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Witch hunting through space and time - Let's Play Waxworks!

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
titlek.png


Chapter the first; There's a dead guy on my crystal ball.
In which our heroine introduces us to the adventure to come, to the plot, to the adventure's structure, to the mechanics, etc. Other than that she also meets her uncle, Boris, and gets a small introduction to the four worlds she will have to purge of evil, but nothing much beyond exposition happens



After a long rest i'm back at doing Let's Play things. After running through both Shin Megami Tensei and it's sequel, though, I believe it's time to return to the western classics for a little while, at least, and to the gothic horror roots of my Let's Play things. I'll continue with Enzai some other time, as I don't really have the time for such a text heavy game and I'm on my moralbitch phase anyway.

Released back in 1992 by Horrorsoft and Accolade, Waxwork is a game that tries to combine dungeon crawling with adventure like gameplay and most of the time does it right. It also includes some really meh role playing game mechanics and some very gory depictions of death, dismemberment, and similar stuff. This is all wrapped by a somewhat gothic plot about ancient curses and family secrets as well as a campy but somehow still immersive horror atmosphere, and while not being anywere near of The Legacy's level of awesome it still is a very polished and very fun game.

Now first let's have a look at the manual for the plot summary and introduction.

Warning - Danger Ahead

Still dazed from the strange and terrifying event of the past week, you pause at the cold, forbidding entrance to Uncle Boris' eerie stone mansion. Inside awaits the Waxworks. You really don't want to be here. You want to turn on your heel and flee this vile, revolting place, never to return.

But you can't. You must master your fears and go on. Remember that only you can free your possessed twin Alex from the dreaded curse of Ixona and save the world from the diabolical forces of evil he is preparing to unleash. You must face the horrors that await you in the Waxworks. And you must face them alone.

Lifting the curse of Ixona and saving Alex will not be easy. You'll need extraordinary skill and cunning to avoid the flesh-rending traps and solve the mind-perplexing puzzles that await you. You'll need heroic courage and superhuman strenght to face the ruthless fiends that lurk within the bowels of the perilous Waxworks. Take heart. You'll have the benevolent spirit of Uncle Boris to guide you if you falter.

The forbidding doors slowly open with a low mournful wail. Your flesh crawls as the faint smell of the musty old was museum pervades the air around you. You find yourself staring into the lifeless eyes of a huge, creepy apparition in a butler's suit. He escorts you through the halls leading to the exhibits. The corridors appear harmless but you still feel uneasy. Things are not as they appear.

There are four dangerous, challenging quests to master and survive before you can save Alex. You will journey to the mysterious land of the Pharaohs to explore the Great Pyramid and rescue a beautiful princess. You will have to tread the dark menacing streets of 1888 London to confront the murderous Jack the Ripper and foil his malevolent plot. You will also be required to descend into the treacherous iron mines to battle a huge mutant plant with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. And you must enter and unwordly graveyard to confront and vanquish the evil Necromancer and the rotting, mindless horde of zombies who do his bidding.

The time has come for you to enter the exhibits and face your destiny. Chances are you won't survive. You'll probably be horribly tortured and gruesomely mutilated, before this is over. You may even lose your life. We wish you luck. You will need it.

Those guys really know how to inspire me to greatness, i say. They don't lie, though: Before this is over we are going to die a lot, and each diferent death will be accompanied by it's own unique and gory game over screen. There's a small, say, minigame in trying to discover all the ways you can die, too. Maybe I'll be doing that, this being The Codex and all.

As a final note i'll be using DosBox to run this thing, but I'm not really tech savvy so it runs kind of jerky. If you either know what setup the game's need to run perfectly fine and smooth or have a dosbox.conf for it, send away. I may even twitch my ears for you if you do.

So let's begin our adventure. The story starts as we find our way to our uncle's wax museum, and the visuals have a glorious oldschool style. Once at the door we are received by a huge creepy guy who introduces himself as our uncle's assistant and asks for our ticket. This was originally part of the game's copy protection, complete with rotating code wheels and the like i have heard. Mine's cracked.

museumu.png

doorlw.png

creepyguy.png


Good evening sir miss, you are expected.

closeup.png


Would you be so kind as to enter?

a01f.png

a02o.png

borisj.png


At last, Nephew niece, you have come. You and you alone can complete my life's work and rid our family of the witch's ancient curse. Within there walls you will find that I have collected together the most evil of all the twins that have been born to past generations of our family.

