Eamon Adventurers Guild
December 1996
The Eamon Adventurers Guild
December 1996
News & Stuff
CONTEST UPDATE: Well, it turns out that Eamon #72 “House on Eamon Ridge” was never finished. Tim Berge called me and said told me that circumstances beyond his control forced him to stop work on it before it was done, so it’s pretty unlikely that anyone will come up with a solution there.
Paul Hollander gave Eamon #62 “Caverns of Doom” a close look, and he concluded that there is probably no solution. Phil sent me some MAIN PGM modifications that will enable the player to return to the Main Hall.
While it wasn’t the true solution I was looking for, Paul came as close as actually possible to a solution, so he wins the prize. Paul, you have a choice of any 6 disk sides, two EAG back issues, or a two-issue membership extension. Drop me a note and let me know what you want!
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THE EAMON SET: It’s still not too late to get your set order in before the December 31 deadline! Several people who had expressed the desire to get the set have not yet done so. If you want the set but don’t have the disks yet, drop me a note and we’ll work something out.
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The costs of running the EAG continue to dwindle and it’s time to pass a bit more of the savings on to you. I’ve again lowered the price of back issues to $1.00 each for any quantity.
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Those of you on Genie know that things are not going terribly well there, and that Syndicomm is setting up an Apple II operation on Delphi. Delphi is run by some very good people who seem to really understand the business, and everyone is very upbeat about the new Apple II forums.
Delphi has very attractive pricing and a wide range of access options. While Delphi does not permit the degree of organization we enjoyed on Genie, everything we need will be there. Not least in consideration is the fact that Delphi uses a threaded message system, which many feel is superior to Genie’s strictly chronological message boards.
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I have always done this newsletter 100% from start to finish on my Apple IIe. As some of you may remember from issues past, it’s sometimes a challenge to get a high quality copy because of the unpredictable way that photocopiers handle dot-matrix print.
I think that, on the whole, the newsletter has looked pretty good, but I have a new option now. I recently purchased an inkjet printer for my PC. The printed output of the inkjet is markedly superior to the dot-matrix, and I am giving consideration to the idea of moving the newsletter work from the IIe onto the PC.
Doing the newsletter on the PC would result in a better looking product, but I have always felt that Apple II publications should be done from start to finish on Apple II’s.
I would welcome your input on the subject.
EAMON ADVENTURER'S GUILD
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
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. We make quarterly Eamon adventure giveaways to the best contributions.
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 before release. An informal critique and disk with bug corrections will be returned. Once released, you will be given any Eamon Adventure of your choice in exchange, and may be awarded several Eamon Adventures if your Eamon is of superior quality.
BACK ISSUES:
NEUC 'Adventurer's Log':
Mar'84, May'84, Aug'84, Oct'84, Jan'85, Mar'85
May'85, Aug'85, Oct'85, Jun'86, Jan'87, Oct'87
EAG back issues: 1988: -Jun, Sep, Dec
1989,'90,'91,'92,'93: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
1994,'95,'96,'97: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
1998: Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec
Price: EAG members: $1.00 each (NEW PRICE!)
non-members: $2.00 each
Dungeon Designs
A Flaw in the PUT Command
A programming compromise was made with the way that the PUT command handles the weight of the artifact, to wit, it doesn’t bother to do so. In other words, when the player PUTs an artifact into a container, he is not relieved of that artifact’s weight.
This was judged to be an acceptable trade-off in relation to the amount of programming that would have been required to handle every possible case of opening containers and putting things into them. In actual practice, most artifacts are of low weight, plot development almost never cares about weight carried, and the impact is minimal.
However, if your Eamon requires the player to PUT some heavy artifacts, things can quickly reach the point where he can’t pick up anything at all because his WT allocation is still loaded with the weight of things he’s put elsewhere. This can be fixed during play by doing a DROP ALL, but that is hardly an elegant solution.
There are no easy fixes for this that don’t involve either a lot of programming or some trade-offs somewhere along the line. Probably the easiest way to fix it would be to forbid putting the heavy objects in any carryable container (or have no carryable containers at all), and to add this line to the MAIN PGM: 21135 IF A%(A,4) < > - 1 THEN WT = WT - A%(Z,3)
This line will reduce the weight carried if the player is not carrying the container.
If you think about it a minute, I’m sure you will see that weight handling of carryable containers is a real can of worms that is best avoided in the design phase whenever possible.
