Orthanc: Magic Items

I'm chugging along at a nice pace on Orthanc now, having mapped level 5 and most of level 6.  I'm using my spells more effectively, and I'm also taking the game's comprehensive documentation into account by checking the stats of monsters before I decide how to tackle them.  Basically, I'm playing smarter, and I'm losing fewer characters because of it.  It's not only the spells that are keeping me alive, though: it's also the magic items I've found, and they're what I'm going to write about today.

Equipping my Light Ring.  Note that I also have a +2 sword.

Magic items in Orthanc come in four categories: boots, equipment, manuals and rings.

Boots: Boots are equipped in the dungeon by pressing 'B'.  (For the longest time I hadn't realised that you need to equip magic items, so I was finding them and wondering why they didn't do anything.  Read the instructions, kids.)  You can only wear one set of boots at a time, so you have to make a trade-off, and pick whichever one you think will be best in the current situation.

Elven Boots: These boots make you completely silent.  You can avoid all wandering monsters, but not those that are stationed in one place.  They're useful for when you're trying to escape the dungeon, as you will most probably have a clear path back to the surface as long as you retrace your steps; if that's the case, wandering monsters are the only ones you might encounter.

Boots of Speed: These work just like the Speed spell, giving you the first strike in combat and allowing you to move faster.  In the last post I wrote about how a lot of the spells have durations that are too short to be of much practical use.  Magic items are the remedy for that, as a lot of them replicate spells, but function permanently.

Boots of Levitation: Give you the power of Levitation, permanently.  Perfect for when you're exploring unfamiliar territory, and don't want to fall down a chute.

Equipment: This inaptly named category contains magical weapons and armour.  You can find weapons, shields and armour of +1, +2 or +3 value, which is D&D as hell: the original D&D booklets only went up to +3, so Orthanc is sticking close to the source.  There's also a Mythical Arrow of Slaying.  You can carry up to 31 of these, and they'll automatically kill any creature of the Mythical type.  That category includes Balrogs and Dragons, so yeah, I'd like to have a few stocked up for lower levels.  I haven't found any yet, though.

Books: I haven't found a single one of these yet.  Most of them raise your stats, and there's one for each (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Constitution).  There's also the Book of Vile Darkness (another lift from D&D) that permanently lowers your hit points by half.  That sounds nasty, but as I said, I haven't found any books.  There may be a clue to let you know when you have the cursed book, but I doubt it.  These PLATO games can be unforgiving.

Rings: Magic rings, much like the boots, can only be worn one at a time, and are equipped by pressing 'R'.

Ring of Light: Works like a permanent Light spell.  My current character has one of these, and it's indispensable, allowing me to see every secret door, and where all the monsters are standing.  It's great for letting you pick a safe path, and for avoiding battle when you're low on resources.

Ring of Protection: Makes you harder to hit, basically, just like the Protection spell.

Ring of Invisibility: Wearing this ring gives you the spell Invisibility, permanently, meaning that you're completely immune from attack.  I want one so much - it would make mapping a breeze.

Ring of Regeneration: Restores 1 hit point for every 25 moves.  Your hit points and magic restore even without this ring, but it takes 400 moves for every point.  The ring makes things a lot faster.

The instructions inform me that magic items can be lost after battle, and are gone forever, but I haven't had this happen to me yet.  I guess I'm just lucky?  Hopefully I haven't jinxed it.

There's a wide variety of items here, much more than in pedit5, and about on par with dnd.  The latter had a tendenct for magic items to be cursed, and blow up in your face, but Orthanc has avoided that, mercifully.  The ones I've found so far have been really helpful, and there's a little bit of thought involved in which ones to wear.  It's a pretty robust system.

Orthanc: Spells

If there's one common thread when it comes to surviving in these PLATO RPGs, it's this: spells are your most important resource.  In all three games I've played, combat has been little more than a process of trading blows until one combatant falls, so spells are the only tactical option you have.  Once they're gone, you're at the mercy of random chance, and that's a quick way to die.

Orthanc is no different in that regard, and it probably has the most varied range of spells I've encountered in the blog so far.  There are four levels of spells, and characters begin with four "units" with which to cast them.  A 1st-level spell costs one unit, 2nd-level costs 2, and so on.  You begin the game with access to all of the spells, but as you gain levels your spell units increase, so you cast more before your resources are depleted.

