Source:Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, June 1998
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, June 1998 issue. |
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June 1998 |
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Eamon Adventurer's Guild; Tom Zuchowski (editor) |
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild
June 1998
News and Opinion
Gosh. Not a lot has gone on since the last newsletter. I checked with everyone and updated the "Correspondent's Corner" listing. And somehow I managed to get the bulk of the newsletter written an entire month early this time around. It's weird how time flows differently at different times.
Online, GEnie gets a little less active every week, and IDT appears to finally be making good on its promise to move Genie off of GEIS. The move is in transition, so I don't have any opinions on it just yet, but with over 11,000 files, GEnie remains the place to find Apple II downloads.
Delphi isn't picking up much of GEnie's message slack, and Delphi's library remains sparse. Usenet is the usual hatefest mingled with an occasional message actually worth reading. The APPUSER forum still exists on CompuServe, but it is down to about a half-dozen messages per week, and is now under a new leadership who seemed to think that APPUSER is an appropriate place to announce MACUSER uploads. Sheesh.
It appears that the bottom line for online Apple II activities is that few are willing to pay to participate any more, and that leaves us with little information and interaction. I found myself strangely saddened by the announcement of the Twilight II upgrade, as excitement about it constituted the bulk of online message traffic for a week or so. We've come to the point where an upgrade of a screen saver is cause for ecstatic excitement. Alas.
It's my hope that somewhere, sometime down the line, a moderated Apple II newsgroup will surface. The present unmoderated group is dominated by four or five people who spend all their energies trashing each other and anyone who butts into their tirades. (This is, by the way, a very common scenario in Usenet newsgroups.) Meanwhile, we all suffer.
But there is a good bit of Apple II software available on the Internet. Here is a rundown of good Eamon sites:
http://www.ecnet.net/users/mumbv/pages/eamon/index.shtml (also has emulators)
ftp://ftp.gmd/de/if-archive/games/appleII/eamon/guild/ (also has emulators in ftp.gmd.de/emulators/)
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/games/appleII/eamon/guild/
http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/eamon/
ftp://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/eamon/
ftp://babylon.caltech.edu/Zocalo/pub/apple2/8bit/games/eamon/
http://www.lysator.liu.se/eamon/
If you are looking for Apple II emulators, you can find them on the two sites listed above.
Last but far from least, the center of Apple II Internet activity is http://www.syndicomm.com/a2web/ which has links to just about every Apple II site that there is.
If this page looks a little bit different to you, it’s because I changed the title font. Back in the old days when the EAG newsletter was started, my 8-pin Epson MX-80 printer was hopeless at printing attractive titles, so I made up a title with Pres-a-Ply rub-on lettering and photocopied it onto the page. But now that I am printing the newsletter with a higher-quality printer, I looked around and found a font that looks very much like the old title. This saves me the hassle of photocopying the title onto the master page before printing.
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.
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 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
1989,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
1998: Mar
Price: $1.00 each
Non-members: $2.00 each
Our mail-order Eamon vendor:
Eamons are available online. Some good sites are GEnie, ftp.gmd.de, ground.isca.uiowa.edu, and http://www.ecnet.net/users/mumbv/pages/eamon/index.shtml
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.
Eamon Walk-Through
A Walk-Through of Eamon #126, Pyramid of Anharos
This is a worthy quest for the hardened Adventurer! It's a puzzle-rich outing with minimal combat. Not only are there plenty of puzzles to solve, but you are on a tight timeline no longer than the contents of your water bag.
Everything hinges on water consumption, and there is very little margin for error. Normally, anyone could expect to die and restart several times before winning. Your armor and your companions are also a drain on your water. So here are the hints for those who wish to solve it themselves:
Hire the best guide and follow his suggestions. Anything you see off the guide's recommended path is likely a mirage. Get off his path, and you become lost and will waste much water before you find your way again.
You and your guide will consume one unit of water per turn. If you are wearing armor, you will sweat so much that water consumption might double or more. There is only one place in the entire adventure where armor is desirable, so take it off until you need it.
You will be unable to find your way in the desert until you get Anharos to show you the way.
The protection of Terza should be sought as well.
Let's get started!
