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 quote:You are a product tester for the Adventurer’s Consumer Guide, a magazine that reviews all sorts of equipment an adventurer might need for his adventures. Your magazine is highly respected because of the thorough tests you put the equipment through. The tests aren’t just done at the magazine’s offices. No, the product testers go on actual adventures to test the equipment out in the field. Sometimes you kill an evil overlord; sometimes you rescue a fair maiden. Most of the time, like today, you just go out looking for a treasure in Treasure Cave Mountain, a perfect place for adventures as it contains plenty of caves, treasures, monsters and traps. Adventurer's Consumer Guide is a comedic text adventure by famous webcomic author Øyvind Thorsby. Written in 2007, it actually predates any of his comics, although you can definitely see some ideas that would reappear later. It's fairly short, so I'll be doing a full playthrough, with the goal of showing off as much of the writing as I can. If anyone wants to try it for themselves, it's available as a free download here Table of Contents
Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 19:44
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Chapter 1 - In which everything works precicely as advertisedAdventurer’s Consumer Guide posted:You are a product tester for the Adventurer’s Consumer Guide, a magazine that reviews all sorts of equipment an adventurer might need for his adventures. Your magazine is highly respected because of the thorough tests you put the equipment through. The tests aren’t just done at the magazine’s offices. No, the product testers go on actual adventures to test the equipment out in the field. Sometimes you kill an evil overlord; sometimes you rescue a fair maiden. Most of the time, like today, you just go out looking for a treasure in Treasure Cave Mountain, a perfect place for adventures as it contains plenty of caves, treasures, monsters and traps. As you can see, ACG is a pretty light-hearted, Zork inspired text adventure. Of course, we're starting this adventure with a full inventory of magical items to test, plus a powerful and loyal sidekick, so it's safe to say things will go more smoothly than for those guys who just wake up outside a white house with an empty inventory. The game drops us right into things, so let's start by looking at our inventory and seeing exactly what it is we're testing out. > i posted:The new magical sword from Adventurer’s Emporium. According to the commercial it will start to vibrate when you are close to danger. A pretty good loadout! (Incidentally, unlike most text adventures it's not possible to Look or Examine our items, or for that matter anything else in the world. The descriptions you get from looking around the room or checking your inventory are all you'll need) We have lots of items to test out. Forewarned is forearmed, so let's start by looking up that monster we can see over to the east > read page 1 posted:On the front is a badly drawn picture of three monsters running away from a man who is holding a copy of the book over his head. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Let's see. The description earlier said "Very far to the east, near the end of the ledge, a huge monster is crouching. Its green skin is scaly, its body is bloated like a balloon, its four feet have long terrible claws, its wide mouth has thousands of sharp teeth and on top of its head is a cluster of about fifty bulging eyes as big as your head." Four feet, so... > read page 63 posted:Does it have hooves? No, just feet > read page 72 posted:Is it hairy? No, it's scaley > read page 79 posted:Does it have large bulging eyes? Yeah, tons of them > read page 81 posted:Is it green? Yep > read page 83 posted:Does it have a wide mouth? Yes, filled with thousands of sharp teeth! > read page 85 posted:Oh, it’s just a frog then. Nothing to worry about. I see. Well, harmless as it may be, we may as well take this opportunity to test out our sidekick. > goblin, kill the frog posted:Before you have a chance to say anything you get a nasty electric shock from your helmet. You hear a calm pleasant female voice in your head: “It wouldn’t be very heroic to ask somebody else to do your fighting for you.” Right, I guess a hero does their own fighting. We have a great line of sight for the crossbow, anyway. > shoot the frog posted:Before you have a chance to do it, you get a nasty electrical shock from your helmet. You hear a calm pleasant female voice in your head: “It wouldn’t be very heroic to go around shooting creatures.” Ah. Well, we have a magic, danger-detecting sword and an invisibility coat. We'll do this the old fashioned way. > say tango posted:“Tango!” > east posted:On a mountain ledge Not naming any names, but some of these products will NOT be getting a 5 star review
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Apr 30, 2022 19:44
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After experiencing Hitmen for Destiny I am so here for this.
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Apr 30, 2022 20:00
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Bookmarked!
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Apr 30, 2022 20:09
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Should've used the ___Cow-o-Meter___. No wonder you died. 
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Apr 30, 2022 20:22
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Snake Maze posted:
Lol  Also, better luck next time 
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Apr 30, 2022 20:23
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Oh, this is going to be fun.
