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Nahlakh and Natuk

erisdiscordia

Barely Literate
Joined
Dec 24, 2016
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4
Location
Beertato
I'm in the same boat as TigerKnee. Not a problem for now, since Nahlakh will keep me busy for a long time. But I'd love to enjoy the full Natuk someday.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Joined
Aug 4, 2007
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19,182
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Bjørgvin
This is tragic.
Natuk is not available from any of the major Abandonware sites, and Archive.org seems to only have the shareware option.

Not sure if this was posted here or not but the full version of Natuk is now free: http://www.proudft.com/smf_forum/index.php?topic=5.0

Too bad Archive.org didn't save that page in right time frame. Nor did Google cache it. :(

I found two torrents of the game, but neither have any seeders. :(

Damned, why didn't I download the game when I had the chance? :roll:

Maybe CryptRat can upload it somewhere? Since it was free I assume there's no legal or moral considerations.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Natuk is an annoying game.
Every fight so far has been a cakewalk, and then the Hobgoblin chief and his cronies defeat me soundly. It's like suddenly the Withdoctors' spells are more effective (they never Stunned any of my guys before), the big hairy apes suddenly are more dangerous and the chief himself brains my guys in one hit.

Should I have explored the the old tomb first?
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Old tomb was the same story: walk over in the first ten fights, and then no chance against a group of paralyzing Ghouls.
Seems Natuk suffers from some serious balancing problems. Nahlakh in comparison provided a steady challenge, with some peaks, throughout the whole game.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
So, is there any way of turning those silver nuggest into silver weapons?
Do I have to find a blacksmith in a town?

Also, any idea why my Half-Troll's Willpower goes down to zero as soon as he takes some damage?
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Started a new game, and this time I rerolled stats until I was blue in the face, and beat the Hobgoblin chief and his minions after an epic fight where half my party was down. The key was my Assassin who was lucky enough to start the game hidden, and my Scout being able to snipe the enemy Witchdoctors thanks to finding a Very Fine Longbow.

I've noticed that enemies get a free attack when one of my guys try to use missile weapons while in melee. I placed my Assassin in a cluster of Hobgolin crossbowmen but they were able to shoot unhindered. What gives?
 

octavius

Arcane
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Is there any way of speeding down the combat messages in Natuk? It's easy to miss excactly what happens, and which spells enemies cast.

Also, just defeated a horde of Gnolls, one of which terrorized my party with a Wand of Greater Frost, insta killing one of my guys and nearly killing a second. In Nahlakh the Wand would have showed up in the monster's weapon slot, but not in Natuk. And with combat being so fast I'd have to record the combat and play it back in slow motion to see which of the buggers was using the wand. As it was I just pummeled the one farthest away with Death Bolts and that fortunately was a sound tactic.

Other problems:
How do you determine line of sight for spells? Targeting an enemy out of LOS will just lost the turn with no spell cast. Do I have to equip a long range missile weapon on my spell casters to determine it?

How do you cast healing spells on one of your fallen comrades if there is a fallen enemy in the same square?
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
How do you cast healing spells on one of your fallen comrades if there is a fallen enemy in the same square?
I'm not sure I ever managed to do something satisfying in that case.

The only thing I've considered but not tried, was to Force Attack the fallen enemy so that he/it no longer shows up in the square.

I just finished the Orc Outpost part, and so far I think the game is a decline compared to Nahlakh. My main disappointment is the reduction of tactical options. The dungeon passages are never less than 4 squares abreast, and there's no rocks or similar features (like neutralized enemies!) to give you a tactical (dis)advantage.

On the bright side I really like the Assassin character. Very fun to play, especially after he got a Shadow Light Plate, making him automatically Hidden at the start of his turn.
 
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octavius

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Bjørgvin
So where is that Lizardman cave?
Some orc said it was northwest from the cave opening, in the Reklin Peak. But the Reklin Peaks are to the northeast. The graphics are so tiny that it's hard to make out much. Do I need high Tracking skill to find the cave?
Random encounter every third step in the overworld is getting rather tiresome...
 

CryptRat

Arcane
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Sep 10, 2014
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3,548
I guess with high tracking you may find footprints where you're close to a cave, but if you walk on the cave you'll find it anyway.

I don't know if it's the said cave, but there's a cave northeast very close to the first area.
 

octavius

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The overland exploration is bloody annoying.
It uses a system similar to the Fallout games, but with an insane random encounter frequency. And in Natuk you have to get pretty close to a dungeon to find it, which means the Tracking "radius" is much smaller than the small overland area sections that turn up on the map. So to be sure to find everything you need to lawnmow the area to cover the whole radius of your Tracking skill. Even with close to 200 skill I still needed to get within 5-6 pixels of the Lizardman dungeon to find it.

