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Glazius posted:What's the ogre even want golden eggs for?
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Aug 28, 2017 03:38
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Glazius posted:What's the ogre even want golden eggs for? The Ogre has a rare case of Reverse Midas, and can only eat gold things. You stole his breakfast, you monster.
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Aug 28, 2017 03:52
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Glazius posted:Is there a shady merchant who trades with anyone, even ogres?  The island is not a big place you can hide from an angry ogre in.
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Aug 28, 2017 03:59
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Want to convince someone something is valuable? Tell them that someone else values it. Who cares if the ogre can't actually spend the golden eggs? What matters is that everyone else would dearly love to have his golden egg-laying chicken, and they can't. This is the definition of (American) happiness.
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Aug 28, 2017 04:07
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Want to convince someone something is valuable? Tell them that someone else values it. Who cares if the ogre can't actually spend the golden eggs? What matters is that everyone else would dearly love to have his golden egg-laying chicken, and they can't. This is the definition of (American) happiness. Gold eggs are valuable to him because they are valuable to people. This is important to him, but not for status reason. Rather, he eats people, and they are an easier meal when they just show up at the door looking for gold eggs.
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Aug 28, 2017 05:05
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I thought Ogre's liked Onions.
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Aug 28, 2017 11:06
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"Treasure? I can eat?" "No, you can't eat treasure." "Then I not want. You can have."
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Aug 28, 2017 11:10
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Comstar posted:I thought Ogre's liked Onions. No no no, easily confused, they are like Onions because both of them have layers and.. 
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Aug 28, 2017 13:48
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 Hello everyone, and welcome back to King's Quest IV. Today's update is gonna be longer by necessity, but by the time we're finished, we'll be in the final stretch of the game. So let's not waste any time, yeah?  There was nothing stopping us from going in here last time, but it feels more correct to go in now that we have our third quest from Lolotte.  Inside, we find three green ladies who share a single eye. >look  : This is a dismal and dreary cave. Within it, reside three one-eyed old witches. In the center of the cave, over a hot fire, boils a foul-smelling brew inside a large black cauldron.I'm sure these three are meant to recall the three witches from Macbeth, but I grew up in the 90s and watched a lot of Disney movies as a kid. So all I can see are the Fates from Hercules. >look witches : Three, old one-eyed crones inhabit this dreary cave. They possess a glass eye, which they pass from one to another, that enables them to see. Through the glass eye, they each in turn peer at Rosella with a frightening mixture of curiosity and malice. One of the witches starts to chase you a second after you enter, so you have to play a deadly game of keep-away.  And naturally, this wouldn't be an AGI/SCI engine Sierra game without the game pausing every second you're near a source of fire to go OUCH.  Gonna be honest, I thought I was dead here.  >get eye : Rosella just manages to snatch the glass eye from the grasp of the old witches! Now they are totally blind and helpless.A guide for this game that I looked at before recording suggested that you need to time your grab for when they pass the eye back and forth. I've always managed to get the eye by taking what I need.  : Give us back our eye! Rosella doesn't give a gently caress.  Well, it was mean to steal these poor old women's only means of seeing.  When we re-enter, the one on the left throws a beetle at us. : As Rosella re-enters the dismal cave, the three, one-eyed witches throw something toward her.: Here, take it. It'll ward off the undead. You'll need it. Now, PLEASE give us back our eye!: Rosella thinks about it and glances at the floor. She sees that the witches threw a black scarab at her.   >give eye back : Rosella throws the glass eye to the three old hags, who once again take turns peering at her.: Come closer, dear. We'd like to give a little gift to you. The same death happens if you let any of the witches touch you at any time. They're not exactly friendly. So instead of taking a bath in a bubbling cauldron, let's just get the hell out of there. >wear scarab : You can't wear the scarab. Just carry it with you. Now that we have the obsidian scarab, we're as prepared as we're ever going to be. >wear crown  So strap yourselves in. We're going into the loving caves.  The caves have a couple of a gimmicks. They're four screens long and dark as hell. We saw it last time we were in here to grab a bone, but mysterious growls can randomly appear on any screen. If that happens, then you have to reload or you will die. There's no escaping. If you recall, the dwarves gave us a lantern way back at the start of the LP. Let's light it now. >light lantern : Using a flint attached to the oil lantern, Rosella lights it. The lantern burns with a bright glow. Bright my rear end. This is all the illumination we ever loving get. A single ancient candle, 17 years ago in Kolyma, illuminated more than this miner's lantern. Oh, and just to keep things interesting, I'm going to keep track of each reload it takes to get through this cave.  If you're, for some reason, playing along with this, then you will want to save at the edge of each screen you successfully navigate without dying.  