First things first. You're sweating all your water away in your armor, so take it off! DROP your armor, then GET it again for later use.
Follow Omar's (you did get the best guide, right?) advice and go east, then SE. Kill the Dust Devil. Again follow his advice and go S, E, and E.
A great pyramid! Read the glyphs on the door. SAY FOR ANHAROS, then go east. GET a torch. (Actually, there are two torches. I only found a need for one, but feel free to grab both if you wish.) Light the torch and go east. Uh, oh. Those flattened bodies and dark stains indicate that there is probably a heavy deadfall trap ahead, so we'll just turn around right now. Go back outside and around to the south side of the pyramid.
Once you reach the south side, take a LOOK around. That loose stone looks interesting. It's far too large and heavy to move yourself, so let's try the same trick that got us in the main entrance: SAY FOR ANHAROS. It opens!
Go north, then west. Kill the guards and get the pike.
Go east twice. That rope looks like it might be useful–EXAMINE it to see if it's real–it is! GET the rope, then return west to the center chamber. Go north three times.
Go west into the storeroom and LOOK around. Get the tunic. Go east twice and LOOK around again. Get the amulet, and WEAR it. Go back west to the center chamber.
Go north. A huge statue! Maybe there's something up there? EXAMINE it. Maybe you could hook one of the teeth? THROW ROPE. Climb UP the rope, then go south into the statue's mouth.
Hmm. That moat looks fishy, and the corpse with the flesh eaten away is a clear warning of danger. EXAMINE the moat to get a closer look at it. Whatever it is, it isn't water, so let's play it safe and not try swimming in it. That pike should make a pretty good vaulting pole, so let's use it to JUMP across the moat. (Simply type JUMP.)
A wall of flame! You don't want to end up like the burned corpse. That tunic you found is a real heavy fabric and should offer some brief protection from the flames, so WEAR TUNIC, then go south into the fire.
Yeah, that worked well. DROP the tunic to conserve your water consumption. Go south. But now we're facing some sort of electrical discharge, and that corpse bears signs of electrocution. Perhaps that amulet will offer some protection? Let's try it! Go south. It works!
Oops, another corpse, this one clawed badly. Read the glyphs engraved in the floor. They say, THOSE WITHOUT HONOR PASS AT THEIR PERIL. Now go south. You face an avatar of Alaxar! If you don't get the answer right, your Quest ends here. It's looking for a worthy trait, so your answer is HONOR.
A stair! Go up, then north. A pool, and none too soon! Get water from the pool to refill your water bag, then return back south for a look around. Try south into the black room. Whoops, that's no good at all. Return north and relight your torch.
Examine that pedestal. Remember that the desecration involved the theft of the Diamond of Purity, so that depression in the pedestal is certainly where it must belong. Read the glyphs. They say to "follow the light of the spectrum and reach he who lies above." That's the key here. Go into each of the colored rooms, in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Now, go back north into the white room.
A column of water reaches to the room above! SWIM, and it will carry you up there. Go north.
Looking around, you find that this Inner Chamber contains the Queen's remains. We're looking for Anharos, so continue north.
This sarcophagus bears the Seal of Anharos — pay dirt! Take a LOOK around, and find a hidden door in the mural. Open it. Read the glyphs on the reliquaries. Yep, as you would expect, they contain Anharos' internal organs. (If you don't know, this really was standard procedure for mummification.)
You remember that Pindar Rambis said that Anharos will "reveal the gem when he is made whole again." Open the sarcophagus, and put the reliquaries inside.
Anharos awakes! Listen to what he says, and make note of the map he etches on the sarcophagus lid.
Now we know where we are going! SWIM back down the waterspout and refill your water bag, then leave the pyramid, using all the protections you used while getting in. (Don't forget to take the tunic off after passing the flames.)
The map departed from the east side of the pyramid, so that's where you'll want to start from; go east and north to get there. Then from that point, go east six times. Ignore the crazed hermit if you can, or kill him if you must.
You arrive at the Obelisk of Terza. If you've been paying attention, you've noted that you are walking in the Desert of Terza, and that she is the goddess of pain and purification. It could do no harm to get her protection. Read the glyphs on all four sides, enduring the pain. Her protection comes at a price, but you can stand it! Heal yourself when done.
