wenda. LOOK, and find a hidden stair down.
Go D and meet Frong. Go N twice, and discover the room that is at the bottom of the pit you jumped over. Go W and meet Rupper. The BLANK 2 you find here is not as good as the one you already have.
Go E twice and meet Quater. LOOK and find BLANK 3, which is even poorer in quality.
Return W, S, S to the stair. Go E and meet Sanig. Return W then go S.
That stone slab door isn't going to move easily. Maybe that's what the magic phrase it for? Say the magic phrase that King Holfane taught you. The door opens!
Go S three times and meet Slavack and the slaves. LOOK, and find a secret passage west.
Go W twice and meet Neadie and Yeadie. Return E, then go S and meet Seargant (sic) Hawk, Troggie, and Soggie (dontcha just love the names that John came up with?) LOOK, and find a large iron key. GET KEY.
Return N and E and FREE THE SLAVES. They seem pretty grateful, huh. Get the loot, too!
Go S three times to the slave pen. Return N then go W, W, S, E and meet Harry. Return W, then go S and find an iron gate. You'll find that the gate is locked, and that we need different key.
Continue S, S, W and meet Trogg. Return E, then go E into the other room and meet Wangba.
Return to that last 4-way intersection by going W, N, N, N, N, E, E. Then continue E, then N and meet Hakkard. Return S, then go E, S, W. Nothcvvvvvvvv[pppcv xing there. Go E twice and meet Hiccut. Grab the chalice.
Return W, then go S then W and meet Tolos. Go E twice and meet Groggo. Get the magic powder and the grog. (The grog is a healing potion.)
Return W, then go S then E and meet Rimik. Go W twice and meet Bulik. Get the gold dust. Try LOOK. Yes! GET KEY!
OK, let's go back to that gate! GO E, N, N, N, W, W, W, W, S, S. OPEN GATE!
Go E twice, then S. READ ARCHWAY. It says "DANGER - DO NOT ENTER". Well, that isn't very helpful, but let's leave it for now.
Go W. Coal? What a waste of time. Let's look around anyway. GET COAL. Aha! GET RED DIAMOND! Now, that is a worthy bribe for Grommick!
Return E, then go E again and meet Truq. LOOK. Another secret passage! However, you'll want to ignore this one because all it does is dump you into a corridor halfway back through the dungeon, forcing a lot of useless backtracking. Return W.
Time to pass through that archway. Go S. Oops, this Ulik character looks like trouble. This is a good place to consider John Nelson's brand of humor as it relates to the extra commands in the list. Let's try something outrageous and KISS ULIK. Well, it wasn't fun, but it worked!
Go S. If you find Ulik here, just kiss him again.
You finally meet Grommick. GIVE him the SWORD BLANK, then the MAGIC AMULET, then the RED DIAMOND. Grommick fulfills your commission and magically transports you to a forest.
There you find the HANSWORD, your new weapon. GET HANSWORD, then go any direction to exit the adventure.
Eamon Reviews
#8 The Abductor's Quarters
by Jim Jacobson
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4
Extra Commands: DRINK, LIGHT
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: Wandering guards
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
Reviewer Rating: 6.0 Average Rating: 5.0/4
Description: "A friend of your is in trouble. After trying to retrieve some treasures in a nearby dungeon, your friend mysteriously disappeared.
"After careful research, you discover that the dungeon your friend went to is controlled by a mad adventurer known only as 'The Abductor'. You must find your friend before the Abductor gets nasty and heads start to roll."
Comment: Jim Jacobson was the best Eamon author on the scene before John Nelson hit his stride, and this Eamon is a good example of his work. This is largely a pretty simple dungeon, but the descriptions are good and there are several enhancements to the play. The new commands are well done, and several special events liven things up.
This is an explorer's dungeon. There isn't a lot of loot to scarf up, nor is there all that much combat. Most of the monsters have random chances of being friend or foe, so don't be too quick to start swinging. One special that doesn't work well is an every-turn 1-in-25 chance that your gold will be stolen by a bandit. If you are carrying more than 32,000-odd pieces of gold when he hits, the program will crash, but it can easily be started up again with good old POKE51,0:GOTO100.
I think that you will enjoy trying out the special stuff if you keep these hints in mind: first, the vial lies. Second, the magic swords do stuff when you say their names. Third, the bottle contains an explosive. Also, there are five unused rooms in the database, so don't wear yourself out trying to find any more once you have found 72.
I enjoyed the outing, and almost gave it a higher rating. The difficulty of (7) may be alleviated somewhat if you keep the above hints in mind.
#12 The Quest for Trezore
by Jim Jacobson
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4
Extra Commands: LAMP, USE, READ, OPEN
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: Room light
Playing Time: 1 hour
Reviewer Rating: 6.0 Average Rating: 6.2/5
Description: "You are about to face your most trying task. A powerful and evil wizard has captured a friend of yours. You cannot fight this wizard.
"But another wizard can. You must therefore set off to find Trezore, the powerful and great wizard whose spells have helped you before.
"However, Trezore does not like just anyone to barge in on him. He has set up a test to find out if adventurers like yourself are worthy of him.
"You will undertake many tasks, but this is probably the most difficult. Good luck to you."
