Source:Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, March 1998
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild Newsletter, March 1998 issue. |
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March 1998 |
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Eamon Adventurer's Guild; Tom Zuchowski (editor) |
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The Eamon Adventurer's Guild
March 1998
Tenth Anniversary Issue!
OUR TENTH ANNIVERSARY!
That’s right! This issue of the EAG newsletter marks ten years of continuous publishing with never so much as a late issue before now, and with any luck this will be in your hands before the end of March.
Annual Financial Report
EAG Finances for 1997
| Starting Balance: | $382.46 |
| Income | |
| Back Issues: | $7.00 |
| Eamon Sets: | $20.00 |
| Renewal Memberships: | $133.00 |
| Updates: | $3.00 |
| Total Income: | $163.00 |
| Expenses | |
| Copier: | $173.14 |
| Postage: | $105.13 |
| Supplies: | $30.00 |
| Total Expenses: | $308.27 |
| Ending Balance: | $237.19 |
A net loss for the year of $145.27. That probably sounds horrendous to you, but it's not. It's merely a reflection of the gradually shrinking financial obligations of the EAG. Remember, I try to keep a balance that is roughly in accordance with the outstanding issues owed to the membership. Besides that, I've already taken in $70 for 1998.
In other words, you should have no concern for the paper loss in 1997. I am certainly not concerned. It merely reflected a payout of your money, which I have been holding for use to fulfill your membership privileges. We had quite a number of multi-year memberships, and those are presently paying down to smaller numbers. As a matter of fact, it's once again time for another...
MEMBERSHIP EXTENSION!!!
Yep, that's right! If you look, you'll find that your membership expiration date on the newsletter envelope has been extended by one issue. And the money that has poured in already this year makes the September issue look like a sure shot for an extension, too. I should have done an extension in December, but my schedule was just too hectic, and I hadn't at that time made the mental transition from a hard deadline to whatever I can manage comfortably. As the lateness of this issue will testify, that transition has been completed!
The above ending balance is actually a couple of dollars more than it was in 1991, when the income and outgo were each a thousand dollars more than for 1997. A meaningless factoid that I find mildly amusing.
NEW PHONE NUMBER
The phone company has struck again. For the second time in four years, I have a new phone number. The area code has again been changed. My phone number is now ——————————.
Well, since I have a few lines to fill here, I think I'll chat a bit more about TV shows I’ve tried this year. Prey seems to be making the story up as it goes along, and it shows. Earth: Final Conflict seems to lack direction. This new season of Babylon 5 is depressingly bad so far. But on the bright side, X-Files has been really exceptional recently, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer just keeps getting better and better. Another bright spot is American Gothic rerunning on the Sci-Fi channel, giving the masses who blew it the first time a second chance to see some real quality fantasy/horror.
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 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
1989,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
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 have a minimum of 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, you must take these steps:
- This offer requires that you supply the disks. You must include 18 DD 3.5 floppies with your payment. Note that these must be DD disks. My drives cannot read nor write to HD disks, so don't send them.
- 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 are included with the set.
Purchase of the set puts you on a mailing list that automatically gets free updates once or twice per year.
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Eamon Walk-Through
A Walk-Through of Eamon #19, Death Trap
We had a request for a walk-through of this Eamon. While it's an early one, it has a well-earned difficulty level of (9), and there is plenty of tricky combat plus some obscure puzzles to boot.
First, let's get up to speed on some features of this Eamon. In the early style, it uses a lot of randomizing; there are lots of monsters that may or may not be friendly, and results of an action can vary quite a lot from one try to the next.
This dungeon tailors itself to your character's weapons. During initialization, the MAIN PGM examines your weapons, and adds more and tougher monsters to equalize your big guns. If the total of your weapons' dice times sides adds up to less than 50, you get the "minimum" dungeon, but if it adds up to more, you get more and tougher monsters on an ascending scale. To give you a reference, the weapons used by "FRESH SAM" add up to 132. The extra bad guys are placed randomly. I can't predict what weapons you'll bring, or where the tough guys will be randomly placed, so this walk-through addresses the minimum dungeon only. There is actually pretty much everything you need here in the way of weapons and armor.
This Eamon is a straight kill'n'loot scenario with your only quest to escape alive. The entrance is sealed, so you need to find an alternate escape route. It turns out that a lot of the combat is optional to the basic route out, but we'll hit every room to let you know what you will see and do. We won't discuss treasure either, but please feel free to grab all you can carry. For simplicity, we'll assume that all the variable-friendliness monsters are enemies.
