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kw0134 posted:Daring the troll to jump in the well seems obvious, but what do you think that corpse will do for the water quality, huh smart guy? I would love for this to backfire for exactly that reason despite it being the obvious choice, but I assume a reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely. Maybe we could FLEE past it, but somehow fleeing never works like that.  Since we're told the Mad Maze makes no sense, though, it's probably going to do something like make dissolved troll parts be the necessary ingredient for its function as a hangover cure. EDIT: Epsilon Moonshade posted:It's really not a GOOD example since the graphics are so primitive (and small,) but Moraff's World has this sort of loading for its graphics. Crank the CPU cycles down on DOSBOX, get it running (which I recall being pretty drat fiddly even on contemporary computers* - sound familiar? The early Sierra graphical adventures worked like this too, more or less; I have not-very-fond memories of King's Quest II on the PCjr painstakingly drawing out each screen. The memories might have been fonder if I didn't know that nearly every save I ever made in that game was in an unwinnable situation. I'll give MadMaze this; this PoPs have no memory, it seems like unwinnability is impossible. If FRAPS misbehaves, I've had excellent results lately with OBS Studio. ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 28, 2018 |
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May 28, 2018 20:59
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), create your character, get into the game, and watch the elements being drawn letters and pixels at a time.
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Epsilon Moonshade posted:What I was hoping is that I could find something which wasn't "Abandonware*" The King's Quest games are still owned (by Activision) and actively sold (by GOG), so they aren't abandonware at all, just old. But YouTube came through! Here's the PCjr KQ2 drawing its scenes on the fly. It seems the other releases of KQ2 did not do this, based on the other videos I found along the way.
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May 28, 2018 21:58
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Thee/Thy/Thou are used for when addressing one person familiarly while also being a pretentious squink. As for which one to use, pretend you're talking about yourself, and... I: Thou My: Thy Me: Thee They also get the 'art' and 'hast' forms for 'to be' and 'to have', if I remember correctly. As demanded, I didn't check wiki, so I'm going on the memory of Dragon Warrior doing it wrong rargh.
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May 30, 2018 10:34
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Oh man, now I'm kicking myself for not mentioning that Quakers use "thee" even as the subject. This guy's threatening to throw us in the river, not kill us. We should be determined and firm but clearly he's an OK guy and we can trust him. ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 06:47 on May 31, 2018 |
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May 31, 2018 06:42
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Yeah, I wouldn't say that dagger's just for show, but at best we'll be using it to clean that half-a-grouse the hermit gave us.
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May 31, 2018 07:43
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One of the interesting bits of setting up MadMaze as being this place of utter chaos is that you can put a character like the Woodsman in there and have him behave exactly like a cranky fantasy ranger and this ends up feeling like a relief to a tense situation as opposed to as an obvious cliche.
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Jun 1, 2018 04:33
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Y2 was obviously a Place of Power, but not one within the MadMaze.
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Jun 2, 2018 04:55
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Tostien's advice isn't what we wanted - that sword won't get us into Castle Perilous - but he just spoke of freeing a King. The King's under the castle, right? I'm leaving a note to myself: when we ultimately hit up the Castle, we go up first.
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Jun 2, 2018 20:43
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ultrafilter posted:Here's the full solution where I deduce that he's not a wyvern: That reasoning is fully sound. It's sobering how many steps some of the deductions I'd normally make directly actually take when you use the formalisms. In particular, I jumped to is red basically while reading the problem, and that's both step 10 and relies on all 9 previous steps.
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Jun 3, 2018 22:00
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Chivalry is why we survived our first encounter with him, before our magic helped us out. We should try to exploit it here. We can expect only cavalier treatment from his comrades though.
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Jun 4, 2018 00:17
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Between the mandibles or one of the armpits is my best guess, too. If this is some kind of scorpion monster, it's got an armored exoskeleton all the way around. Our only sensible options are at joints or openings in the exoskeleton. Also, "The Varnish Wars"? Was King Carlon deposed over a matter of furniture polish? Or does Sheltem's malevolence extend even to the MadMaze?
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Jun 6, 2018 05:47
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MadMaze posted:The months pass I hope this means the Elder ends up assuming that we have failed. Our predecessor got, what, three months?
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Jun 6, 2018 17:41
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Those violence options are pretty great. We get the hang of obnoxious nobility alarmingly quickly! The lyon doesn't seem savage. I think we should start by greeting it.