Now go south five times, to the Riff camp. It is your option whether to aid Farouk along the way, but I would do so. Pat, er, Alaxar, has a history of rewarding good behavior. Be warned, the aid will cost you 20 units of water, but you should be able to afford it if you've been sticking to the plan here.
A spring! Refill your water bag. You can expect some fighting here too. With the spring nearby, here is an excellent place to don your armor for combat.
There are a couple of ways to go from here. If you go to the west then south, you have to kill all the Riff children (which is rather distasteful to classy Adventurers.) If you go straight south, you have to kill the women. If you go east, then south, you have to kill the men. The choice is yours. I've tried them all and prefer dealing with the women; it's the straightest path to your goal.
Kill the sheik and his aide. You're through fighting now, so drop your armor to remove it and conserve water. Examine that carpet. Read it. It says, "SOAR WITH ALAXAR." What's this, a magical flying carpet? Get it!
Still nothing to be found. LOOK closer. You find an onyx case! Get the case and open it. The Diamond of Purity! Get it! (Just so you know, if you aren't enjoying Terza's protection at this point, the diamond will sap your strength and kill you in three or four moves. Remember the Sheik's sickly condition?)
Your water is probably running low by now, so go back to the spring and refill your water bag. Now it's time to try out that carpet. SAY SOAR WITH ALAXAR, and return to the pyramid.
Re-enter the pyramid, and return to the Pedestal Room. Put the Diamond of Purity in its niche on the pedestal. Order is restored in the universe! Your Quest is complete!
But you're not done yet. Return to the pyramid's secret entrance (use the carpet), and SAY FOR ANHAROS to re-seal it.
Then use the magic carpet to go home!
Eamon Reviews
#168 The High School of Horrors
by Michael Haney and Aaron Hunt
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4
Extra Commands: OPEN, CONSUME, READ
Deleted Commands: None, no SAVE
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 30-60 min.
Reviewer Rating: 3.0 Average Rating: 3.5/2
Description: "You find yourself at the entrance to a very old high school: St. Marquis de Sade. It has no windows or other exits that you can see. The only door is the one before you. You recall that you've been told that the Senior class is missing, a guest speaker gone, and the whole school overtaken by horrifying creatures.
"Feeling a sense of duty, you enter the school. A cold shiver runs up your spine as you realize the doors have locked behind you. Your adventure has begun. Good luck, you'll need it!"
Comment: Here we find ourselves locked in a very boring, nearly empty high school building peopled by a handful of incongruous monsters and bad men. I personally find it rather poorly done to run into, say, Adolph Hitler with a machine gun without ever seeing an explanation for what he is doing alive and well in a modern U.S. high school.
You will almost certainly achieve the dual Quests of freeing the class and the speaker in the normal course of exploring, so your real goal here is to find an exit. This bit is somewhat clever and almost raised the rating all by itself.
Here is a hint that may allow you to see a special without really spoiling anything for you: "time."
Difficulty of (5).
#171 The Pyramid of Cheops
by Robert Parker
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: None
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 30-60 min.
Reviewer Rating: 5.0
Description: "'To speak the name of the Dead is to make them live again.' —inscription on wall in King Tut's tomb
"It has been many months since you have left the Guildhall. You have traveled far to reach . . .
"The Pyramid of Cheops"
Comment: I think that the intro, printed above in its entirety, does a pretty good job of summing up this Eamon: simple.
There's not a lot to see and do here, even though there are 71 rooms to explore. This is primarily a "mapper's dungeon", as there are a couple of unmarked secret passages that can only be found by trying every direction.
This is a really easy foray. The mapping is straightforward and the bad guys are tuned for Marcos' standard weapons. Difficulty of (3). Probably a good pick for the Young Eamonaut. My overall rating is for that target group. Advanced campaigners will likely be bored.
One very minor hint: don't ignore the signs.
#187 Batman!!
by Andrew Geha
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: USE, OPEN, READ
Deleted Commands: None, no SAVE
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 20-30 min.