This is a tough Eamon to survive, so I suggest two MAIN PGM modifications before you get started: delete lines 1055 and 30130. Doing this will prevent the FRESH MEAT and saved game files from being deleted. Thus, if you get killed or simply wish to restart while playing, all you need do is halt the game with a control-C, type CLOSE, then RUN.
So let's get started!
You begin the adventure hanging onto a sheer cliff face, and must climb up or down. Right away, you hit a stroke of good luck and find a climbing rope! GET the rope.
Go up twice to the ledge where you must use the rope to proceed. THROW ROPE. Odds are such that you may miss many times before you succeed. There is also a 10% chance with each throw that you will slip and die.
Once you secure the rope, continue up twice, then go SE twice, then E twice to the cave entrance. Go south and enter the cave.
Trapped! The entrance is no longer passable! Now you need to find another way out. There are three different ways out. The first is via the POWER spell. If you are asked to surrender and do so, you are returned safely to the Main Hall. But we are not losers, so we'll find a more honorable way out!
Go south to the T-intersection, then head east twice. A blue dragon with a bad attitude, and a magic ring! Before you do anything else, GET the ring.
Here is the first trick this Eamon throws at you. WEAR the RING. (Hey! There's no WEAR in the command list! This is not a bug. John did it that way on purpose. Gotcha!) This is a first-rate magic ring, and it boosts your armor to 100 (regular plate armor is 7). Not too shabby. But there is a catch: once the ring absorbs a certain number of hit points of damage, it vanishes from your finger. You can recharge the ring's power by periodically removing it from your finger with the REMOVE RING command. (Hey! There's no REMOVE command in the list, either!) There is no harm in wearing it constantly, but it's a good idea to recharge it pretty often. The ring's capacity is randomly set and can vary between 50 and 170 hit points.
(Here's a hidden testing feature: if you are wearing the ring and answer "T" to the POWER spell's surrender question, you are made pretty much invincible. But we aren't cheaters, either, so we'll work it through the hard way!)
Now that you are protected, kill the dragon. Take a LOOK around. A dark hole to the south! Go south into a closet. That south wall doesn't look too sturdy, so try going that way, too. You find a small white pill. This pill will heal all your hits one time (the command is TAKE PILL).
Go south and kill the wizard. Head east twice. Wow, who stepped out of the mirror? A clone of yourself! He'll have the same weapons and armor as you, and more will appear shortly, so you need to shut that business off right now. ATTACK MIRROR. Get that big mirror fragment, it may come in handy later. Go back to the T-intersection two rooms west of the blue dragon (W,W,N,N,N,W,W)
Go south, then west. Kill the hill giant, and get the shovel. Go back east, then go south twice, then SW to the 4-way intersection. Go NW, then DIG in the soft ground. A box, and a huge diamond! Go back SE. GO SE again, kill the warrior, and DIG. A skull. Return NW.
Go SW to another 4-way intersection, then go SE twice to a "very strange" four-way intersection. Go east from there. You meet the Lone Ranger, who will probably be your friend. If he turns out to be your enemy, be sure to get his pistol after you kill him.
Go back to the last 4-way intersection (W,NW,NW). If you killed the Lone Ranger and have the pistol, READY it now. Go NW, then north. Kill the Werewolf (the Lone Ranger used silver bullets, remember?) The Lone Ranger isn't a very good shot; if he is with you as a companion, you may have to "kill" the werewolf several times before he finally nails it permanently. Return to the intersection.
Go SW, then west. Get the wooden stake. Never know when you might run into a vampire. Go south. Wow. Here you find Odin's spear, Gungnir, guarded by a Viking. The Viking won't fight you unless you try to get the spear. Gungnir is a first-class magical weapon with 4D12 damage potential. The easiest way to get it (though somewhat cowardly) is to attack and kill the Viking before you touch the spear. Whether you get the spear or not, head back to the intersection. (N,E,NE)
Go back SE twice to that "very strange" four-way intersection. Go SW, then south, then east. Kill the black dragon and get the cannon. (Here is the second way out of the cave. If you return to the entrance and ATTACK ENTRANCE with the cannon as your ready weapon, you will blast it open so you can leave.)
Go back to the 4-way intersection (W,N,NE), and go east from there to where you met the Lone Ranger. LOOK reveals a secret passage to the east.