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Apr 30, 2022 22:33
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Do you die in real life, if you die in this game?
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Apr 30, 2022 23:19
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Obviously you need to put down the sword and bop the monster with the staff. But first, you had better touch the orb to make sure it works.
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Apr 30, 2022 23:34
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Thorsby is so good, didn't know he'd made a text adventure. I agree with poopacy, we have to touch the orb ourselves to see if that monster disappearing thing works via ray or not before we test it on the monster we're dealing with. Probably won't be a winning run for us to lose our magical ray protection this early, but knowing Thorsby this is likely good info to have later.
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May 1, 2022 00:41
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Chapter 2 - In which a monster is slain, eventually Alright, let's take a step back. quote:On a mountain ledge First things first. Are there any other screens we can look at? > North posted:You are not testing the Pill That Turns You Into A Mountain Goat on this trip. Just as well, the last time you were a goat you ate your backpack and your socks. > South posted:You are not testing The Pebble That Protects You From Falling Down From Really High Places this month. It was just a scam anyway. Worth a shot. Let's see if the manual has any more info for us. > Read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Two legs > Read page 36 posted:Does it have wings? Nope > Read page 45 posted:What does the skin on its body look like? Green skin, both of them > Read page 53 posted:Is it bigger than a breadbox? One is and one isn't. We'll come back to this one, but let's start with the goblin > Read page 55 posted:Is it bigger than a castle? Not that big > Read page 56 posted:It is a Goblin. They are often thought to be evil, but are in fact friendly and helpful. Their favorite food is human flesh. Our loyal companion. Sounds like a nice guy to have around! Now let's look up the one in the cage. > Read page 54 posted:It is a Gremlin. Start running now; do not wait till you have read this through. They are cunning, lying, treacherous and sadistic. Gremlins love to mess about with machines, destroying them or preferably turning them into something deadly. They love to cause accidents. No creature is more malicious, and none causes more damage. There are some people who think that you can keep Gremlins in cages. These people are fools! They will die horribly! I'm sure the professionals at Snuffelburg & Co. know what they're doing. We'll have to watch out if we run into any wild ones, however. And just because I'm curious, let's look at that third option, the greenskin bigger than a castle. > Read page 57 posted:It is Cthulhu, the great old one. He lays dead and dreaming on the bottom of the ocean, but when the stars are right he will rise and obliterate us all. He cannot be destroyed, but to temporarily stop him, ram a boat into him while he is still groggy from waking up. I don't think this is that kind of adventure. Anyway, the sword... is perhaps slightly too effective at detecting danger. But there's still one more item we haven't tested. > give sword to sidekick posted:The goblin says, “No thanks. Carrying around a vibrating sword sounds kind of dangerous.” No idea what this guy is talking about. Drop sword posted:Dropped. east, east, east, east, east posted:On a mountain ledge The goblin and monster will keep going at it as long as we're here. Let's step back to the west and regroup. What's everyone's thoughts on the situation? > talk to goblin posted:“What should I do now?” you ask. > talk to gremlin posted:“Hey, how are you doing in there?” you ask. > think posted:“If that monster needed glasses, it would be pretty weird glasses.” The goblin is essentially our hint system - if we had talked to him before shooting the crossbow he would have told us to try that. He's right, though - we need to be a bit less heroic. > remove helmet posted:You try to remove the helmet, but it is stuck. The strap under your chin is too tight. Alright, let's run back to the west and grab the sword. As long as we're far enough away that it's not vibrating, we can: > cut strap with sword posted:You cut the strap with the sword, and pull off the helmet. Nice! > give helmet to goblin posted:You give the Super Champion Helmet to the goblin. Fair enough. The goblin has his own inventory and can be instructed to use any item he has, although he can occasionally veto your commands if they're particularly dumb or self-destructive. (as a side note, getting a point has changed our fate if we die: quote:In that game you scored 1 out of a possible 100, in 57 turns. You get reincarnated as a germ, living in the left pinky toe of Else Mogen, a neurotic hairdresser from Copenhagen. What does our buddy think now? > talk to goblin posted:“What should I do now?” you ask. That's the obvious next step, I suppose. Let's give that monster a taste of our auto-reloading crossbow! (From here on, I won't show off what the goblin has to say unless it's interesting enough.) > shoot frog posted:You pull the trigger. The arrow magically returns to the crossbow and the crossbow is loaded again. Huh? That happened fast. The arrow did not even have time to leave the crossbow entirely! In fact, it barely moved! There is, naturally, no way to turn off the auto-reload enchantment. We're not out of options yet, though. Remember this bad boy? > inventory posted:A mail-ordered short metal staff with a clear orb on the end. Its manufacturers say the staff will remove any Time to make a frog disappear. Dropping the sword and heading back to the east. > touch frog with staff posted:The huge monster vanishes. Hmm. Yes. I see. > read page 1 posted:On the front is a badly drawn picture of three monsters running away from a man who is holding a copy of the book over his head. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > read page 3 posted:Which of the following body parts does it have? > read page 11 posted:How many tentacles? > read page 13 posted:Pope’s Delight: > think posted:“Tentacle monsters. Why does it always have to be tentacle monsters. Or zombie wolfs. Or parrot women. Or sentient livers. Or kamikaze sheep. Or jumping oaks. Or...” > goblin, kill the monster posted:The goblin grabs the tip of a tentacle, and starts beating it. The tentacle wraps around the goblin and lifts him high. The tentacle begins moving round and round, faster and faster, with the screaming goblin. Then it lets go,and the goblin flies through the air. Another tentacle grabs one of the goblin’s arms, and throws him back. A third tentacle grabs him around a leg and throws him up in the air. A fourth tentacle catches him around the neck and throws him on the floor. The goblin gets up. “Sorry boss,” he says. 'A' for effort, buddy. Let's make a tactical retreat. > West posted:As you are about to go, a tentacle wraps itself around one of your legs. You fall, and are pulled back. You manage to untangle your leg. Or not. Maybe if we... > touch goblin with staff posted:The goblin sidekick vanishes. Okay, in retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought that would help. > Touch staff posted:Suddenly everything looks slightly different. It... didn't work on me, I guess? Whatever, let's get the tentacle monster out of here and retreat. > touch tentacle monster with staff posted:The gigantic tentacle monster vanishes. Aw, thanks buddy. I guess that's why the orb didn't seem to work on us. Let's retreat back to the west. > look posted:On a mountain ledge So. We're back where we started. The staff lets us swap some living creature for a tentacle monster, but that doesn't seem to actually help us here - the monsters don't fight with each other, and neither one seems particularly easy to kill. Let's go over our options. > inventory posted:The new magical sword from Adventurer’s Emporium. According to the commercial it will start to vibrate when you are close to danger. It is shaking like crazy, and you can barely hold on to it or prevent it from cutting yourself. The sword is useless - actually, one second > throw sword at frog posted:The monster is too far away. It might seem like we're out of options. But as the great adventurer Herlock Sholmes once said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth" > talk to goblin posted:“What should I do now?” you ask. Well said, friend. > East posted:On a mountain ledge Piece of cake, for a professional adventurer such as myself. Now let me just... > west posted:On a mountain ledge We'll take a look at the caves next time. For now, our score did just go up, so: > stab self with sword posted:You stab yourself in the chest. Before we go: as you might have guessed, that monster compendium has a lot of entries, many of which we'll never encounter in the game. Instead of a massive text dump at the end, I'll post a couple at the end of each update. Let's start with something simple. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Human sized? > read page 48 posted:How does its ears look like? Human ears > read page 49 posted:Well, it probably is a Human then. Though occasionally nice, Humans usually becomes members in whatever culture that happens to be around, no matter how destructive or stupid that culture is. Then they become so convinced that their culture is the best one that they start killing off everybody who does not belong to it. Humans drink blood, and do not cast reflections. The best way to kill one is with a stake through the heart. Pointy ears? > read page 50 posted:It is an Elf. They are supposed to be noble warriors, able to communicate with nature and full of ancient wisdom. Actually they are just a bunch of hippies that have had their ears surgically altered. Harmless. What about the short guys? > read page 51 posted:It is a Dwarf. Generally harmless, though sometimes a young human female will take control of 6-8 male dwarves, forming a bizarre and very dangerous hive-mind, where the dwarves will defend the human with their lives, fighting without fear, exhaustion or thought of themselves. The best way to stop this is to trick the human into eating some kind of poisonous fruit. When she dies, the Dwarfs will be free. However, sometimes the evil forces of a human can return even after death. Therefore make sure the human is placed inside some kind of glass box, as the glass protects against the mind control rays.