As far as i remember, during old times a witch by the name of Ixona put a curse on our family because she stole a chicken and an ancestor of us cut her hand in punishment. Every time twins are born to the bloodline one of them would grow to be good and heroic while the other would grow to be vile and villanous. As the introduction to the manual above told us we are the next on the nice side, while our twin Alex is the next on the evil side. To save the world we must, with the help of Boris, find a way to break the curse once and for all.

By the use of powerful magic, you must enter their worlds, find and kill them and destroy the power that feeds the curse. Then and only then will you be able to find a way to rid our family of this terrible curse for ever.

Basicaly, we will be using the museum's exhibits to enter four times when the good twin and the evil twin faced each other in battle. There we will crawl dungeons, kill monsters and minions, solve many puzzles, evade devious traps, die a thousand colorful deaths, and finally face the corresponding evil twin, defeat him, and be a step closer to open the fifth exhibit, in which we will face the Witch herself. It is interesting to note we will not be traveling through space and time ourselves, though, but possesing the bodies of each of the good twins.

So that you fully understand this terrible curse, I have given the family's lawyer a very important letter for you. You should have read it before you came here.

If haste has prevented you from reading it, I strongly suggest that you read it now, so that your understanding of what is before you is complete.

I am sorry, but there i will have to leave you wanting. This is, i supose, a reference to the original's manual, which i haven't been able to find. The blurb i did quote before was from the game's re-release in a bundle including both Elvira games too.

Each exhibit withing my Waxworks bears a plaque which, when read, will tell you something about the evils that await you.

Good luck, and remember, I may be able to help you later, but it will cost you. Communing with the dead has a terrible draining effect on the psychic energy of a living human.

Basicaly, this means we can use the crystal ball to summon Boris at any time, be it to get extra background information on the setting or stage we are, to ask for help with a given puzzle, or to be healed by him. All of this costs us Psychic Energy, basicaly limiting how much we can access this feature.

Since we are at it, Psychic Energy is one of the four RPG-Lite stats the game keeps track of. The others are HP, and we die if that one runs out, experience, of which we obtain more every time we kill monsters or solve puzzles, and Level, that raises every time we have saved enough experience. It's a pretty simple set up, but it doesn't hurt the game too much since most of it is exploring dungeons, surviving traps, and solving puzzles.

a03b.png


We enter the area with the exhibits, now. It's a square corridor with several niches covered by curtains, only four truly open for us. Each exhibit has a plaque, as said before, that will give us a short summary of the plot for that particular level. The first one shows an egyptian princess being entombed alive...

a04t.png


... and the plaque reads as follow.

This is the time of the pharaohs, high priests and great pyramids of ancient Egypt, the time when the first seed of true evil surfaced in your family's past. Decades after this generation, the witch used her crystal ball to search the history of your ancestors and resurrect this curse upon the future generations of your family.

The evil twin became the high priest of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. It soon became the anual custom for Anubis to deman a virgin of royal birth to be ritually sacrificed. The girl would be sealed inside a sarcophagus and upone her death would become one with Anubis and spend eternity in his service. The good twin brother was Prince Cassim of the Old Kingdom of Egyp - an honorary position earned by acts of great bravery in the service of the Kingdom. Before he could ascend to the throne he was required, by tradition, to marry a girl of royal birth, a princess.

The night before the wedding his bride to be was kidnapped by his brother's servants and taken to a great pyramid on the edge of the Kingdom. The Prince vowed to recover his betrothed before it was too late and set out for the pyramid that same night.

This stage is one of the two big dungeon crawls filled with traps, minions of evil, and puzzles. In this particular case we will enter the body of Prince Cassim and storm the pyramid to save the princess, cheesy fairy tale like.