Comment: And how many times have we heard that before? But it could have even been true if you had played this in the early days when there were only a dozen Eamons. Jim Jacobson specialized in difficult plays. During his brief stay in the Eamon world, he wrote two of the three most difficult Eamons of the period.
The difficulty here is on several fronts. The first is the combat. The foes aren't any tougher than you, but several are well armed and as well armored as you, so be sure to bring your best weapons. While using my standard "good" weapon, I was getting "bounced off armor" results from four out of five tries. Even after changing over to "Druinval", a 4D8 sword, I was still having to cheat heavily to survive. Zobar was so tough, killing me every third round while remaining nearly unscathed himself, that I finally resorted to upping his damage to lethal levels (MD%1,13)=MD%(1,1:POKE51,0:GOTO100) so he would die the next rare time that I marked him.
The second difficulty level is in the puzzling. There are a couple of tricks in the mapping and the special commands, and there is a secret word to decode. None of these are killers, but they are all well beyond beginner level.
Finally, much of the map is in darkness, and you will find a very limited amount of lamp oil to see you through. I wound up having to refill my lamp several times (the technical term is "cheat") to get through to the end. (If you start seeing "almost empty" warnings, you can refill the lamp by hitting control-C and typing this: LP=500:POKE51,0:GOTO100)
All this adds up to a difficulty rating of (8).
Given the time it was written, this is a pretty sophisticated play, foreshadowing many of the standard features found in later versions. Apart from the brutal combat, it is not the sort of dungeon that offers death at every turn. I saw no death traps, except for one that you deserve to die from if you pull such a dumb stunt.
The text is well written, and the map is coherent and reasonable. The bad guys are all in context. Had it been written a few years later when Eamon had become more sophisticated, it would likely have earned a notably higher rating.
Here are the inevitable hints: don't try to solve the bronze door until you have the secret word. You can't fulfill the Quest if you don't have the miner's pick. Sometimes the danger is less than it appears to the eye. The writing on the wall is a key feature of the Quest.
#25 Nuclear Nightmare
by John Nelson
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: PRESS, READ, OPEN
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
Reviewer Rating: 5.0 Average Rating: 5.8/4
Description: "You are about to investigate a rumor about a powerful new weapon that had been built by a local mad scientist. A technician in his employ tells you that the scientist and a colleague plan to blow up the entire kingdom. When everything is settled, they will come out and take over.
"It all sounds pretty fishy to you, but the man does use long words and sounds very sincere. He offers to go with you and help."
Comment: There is more to the intro, but that is the gist of it. While it doesn't really give you a Quest to fulfill, it's always more fun to have one. There is no end-of-game programming to tell you how you did, so I will tell you that you can consider it a successful mission if you kill both scientists and also melt the bomb down to slag.
For such a large Eamon, there is surprisingly little content. You wander mostly empty halls and run into an occasional guard for the most part. A couple of locked gates and a couple of combination locks make up the bulk of the puzzling. This can be a somewhat frustrating play, but I found no death traps or similar gotchas.
This Eamon does some things with hidden artifacts that are fairly unusual. Here are two hints that will make the game less difficult for you: first, dead people have pockets. Second, button colors do matter.
The difficulty of (7) may be eased by the above hints.
#33 The Orb of Polaris
by John Nelson
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: WEAR, READ
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: Effects of cold
Playing Time: 1 hour
Reviewer Rating: 6.0 Average Rating: 6.2/4
Description: "A warlock needs assistance in obtaining a magical orb of great power and consequence. The orb must not fall into the wrong hands, or it could mean great disaster. The warlock says that he cannot go after the orb himself because mystical defenses of unknown nature have been set up to guard the orb from him. He must thus send some brave adventurer in his stead.
"'Find the orb and return it to me, and I will give you the greatest reward you'll ever imagine.'"
Comment: This Eamon takes place in a very cold cavern. In fact, it is so cold that your first order of business is to find something warm to wear before you literally freeze to death. John does some clever things with the cold that you will probably find novel. For example, you might slip on the ice as you take a swing with your weapon in combat!
There are several mildly amusing bits of the sort often found in early Eamons. Your companions are chosen as much for laughs as for their fighting ability. The tone here is an incongruous mix of deadly seriousness and silliness.
The other downer is that things are not what they seem, and the adventure will not turn out well for you if you don't twig to it. The clues to put you on the right track are there, but poorly founded and therefore easy to ignore. I came very close to giving it a (5) rating for this, but in the end the good stuff won the higher number.
Luck weighs heavily on the difficulty, but (7) seems about right. You may need to play more than once if you don't get the stuff and info that you need before you need it. Here are your hints: you need a special weapon found somewhere in the cavern, and you need your spell abilities. Finally, I want you to know that there is a way to resurrect Frosty if he should melt on you.
A list of Eamon Walk-Throughs
| 19 | Death Trap | Mar98 |
| 62 | The Caverns of Doom | Mar97 |
| 114 | Thror's Ring | Dec96 |
| 120 | Orb of My Life | Sep98 |
| 126 | Pyramid of Anharos | Jun98 |
| 127 | The Hunt for the Ring | Dec98 |
| 132 | Rhadshur Warrior | Jun96 |
| 145 | Buccaneer! | Dec97 |
| 147 | The Dark Brotherhood | Sep96 |
| 150 | Walled City of Darkness | Mar96 |
| 161 | Operation Endgame | Jun97 |
Eamon Adventure Listing
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