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May 1, 2022 01:32
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Side note: as you might have noticed with the staff, the game has a lot of stuff you can mess with and is pretty good about handling any weird scenario the player can set up. I'm trying to show off everything interesting but there's bound to be stuff I miss or forget, so if you ever think of something you want me to try, post it and I'll see what happens. (Remember that we can give the goblin any item, and order him to use them just like we can)
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May 1, 2022 01:36
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Thorsby is great and I am super glad someone is LPing this. Looking forward to the ride because it's already been great! also awaiting the inevitable puzzle where you have to have the goblin put you in the staff to cross a river or something
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May 1, 2022 02:14
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 Okay, the dwarf joke at the end is pretty clever. And which hopeless higher-up gave us a used staff to test?
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May 1, 2022 04:09
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Snake Maze posted:Side note: as you might have noticed with the staff, the game has a lot of stuff you can mess with and is pretty good about handling any weird scenario the player can set up. I'm trying to show off everything interesting but there's bound to be stuff I miss or forget, so if you ever think of something you want me to try, post it and I'll see what happens. (Remember that we can give the goblin any item, and order him to use them just like we can) So if you hand the goblin the crossbow, can he kill the frog for you? Yapping Eevee posted:
Rigorous QA ensures that every item is tested before it leaves the factory! Now just don't ask where they get their test subjects.
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May 1, 2022 04:13
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Oh, I'm here for this. I'm pretty sure someone tried LPing it before, but they left it to the thread to figure out what to do, I'm not sure they managed to get past this first monster before it fizzled out. Unless I've imagined all that.
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May 1, 2022 08:31
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Black Robe posted:Oh, I'm here for this. I'm pretty sure someone tried LPing it before, but they left it to the thread to figure out what to do, I'm not sure they managed to get past this first monster before it fizzled out. Unless I've imagined all that. Yes, that LP debuted on the LP Beach.
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May 1, 2022 08:37
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I am looking forward to this one. I should imagine everyone is well aware of Thorsby's works, but if not, you should try them. The art is horrendous, we know. But the stories are... Like if Wodehouse did D&D.
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May 1, 2022 14:44
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Thorsby's drawn art has a really outsider art feel to it; it's ugly, but it's very functional and the composition's always been pretty good so I have a hard time calling it straight up bad. It also always complements the writing well which is fantastically captivating and kept me binging through the "this art is bad but this comic is....... good????" phase.
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May 1, 2022 15:49
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Mini update - Everyone Tries to Kill Each OtherAdventurer's Consumer Guide posted:You are a product tester for the Adventurer’s Consumer Guide, a magazine that reviews all sorts of equipment an adventurer might need for his adventures. Your magazine is highly respected because of the thorough tests you put the equipment through. The tests aren’t just done at the magazine’s offices. No, the product testers go on actual adventures to test the equipment out in the field. Sometimes you kill an evil overlord; sometimes you rescue a fair maiden. Most of the time, like today, you just go out looking for a treasure in Treasure Cave Mountain, a perfect place for adventures as it contains plenty of caves, treasures, monsters and traps. We'll start back at the beginning for a moment. There's a couple permutations of attempted murder we didn't check out. After cutting off the helmet and dropping the sword: > goblin, stab frog with crossbow posted:“My hands are deadly weapons. I don’t need a crossbow.” No dice. We'll have to kill the frog with our bare hands. > kill frog posted:You throw yourself against the monster. The monster smacks you with one of its legs, and you are slammed into the mountain wall. Looks like we have to stab him ourself. What about the tentacle monster, can we kill that one? > stab tentacle monster with crossbow posted:You smack the crossbow, arrow first, into a tentacle. As the tentacle withdraws you notice a small hole in it, from which is gushing some dark blue liquid that quickly coagulates. The damage you did would appear to be insignificant. We swap the monsters back and retreat to safety. Maybe there's something else we could kill? > stab goblin with sword posted:That is not a good way to test the goblin. I'm too much of a professional to treat my sidekick like that. > Goblin, kill me posted:“I don’t think my agency would like it if I did