The second exhibit shows an evil tentacle monster doing, say, things to a couple of miners...

a05.png


... and the plaque reads as follows.

The seventh evil brother in the family was a dark priest of a chaotic cult that practiced satanism and black magic. Whilst in prayer to his terrible master, the brother was given the recipe for a magical formula that enslaves humans to the evil one's will whilst making them phisically superior to other humans. Prolonged use of the formula began to tell on the bodies of the evil one and his disciples, who gradually transformed into hideous mutants, becoming more and more plantlike with every dose.

Eventually they could no longer go unnoticed in the world of men and they were forced to move their base of operations to a nearly abandoned mineworks near an unsuspecting small village. By this time, the body of the evil twin had become so deformed and bloated he could no longer walk and was forced to reside in a rotting stagnant pool where he was fed fresh victims by his followers.

They took the innocents from the local community subtely so as not to arouse suspicion and their activities went unnoticed for a long time. Gradually, a large number of people were force fed the elixir and bent to the evil brother's will.

Eventually a safety inspector journeyed to the disused mine to file a report and brought about it's destruction. The story of how this came about is undocumented but the inspector turned out to be the twin brother of the chaos priest that originally started the cult.

This stage is, by far, the hardest one, a dungeon crawl somewhat smaller than the previous one but inhabited by lots of hard monsters, traps, a situation that makes it unwinable if you aren't under the effects of the Metagaming Sight spell, and much exploration. It's much easier, though, once you know what you are doing, to the point of becoming almost a non issue.

The third exhibit shows a guy in victorian attire about to kill a girl, in a dark alley...

a06.png


... and the plaque reads as follow.

The eight evil twin lived in Victorian London and soon became known as the terrible Jack the Ripper. From what I have been able to gather the motive for his terrible crimes was to provide sacrifices to Beelzebub. In order to do this he would arrange meeting with the call girls that were so common in that day, and then brutally murder them. The police hunted for the evil killer for months, but to no avail as he always narrowly avoided capture. Mobs of vigilantes roamed the streets at night looking for the evil killer.

One night the infamous killer disappeared without trace and no more murders of that type were commited. The populous credited Jack's disappearance to a call girl that had supposedly fought back and killed him. The body was alleged to have fallen into the river Thames and floated out to sea. There is evidence to suggest that a stranger in the area, that night, had something to do with it. He too disappeared, without trace, that same night.

This stage will have us hunting for Jack the Ripper while evading both the authorities and the angry mobs, both under the impression we are Jack the Ripper ourselves. This level is mostly a classical adventure, solving inventory puzzles, following leads, and traversing the labyrinthine alleys of Victorian London while evading our pursuers. It's pretty fun, and the final scene is pretty climatic I believe.

The last exhibit shows a moonlit zombie infested graveyard...

a07.png


... and the plaque reads as follows.

The fifth in the line of twins showed a keen interest in death and the supernatural from an early age. He went on to study black magic and before long had specialised in necromancy - the magic of the dead. He soon gravitated to a master in the craft and like all who deal in necromancy, he became and undead himself - not ageing, unkillable by normal means. This immortality was made possible by magic developed by himself which enabled him to steal life force from innocent victims.

He masqueraded as a priest and took over the running of a small cemetary where he set about building an undead army for his evil purpose. He seized the opportunity to put an undead in a position of power when a local baron was taken ill. He visited the man in the guise of the priest, killed and resurrected him as a zombie.

People became suspicious of activities in the graveyard when shambling figures were seen wandering around at night. Claims of necromancy where made to the undead baron by witchhunters but all were ignored. The twin began to take an interest in his family's curse and started to collect and restore the bodies of his dead ancestors - especially those of the good twins. He also managed to capture and tame one of the most powerful undead - namely a vampire which he used as his personal bodyguard.

Eventually, the menace was destroyed by a gravedigger who had ventured in to recover a shovel that he had left there. The gravedigger turned out to be the brother of the necromancer but the details of how the feat was performed were never recorded.

This stage is hack and slash, pure and simply. Carve your path through the shambling hordes of the walking dead while exploring the graveyard for clues on how to defeat the necromancer and the tools to face both him and his pet vampire.