Eamon Walk-Through
A Walk-Through of Eamon #114 “Thror’s Ring”
First, for those who want to solve it them- selves, here are some hints:
This Eamon makes full use of the “embedded” type of artifacts that are mentioned only in the room descriptions. It also “nests” some embedded artifacts; these are not mentioned in the room descriptions but only in the descriptions of other artifacts. For example, there is a lamp in the Southron camp in the glen near the start. You will do well to learn how to work through the descriptions and find that lamp; it’s the key to how this Eamon works.
There’s no HEAL command and the Miruvor won’t go real far, so go easy on it. POWER is good for getting you out of serious trouble and has no downside, but it won’t last long either.
There are several traps and such in there, but there are warnings, so watch for them in the room descriptions. Eventually you’ll have to brave most of them to find the key to the Quest, but with just a bit of luck you’ll carry through all right.
You NEED your companions. Each has special abilities that you lack. Take good care of them, and they’ll take good care of you. The Miruvor and Power spell are meant for the good of all, not just you.
As noted in the BUILDER’S NOTES, the doors are not “real” artifacts, but they work just like real ones.
A very early SAVE is a good idea. If you get in serious trouble, it’s a lot quicker to restart a saved game than to start from scratch.
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Let’s begin the Walk-through:
In case you didn’t get it, the Quest’s object is to recover a magical ring of great power from an abandoned underground stronghold that is now overrun with every type of Evil.
This walk-through doesn’t hit on everything in the dungeon but concentrates on the shortest path to success. There are alternate paths, and there’s a lot to see and do in rooms that are not or only briefly mentioned.
First, note well what you’re told by the Lady in the introduction. She’s given you a healing potion, and somehow enhanced your POWER spell, but it will now work just five times.
Once the adventure starts, check out the command list. No HEAL spell! Try the INFO command. Note the other new commands, and examine the Miruvor to find out how many doses it contains.
Begin the journey. Go North into the glen and kill the Southrons. Examine the camp. The camp’s description mentions a tent, so let’s examine that too. The tent is real! Open it. A lamp! Get it.
Proceed West to the Dimrill Dale. The Mirromere is pretty, but that’s all. Go North. Oops, you can see in the distance that the main gate is heavily guarded. Let’s look around for another entrance. Go back South.
An unguarded side door! That’s more like it. Go West and enter here. Dispatch the Uruks. Grab the torch and light your lamp. Head North, then cross the bridge.
(If you try foolish things such as stepping off into the chasm, or try paths that look “most unwise” like the path north of the gate, your companions will usually save you. The more times you risk death, the less the chance of surviving such actions, but odds are good that you’ll make it to the end.)
Nothing on the west side worth noting. Head on West up the stair. Try North from the top of the stair. Nope, no good. How about South? No good either. West it is.
North and South from the next room are also dead ends, so it’s West down the passage some more.
(If you’re exploring as you go, be sure to keep your companions healthy, or at least alive with the Miruvor. Besides their considerable fighting prowess, their presence will greatly ease certain aspects of play. In a real pinch, resurrect them with the POWER spell.)
North was definitely a bad idea! How about South? A chest! Examine it. Read the runes. Hmm, whatever is in there sounds like a magical weapon, so let’s get it. It’s locked! There must be a key somewhere, so let’s move on down the passage and look around some more.
Next down the passage is a south room covered with carvings. Better EXAMINE CARVINGS; such relief could cover…a secret passage! Head South! Oops, a cave troll! Kill him. Let’s postpone further exploration from here for now and go back North through the carvings again, and go West down the passage.
Hmm, the stonework isn’t so good here. A secret passage? EXAMINE CRACKS. Yes! Go South. A hidden armory! What, more poor stonework? Go West into the twice-hidden armory. A look around just reveals an old steel mail shirt. What’s the big deal here? There’s something else to notice about this room– it doesn’t list any room exits. Try going West.
You find a mail shirt made from mithril, a metal both wondrously light and strong. Examine the medallion and read the runes. Dragon fire? A magical shirt! Get the shirt and wear it.
But wait, wasn’t there more here? Examine the bones. Keys! Get the key ring, and head back to the chest. Open the chest, get Yrchost, and ready it.