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Jun 8, 2018 03:24
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Nakar posted:Congratulations to ultrafilter for discovering the alternate solution! Truly, you are in touch with the Mad One himself to have chosen such an insane option. That is some top-quality sarcasm in the game's reply, and I have to think they are assuming the player misread the option. "Music has charms to soothe the savage breast," says the old quote, and this option, but it is very widely misremembered as soothing the savage beast.
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Jun 8, 2018 16:57
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Nakar posted:Level Two: Meeting The Locals Without dwelling too hard on that aspect of it, there was an interesting line at the very start of the game: the Elder told us: quote:And, my rash young friend, you will come to fear the Mad One, whose name you must never speak. Your parents, alas, spoke truly. He Whose Name Is Not Spoken is an immortal. Yet he is unlike the others who made our world: for he is born not of the fires of creation, but of primal chaos. Like others of his kind, he has many avatars: he is Trickster, master of good and evil; and also Chaos, bringer of death and destruction. He is hated and feared. Those who worship him do so to propitiate him, not out of love. This implied to me at the time that Weith itself includes The Mad One as part of its core religious culture, but in this context it seems like our leader is directly stating that all mortals are ultimately on the same side.
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Jun 9, 2018 03:49
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Nakar posted:What isn't clear exactly is what anybody gets out of worshiping him. Does he grant blessings? Does he grant power? His acolytes brought up Timozel to overthrow Carlon, and supposedly it was the Mad One who permitted the Tercelidae to conquer the Atarri (despite the Atarri worshiping him). So it does seem like mortals are his playthings, and the Atarri may be devout only because they have little choice in the matter lest the Mad One make their situation even worse. I think that's exactly right. The Elder mentioned that The Mad One receives worship to "propitiate" him, not out of love. That's an old word meaning "appease" or "mollify". It's deific protection money. Weith might have a temple or two to The Mad One, basically to say "please don't hurt us, we're more useful to you as a stable source of goodies". Meanwhile, we probably shouldn't openly talk about our plans to hose The Mad One to the Atarri because they might thwart, betray, or otherwise hinder us in fear of the retribution they would face for knowingly helping us. But that betrayal would be the betrayal of a frightened subject, not that of a ruthless zealot. My yardstick for Problematic Subtext from 80s fantasy games is the Lone Wolf books, and compared to some of the stuff in those, this feels like we're being quite explicitly exhorted to Play Nice. Looking forward to seeing the Maze get trickier.
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Jun 9, 2018 06:08
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I'm going to suggest that we not jump naked off a cliff. I know, it's kind of a crazy plan, but hear me out. The Guru has already confirmed our humility. We are no longer being tested on that point. Furthermore, when we ask why, the reason has changed. Before, we were to do it because we wanted his assistance; now he's seeing if we'll jump off a cliff just because he says to. I propose that this is a test of wisdom.
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Jun 9, 2018 19:19
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I think the at the moment witch has the more meritorious claim, but most likely the proper path will be to betray them both. Here is why the witch's claim is superior:
ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 10, 2018 22:54
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Given the kinds of puzzles and fantasy elements we've faced so far, I have this sinking feeling that the dreaded al-Gibra is a system of simultaneous equations we need to solve with algebra, but given that that word also means "Unity" we could get some kind of horrible fused flesh monster thing like The Many. Either way, it seems like a job for Spaceman Spiff.
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Jun 12, 2018 03:27
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quote:I feel like maybe this was a puzzle at some point? But no, you just arrive here, get told by a pretty lady that it's cool, and it is indeed cool. Go figure. We were warned that the MadMaze would confound our expectations.
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Jun 14, 2018 05:32
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My logic was similar to Omobono's.
So, I get five goats and six sheep, and my cousin will receive four goats and one sheep. I hope his cousin is OK with nonzero sum games where he's not the leader.
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Jun 17, 2018 18:56
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This makes way more sense than when it happened in Fallout. Also, for someone who's been imprisoned in brass for 1,600 years that djinn is remarkably well informed. Also also, we saw from the traveling merchant a book that would ensure our piety even if we were ourselves unbelievers. Here we see a "test of piety" mentioned. Was that book one of the ways through, perhaps? Or was it another swindle? Meanwhile, we've been told that as long as we have the sword Valtierre, we may trust to our valor. Unless we are disarmed, the test of valor is the test we should take.