I will explain the interface and the like once you have chosen which one to begin with and i'm inside. Sooner or later we will have to run through them all, in any case, but i'm nice and decided to let you pick the order.

And before I forget, yes, the writing is that awful, i'm not editing it other than to fix typos (many, many typos) and add some not randomly placed punctuation. Lucky for us, this game never tries to make you believe the plot is its strong point so we can just breath the cheesy B-movie horror atmosphere and have a laugh. If you like this one i may do Elvira next, since Horrorsoft games are the kind of really hard games you can be months to solve all puzzles and dungeons but you can run through in twenty minutes once you know where everything is.

Until next time, then.
 

treave

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
11,370
Codex 2012
Eh, why not start with ye olde Egypt and work our way up chronologically from there?
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,140
Start with the Egypt one. Also, I vote you lp both Elvira games when you finish this one. Oh, and please include a "kill count" for every time your character has a different (and horrible) death. Lastly but not least, congrats for starting another lp that's not... "offensive".
 

Mrowak

Arcane
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
3,947
Project: Eternity
@Black Cat

Glad you're doing something ... ehm ... productive instead of continuing that godawful child gay porn lp.
 

Phelot

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2009
Messages
17,908
Oh man, this game was awesome! I remember playing it at a friends. It's incredibly violent if I remember.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
7,671
:love:
Start with graveyard. It shortest. And then gradually work your way to mines.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
waxworks works on recent scummvm compiles (i don't know about perfectly).

If i cared more i might suggest dos32a, but i'm not sure the game uses a extender it can replace.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
But, the scummvm guys are "moralfags" as the term is, and keep the copy protections fully functional in the games that had them.

I really don't have a clue why, since all of the persons that made the games were long since fired. Probably legal reasons, or the fact some of them are those very same people, and still butthurt about piracy at the time.
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
Since start with Egypt had double the amount of votes than the only other option that was voted, meaning it had an impressive total of two votes, it seems democracy has spoken and I'll follow the chronological order of The Pyramid, The Graveyard, The Mine, and London, since that way I also get to put the Graveyard on second place and it also kind of makes sense. Next update will be up tomorrow or the day after, then, depending on how much homework I get.

It seems I'll be also hunting for all possible ways to die like some twisted Pokemon master. This is Fair Codexia, alright.



SCO said:
waxworks works on recent scummvm compiles (i don't know about perfectly).

If i cared more i might suggest dos32a, but i'm not sure the game uses a extender it can replace.

That was the original plan but no one did bother to test it and, not knowing how SCUMMVM works, I wasn't sure I could continue using DosBox or VDMSound if later i came to a place that did not let me continue. About DOS/32 Advanced I had not really heard about it at all until you mentioned, but belonging to the Windows generation I would probably kill my system or something.

Phelot said:
It's incredibly violent if I remember.

Personally, i believe Elvira to be the worst one of the bunch as far as horrible and graphical ways to die (the hawk and the little goblins... T-T) go, but yes, this one has its moments too.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
7,671
Black Cat said:
It seems I'll be also hunting for all possible ways to die like some twisted Pokemon master. This is Fair Codexia, alright.
:salute:
Black Cat said:
the hawk and the little goblins...
The hawk that pluck your eyes? That was memorable.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I presume you know you can increase the speed of dosbox emulation by ctrl + f11 or f12 (i forget)?
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,273
I don't want to sound like a graphicswhore, but what's the reason for screenshots being 500x313? :?

a01f.png


The font is barely readable...

I've tested this game in DosBox and I think it should look like this:

1) Internal DosBox screenshot (ctrl+5), not resized (320x200):

1zyepeq.jpg


2) Internal DosBox screenshot (ctrl+5), resized 2x (640x400):

2enlpac.jpg


3) External screenshot (HyperSnap) in Fullscreen mode (1024x768 but you can use ANY resolution by modyfing dosbox.conf):

zxa787.jpg


:incline:

Important thingies lines in dosbox.conf:

fullresolution=original (or ???x???)
windowresolution=original (or ???x???)
output=overlay (the fastest mode for 3d, use 'surface' if game is 2d AND still too slow)

captures=capture (create this folder in dosbox directory if it's not there already)

frameskip=0
aspect=false
scaler=none (scalers are for fags)

core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=max (should fix your slowdowns)

mount c "c:\waxworks" (automounts the game directory)
c:
wax

Except of that, I approve...