Second cave screen. It looks black, but there's a bunch of stalagmites forming a path you can't see until you run right into it. You see, the tiny bit of illumination we have actually does something.  This is what it looks like at the start of the screen. So it's an invisible maze in the dark where each time you transition screen, there's a random chance you will just loving die for no reason.  Edge of the second screen.  Third screen, the troll that lives in these caves comes out to play at random.  When I say you can't run, I mean that. The troll is faster and he knows his way around in the dark. If you transition screen, he just spawns directly behind you and kills you. : Oh no! Rosella has been caught by the vicious trolll! Fate be what it may, she is dragged off to meet it.+1 Gonna keep track of reloads in bold.  Third screen, this time with no troll.  A straight shot across an otherwise uneventful screen.  Fourth screen, and we can see light at the end of the tunnel.  The fourth screen has a chasm you can't see until you're right on top of it. +6  Do you see that tiny bit of black on the very edge of Rosella's lamp? That's the edge of the chasm. When you see that, you're either already dead or right on the edge. >put board across chasm : Feeling in the dark, Rosella manages to place the board across the crevice. Now, can she cross it safely? When you get to the other side, the game mercifully does the following automatically: : Feeling in the dark again, Rosella manages to pick up the baord without dropping it into the crevice. From there it's a straight shot north.  I don't believe the troll can appear on this last screen. It's never happened to me in all the times I've played.   These are the Death Bogs of Tamir. But we actually know this land by a better name: Llewdor. This massive swamp is on the far western edge of that infinite desert from the previous game. By the way, still keeping track of reloads. The swamp is only two screens long, and we still have to go back through the cave again. >look : From here, a huge muddy swamp spreads eastward. Large moss-covered swamp trees tower overhead, while grass tufts and reedy plants poke up from the mire. Rosella can hear the many chirps and croaks of unseen swamp creatures. : Don't you know that some swamps are quagmires that will suck you under?! As she takes her last breath, Rosella contemplates this final information.+0 (intentional deaths don't count) Let's try this, then... >wear crown  +0  The correct way to proceed is to stand here and >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump  >jump >jump >jump >jump >jump Fifteen jumps across the swamp.  We can't walk across from here, and we can't jump across a pit this wide. So we have to think back two whole minutes and >set board down  You probably won't see it very well, but there's a snake in front of the tree. A cobra, to be specific.  Getting close has Rosella die from "poisoning." +1 (I died once offscreen the exact same way a second later) >play flute  The cobra doesn't stay charmed for long. So we have to act very quickly or it'll wake up and bite again. >get fruit  This death was too funny. Accidentally walked off the island while super triumphant music plays. +2  Don't forget to >get board while you're here and then >jump back to shore.  Between the two screens of the swamp, if you've done absolutely everything up to this point, night will fall. It will not do this unless you have the obsidian scarab. (Or if you somehow waste 12 hours.)  The stars are now out. >look sky : It's easy to see by the light of a full moon.And now we go back through the cave. I'm not cutting out the journey back.  This is the fourth screen, the one with the chasm. +1  Third screen.  Second screen. +3  +1  And finally that brings us to the end of the update. We're firmly in the final stretch of the game from here on out, so buckle up! NEXT TIME: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nc3eJuq5U Total Reloads in the Cave (and Swamp) Section 1 + 6 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 1 = 15 List of Points +3 - Robbed 3 old women literally blind +2 - Profited from robbing 3 old women +3 - Throwing a glass ball at 3 old women +2 - Crossed the Chasm +2 - Crossed onto the Island +4 - Snake Charmer +10 - Got the magic fruit! +2 - Crossing the Chasm (again) Total 134/210 Register of Deaths Taking a nice, hot bath Feeding a troll x2 Falling into an invisible bottomless pit x7 Swimming in the Swamp x4 Universal Cameo Snake Poison x2 Total Deaths in Cave (and Swamp) Section 16 DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Aug 29, 2017 |
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Aug 29, 2017 03:11
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DoubleNegative posted:I'm sure these three are meant to recall the three witches from Macbeth, but I grew up in the 90s and watched a lot of Disney movies as a kid. So all I can see are the Fates from Hercules. You and me both - that would be quite the weird cross between fantasy lands though. Also, this last part has got to be the biggest 'gently caress you' I've ever seen in a game and I honestly can't imagine a 10 year old having the patience to go through all this let alone an adult. And as a kid, I had a lot of patience for gaming bullshit (what else are you going to do when you get maybe 2-3 new games a year?). Was someone holding Roberta Williams' family hostage and demanding a new entry be made? So she made this to be the most spiteful bitch possible just to get it over with? Why else would someone make a puzzle like that...
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Aug 29, 2017 03:42
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Those ARE the three Fates from Hercules. Or, more accurately, the Graeae of Greek Mythology that inspired the characters in Hercules (the Disney film combined the Graeae and the Moirai). In the myth, Perseus stole their eye to force them to help him learn how to kill Medusa. The three witches from Macbeth did not share an eye.