The spells are divided into combat and non-combat, so that's how I'll split my examination of them.

COMBAT SPELLS:

1st Level:

Charm: This spell is an automatic kill, but it only works on Men and Goblin-Types (the monsters are organised into categories, as I've mentioned before).  It also fails 30-50% of the time.  I haven't used it a great deal.  Most of the Men and Goblins I've encountered are weak enough to be defeated with a Sleep spell, and the rest I usually take out with more direct damage-dealing magic.  It probably won't use it at all, because there's a more effective version at 2nd level.

Sleep: Sleep gives you an instant victory against any foe of 4th level or less, except for Undead.  It always works, and it's the key to surviving the earliest stages of the game.  It's still the spell I use the most.

Magic Missile: A simple blasting spell that deals 2-20 points of damage per hit.  Against Undead it does double that, which has been enough to wipe out most of the nasties I've encountered.  It's a great spell that takes care of the one weak spot of Sleep.

2nd Level:

Hold Person: This works exactly like Charm, but it only fails 10-30% of the time.  Since it only costs 1 point more, I'll probably default to this version when I start encountering more powerful monsters.

Pray: Increases your ability to hit for a single combat, and is twice as effective against Undead.  I haven't noticed a great deal of difference when using this spell; I seem to hit more often than not even without it.

Protection:  This spell decreases the chance you'll be hit in combat, and just like Pray it works better against Undead.  Also like Pray, I haven't noticed much difference when I use it.  It lasts for 24 turns, though, which is better than a single combat.

3rd Level:

Hold Monster: Works like Charm, but it affects Animals and Insects.  I may start using this against Animals on deeper dungeon levels, but to be honest none of the Insects are very powerful.

Blast Bolt: Dishes out a whopping 5-60 points of damage, and double that against Undead.  This is the first spell I whip out against enemies to strong for Sleep.  What can I say, I like to make certain.

4th Level:

Dimension Door: This spell teleports your foe just outside the room you're in.  It fails 20-40% percent of the time, but it can be handy for surviving the battles you know you can't win.  The problem is, why would I ever use it when I have the very next spell?

Teleport: This spell works much like Dimension Door, but it teleports the target further away and fails more often.  The thing is, when it does fail it whisks you away to safety.  It's invaluable for survival in some situations, especially against Animated types, which are immune to all but 4th-level spells.

NON-COMBAT SPELLS:

1st Level:

Cure: Restores from 1-7 hit points, apparently modified by your Intelligence score.  This is another spell that gets superseded by a better spell later on, so I haven't cast it much.

Levitation: Pits and chutes abound in the dungeon, and getting dumped to a lower level that you haven't explored is a real pain.  Levitation lets you avoid that.  You can skip pits entirely, and it gives you the option of using a chute or not.  The only problem is that it lasts for just 12 moves.  It's barely worth casting.

Depth: This spell simply tells you what level you're on.  It's really helpful after you've just fallen down a chute.

Light: Reveals secret doors, and also shows what squares have monsters in them.  It's great to have on during exploration, especially if you want to avoid combat, but it only lasts for 24 turns.

Using a Light spell.  There's a secret door below me, 
and a monster lurking above.

2nd Level:

Speed: Lets you move faster (meaning that your spells last longer) and gives you the first turn in combat.  That first turn is important.  Sometimes you get jumped by a monster, and it can kill you before you even get a chance to react.  It doesn't happen much if you have a high Dexterity, but the chance is still there.  But again, it only lasts for 18 turns.

Find Traps: This spell is great, and I'd love it if it lasted for longer than 6 turns.  Every time you move, the spell gives you an indication of what's in the squares surrounding you, whether it be a pit, a chute, stairs or nothing at all.  I'd use it all the time, but it's just not worth the spell units for such a short duration.

Serious Cure: This works like Cure, but you can choose how many spell units to spend.  Each unit spent restores 1-7 hit points.  It's a good spell that renders the lower level version obsolete.

3rd Level:

ESP: You can use this spell to discover what lurks behind walls and doors.  I haven't found much use for it, as there are other more effective ways of avoiding monsters.

Using ESP on the wall just above me.