:rpgcodex:

SCO said:
If i cared more i might suggest dos32a, but i'm not sure the game uses a extender it can replace.
No, it doesn't.
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
@ Spekkio
I thank you for that. My screenshots were being taken on the natural resolution, then I was resizing them manually with The Gimp, and 500x was always the size of the images on my Let's Play things so it came naturally to my fingers. I'll fix it as you wrote from the third update onwards.

After trying it, though, the game does runs better but, having put both fullscreen resolution and window resolution to 640x480 and having removed the scalers the screenshots still come out as 320x200. How can I change that so that I can actually save me the manual editing of the images?

Also, aren't your screenshots scaled? Check the font's look. If that isn't scaled I botched my perception check. :?

Witches aren't built for technical tasks, that's for sure. :(

@ SCO
That does the same than raising the frameskip on the .conf file, right?

@ Cenobyte
Thank you for the motivation, and glad you are enjoying it. :3
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,273
Black Cat said:
After trying it, though, the game does runs better but, having put both fullscreen resolution and window resolution to 640x480 and having removed the scalers the screenshots still come out as 320x200. How can I change that so that I can actually save me the manual editing of the images?
AFAIK it's impossible - DosBox always uses original resolution for screenshots.
Output method is just that: a method to show the image on screen.
Resize screenshots using any program that can operate on multiple files (ACDSee, IrfanView).
Or use external programs for screenshots (you may have to switch to "opengl" or "ddraw" output for some of them to work, though; FRAPS for example).

Black Cat said:
Also, you say scalers are for fags while your screenshots are seemingly scaled. Check the font's look. So say goodbye to the closet. ;)
If that isn't scaled I botched my perception check. D:
I'm afraid you did...

:smug:

This de-pixelating thingie is called filtering.
You haven't probably known (being a girl and stuffies) but there's huge difference between filtering and scalers.

Filtering:

2enlpac.jpg


23jlh8h.jpg


Scalers:

qrmely.jpg


or even more EXTREME:

scummvm00008.png


33erac4.jpg


:rpgcodex:

And if you REALLY need those pixels, you can disable filtering by using "scaler=normal2x" and external screenshot program:

25s51ea.jpg


Of course for normal person all above screenshots should look more or less the same... ;)
 

Sceptic

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
FUCK YEAH WAXWORKS!

I never did finish the game... got stuck somewhere in the mines and eventually let it lie.

I heartily vote for Elvira next. But until then this is going to be most enjoyable. :thumbsup:

You probably already know that each and every step you take gives you XP, so exploring very thoroughly is recommended.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Black Cat said:
@ SCO
That does the same than raising the frameskip on the .conf file, right?

One of them increases frameskip and another increases cycles (what i meant to recommend). Just do it on the config file, it's easier.
 

Black Cat

Magister
Joined
Jun 1, 2009
Messages
1,997
Location
Skyrim .///.
Chapter the second; Prince on a white camel.
In which our heroine enters Prince Cassim just to find herself trapped in an evil pyramid of doom. She explores around, solves some inventory puzzles, kills some guards, collects much junk, finds some pretty ewww ways to die, and after solving a very basic mathematical puzzle, she manages to reach the second floor.



Without further ado...

b01m.png

b02t.png

b03p.png

b04.png


We enter the first exhibit and light engulfs us. We enter the body of Prince Cassim just as he enters the pyramid and watches the entrance close behind him, leaving him trapped. I'll take a moment, now, to describe the interface: Above and to our left is the image of our current character, Prince Cassim on this case. Back in the museum this is left blank, as the character is suposed to be ourselves. Under the character are the basic movement arrows: You can advance, retreat, turn around, or turn to the sides. Each arrow lights up if it's usable, which is useless on dungeon areas but quite useful on static image areas, where which arrows are lit up indicates what other screens we can explore. Underneath this are the Up and Down arrows, and the small black square at the feet of the heroic figure will display how much damage we have done a given enemy upon impact.