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Aug 29, 2017 03:45
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Oh dear, imagine being a little kid playing this without a guide or exact appreciation of where and where not to walk 
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Aug 29, 2017 03:47
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EorayMel posted:Oh dear, imagine being a little kid playing this without a guide or exact appreciation of where and where not to walk I did it.  Bad memories man....baaaaaaaad memories
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Aug 29, 2017 03:49
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What the gently caress is that nonsense. I double-checked some walkthroughs to see if there wasn't some gotcha the majority of players were missing and no, you are meant to save/reload your way through the dark caves with a troll in them. Twice. How was that acceptable after they already explored death mazes to death in the earlier Quest games?
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Aug 29, 2017 04:57
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Roberta Williams is definitely flipping the player off underneath the camera each game over.
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Aug 29, 2017 05:01
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Roberta Williams didn't play video games, so she didn't always have the easiest time seeing things from the players point of view. This was the age before playtesting for non-technical issues was common, so nobody was in a position to take her to task for it. This is also where a lot of the more ridiculous puzzles came from - they made perfect sense to Williams, and nobody else had much of a look at it.
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Aug 29, 2017 05:02
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This was the bullshit I was alluding to throughout the thread. gently caress the troll cave. To be fair, the AGI version of KQ4 gave you a larger light radius when you had to make your way through this little fun house. (It still didn't help.) I'm not entirely sure if there's a timer on the lantern or not in that version-- the video I saw of the AGI version brought up the message "It's beginning to get dark." after a few screens, but I'm not sure if that was a timer on the lantern or time progressing. Also, if you stuck around on that island the whale spat you out onto, Rosella dies of exposure after a few minutes.
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Aug 29, 2017 06:14
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I think in the AGI engine games what you type out in the parser stays between screens, so you might be able to pretype the throw bone command. Though if it auto-transitions you when you open the door then you'd be screwed. "throw bone" might work as a short, quick command. You might even be able to shorten it more--in police quest at least, "open door" can be shortened to "o d" and the parser will recognize it. A similar contraction may work here too. Also, yep, bullshit game mechanics ahoy. It's good to be the company head's wife...KQ has always been the least fun/well written of all the Sierra series. SQ and QFG had their humor, PQ had some dry charm (or at least a semi-coherent plot). LSL was bursting at the zipper with gags (and yeah, lots of bullshit in the earlier ones). KQ was warmed over fables strung together on the loosest of plots, with loads of bullshit--even bullshit trailblazing. It was basically a cattle ranch in that regard. Not to take away anything from Roberta's effort--you can see the bones of interesting ideas there. It's just the execution that sorely needed refinement.
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Aug 29, 2017 06:23
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 That's just complete and utter bullshit. Did they actually want players to win back then, or were they just trying to see how much they could frustrate players?
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Aug 29, 2017 06:34
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Dr. Fetus posted:
As was mentioned earlier in the thread, this was the era of "nintendo hard"--games were challenges to be overcome with blood and (mostly) tears. Player frustration wasn't exactly the goal, but it wasn't something to avoid either. Contemporaries of KQ4 were starting to get better about this; KQ just lagged the pack. Badly. Edit: VV That too. Notice the amount of backtracking and waiting. Couple that with easy-fail/deaths requiring a reload, and you've padded your game with an hour+ for very little effort. OAquinas fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Aug 29, 2017 |
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Aug 29, 2017 06:41
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OAquinas posted:As was mentioned earlier in the thread, this was the era of "nintendo hard"--games were challenges to be overcome with blood and (mostly) tears. Player frustration wasn't exactly the goal, but it wasn't something to avoid either. These things weren't cheap, and it was felt that a player who could beat a game in a short amount of time wasn't getting their money's worth. They needed to last.
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Aug 29, 2017 06:42
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Kavak posted:Roberta Williams is definitely flipping the player off underneath the camera each game over. With such a  grin, I'm not surprised.
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Aug 29, 2017 10:27
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Kavak posted:These things weren't cheap, and it was felt that a player who could beat a game in a short amount of time wasn't getting their money's worth. They needed to last. I don't remember the exact number since it's been almost 30 years but yeah, these were AAA games by the standards of the 80s and cost something like $40-50.
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Aug 29, 2017 10:39
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Wait, so the three witches have one eye each AND they need the glass eye to see? That's not how the myth works and it's also dumb. I know it's a small thing to be petty about in the BULLSHIT DARK RANDOM DEATH MAZE update, but I like my mythology proper. 