In the end I decided to just use a map, like I did with the Demon World in Nahlakh:
Natukmap.gif


EDIT: seems the encounter frequency is much higher in the wilderness, while the roads are relatively safe.
 
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octavius

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Hmm...one of my guys (the Assassin) has an asterisk next to his HP mumber. What's up with that?
EDIT: Never mind, turns out he had lost an eye.
 
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octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Any one else had this problem? Not the graphics (they look fine in-game when I use a batch file to kill explorer.exe) but the missing parts of the dialogue:
M8GK4Ox.jpg


5VmPaTx.jpg


SGyHQOf.jpg


I wonder what I missed there.
 

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
So what's the best things to Enchant?
Rings seem like a good choice since unlike other pieces of equipment their armour bonus covers all body parts.
I have a Magicproof Ring that seems like the obvious choice, since each + will also increase resistances.
 
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octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Hello?

I'm getting close to the end, currently mopping up the Dwarf Fort.
Those Justitiars were some righteous bastards, but were surprisingly vulnerable to Fire Blast.

Also, only now discovered that hitting the P button will make a screenshot.:negative:
And like a bloody newbie I wasted Scrolls of Enchant Item on a mundane item, instead of paying an Enchanter to beef it up to +3 or +4 first.
 
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octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
Turns out there's two ways of encountering the Orc emperor, either by an audience or by sneaking through the sewers, and then working your way through the huge basement. I spent several days doing the latter, and have just started exploring the final level.

Most hard hitting enemy I've encountered are Vampire Bats. Vampires and the emperor's elite guards are wimps in comparison.

Also turns out the screencapping function only uses one filename, so all but one of the screenshots I've made were overwritten. :argh:
And because I need to use a batch file that kills explorer.exe to avoid graphics glitches, I can't just Alt-Tab out and change to file names manually without exiting the game.
 
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SkeleTony

Augur
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Messages
938
Natuk is an annoying game.
Every fight so far has been a cakewalk, and then the Hobgoblin chief and his cronies defeat me soundly. It's like suddenly the Withdoctors' spells are more effective (they never Stunned any of my guys before), the big hairy apes suddenly are more dangerous and the chief himself brains my guys in one hit.

Should I have explored the the old tomb first?


My memory is sketchy because I am old but I will try to recall and post here a list of dungeons and their difficulties and preferred order of doing...

Cleaning out the rats is of course the easiest (you can jack up difficulty to 500% and then use 'Q'uick combat for most of the fights. Keep the silver nuggets you find and sell all but one of them to a shop before talking to the main leader of the outpost (who will take whatever nuggets you have and give you some spell books as quest reward)

After you finish the rats at some point will come an attack by goblins onto the outpost. This one is not hard but I would not use quick combat.

After (or maybe even before) you beat up the attacking goblins head to Klorga and get the quest to kill that little old guy in the outpost ('Shuvoth' I think ?!). This same guy will also heal your party for nuggets (which no one should ever have to do). After you kill Shuvoth (or whatever his name is) and go back to Klorga to talk to that wizard guy (he sells spellbooks, staves etc.) he will give you a broken suit of demonic plate mail you can repair (if your skill is like 160-180 or something).

Next go kill the goblins (don't forget to improve skills/attributes with experience points first). I would put off the stirges and gnomes for a bit IIRC as they can be a pain for lower level parties.

Remember to use the stealing skill of your scout to pilfer weapons (from that green-pants guy in the outpost who requires the secret password you get from the little kid), armor etc. in between dungeons. You can save and reload shop inventories if you are into that.

At this point the Gnomes should be doable though you may have to make a few return trips to town to get more gear (by stealing it).

After that either the stiirges or hobgobs should be doable. Remember to sell and acquire new gear. I tend to trek all the way back to Klorga for this as there is more shops and also a guy who will give your party members experience points for like 500 gold for 10 pts. Remember to buy up any of those spice and incense and use them to boost magic and prayer skills before attempting to cast 'charm' and/or 'fumble' (just so you can learn those spells permanently and have them added to the spellbooks). Both spells are almost a necessity to beat tougher opponents. Fumble, after repeated castings on a single enemy will effectively paralyze them for the combat.

After you are able to catch charm at least once or twice per battle (using incenses to boost prayer if necessary) you can more easily tackle hobgobs, gnomes, giants, ogres etc.

Save those undead to the northwest of the outpost until you can 'Mass turn' them with some success.

I am just now noticing you have already discovered much of this and are at the end game so I will shut up for now...
 

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