OK, we’re loaded for bear now. Head back West through that door by the cracks. Take a look north and south. Nothing south, but an odd hole in the floor to the north. Head on west out of the chamber. Open the W DOOR and continue West. Check out the Chamber. Another hole! Continue West. Yrchost glows! A warning?
Boy, that door sure looks dangerous. It turns out, however, that you can’t progress further until you go through it. Go West through the door.
YOW! This is no place to be! Wait a minute, what’s that on the floor there? Grab the hook! The fighting won’t last long at these odds, so invoke the POWER spell!
Hnh. That wasn’t so bad. Let’s go try out that hook on those holes. The command is PUT HOOK IN HOLE. The one in chamber two doesn’t pan out. Back to the first chamber. A stair! Down we go, all the way to the bottom.
Proceed to the first intersection. Avoid any direction that refers to a “maze of tunnels”; it’s not kidding. The maze is rather large and quite pointless. Go West twice, then North twice. Yrchost glows!
A dragon! Looks like time to earn your pay. Make sure that you’re in pretty good health, wearing the mithril shirt and have Yrchost readied, and go East through the door.
Attack Mograf! If you’re swinging Yrchost and have Galehir at your side, the battle should be a short one. Darn, the stupid dragon fell on his hoard. Oh, well. EXAMINE HOARD and get the good stuff.
Time to head for home. If you’re inclined to check the other rooms, there’s a huge mithril ingot and a hand-barrow down in the mines, too. Then head back up the stairs.
Oh, no, someone has closed and locked the east door! We’ll have to find another exit. Go West and take that south exit we skipped earlier.
Go South through the Records Chamber, then East as far as you can. Another locked gate. Go back West once, then North. The Defaced Room! Go North through the wall.
Now we’re on the other side of that locked door. Retrace your steps back to the beginning, and return to Forest Lothlorien. You’ve won!
Bugs’n’Fixes
#11 The Tomb of Molinar Date Fixed: 11/2/96
Problem: NO BUFFERS error if try to get mirror. Fix: Add/change these lines:
4318 PRINT DK$"CLOSE"
4395 PRINT DK$"CLOSE"
Also, the speed-up mods were added. ____________
#62 The Caverns of Doom Date Fixed: 10/16/96
Problem: No exit from caves. Fix: Make these changes to the database:
Room 96: Add THERE IS A DOOR NORTH. to the description. Add NORTH: 97 to the directions. Room 98: Add THE WAY HOME LIES NORTH. to the description. ____________
#89 Superfortress of Lin Wang Date Fixed: 10/15/96
The Speed-Up mods were added. ____________
#94 Blood Feud Date Fixed: 10/19/96
Problem: DISK FULL error when saving game. Fix: Delete DOS from the disk.
Eamon Reviews
#72 House on Eamon Ridge by Tim Berge
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5.0 Extra Commands: Deleted Commands: conventional EXAMINE, no SAVE Special Features: None Playing Time: 2 hours and up Reviewer Rating: 3.0 Average Rating: 4.5/2
Description: “Hearing tales of great adventure in a place called Eamon Bluff you set off to find this ancient place.
“You come upon two paths thick in fog. One leads past an old cemetery and past a well. The other path goes deeper into the fog, and a deathly silence overtakes you.”
Comment: This Eamon has much of the vivid imagery that Tim does so well. He’s quite good at generating atmosphere. But, unfortunately, this Eamon was released before it was completed. I recently talked with Tim, and he said that it was never finished because he had lost access to an Apple computer at the time.
But even apart from that, this is an uncommonly difficult Eamon. There are several death traps, some without warning. There is a nasty gimmick that turns all of your companions against you without warning. The bad guys are absurdly strong; many had hardiness ratings in the 200-300 range. One had a hardiness of 910!
The map is a bit of a mess, with several mismarked exits, and I wound up trying every direction in every room to ensure that I didn’t miss anything because of incorrect exit descriptions.
This is an older Eamon, and it requires the typing of full commands with no abbreviations. This isn’t normally all that bad, but there are several name misspellings that drove me nuts because I kept typing them correctly.
In the end, I had to throw in the towel. By the time I had exhausted my leads and my ideas I had still not seen 19 of the 100 rooms and could not get past several “force walls”. And it didn’t help any that the program crashed 5 or 6 times with OUT OF MEMORY stack overflows during play (but the simple POKE51,0:GOTO100
restart command got me going again every time). I was left with the strong impression that this Eamon does deserve its (10) difficulty rating.