that, boss.” And so is he. What about that gremlin in the cage, the book made him sound pretty deadly > stab gremlin with sword posted:You try to hit the arms of the gremlin with the sword, but he pulls them inside the cage. When you withdraw the sword, he puts his arms back out and continues to fiddle with the code-lock. The crossbow gives the same result, and we can't touch him with the staff while he's in there. > goblin, kill the gremlin posted:“Very sensible, boss. Just give me the cage, and I’ll take care of it.” The book warned us how devious they are. (Dropping the cage on the ground gets the same result, just without the goblin plague bit) We could also open the cage ourselves: > open cage posted:You unlock the code-lock. The gremlin jumps out of the cage. Then he runs giggling away to the east. You sigh and throw away the cage. You have tried catching gremlins before, and you know you’ll never be able to. But it's probably not surprising to see that it ends the same way. That's it for all the murder, but there's actually one last thing to check out. If you look back at the tutorial text at the start there, they give an example of how to give commands to our sidekick. quote:You communicate by “talk to [whatever]”, or by giving commands in this format: “goblin, give me the cow-o-meter”. That's just hypothetical, though, right? > goblin, inventory posted:“I don’t have anything, boss.” Right, of course. I mean, he can't just > goblin, give me the cow-o-meter posted:The goblin gives the cow-o-meter to you. > inventory posted:A cow-o-meter. Just point it at someone, and it will show you how many cows they have seen in their lives.  > point cow-o-meter at goblin posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the goblin has seen 46 cows. > point cow-o-meter at gremlin posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the gremlin has seen 12 cows. > point cow-o-meter at frog posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the monster has seen 4 cows. > point cow-o-meter at tentacle monster posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the monster has not seen any cows. > goblin, point cow-o-meter at me posted:“Nah, I’m sick of this stupid device.” > point cow-o-meter at self posted:According to the cow-o-meter, you have seen 516 cows.
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May 1, 2022 16:47
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Chapter 3 - In which we are Just Browsing Previously, we defeated the vile Harmless Frog, and gained access to the Treasure Caves of Treasure Cave Mountain. The frog, and these cliffs, were basically a tutorial to make sure you understand how the game works. From this point on, the area available to us increases dramatically, so in this update we'll just take a look around at all the new rooms available to us, and maybe see what the inhabitants think about giant tentacle monsters. On a mountain ledge posted:The end of a narrow mountain ledge leading west. The tall mountain wall has three caves: to the northwest, north and northeast. We'll work our way left to right. In the northwest cave, we have: > northwest posted:Big cave A person! Maybe he can give us a hint to some treasure > talk to hoverist posted:“What are you doing?” you ask. > point cow-o-meter at hoverist posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the Hoverist has seen 199 cows. What does he think about orbs? > touch hoverist with staff posted:The Hoverist vanishes. Dangerous? What? What does he think about attempted murder? > kill hoverist posted:You start toward the Hoverist, but he hovers up, out of your reach, and says, “When you reach the sixteenth stage of Hoverism, you will > hoverist, wear helmet posted:“When you reach the twentieth stage of Hoverism, you will learn not to boss people around.” I guess that's all we're getting from him for now. Let's keep going. > west posted:You are not testing the Suspenders That Let You Walk Through Walls on this trip; that was seven months ago. Just as well, they stopped working very suddenly. You were stuck for a week. If those dwarves had decided to build their new mine anywhere else, you might never have gotten out. Oh, fine. northwest posted:Large cave The sword is shaking a lot now - there must be something dangerous in the next room. We'll drop it here before moving on. While we're at it, let's see if the book has anything to say about those fish. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > read page 3 posted:Which of the following body parts does it have? > read page 4 posted:What kind of eyes does it have? > read page 7 posted:It is an Icky Cave Fish. Because caves seldom have light, the Icky Cave Fish have lost their ability to see, and are blind. Because caves seldom have water, the Icky Cave Fish have lost their ability to swim, and must crawl around on land. They are harmless. Great. And since we are an adventurer: > take fish posted:You manage to catch a sluggish fish. Is there a reason we might want some fish? Who knows, but we've got a couple squirming around in our pockets now. Now, let's scope out this safe - there could be treasure inside! > open safe posted:You try some random combinations, but the safe remains locked. It's never that simple, of course. Let's look under the safe. down posted:A tight room Doesn't seem like there's anything we can do down here yet either. We'll get out from under the safe and move on to the next room. > northwest posted:Enormous cave So is the sauce the dangerous thing, or the runes? > read runes posted:You try, but the runes start swimming before your eyes. It is impossible to get any meaning from them. All you get is a slight headache. As soon as you avert your eyes, you can’t even remember what the runes looked like. You have come across this phenomenon on a couple of previous product testing missions, so you know the reason. The runes are goblin runes; magical runes that can only be read by goblins. But what are we supposed to do with a message that only goblins can read?? > goblin, read runes posted:The goblin looks at the runes. “Oh dear, I can’t read them,” he says. Goblin needs glasses  > read bottle posted:The makers of Dante Tomato Sauce take no responsibility for any throat pain, heartburns, ulcers, ruined tongues or death that may be caused by the sauce. Another inventory item!  