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Jun 17, 2018 23:30
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Skanker posted:The three questions also remind me of getting into the wizard tower in Quest for Glory. Fun stuff. This, the wizard tower in QfG1, the Bridgekeeper random encounter in Fallout 2, and the quite possibly the Bridgekeeper in Might and Magic 1 as well are all extended references to the Bridge of Death scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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Jun 18, 2018 02:11
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Indeed, "oxymoron" is the word he seeks. Was the goal to rack up connection charges while the youthful player rifled through a dictionary?
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Jun 19, 2018 03:14
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I am somewhat disappointed in the example of zeugma, though the term has a lot of meanings. The example that usually comes to mind for me is "The Empire shall execute its laws and its citizens as it sees fit", but the wiki page provides a superb example from a British comedy duo I had never heard of: quote:When he asked "What in heaven?" she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door. Here you're applying the same word to multiple things that don't match, but individually they do and the word warps and twists in your understanding as you work through the sentence.
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Jun 20, 2018 03:47
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The fire, the blades, and the river are probably quite mundane in how they will kill us, and we can't cross them because we're not exceptionally pure of heart, fast, or wise. Our impurity has not been detailed, but it's not really any of our business. The cliff, well, even a 12-foot fall is nothing to sneeze at. I'm hoping that we actually can do this because "Mastery of the Philosophies" is an extended trivia quiz for the player. The crack will yawn open and swallow us for our continuing insistence that there are nine gods. The snakes will shy away from the sword Valtierre as we stride through them, because we may trust to our valor. ETA: I forgot the meadow! We will be distracted and stuck forever until we starve, because we are on like twelve subquests and that is not sufficient purity of purpose. ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jun 20, 2018 |
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Jun 20, 2018 17:17
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That is how we cheesed that acid river, and the river of flame.
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Jun 21, 2018 04:02
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Nakar posted:Level Three: Trouble Brewing Nasty puzzle here. We have five geysers B, J, M, O, S, and lengths 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We are given three patterns that have to be fit here: B 3 J, M 1, and 4 O. (Rules 4, 5, 6) The M 1 and 4 O patterns cannot overlap because that would make Old Irregular have a one minute pause, which is not permitted. (Rule 3) The M cannot be between B and J because J's wait also cannot be 1. (Rule 3) The O cannot be between B and J because B's wait would then be 4 minutes, which is also not permitted. (Rule 2) That means the only possible order is M B S J O, with in turn means Spittoon is 3 minutes, Bad Bob is 1 minute, and Jezebel is 4 minutes. Morgenstern does not have a 2 minute wait (Rule 1) so only 5 minutes is left, which means Old Irregular must have the 2 minute weight. Final order: Morgenstern, Bad Bob, Spittoon, Jezebel, Old Irregular. Final waits: 5, 1, 3, 4, 2. Edit: fixed some fat-fingered notation. ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jun 25, 2018 |
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Jun 25, 2018 02:37
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ArashiKurobara posted:This is one of those that I think probably gets much easier with a grid; I didn't take the time to draw one out myself and I kind of shortcutted in my logic mentally a few times I didn't bother to write out in my notetaking so it's not quite worth putting up my details, but this matches the result I got. I started with a grid but the ordering requirements confounded my gridding. In particular, no explicitly stated rules constrain Spittoon at all. Maybe I picked the wrong axes.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:45
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Come to think of it, if buckets work, then it's probably not a grease fire.
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Jun 26, 2018 00:50
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We've now reached the Captain Carrot Inflection Point. Predators leap out of the foliage and greet us with "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."
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Jun 30, 2018 03:51
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I'm hoping we can meet up with some insects and see if they're actually all Aristotelian philosophers, so blimp-smiting sounds like fun. Whether this is a terrible idea seems like it would rely on whether the First Cause is the Unmoved Mover of all order in the universe, or if it also was the cause of the primal chaos as well. If the former, they worship the power behind all the gods, and if the latter, they may view us as unwanted meddlers in the great cosmic scheme. ... it's also interesting to see that the logic puzzles answers are showing up here. This implies that when we were jousting earlier it was on Zebras.
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Jul 4, 2018 21:32
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I'd allow Mass Effect as an example of that.
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Jul 6, 2018 20:04
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Qrr posted:(or vice-versa, I guess, but I wouldn't trust that cake) I hear they put radish in it, the madmen.