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Aug 29, 2017 11:03
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Fat Samurai posted:Wait, so the three witches have one eye each AND they need the glass eye to see? That's not how the myth works and it's also dumb. That is exactly how the Greaea of Greek mythology worked - three old hags that shared one eye and one tooth. Rosella stealing the eye is taken directly from the myth of Perseus.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:14
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Anime Reference posted:I don't remember the exact number since it's been almost 30 years but yeah, these were AAA games by the standards of the 80s and cost something like $40-50. Something like that; one of the random things Mark Crowe can say at the end of Space Quest III is "So, do you like the game so far? Was it worth $59.99?"
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Aug 29, 2017 14:29
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Gnoman posted:That is exactly how the Greaea of Greek mythology worked - three old hags that shared one eye and one tooth. Rosella stealing the eye is taken directly from the myth of Perseus. Yep, but here they have 4 between them (note the description), not just the one. It seems petty to make them one-eyed AND make that single eye non-functional.
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Aug 29, 2017 14:33
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Fat Samurai posted:Yep, but here they have 4 between them (note the description), not just the one. It seems petty to make them one-eyed AND make that single eye non-functional. wizards, man
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Aug 29, 2017 15:39
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I think they just screwed up the description as later description cards seem to imply that after the eye ball was stolen the 3 witches were completely blind. Either that or the one eye each witch is left with is also blind, so they had to share the one remaining functional eye. That makes about as much sense as anything else.
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Aug 29, 2017 16:21
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Snorb posted:Something like that; one of the random things Mark Crowe can say at the end of Space Quest III is "So, do you like the game so far? Was it worth $59.99?" Didn't they make this joke at the end of The Secret of Monkey Island too?
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Aug 29, 2017 17:52
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Aces High posted:Didn't they make this joke at the end of The Secret of Monkey Island too?
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Aug 29, 2017 17:58
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Wow, that's kind of ridiculous. That's, like, a lantern so bright you can't see anything for about six inches, and then darkness so deep you can't see anything.
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Aug 30, 2017 03:32
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The whole cave felt like a section that was trimmed for disk space reasons with the lantern made worthless to hide the scene.
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Aug 30, 2017 05:38
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Deathwind posted:The whole cave felt like a section that was trimmed for disk space reasons with the lantern made worthless to hide the scene. They could've saved even more and cut the entire drat cave, or limit it to one screen of pitfalls the lantern would let you avoid. But that was a little beyond design philosophy at the time.
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Aug 30, 2017 12:58
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Kavak posted:They could've saved even more and cut the entire drat cave, or limit it to one screen of pitfalls the lantern would let you avoid. But that was a little beyond design philosophy at the time. KQ1 came out in '83 and KQ4 came out in '88. That's five years to think about what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish here. It's not that they didn't understand how to design videogames. This poo poo was intentional. Moreover, it was intentional despite feedback from people that played the game! I can guarantee you people sent letters to Sierra complaining about the bridlesnake, or the waiting for the pirates, or that bridge in KQ2. So they committed these crimes of game design fully cognizant that people didn't like what they were doing, I guess out of some misguided idea that game design was like sadomasochism?
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Aug 30, 2017 15:53
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We'll how else are you going to get people to call into the Sierra hint line? Do these games have one of those 'About Us' splashscreens when you boot up the game? Never played this part of the series when I was younger (the first game, amazingly enough, was released before I was born and it would be another ~1 year or so after this before I got my first computer) but I remember a lot of games had them. Also t years is a long time for Robert's hate to begin manifesting itself in other ways.
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Aug 30, 2017 16:34
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:KQ1 came out in '83 and KQ4 came out in '88. That's five years to think about what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish here. It's not that they didn't understand how to design videogames. This poo poo was intentional. Here's the list of games that Sierra released right before, during, and right after KQ4: 3-D Helicopter Simulator 1987 Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards 1987 Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel 1987 Mixed-Up Mother Goose 1987 Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge 1987 Thexder 1987 Gold Rush! 1988 King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella 1988 Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) 1988 Manhunter: New York 1988 Police Quest II: The Vengeance 1988 Silpheed 1988 Codename: ICEMAN 1989 The Colonel's Bequest 1989 Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero 1989 Hoyle's Official Book of Games: Volume 1 1989 Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals 1989 Manhunter 2: San Francisco 1989 Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon 1989 There is a massive jump in quality from 87 to 89. KQ5--peak bullshit--was released in 90.....yeah.
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Aug 30, 2017 17:24
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And for probably one person in the thread who didn't know, Hero's Quest is Quest for Glory, they later changed the name for trademark reasons. EDIT: corrected Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 18:36
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Robindaybird posted:And for probably one person in the thread who didn't know, Hero's Quest is Quest for Glory, they later changed the name for copyright reasons. 1. Trademark. 2. That's the version I played. 10 separate 5.25" floppies. 
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Aug 30, 2017 18:43
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only dragon we experience in that game is a drink that kills us when we drink it, FALSE ADVERTISING 
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Aug 30, 2017 19:09
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