Reviewer Rating: 2.0
Description: A wizard leaves you a bizarre outfit that turns you into Batman on Earth. As the adventure opens, you find yourself in the Batmobile, headed for the Joker's hideout.
Comment: This Eamon is pretty low in content and is very unsophisticated. You will see about 30 rooms of the total 48. The rest apparently aren't used, except for one mostly useless unmarked secret passage that LOOK doesn't see.
Young Eamonauts who really like Batman will enjoy this Eamon the most. That group might well rate it considerably higher than I did. Difficulty of (1).
Three hints: first, Robin won't follow you unless you go E then W again to set up his friendliness. Next, you can't READ anything unless you are holding it, and the READ command may not recognize the full artifact name (e.g.: you must type READ FILES to read the POLICE FILES.) Last but far from least, you will do well to pick up everything you find.
#188 Encounter: The Bookworm
by Robert Parker
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 7.0
Extra Commands: HINT, XTINGUISH, SUICIDE, EAT
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 30-60 min.
Reviewer Rating: 6.5 Average Rating: 6.5/4
Description: Hokas takes you to the Eamon Public Library. "Inside the library, you see books thrown about, as if vandals had broken in and ransacked the place. Picking up one of the books, you see a three-inch hole through the center of it. Opening it up, you discover that all of the pages are now completely blank.
"'This is the fifth library to have this happen to it.' Hokas says. 'We have to stop this madman before all of the books are destroyed. Luckily, these books are easy to replace. However, if this had been a library of rare manuscripts...'
"'Who did this?' you say.
"'The Bookworm.' Hokas hisses through clenched teeth. 'I shall never be able to thank you enough if you defeat him. I have found out a bit about him for you. He plays an odd sort of savoir-faire. His hideout, I am told, has many "clues" or "hints" built into it. I do not know any more, so pay close attention to anything and everything.'"
Comment: This is a very decent Eamon, arguably Rob's best work. It doesn't rate higher because it is a bit low on content, but the writing and mapping are excellent, and it has several novel room ideas. I came very close to revising my old rating upwards after replaying it for this review.
One thing that knocks it down a bit is that it has a few minor glitches in presentation. One is a very long special with no screen pauses that occurs at one of the "entrances". The other is that it displays resumed saved games in 80-column mode regardless of the screen setting when it was saved. (If you want or need to use 40-column mode when resuming a saved game, delete line 29065 before beginning the game).
Difficulty will run 3-7 depending on how much you use the HINTS command, which pretty much gives away all of the puzzles if you use it regularly.
SUICIDE is a perfectly useless command that kills you and ends the game. I don't know why Rob thought that was better than simply using Control-C or reset. XTINGUISH is merely a way to snuff your torch without having to drop it (which is the standard Eamon method to put out torches).
Here's a warning of sorts: the can will mess with your character's stats in an amusing way. If you feel strongly about that, don't fool with the can. But if you are using Fresh Sam or don't mind having to "repair" your character, you may get a chuckle out of it.
#189 The Ruins of Belfast
by David Sparks
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4
Extra Commands: SEARCH, SLEEP
Deleted Commands: None, no SAVE
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 10-40 min.
Reviewer Rating: 2.0
Description: "You teleport into the near future, surrounded by the gathering clouds of war." To war-torn Ireland.
Comment: This Eamon is set in some part of Belfast that has been devastated by the fighting between the two Irish factions. What isn't war-torn is poor and abandoned. In other words, this is an icky Eamon to play. It has nineteen rooms, and I didn't even bother to map it. You meet a small handful of characters, most of which are "not right" in some way. I can't imagine what I was thinking of when I gave it an earlier (3) rating. I almost gave it a (1) this time around.
SEARCH is only useful in the hayloft. SLEEP is an aggravating though harmless "Gotcha" trap that scatters your stuff all over the map.
There are three puzzles, all of which are obscure to the point of absurdity. One is that you get a machine gun if you find and pick up the scattered parts in the correct order. The other two give you one (1) chance to get it right, and then you fight. The first expects you to somehow know to give a needle you found to a Leprechaun. The other expects you to know that the secret password is "The luck of the Irish", even though you aren't told that anywhere I could find. If you know the password, you get sent back home again. If you don't, you apparently fight forever.