Continuous Light: Works just like Light, but it never runs out.  This is the only non-combat spell that I use all the time.

Pass Wall: Lets you move through a single wall.  It can be handy for exploration, or taking shortcuts, but on the whole I don't use it a lot.  I expect that won't change, unless there are more inaccessible map areas on the lower dungeon levels.

4th Level:

Pass Floor: With this spell you can pass through the floor to the next dungeon level down.  I can't see much use for it.  I don't need to explore a lower dungeon level until I've fully mapped out the current one I'm on, and it uses too many spell units to be a worthwhile shortcut.

Pass Ceiling: This, on the other hand, can be a life saver.  Quite a number of times I've fallen through a chute to a lower level and used this spell to return to familiar territory.

Invisibility: This spell lets you avoid all enemies, and could come in really useful when making a quick flight out of the dungeon.  It's not as useful as it might be, because the rooms you clear out usually stay cleared out, leaving a safe route to the surface if you retrace your steps.  But for those times when you get caught in a dungeon level that has just respawned, it could save your life.  I'll have to remember it the next time that happens.

40 Years of Whisenwood Dungeon

I was logging in to my PLATO emulator earlier today to play some Orthanc, and this is the screen that it opened with:

What a lovely tribute to The Game of Dungeons, also known as dnd.  It's nice to see the folks at Cyber1 giving the game a little bit of love.

Orthanc: Maps Maps Lovely Maps

I've been playing a decent amount of Orthanc through the week, but I don't have a lot to say about it right now.  I haven't experimented with the non-combat spells like I had planned, and though I've found some magical items I haven't really messed around with those much, either.  I've just been exploring and mapping.  Currently I'm in the middle of level 5, and though I'm exercising caution I keep getting myself killed.  The chief culprits are: A) chutes that dump me on levels I haven't mapped yet; B) levels that respawn unexpectedly when I'm low on spells; and C) animated monsters that are immune to all but 4th level magic.  So with little progress made and not much to write about, I'm just going to throw up the maps of the first four levels.

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

If there's one thing I love in old-school RPGs that I miss now, it's mapping grid-based dungeons.  I used to do them by hand on graph paper, but now I use an Excel spreadsheet.  It's something I started doing a few years ago while playing through Bard's Tale III, and I find that it works pretty well.  Occasionally I've run into problems when there are a lot of things to note about a single square, but that hasn't been an issue with any of the PLATO games.

It's a simple system: I use black lines for the walls, brown lines for regular doors and blue lines for secret doors.  The pits marked with a P are traps that deal a small amount of damage, but they can be avoided with a Levitate spell.  The maps are all the same size (24x20), and every square is used, but the stairs and chutes don't match up between levels.

Looking at the maps, I'm reminded of the small, blocked off section in the lower right-hand corner of level 4.  I used a Pass Wall spell to get in there, not realising that I only had 1 spell point, which would leave me without the ability to get back out again.  This is the first part of the dungeon I've encountered that hasn't had some sort of door leading in or out.  I was trapped, but luckily for me I didn't turn the game off and create a new character.  Instead I ran back and forth banging my head against the walls, hoping for some sort of miracle to save me.  The miracle came, as I found out the hard way that hit points and spell points slowly regenerate in the dungeon.  After a few minutes of shuffling from one end of my prison to the other I had the spell points I needed to escape, and I was high-tailing it back to the surface.  I was honestly surprised that the game was so forgiving.

I'm going to continue mapping, and I also plan to check out the non-combat spells.  Not only might they help me to survive longer, but they'll give me something to write about next week.

Orthanc: Like The Dungeon, But Not Quite

After my summer hiatus I'm playing Orthanc again, and progressing in fits and starts.  Technically I could have completed the game already; I've had several characters advance to the point where they could have retired to live with the king.  But I said I was going to map all ten dungeon levels of this game, and by hell that's what I'm going to do.

The problem is that I keep dying, and as with all of the PLATO games so far there's no way to recover a character once it's dead.  I'm currently mapping level 4 of the dungeon, but every death sets me back to square one, and I have to grind my character up again until he's strong enough to survive on the lower levels.  Thankfully it doesn't take all that long to advance.  One decent haul of gems or jewelry can be worth a few thousand experience points, enough to gain one or two levels.  It gets frustrating after the third or fourth time I have to do it in a single night, though.