In the opposite side we have, first, six icons. The first one displays our inventory, the second one turns those basic movement arrows on the left into a compass, the third one is the take command, the fourth one displays a list of all those items we have that can be used as weapons, the fifth one uses the crystal ball to speak with Uncle Boris, and the sixth one switches between normal exploration mode and combat mode. The square area beneath those icons is the command area, which will display a list of verbs every time we click on something that's possible to interact with. The two icons below this area are the Pause and the Options icons, and the black square under the demonic figure will display how much damage an enemy caused us upon impact.

Finally, the big black square in the middle is the inventory, displaying either our own items or those we find inside containers. This area also doubles as the dialogue window. The thin black area above this indicates what are we hovering our pointer above, and the line below shows our RPG-Lite stats.

There are three ways to move around: We can use the arrows on the left, we can use the keyboard, or we can use the mouse on the main window. I use mostly the last one, since given how many first person adventures I play is the method i'm the most familiar with, but using the keyboard is the faster one by a long stretch.

We turn around and start going into the pyramid. Just a couple of steps down the corridor we find a room to the side, where a dead architect rests.

b05b.png


We claim the dagger on his back for ourselves, use it to make it our selected weapon, and then we pick up the unimportant scroll on the table since on this one stage we will need scrolls so that Uncle Boris can inscribe healing spells into them. Then we search the body and move into a close up of the dead architect that reveals another scroll for our perusal.

b06.png

b07.png


We pick it up, then also pick the small lamp on the table and, after checking all the containers on that first screen, turn left, where I find a chest, another jug, and some more baskets.

b08w.png


The chest contains a brooch shaped as a bettle, and one of the baskets contains three more scrolls. Another basket, meanwhile, hides the first of many weights we will need to find for one of the last puzzles. Then I go back to the first screen, take the writing set, and turn right now.

b09o.png


In the charcoal burner in the middle of the screen there's a small piece of burnt out papyrus we take and read. We also pick the small jar of oil to our left and then turn to leave back to the main corridor. We haven't gone far before a guard tries to stop us.

b10a.png

b11.png

b12a.png


The combat system is pretty simple. First you switch to combat mode with the sixth icon on the right. Your mouse pointer will change into a sword, and now there are three areas you can click into: Divide the main window into three areas, a central one taking half its total size and two at its sides taking one quarter the total space each. Click the central one to hit the evil guy's chest and head, click the ones to the sides to hit his arms. Wound his arms to both lower the damage he does and increase how much he misses, or, in some rare cases, disarm him completely (and literally). Then maul his chest and head until he dies, and hope you don't die before he does, which shouldn't happen if you have been leveling as expected and did wound his arms before he managed to score many hits on you.

Out of instinct I had wounded both his arms and had him almost dead when I did remember we gotta catch 'em all, so I did stop fighting and stood here for about five minutes while he missed most strikes and did me one damage each time he did not miss. The things I do for you, guys.

b13a.png


That looks painful. Luckily I am a very well prepared witch and came ready for this.

daggeroftime.jpg


So now we cut the guard into little ribbons and claim his sword for ourselves, which also nets us our first level up. Each time you level up you heal some HP, raise your Maximun HP, obtain some more Psychic Energy, and, i believe, become better at fighting. However it is not us, the magical neko and the inhabitants of Fair Codexia, obtaining levels but Prince Cassim, or whomever we are possesing at the time, so once we finish this stage we will be back at level one.