I guess I'll leave the difficulty at (7), even though a higher number could be argued.
#192 Mean Streets
by Thomas Tetirick Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: RIDE, VERBOSE, BRIEF, OPEN, READ
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: short EAMON.ROOMS record lengths, no DOS on disk
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Reviewer Rating: 3.0
Description: "Welcome to 'Mean Streets' Your task is a valiant one. A pimp has moved into our fair city. He has full intention of making it his own. To insure his wishes he has kidnapped my only daughter 'Tina'. He intends to turn her into one of his prostitutes.
"As mayor of this city I give you full power to rid our city of this vile man(pimp) by any means you see fit. Also it is rumored that a huge thug is hiding out in the subway killing people at any given chance. We would very much appreciate his extermination. Also be on the lookout for thieves, they are know to be lurking when you least expect them."
Comment: This is a very large map of a small 5-block by 5-block city. It has 97 rooms, but there is no need to map it because it is so orderly and because there isn't much of anything to go back to after you've entered a room.
I was very much reminded of The Shopping Mall while playing this, as most of it's "rooms" are empty streets, and most of the buildings are uninteresting one-room affairs with no more to offer than a touch of combat, if that.
This is an icky city, showcasing the warts and problems that any city has without offering any countering uplifting content. I found myself wondering if Thomas was a high-school student (or perhaps dropout) who was no stranger to run-ins with the Law.
Having said all that, I have to add that it didn't get a higher rating for a two-pronged reason: it uses no screen pauses at all, and you will pick up as many as two entire screensful of companions. Thomas addressed that with two new commands. VERBOSE prints everything (as if you had typed LOOK) at a slow speed that is easy to read and takes quite a while to print. BRIEF prints at normal high speed, prints just the room name, and omits the normal space between monster names. Either method will drive you nuts, though for different reasons. I found that the best way for me was to leave it in BRIEF, and to liberally use the control-S key to pause printing so I could read stuff before it was shot off the top by the companion listing or the combat text.
There are so many characters that I almost always had to do a SMILE to find out which one was the enemy when I entered a room, because I couldn't remember all the names of my companions.
One cute special is a thief who will steal everything you have (except your ready weapon) every 10 moves or so. It got terribly annoying to see the accompanying "OOOH NOOO!" message, and almost pushed me down to a (2) rating all by itself. Don't worry about your stuff; enter the dumpster at 3rd & Tyler, and you'll get it all back and do away with the thief as well. But be sure to READY your best weapon as soon as you start the adventure, so it won't be stolen.
I was not able to get past one door without cheating. Thomas used a brute-force programming approach that gave nearly all of the artifacts no location until they were actually needed (for example, if monster X dies, then change weapon Y's location from zero to the room number.) I could not find any code that made the door key available. But all you will find behind it is one enemy and one treasure.
One very elaborate and rather stupid death trap. Difficulty of (3) if you're using high-grade weapons.
Here's a hint: how do you find out if an open mailbox has anything in it? Also, if you get killed and want to restart the game, be sure to type SPEED=255 before typing RUN, or else it might take 10 minutes for the game to load!
#197 Star Wars - Tempest One
by Sean Averill
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6
Extra Commands: None
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 20-30 min.
Reviewer Rating: 2.0
Description: You find yourself in front of a temple that has been converted into an Imperial stronghold.
Comment: This is a very bare-bones Eamon. There is no intro text. The room descriptions do not ever list exits. The monster descriptions read like you already know the guy is in the room (As the game begins, the first description you see is COMPUTER TEACHER, WHO HAS JUST LOST HIS FALSE TEETH.) Many descriptions start out with nouns, they are so simple. All the names tend to have no relation to the description. Mapping is a bit of a chore because of the poor descriptions.
The actual adventure is pretty much just 20 rooms, followed by 15 rooms of aimless wandering in YOU ARE IN SPACE rooms until you stumble on the exit.
This is a straight Hack'n'Slash outing. The combat is tough enough that you will probably want a magic weapon or two, unless you like lots and lots of combat.
Difficulty of (4), partly for the combat and partly for the mapping tedium.
Eamon Adventure Listing
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