Here are a few hints that I gathered:
- Take the cemetery route.
- Don’t go down the well until you can find nothing else to do.
- You’ll take a life-threatening hit every time you enter the anteroom off the front door.
It’s too bad that this Eamon wasn’t finished. It’s got a lot of Good Stuff in it. But it’s just too hard. ____________
#85 The Time Portal by Ed Kuypers
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5.0 Extra Commands: UNLOCK Special Features: None Playing Time: 1-2 hours Reviewer Rating: 5.0 Average Rating: 5.0/2
Description: “I’ve heard from a few of the boys that you’re looking for something to do to ‘pass the time’. Well I’ve got something you just might be interested in, old buddy!
“I’ve heard that the boys down at the Science Institute have made a fantastic discovery. They’ve come up with a wonderful new time machine!!! This machine is supposed to be able to take you to places you never dreamed were possible.”
Comment: This Eamon is actually a conglomeration of three small Eamon dungeons linked together through the “time portals”. The three themes are movie monsters, movie cavemen, and Star Trek.
Each of them was smallish, of course, with very similar-feeling, unimaginative maps. There were a few specials that upped the rating somewhat, though. The CLOSE and DRINK commands are pretty useless, so don’t expect too much from them.
I guess it gets a (5) for difficulty, too. Be sure to read the descriptions carefully, as each place has a death trap that is described before you get nailed by it.
#88 The Shopping Mall by Allan Porter
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6.0 Extra Commands: None Special Features: None Playing Time: 5-15 min. Reviewer Rating: 1.0 Average Rating: 1.0/4
Description: “By the whim of whatever gods or spirits control your destiny, you have been chosen to enter… THE SHOPPING MALL”
Comment: Here we have a leisurely stroll through a shopping mall. I’d bet that it reflects a real mall somewhere, and that the store clerks are real people. As for content, we’ve got 17 store clerks and ONE artifact. No one to fight, no puzzles to solve, nothing to find. There is one rather bizarre side path to a little cabin with an underground tunnel that contains nothing but seemed to spring from the author’s childhood memories.
Strangely enough, it’s very well written. But it’s pointless and BORING. Difficulty of (1). ____________
#89 Superfortress of Lin Wang by Sam Bhayani
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 6.0 Extra Commands: HELP Deleted Commands: Non Extra Commands:0 min. Reviewer Rating: 3.0 Average Rating: 3.9/4
Description: “You are now in Japan. A tyrant, Lin Wang, recently seized power there, by force. He built a huge fortress, so that no one could harm him. You must avoid his karate experts (ranging from white to black belt), his Samurai and Ninja guards, captains, and generals, and you must avoid his Oriental and Komodo dragons. Finally, you must kill Lin Wang and escape his fortress.
Comment: This is straight Hack’n’slash fare. No puzzles, no secret passages, just lots and lots of combat.
I confess that I was put off from the beginning by Sam’s use of a Chinese name for a Japanese bad guy, and it didn’t help that the punctuation is all over the map. Also, every one of the dead bodies had the same spacing error.
It’s an OK Eamon, but not a great one. Once you’ve killed one Ninja, you killed them all, so to speak. Sam added some bits to his narrative, such as gratuitously calling me a coward in the middle of an empty passage, that didn’t set well with me, either.
There is a lot of combat here, so you may want to bring along a good set of magic weapons. Given a good magic sword, I peg the difficulty at (6). ____________
#94 Blood Feud by Rick Krebs
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 5.0 Extra Commands: READ, OPEN, UNLOCK, USE Deleted Commands: None Special Features: Sav Extra Commands:: 5.0
Description: “A Gnome takes three hours to fill you in on the history of Blood Feud Castle and the rivalry between the Pozzis and the Spanners. Now he gets to his point. The evil Suedo Guru has stolen the Rod of Stupidity from the Royal Depository and he has taken up residence in Blood Feud Castle.
“Should you succeed in recovering the Rod you will be given the title of Knight of the Realm, and all will call you ‘sir’. You may keep all possessions that you find, and that includes an amulet that has the power of increasing all your attributes!!
“Since this mission is quite difficult you will have the advantage of leaving the castle and returning to the Main Hall to heal, without disturbing the castle.”