It's also interesting to note that, as Sceptic said already, every single step you take will give you one experience point as long as it's the first time you step into that tile, meaning both the game lacks an automap out of sheer cruelty and that it's quite easy to notice where you haven't still been. This also means it is best to step on every single tile, even the obvious dead ends and loops, and fine comb each level to maximise gained experience.

b14x.png


We make his sword our active weapon and press on, gaining some more levels while exploring around. We come to a dead end where a whole lot of fine sand rests, and since it was pretty well hidden I decide to take it with me. It seems just as how being the Prince of Persia comes with amazing acrobatic skills, being a Prince of Egypt comes with magic pockets of holding. :roll:

b15d.png


We continue exploring around and find an area where a sturdy wooden beam seems to hold the roof on place, but right now aren't able to move it. We also murder another guard.

b16h.png

b17.png


Then find another bunch of sand for our magic pockets of holding to, like, hold, slaughter another guard, and come across an apparently quite deep pool of water.

b18a.png

b19o.png

b20k.png


Examining it reveals there seems to be something big swiming about the dark depths. Naturally, we gotta catch 'em all so I try to get some water, but the game sabotages my suicide attempt by means of telling me I need some jars and jugs to do that. Therefore I run all the way back to the begining, get every single Jar and Jug I find there, and then run all the way back to the pool. Then, again, I try to collect some water.

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Yay.

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We press forward into the maze. Before we get very far, though, we come across another guard, this one armed with a spear. A fierce battle follows, since this one's actually doing damage.

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I claim his spear and choose it as my own weapon. A bit later we come across what looks like some kind of treasure room, and we look into everything that can be looked into. This nets us only a tile.

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And not very far away we find the corridor blocked by a panel of thick glass. Trying to smash it does nothing, so we go back to explore any side corridor still unexplored. After a while we come across a bald priest, kill him, and in the dead end he was protecting we find a statue and two pots. One of those contains a 440hz tunning fork.

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We run back to the glass panel, use the tunning fork to break it, and go further into the dungeon. There we come across another of those guards armed with spears, that hands us our butt on a plate in two strikes.

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That's three, yay. And also the first unintentional death of this run.

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We go back until we are just about breaking down the glass panel by means of the fork, and then I remember I have yet to show you how the Crystal Ball works and given I have leveled a few times already I have some Psychic Energy to spare. So...

Greeting, my nephew niece, how may I assist you?

We are then presented with some dialogue options. As we use them we lose Psychic Energy and get new options to ask further questions.

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Where do I find the Princess and my evil twin?

I do not know for sure, but I would suggest that up would be a great way to go.

Thank you, Uncle. :roll:

How can I assist you further?

What can you tell me about the pyramid?

This great pyramid is rumored to be 6 levels high, and each one full of cunning traps, puzzles and guards. It is said to have been created by Anubis in one evening to reward his faithful.

By means of cunning puzzles, devious traps, and angry guards? That's some reward right there.

How can I assist you further?

Tell me more about Anubis and what he stands for.

Anubis' main concern was the opening, for the dead, of the road to the other world. He is often represented as a black jackal with a bushy tail or a dark man with the head of a dog or a jackal. The path of Anubis leads only to death so be especially wary in places bearing his image.

Note to self: Click everything that looks jackal-ish.

How can I assist you further?

Can you help me with the traps and puzzles?

The precise details are unknown to me but I must warn you that the Egyptians were clever mechanics and many traps are activated by a misplaced foot. Best to move slowly and keep your eyes on the ground. I may be able to assist you with the logical puzzles, when you find one.

He basicaly can explain you the rules and the objective of the puzzles you find along the way, but he will not tell you the answer nor solve them for you. I guess that makes him the halloween audiobook edition of Atrus' diaries, or something along those lines.

How can I assist you further?

To which deity do I owe my allegiance?

The Prince Cassim was one of the faithful to Hathor, a goddess of joy and love. She is often portrayed as a cow headed woman or a woman with cow horns. When her image is present, then this usually means that you are safe, or on the correct path.

How can I assist you further?

Uncle, I have been wounded. Can you help me?

I am very limited in what effect I can have on the physical world but I may be able to provide some small help. I require a piece of paper to enchant with a spell of healing.

The papyrus will suffice. Simply read the scroll out loud to use it.

He has now inscribed healing spells on the four scrolls we had. That's pretty neat.

What do you know about the pool on the center?

The cult of Anubis that dwelled within this temple was supposed to keep an alligator as a method of garbage disposal within the lake. I would approach it with caution.

How can I kill this creature that I can't see?