My first impression of this game was that it played like a slightly more advanced version of The Dungeon, and I stand by that.  The game retains much of the same game-play, and a lot of the same features.  Combat is still a simple case of attacking round after round, with the only tactical option being your spells.  The option to flee is still determined by whether you're in a room or corridor (you can't flee in a room).  Most notably, the dungeon doesn't refill straight away after you leave.  Just like in The Dungeon, the rooms you clear out stay cleared out (at least for a time), and you have to foray ever deeper to find more treasure.  On the positive side, it makes retreating to the surface a lot easier.  Unlike The Dungeon, a dungeon level will be restocked with monsters once you clear most of it out, and this can be deadly if you're caught too far from the stairs when it happens.  You'll have to fight your way to the surface, often with depleted hit points and spell power.  I've lost a few characters in this way.

One of the biggest differences comes with the variety of monsters.  In The Dungeon there were a total of 36 monsters in six categories.  They were little more than sacks of hit points that could damage you, with a few spell immunities thrown in.  Orthanc mostly continues that trend, but the number of monsters has greatly increased, as well as becoming slightly more interesting.

The monsters are organised into eight categories: nasty bugs (spiders, scorpions, etc.), man-types (starting with warriors and bandits, and working up to titans and elvenlords), goblin-types (kobolds, orcs, ogres, etc.), animals (a very inclusive category ranging from real-world creatures like rats to slimes and mythical beasts), undead (featuring all the usual suspects), mythical types (which funnily enough includes some genuine mythical creatures, as well as some D&D monsters that Gary Gygax came up with), magic users (conjurers, druids) and animated types (such as golems).  In total there are 100 different monsters, and while most of them are differentiated only by their icons, their hit point totals and the amount of damage they can deal, the game finds several ways to differentiate them.

Continuing the grand tradition begun in The Game of Dungeons: 
computer nerds as dungeon monsters

The most obvious of these is done via the categories.  Undead are immune to the otherwise great Sleep spell, but take double damage from Magic Missile and Blastbolt.  Magic users get double the amount of normal attacks in the first round of combat, to simulate their spell-casting.  The animated types are immune to the first three spell levels, and this makes them especially difficult to defeat.  All of the damage-dealing spells are in the first three levels.  The only fourth level combat spells are Teleport and Dimension Door, both of which act by transporting the monster elsewhere on the same dungeon level (Teleport moves the monster further away, but has a higher chance of failure).  If that option fails, you have no option but to fight the creature in melee combat (and all of the animated types are really strong).

A more subtle method of differentation is done by varying the different combinations of hit points and damage output.  Most of the monsters have both values on a  fairly even level, but there are other examples such as the spider, which only has 1 hit point but can deal up to 20 points of damage, more than enough to kill most first- or second-level characters.  At the other end of the spectrum is the Willowisp, which can have hit points ranging from 15 to 150, but deals a meagre 1-3 points of damage per round.  Or the Fairy, which has from 31 to 961 hit points, but seemingly has no ability to do damage at all.

Every monster has a level (yes, I know it gets confusing with spell levels, monster levels, character levels and dungeon levels.).  The game tells you the monster's level whenever you encounter one, so you do have some guide as to whether you can handle it or not.  Monsters are pretty easy to deal with on the first couple of dungeon levels, as a Sleep spell is an auto-kill on most of the things you'll encounter.  Naturally the monsters get stronger the deeper you go, and any monster stronger than level 4 is immune to Sleep.  There's nothing as terrifying in the game as landing on a chute, and being sent to a deeper level of the dungeon.  Invariably it will be a level that I haven't mapped, with monsters that are too strong for me.  It's my own fault for not using Levitation to avoid them, I guess.

Falling to my probable doom.

While my progress is slow, I am at last making constant progress in mapping the dungeon.  And I do love a dungeon game that can be mapped to a grid.  It's a small pleasure, but it's one that's carrying me through this game at the moment.  I feel like I've got a handle on how Orthanc works now, and I should be able to speed things up.  If I experiment with the spells a bit more I might do even better. 