Comment: I have no idea what all that is about in regards to a feud. You see no one other than the Guru’s guards and some oddball allies and monsters. There are a bunch of sporting artifacts lying about plus some other stuff which makes me think that it all might have something to do with wherever Rick was going to school at the time he wrote this thing.
It has 99 rooms and takes a while to explore. You have two options to save. As Rick wrote it, he intended that you save the game by returning to the Main Hall, and this does work well. When you relaunch the adventure, it picks up right where you left off. However, someone has also added the normal type of save routine. NOTE: see the bug fixes in this issue!
It’s an OK Eamon but nothing special. Some of the bad guys are really tough, so be sure to pack your magical weapons. Between the tough guys and a couple of death traps, it gets a (7) for difficulty. ____________
#96 The Chamber of the Dragons - Brian Kondalski
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0 Extra Commands: None Deleted Commands: None, no SAVE Special Features: None Playing Time: 10 min. Extra Commands: 2.3/3
Description: Explore the Chamber of the Dragons.
Comment: This is a very simple Hack’n’Slash foray. There are 21 rooms, simple treasures and no puzzles apart from one “hidden” room that is hinted at in the previous room’s description.
This would be an excellent choice for the Young Eamonaut. The low ratings reflect low content rather than a quality problem. A difficulty rating of (1). ____________
#101 Ground Zero by “Sam”
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0 Extra Commands: OPEN, SWIM, EAT, UNLOCK, EAT, EXITS, READ Deleted Commands: none, no SAVE Special Features: None Playing Time: 30-60 min. Reviewer Rating: 2.0 Extra Commands: Description: “You are probably beginning to think that you should not have come here. Too late!!! There has been a full scale nuclear war where you are going and are just about to get close to what is known as GROUND ZERO.
“I am not sure how to get back to the Main Hall from here, or even if you can get back, or even survive. You probably wish that you didn’t come here. Now. Too late! There is no turning back now.”
Comment: This is a strange Eamon. It is set in the present, and you find yourself near the flat crater of a nuclear blast. You explore a sleazy night club and also a tunnel that inexplicably services both the anti-nuke “good guys” and the “evil” military installation.
The stance of this Eamon is that the military is a bunch of idiots who believe that nuclear weapons can’t hurt you. The anti-nuclear energy, anti-military preaching got real old real quick.
Even so, the two things that really shot it down in my estimation were a huge number of useless rooms to explore and quite a few bad room connections. The stupid nightclub seemed to go on forever and was staffed. Also, the treasures seemed inappropriate for a setting right next to a fresh nuclear bomb crater.
Difficulty of (2) if you play the author’s game and avoid doing anything that might expose you to radiation or pollution. ____________
#102 The Eamon Railroad by “Sam”
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0 Extra Commands: None Deleted Commands: None Special Features: None Playing Time: 20-30 min. Reviewer Rating: 2.0 Average Rating: 2.2/5 Extra Commands:ke a tour on the Eamon Railroad. The train makes five stops and you get to explore each one.
Comment: It’s a novel idea and actually not badly done, but the content is extremely low here. The setting is contemporary and there is darned little to see or do. The excitement of hanging out at any old train station is about what you would expect in real life.
By the time I reached the last stop, I found myself wondering why I bothered to explore it.
Difficulty of (2). ____________
#104 The Lost World by “Sam”
Reviewed by Tom Zuchowski
MAIN PGM Version: 4.0 Extra Commands: OPEN, SWIM, EAT, UNLOCK, EAT, EXITS, READ Deleted Commands: none, no SAVE Special Features: None Playing Time: 10-60 min. Reviewer Rating: 2.0 Average Rating: 1.5/2
“If you survive and get back home, try not to let the real world suffer the same fate that has befallen this world.”
Comment: If you can’t tell from the stats above, this Eamon uses exactly the same MAIN PGM as Eamon #101. It even has the same number of rooms. It has the same good guy, some scientist named Sally, and everyone else is a guard or a wacko.
This was mildly painful to play. It is insufferably preachy about the Evil of nuclear power and the Goodness of solar and hydro power. All the nuke facilities are, of course, in horrible shape, and all the alternative energy facilities are showplaces. Sheesh.
It’s a stupid Eamon and only worth a play if you are working on playing the entire set. I give it a (4) for difficulty because of all the hits taken from radiation, but if you stay out of the nuke facilities, it’s more like a (2).