The creature would appear to feed from the lake side on the bottom floor. Perhaps it could be lured out somehow and then killed by throwing something at it.

Goodbye for now. I must continue my quest.

That done, back to dungeon crawling. Again I break down the glass panel with my tunning fork. I then notice every time I try to take the broken glass I lose one hit point. Obviously, i try to take the broken glass again and again.

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Visualizing Prince Cassim rolling over broken glass once and again while laughing maniacally was worth it, but It's a shame you can't lose the last hit point like that and get a special, in more ways than one, death screen. :(

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After going back to before my suicidal tendencies took over i move further into the Pyramid, and this time slaughter the spear wielding guard without trouble. I loot his spear, tough I already have one of my own. After a bit of walking, though, my eyes catch something suspicious running from wall to wall at a very low height.

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A wire! We have three options: Examine, cut, or evade. If you don't pick evade before taking another step, or if you pick cut instead...

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Bah, I already had that one.

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This time I pick evade before moving further, and thus pass without trouble. Beyond this, the first of many traps to come, we find the stairs to the second level. Before we can get there, though, we must solve one logical puzzle.

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The hourglass at the bottom tells us, if examined, we only have two minutes to solve it. Naturally, Prince Cassim sits down and twiddles his fingers for one hundred and twenty seconds.

When the time's up the floor opens beneath him and...

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Ouch. Fate has some awesome aim, I have to say.

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We ask Uncle about the puzzle.

I don't understand the number puzzle, Uncle!

*pouts*

This looks like a simple Egyptian addition puzzle. All the numbers in each row in the pentagram must be made to add up to the same number. This puzzle must be completed before the sand runs through the timer or a terrible trap will be activated.

How can I assist you further?

Can you tell me what number to aim for?

Try to make the sides in the pentagram add up to a high even number, like 20. I think that will solve the puzzle. Hurry though, as your time is running out!

First time I faced this puzzle I quite hated it as I did not even thought the game was actually expecting me to ask Uncle for the target number and i spent a while stonewalled here while trying combination upon combination upon combination on a sheet of paper. This time I'm prepared, though, and once I know the target number my notepad and I get through it at the first try.

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In any case, there is where our second chapter ends. What will our heroine and her meat puppet find in the second floor? What devious puzzles will they solve? What colorful ways of dying will they come across? This, and more, in the next chapter of our dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, arm slashing, junk collecting, body stealing adventure!

And I just noticed I forgot to check something on that treasure room so before going forward we will have to run back there and check it. Here you have the score so far, in any case, for your sadistical enjoyment:

04 cute ways of going beyond found.
01 unintentional visit to Saint Peter's checkpoint done.

And here, have a random bird too, just because bird is cute: :M

As a final note I made this update faster than expected to balance i'm about to get drowned on homework and am preparing a P&P campaign for a bunch of friends so the next one may come a bit slower, in three or four days. Or less, depending on how things go.



'til next time!






@ Sceptic
The mines are hellish, indeed. It is very easy to get yourself into a situation you can't win in there, the monsters are hard until you find the trick to slaughter them all, and everything you need is present just in very, very small amounts.
At least half of my time playing the game on my original run was trying to clear that bloody dungeon, restarting it, trying to clear it again, restarting it, etc, until I got it right, and even then while most of it became a non issue the last stretch i did by the skin of my teeth. I can only hope I haven't forgotten anything important since then, otherwise this will get bloody and turn into let's watch Black Cat die many times and cry tears of frustration instead of me slaughtering an inocent, unsuspecting game for your enjoyment.

@ Spekkio
I see. I'm sorry for the mistake, then. I did not even knew something called filters existed.
I resized them straight to a more normal resolution, 640x400, and used both your configuration and some scalers, since being immune to the fag status effect i'll just take it easy and enjoy the smoother graphics. :P The last two screenshots are the results. The font can be read quite well, now, and it certainly looks much better than before, so thank you again for the advice and the help. I'll keep trying combinations as we go.
 

Cenobyte

Prophet
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
1,117
Location
Japan
No way to kill croco?

Uh, and kinda interesting death screens, looks at least better than Dragon Age's vision of gore and violence

:M
 

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