The Games of Summer

I haven't posted here in a while, so you'd think that upon my return I'd have plenty to say about Orthanc, the game I was playing when I last posted.  I'm still playing Orthanc, and I should have a post up about it next week, but most of my gaming over the summer (yep, I'm a southern hemispherian) was done in other areas.  So this week I'm going to do some capsule reviews of the games I played when I should have been playing Orthanc.

Castlevania: I've played this game a lot over the years, but I decided late last year that I was going to knuckle down and finish it without the aid of save states.  It didn't take too long; it's a short game, and not particularly difficult once the trick to beating the bosses is discovered (i.e. spam them with holy water).  I've always been impressed with this as a top-notch platformer, but what struck me this time around is just how well-designed it is.  The platforms and the background elements mesh together perfectly, in a way that most other platformers neglect; you won't find a single floating platform that doesn't have a logical reason to be where it is.  Little touches like that transform a very good game into a great one.

Castlevania II - Simon's Quest: I enjoyed Castlevania II, but this is a game with problems.  Konami tried to expand the series by adding more adventure game elements, and the result was mixed.  The game has a great atmosphere, and the game-play is still pretty good, but the game itself is just far too obtuse.  The solutions to the various puzzles aren't intuitive at all, and that's not helped by the fact that most of the villagers' hints are outright lies.  Technically, the clues to completing this game are all there if you're willing to go around searching for secrets on every patch of ground.  In practice, you'll probably only stumble across the solutions by dumb luck.  I had to consult a walkthrough, I'm sorry to say.  There are plenty of things to like about this game, but overall the frustrating elements outweigh the fun ones.

WWE Supercard: This game consumed my life for about a month.  It's not that it's a good game; it's basically just a glorified version of top trumps.  It is addictive, however.  A match doesn't take long, and whether you win or lose you still get rewarded with more cards at the end.  More than once I found myself playing "just one more game", grinding for new cards for hours and hours, unable to bring myself to put the thing down.  I've broken away from it for the moment, but there's still a part of me that wants to play it right now.

Crossy Road: Speaking of phone games, this is a little indy game that plays somewhat like Frogger.  You have to guide your character across busy roads, log-jammed rivers and train tracks, all the while avoiding various obstacles and keeping on the move.  It's a lot of fun, and it has the same "short game/frequent reward" qualities as WWE Supercard.  Much of the fun stems from the number of characters that can be unlocked, ranging from normal animals, to vampires, robots, basketball players, internet memes and even weirder stuff.  Each character plays pretty much the same, but they all come with changes to the way the game looks and sounds. For example, when you use Frankenstein's Monster, the game turns black & white, and the screen crackles with film grain.  Crossy Road has a genuinely charming sense of humour that still has me coming back for more, trying to unlock the next character so that I can see what it does.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: I'm a massive fan of the Legend of Zelda series, having enjoyed all of the games from the original on NES up to Wind Waker.  It's one of my favourite game franchises of all time, which is why Twilight Princess is so frustrating.  This game bores me to tears.  It looks like a Zelda game, it sounds like one, it even plays like one; but even with all of these elements it feels as though the heart of the game is missing.  The game feels really linear, and I don't enjoy playing as a wolf, which is kind of the selling point.  I hate the cut-scenes, and the scripted encounters.  I've put in about 20 hours so far, and I really struggle to motivate myself to find time for it.  People tell me that Skyward Sword is even worse, so I'm not even looking forward to finishing this so I can move on to the next one.  Mainly I just wish the game would leave me alone to explore, and stop throwing so much damn plot at me.

My Top Ten Games

I don't have an update on Orthanc this week.  In addition to NaNoWriMo, I've developed an unhealthy obsession with the Legend of Zelda series.  Playing Orthanc has taken a back seat to all of that, and I haven't made a lot of progress since my last post.  I've mapped out the remainder of level two, and lost a few characters along the way, but it hardly merits a full post.

So instead of that, I'm going to break out the hoariest of chestnuts that a gaming blogger can break out: a list of my top ten games.  It might not be the most original thing, but I actually think it's beneficial to what I'm doing here.  If I'm going to give my opinions about a bunch of RPGs and adventure games and expect anyone to listen, it probably helps to lay out my all-time favourites so you can get a grip on my tastes.