Go east twice to the tomb and kill the caveman. Go south twice to the trophy room, and east into a T-intersection. Go south and kill the mammoth, then return north.
Go north, then east into a 4-way intersection. Go east twice to a room with a statue. READ the door. You can't understand it, but you can make out the name MEDUSA. Medusa was the Gorgon who turned men to stone when they looked upon her. No doubt the fate of this stone statue here. Let's see if we can't free him-- keep trying POWER, and you will eventually hit a result that turns the statue into Perseus.
READY the mirror. Now you are gazing into the mirror, but still have your old ready weapon readied as well. Go south into Medusa's lair and kill her. Go back north.
Go north into the other chamber. GET the bottle and OPEN it. A genie! He's just a fighting companion, but the more, the merrier. Return to the last 4-way intersection. (S,W,W)
The four rooms to the south of the intersection are simple enough and don't require mention here. To the north are two doors; you can open them with an OPEN DOOR command. Behind the north door is an evil book. There is nothing to gain from opening the book, but if you do, you will find yourself facing four movie monsters and will need that wooden stake. Return south to the 4-way intersection.
Return to the last not-fully-explored 4-way intersection (W,S,W,N,N,W,W,W)
Go NE, then east three times, then north. You meet Unus, who is said to be indestructible. If you have trouble damaging him with your weapons, use your BLAST spell on him.
Check out that east wall: it's just paper. Go east twice. You'll pick up Lockjaw as a companion, which is good and bad, as Lockjaw may randomly teleport you at random moments. Go north twice.
You may or may not be able to get a bead on Vanisher with your weapons, but the BLAST spell works well on him also. Go north twice.
Uh-oh. This Baalzebul character is in fact as bad as he looks. I could find only one way past him, and that is to FLEE until I achieve the state where he didn't follow me and I am in a room ahead of him. There's no telling where you will be by the time you achieve this, but from this room head on north to the bend.
Go west twice. A dead end, but you can DIG here. If you DIG west several times, you will eventually break outside by the cave entrance.
And that's it. Head back down the cliff and return to the Main Hall, and collect on your bet!
Eamon Reviews
#140 Beginner's Forest
by Margaret Anderson
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5
Extra Commands: READ, WEAR
Deleted Commands: None, no SAVE
Special Features: Beginner characters only
Playing Time: 10-60 min.
Reviewer Rating: 5.0
Description: "You have no trouble finding a horse that you, well, borrow to take you on your first adventure. You follow several signs to take you to the Beginners Forest.
"You see a green, vine covered arch and a locked gate under the arch. The gate is wrought iron, into the design is worked the letters 'BEGINNERS ONLY'. As you stand there, you see the local Knight Marshal come out to inspect you."
Comment: As the above implies, this Eamon will only accept beginner characters, just like the "Beginners Cave". I whomped up a new character, bought myself a sword and leather armor, and jumped right in.
It is well enough written, with a small, coherent map and good descriptions. It is heavy into combat, and is pretty tough for freshly minted characters with very little in the way of weapons, armor, and spells. I got killed out five or six times in 20 minutes of playing, and never did see more than about 20 of the 32 rooms. In fact, I am going to jump up the difficulty rating to (7) because I found it darned hard to survive the combat with a brand-new character.
One hint: don't even try to fight the spooks; you'll soon find yourself hopelessly outnumbered. Run away!
#152 The Computer Club of Fear
by Nathan Segerlind
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6
Extra Commands: CAPTURE, EAT
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: 10 directions
Playing Time: 1 hour
Reviewer Rating: 6.0 Average Rating: 5.0/2
Description: "You have been chosen by a group known as "The Students" to capture an evil king known as — Mr. Roessler!
"They will give you 5000 GP for his capture, not assassination. They then give you a rope to tie him up with and send you out."
Comment: In case you are wondering, Mr. Roessler was Nathan's computer-education high school teacher. I understand that the poor gentleman was somewhat bemused by Nate's tendency to cast him as the villain in his Eamons!
This is actually a pretty well-written Eamon, even though the concept is silly to the point of bordering on stupid. You explore this 60+ room computer club that has all sorts of computer crazies and unlikely stuff laying around. I got somewhat worn down by the silliness, and didn't greatly enjoy the Samurai Cat references, but there are many clever bits that I found pretty funny.