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Jul 14, 2018 05:25
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Domus posted:But whoops, they're slightly mislabeled. They actually contain jellied petroleum. Napalm. Hijinks ensue. Even when you aren't playing in what came to be known as the Zap style, everything—up to and including shoe polish—was a high explosive, horrifically toxic or mutagenic, or both. quote:Nadia Thimbatool Names like this must be why we accidentally came up with inscriptions from the One Ring while trying to make up some magic words. That's definitely a name from West Mordor, there. Given what we've seen so far, I have to wonder if this isn't a case like bribing the guard where the only thing that matters is that there is a signature. The game is, at this point, training us to lie to it sometimes.
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Jul 14, 2018 20:27
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My theory for its biggest hater is that it is Costikyan himself. By the definition credited to him, MadMaze isn't a game at all, as his definition of game is that it is a participatory form of artquote:in which the participants, termed Players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in pursuit of a goal No tokens, no resources, and in a very real sense, no decisions. With no state tracked, MadMaze is a puzzlebook, not a game. That seems pretty narrow—I've actually just wrapped up a replay of The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three, which are also very much in the puzzlebook vein, but some of the individual puzzles would count as games by this definition and the presentation of the game-spanning puzzles is a refreshing counterpoint to the horrifically arbitrary nature of a lot of the integrate-stuff-from-a-dozen-PoP puzzles posed here.
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Jul 21, 2018 23:49
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kw0134 posted:But to call it not a game seems a little unfair. There's a reason I used the quote I did—it's from one of the designers of MadMaze. That said, I think the initial idea was focusing on board games or abstractions thereof, and a lot of computerized entertainments likely would not pass that test... ... but if I'm being strict enough I'm not at all sure that Paranoia or TOON, by the same author, meet that definition either.
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Jul 22, 2018 02:36
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Congrats on finishing the run! Thanks for showing it, and I enjoyed the challenges I got time to attack, so the "show-your-work" presentation worked well for me. Forumcode wobble headsup: when you quoted me above, the quote removed the part where I had quoted Costikyan, turning the first few sentences into nonsense. On the important questions! Nakar posted:So What Genre Is MadMaze, Anyway?
But I will totally admit that this is a claim much like "MadMaze is fantasy and not science fiction because there aren't enough rivets in it, even though I admit that we get sports cars and bureaucracies on the moon." And if we're being generous about applying genres across their initial incarnations: sure, MadMaze is a visual novel. And Crusader Kings II is a dating sim. I'll happily accept zero or two of those judgements simultaneously, but never just one. 
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Jul 22, 2018 21:51
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Nakar posted:I don't consider the use of meta-knowledge from a death to be fair puzzle design unless the game is specifically built around it in some way. For example, ManxomeBromide recently did an LP of the IF game Hadean Lands where looping actions and acquiring information from dead end gamestates was acceptable, but that's because the structure of the game is meant to work that way and you can't beat it without forcing unwinnable states, and part of the game's final puzzle is figuring out ways to stretch your resources and accumulated knowledge far enough to not render the game unwinnable en route to the part where you actually win. It's kind of interesting, because the jump between MadMaze and Hadean Lands here wasn't a jump. MadMaze is following the rules of a lot of the earliest adventure games, where you learned not to do bad things by noticing that they killed you, after the fact. This kind of stunt was pretty central to the games like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it wasn't hard to run afoul of it in the early graphic adventures too. But in the late 1990s, you had a number of well-received adventure games—Varicella is the one everyone cites, with good reason, and Lock & Key and Spider & Web from the same era are kind of similar—where the player is expected to flail and fail a lot at the start, but ultimately grow into the role. In the premise for all of those games the PC is notionally a master plotter, and the game is about executing their grand design. In practice you were creating the grand design as you worked through the game over dozens of tries, but the implication is that you need to work harder to fill the PC's shoes. It got the name Accretive PC, and it occupies a comfy niche right between "learn by dying" and "repetition is part of the in-universe story as well as the story of the player mastering the game." In Lock & Key, for instance, the main character is a master dungeon designer filling one last dungeon with sinister traps as one final contract before you retire, and while your first few runs will fail ignominiously, you'll learn from those failures and manage to evolve a proper combination of traps to do in the pesky adventurers you hope to contain. But in fiction, the idea would be that the PC is drawing upon his years of experience, and is relying on caution and foresight rather than knowledge of alternate futures. MadMaze can't reasonably be described as using the accretive-PC approach, though. The decisions that are being made are too brute-froce, and there's no real sense in that the player is becoming more skilled at some task the PC is good at. At best, the player's diligence is manifesting in a winning playthrough as the Runner's dumb luck. ManxomeBromide fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Jul 25, 2018 |
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Jul 25, 2018 05:34
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