So here goes, in no particular order.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I could very easily have chosen Ocarina of Time, but I had to give the edge to the SNES classic.  I just finished playing through it again for the umpteenth time, and even though I know it back-to-front it still reeled me in.  This is the Zelda franchise at its best, with the perfect balance between non-linear exploration and plot progression.  It's not as obscure as the earlier games, and it doesn't railroad like the later games can.  It just has one great big world to dive into, with more areas opening up as you progress and gain new items.  It's a masterpiece, as close to flawless as a game can get.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

There had to be an Ultima on this list, and I went with this one over Ultima IV.  It was a close call, but I'm trying not to let one series dominate the list.  As much as I loved Ultima IV, I don't think a game has ever sucked me in as hard as Warriors of Destiny.  I was physically shaking with anger at certain parts of this game, and I don't think I've ever wanted to kill a video game antagonist as much as Lord Blackthorn.  It's another game with a large, open world to explore, and that always wins points with me.  One of the best RPGs ever made.

Super Metroid

I fell in love with this game as soon as I loaded it into my SNES and that menacing, eerie music crept in.  Super Metroid just oozes atmosphere, and once again it has a large world to explore that opens up as you gain new items and abilities.  I spent countless hours combing this game for secrets, bombing walls and floors, and scanning everywhere.  I had to find everything, and eventually I did.  Man, just writing about this game makes me want to go back to it.  It's been a long time.

Pool of Radiance

There was inevitably going to be a Gold Box game on here, and despite its flaws I went with the original.  You might be noticing a pattern here, but it's the non-linearity of it that swayed me.  At first there are only a few areas to explore, but eventually the whole of the city of Phlan is open to you, and there's nothing stopping you from trying your luck in Valhingen Graveyard, or any other place too deadly for your party.  This is the best implementation of D&D yet done as a PC game, especially when it comes to the combat engine: they got it right the first time, and it's never been bettered.

Bard's Tale 3: The Thief of Fate

It could have been Bard's Tale I, but it took me while to warm up to that game's steep difficulty.  It was the third installment in the series that first grabbed my attention, as possibly the very first RPG I was utterly obsessed with.  Most of my high school years were spent playing this game, with coke and chips on one side and pen and graph paper on the other.  I still have those maps, and to this day I never quite feel right when I'm not mapping an RPG myself.  I never got all that far as a kid, but I roamed around those dungeons killing monsters for hours, making maps and amassing XP.  I eventually finished it, some 20 years later, and it was a hell of a satisfying experience.

Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap

The best reason to own a Sega Master System.  Wonder Boy 3 was a break from its platforming predecessors, presenting (let's say it again) an open world ripe for exploration.  You start the game being cursed into the form of a dragon, and must cycle through a number of forms during your quest before becoming a boy again.  It's a cracking good game that doesn't get enough love.

Mario Kart

The SNES original.  It's my favourite racing game of all time, and my favourite multi-player game of all time.  It still holds up, and Nintendo have yet to outdo it.

Quest for Glory

I had to include a Sierra game, and I agonised over the choice.  It could have been a King's Quest, or a Space Quest, but...  I went with Quest for Glory.  Or, to be more accurate, Hero's Quest, as I'm writing about the EGA original and not the VGA remake.  It's just a perfect adventure game.  The humour works, the puzzles are pitched at the right difficulty, and the skill system is integrated really well, providing a number of solutions to every problem.

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss

I'm kind of breaking my own rule here by including another Ultima, but this game is just too good.  If I'm being honest, the sequel is better, but there's something about the first one I just like more.  It gets points for innovation, being one of the earliest 1st-person 3D games (it beat Wolfenstein 3D by a few weeks, I believe, and with a much more advanced engine).  I love the dungeon setting, and the ability to interact with the environment.  I especially love the beginning, where you are thrown into the Abyss with nothing, forced to scrounge for weapons and food before being killed, or starving to death. So good.

The Last Ninja

I was an 80s kid, and the 80s there was one thing cooler than anything else: ninjas.  The Last Ninja was the best ninja-based computer game out there.  The soundtrack was killer.  Fighting past samurai, jumping from stone to stone over raging rivers, running from giant spiders in the prison, running past the samurai so that they commit seppuku...  The Last Ninja was rad!