This would be a harder Eamon, but there is something wrong with the combat code, and enemies won't attack you if you simply leave the room. But stay and do something, and they jump you. Even so, it's not a big deal, as you will probably find plenty of companions. You might not want to hang around the Picts, though.
Watch for hints in the room descriptions, and you won't even have to bother to LOOK in every room for the several secret exits.
Here are a couple of hints: first, the Computer Clubber has a key you need; if he becomes your friend you will find yourself stuck if you don’t know this. Second, Mr. R. is a real heavy guy; you'll need a bit of magic to get him out and get your reward.
#156 The Lake
by Nathan Segerlind
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6
Extra Commands: None
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 20-60 min.
Reviewer Rating: 4.0
Description: "Way to the west, in a dark land called Death, is the lake. A dark place, with darker monsters and glittering treasure. Deep in the middle of the lake is Fred's Island, rumored to be a lair of several disgusting orcs... and worse.
But ye beware of the terrible dragon, Anglacion! He's as big as the world and as black as midnight. Beware of him, but behold his treasure for no mine mines as much gold in several years as he steals in a day!"
Comment: This adventure consists of a survey of a very large lake (about 50 rooms) punctuated by the island and the dragon's lair. The lake is, as you might expect, pretty boring to explore. Every few rooms you run into a giant this or a ticked-off that to fight, but I found them all to be light one-or-two-round combat with Fresh Sam. Even Anglacion isn't that tough to kill; the catch with him is that he can kill you with just one or two blows.
My impression from the way Nate designed the clues is that you are intended to find out how to steal some of the dragon's treasure without actually having to face him. It's up to you: you can steamroller the place with a strong character and tactical nukes, or make it interesting with a "normal" character and Main Hall grade weapons. Difficulty of (3) unless you choose to do it with Main Hall equipment.
#157 The Pathetic Hideout of Mr. R.
by Nathan Segerlind
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6
Extra Commands: FIRE, USE
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: None
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
Reviewer Rating: 5.0
Description: "While having a real blast last Friday at the annual Adventurer Day bash, someone yanked you aside. It was a short skinny Dwarf with a black beard and a name tag which read "Sledgehammer". He said to you...
"'The evil tyrant Mr. Roessler has built a small outpost in northern Eamon. It is believed to be nothing more than a small hideout, but who knows exactly the power he has in his grasp. Your goal is to stop Roessler by destroying his fortress.'
"The Dwarf takes you on the North Road to the Really-Big-and-Scary Forest, where Roessler's outpost is suspected to be."
Comment: This is another of Nate's early juvenile works. It has lots of general silliness, out-of-narrative descriptions, and in-jokes relating to his high school. In general, it is an example of the kind of lightweight Eamon typical of those written by young boys.
Yet this is in many ways a sophisticated Eamon and there are flashes of the brilliance that Nate gradually developed and finally demonstrated in Kretons. There are many specials of various kinds, and some of the humor is pretty good. While there are several items to work out, the flavor here is primarily Hack'n'Slash.
I am bumping up the difficulty to (7) for several likely-death traps. Along those lines, here are some hints: if you enter the secret room off the tunnel with the stalactites, you will probably die. There is an antidote for the poison, but you may have to replay that segment several times before you find it in time. There is no way to honestly survive an encounter with a Balrog. You get exactly one turn to escape after using the detonator. That's a lot of hints, but there are a lot of ways to die here.
You most likely won't find a way to open the steel door without cheating. If you do open the door, you will either be amused or annoyed, depending on your sense of humor. I thought it was a pretty good joke.
#160 Monty Python and the Holy Grail
by Nathan Segerlind
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6
Extra Commands: BUILD, USE, EAT
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: See caution below about SAVE
Playing Time: 1-2 hours
Reviewer Rating: 7.0 Average Rating: 7.0/2
Description:
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
MONTE PYTHON UND DA HOLE GRAIL
by Nathan Segerlind
bie Nathun Segerlund
Inspiration by Monty Python
Inspurashun bie Monte Python
Technical aid from the Bug Stomper
How about da holidae in Sveden?
Eamon game system by Don Brown
See the loveli lakes
V6.0 MAIN PGM by John Nelson
See lots of furre animals
Distribution by the Eamon Adventurer's Guild
Inkluding da majestik moose
Dumb comments by Ryan Brown
A moose bit my sistur once
Animation by John J.J. Schmidt
Reallie! She was trieing to carve hur
initials in da moose with a knife when
Comment: And so on. If you've seen and love the movie, you will probably get a lot of enjoyment out of this adventure. It's one of Nate's earlier Eamons and doesn't work nearly as well as it might for many of the sophisticated things it tries for, but it does pull them off for the most part without too much awkwardness. If you are familiar with the movie, you will do best if you try not to deviate from the movie script any more than you have to. If you don't know the movie, you may miss some specials and may die a bit more often before you win through to the end.
There are about three death traps, and odds are you will get nailed by a couple of them. But overall the puzzles and combat are not that bad; the difficulty rings in at about (6) if you've seen the movie and maybe a point or two higher if you haven't. When you get killed out by a trap, you will find that you can get back where you were pretty quickly, for usually there isn't much reason to repeat stuff you have already done, and most of the stuff is on side-paths.
This being one of Nate's early Eamons, much of the text assumes that you have done everything in exactly the order that he visualized it. But that isn't very likely, so some text will read a little strangely, but it won't mess you up.
There was one item that I couldn't solve. Saint Xavier has the Holy Hand Grenade and the Book of Armaments, and isn't inclined to use or share them. This leaves you with the choice of murdering one of your companions or slugging it out with the bunny. I slugged it out and did OK, but that meant I missed that special. (I went back and replayed the game to see that special, and it does work. But I find it distasteful to murder loyal followers.)
HERE IS THE "SAVE" WARNING that I mentioned above: the disk is full, and there is not room to save a game. If you try to save a game, the program will crash with a DISK FULL error. However, the game isn't that complex and it will cost you very little extra aggravation just to start over if you get killed out.
#167 Expedition to the Darkwoods
by Greg Gioia
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6.2
Extra Commands: DIG, CAMP, WEAR, REMOVE, ASK
Deleted Commands: None
Special Features: 10-directions, camping, buried items, magical artifacts
Playing Time: 3-8 hours
Reviewer Rating: 7.0 Average Rating: 5.0/2
Description: "Several of the town's children, seven to be exact, were abducted by marauders from the Darkwoods last night. Those attacks were only the most recent in a series of many and different evil-doings that have been going on for about two months. All of our best Adventurers have been slaughtered within moments after they disappeared into the Darkwoods."
And thus you join a company that includes a wizard, fighter, and thief. Your mission is to find the children and put a stop to the evil.
Comment: This Eamon was written as an entry for the NEUC's "Life Orb" contest of many years ago. I don't think it was submitted in time, even though there are some comments towards the end that indicate that the author was cutting his vision short because he was up against a deadline.
It is a real mixed bag, with lots of very well conceived specials that are for the most part poorly executed. The poor execution was an unfortunate result of Greg not getting the feedback that the EAG has given to new authors. Simple things like having to type exactly what the program is looking for go far in piling much frustration on an otherwise fine offering.
There is a goodly amount of combat, and you will do well to bring your better weapons. But there is also quite a lot of puzzling, and the puzzles are the more difficult for being narrow in their interpretation of your actions while dropping few hints along the way. For this, it garners a difficulty rating of (9).
When I originally played it many years ago, I was put off by the poor spelling, death traps (I HATE death traps!), and the tedium of trying LOOK, DIG, and SAY in virtually every room of a large dungeon. There are also a lot of companions and events, and this coupled with version 6.2's truly awful screen pausing, resulted in a personal rating of (4). Pat Hurst, who has a real thing about sloppy spelling and programming, rated it even lower. But this time around, I found myself getting into the Quest, and I made a real effort to work it through rather than dismissing it as a poor work. I think it was worth it, and I am upgrading my rating to (7).
If ever there was an Eamon that rated a hint or two, this is one, so here they are: first, the dragon has something you need. You can't beat him, but you can reason with him; SAY TELL and SAY HELP are useful there. And here's a more cryptic hint: when looking for a conductor, think of Ben Franklin's famous experiment. Finally, to save you some aggravation, the ravine is a "Gotcha!" death trap. Hopefully these hints will lower your difficulty to something more like a (7).
Having taken the time to really wring this Eamon out, I found several minor bugs that were missed before. The only one that perhaps rates a fix before play would be to add a PRINT statement after the GET in line 204, but even this one merely clips one effect record out of a special event, and I had no trouble getting the gist without it.
In spite of the combat, this is definitely a puzzler's Eamon. Those who enjoy taking the time needed to sift through everything they can find in order to assemble the nuggets of puzzling will enjoy it the most.
Eamon Adventure Listing
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