Except, it seems that this bottle of sauce is what the sword was warning us about, so if they're ever on the same screen the sword enters Death Mode. We can still walk past the sword with the sauce in our inventory, but picking it up kills us. For now, at least, they're mutually exclusive items. We'll leave the sauce on its pedestal. That seems to be all we can do in here, so we'll head back to the cliffside. quote:On a mountain ledge We'll check out the middle entrance this time. > north posted:Spacious cave More people! > talk to barbarian posted:“What are you doing?” you ask. > point cow-o-meter at barbarian posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the barbarian has seen 319 cows. I'll try to murder those guys now. Nothing personal, just looking for Content. > kill barbarian posted:You throw yourself against the barbarian. He reaches out with one hand and grabs your face. Then he throws you on the floor. He says, “Ha ha! Grirgr world’s greatest fighter.” > kill dwarf posted:You grab round the neck of the dwarf and squeeze. He smacks you with in the face with the flat side of the axe. You stumble backwards. > kill horse posted:You would not want to hurt such a useful animal. How about tentacle monsters, any thoughts on those? > touch goblin with staff posted:The goblin sidekick vanishes. Let's give them some time > wait x 3 posted:The barbarian throws his sabre at a tentacle. The sabre causes a wound, then falls to the ground. The barbarian runs forwards and picks it up. Good hustle, but I don't think they're going to accomplish much. We'll put the tenticle monster back in his pokeball and head further in. > touch monster posted:You pet a nearby tentacle. It would be hard to judge if the monster enjoys this. Lol, that one was a real typo. Now I'm gonna have to go back and pet everything! > north posted:Gigantic cave Another room with something dangerous ahead. Let's see what the vending machine has for sale. code:> kick automat posted:You kick the automat. Suddenly coins starts pouring out of the coins slot. Lots of them! You eagerly pick them up and start counting. It’s one hundred and forty gold coins! Nah, just kidding, nothing happens actually. What about the altar? > read runes posted:At the top of the altar is a long string of small crudely drawn runes. The first depicts a large man punching a small man. The second a large man pushing a small man. The third a large man giving a small man a wedgie. There are many more with similar motifs. You have seen runes like this before. They mean that this is an altar of Snurgelfjekk, the cat-headed god of bullies. At the center of the altar is a larger, more detailed rune. It depicts the altar and two people. One of the people is playing a saxophone. The other is putting something on the altar; you can’t quite make out what it is supposed to be. Lines are coming out in all directions from the altar, perhaps representing light or heat. > stand on altar posted:NO WAY! The exit is to the north, and presumably whatever the sword is freaking out about is there too. > north posted:You try, but the bright light is too strong. It hurts your eyes. > close eyes posted:If you are thinking of walking around without seeing, forget it. You would just stumble into things. (Nice try though.) It doesn't look like we can investigate that way just yet, though. We'll head back to the cliffs and check out the final branch. quote:On a mountain ledge This is the first room in the cave where the sword is completely still. We can't take the hay, so the only thing we can interact with is the teleporter. > stand on teleporter posted:You get on the teleporter. But it looks like we can't use it. Who even designed this thing!? We'll stop there for now. We've gotten a lot of new items to mess with and places to explore. There's a couple different things we can do to advance now, some of them more obvious than others. As a reminder, here's what our inventory currently looks like: > inventory posted:The new magical sword from Adventurer’s Emporium. According to the commercial it will start to vibrate when you are close to danger. We'll wrap up by looking at the other kinds of fish we didn't see. > read page 4 posted:What kind of eyes does it have? > read page 5 posted:It is a Gnuga Fish. The large female Gnuga Fish will form in its mouth a surprisingly strong rope made from a sticky secretion created by glands in its throat. The much smaller male Gnuga Fish will then swim backwards into the female’s mouth, where the rope will be attached to its tail. The female will then spit the male with great force onto land. If the male hits any creature it will bite. The male Gnuga Fish has a tremendous bite, its teeth accounts for half its body weight, and its jaw muscles for most of the other half. The female will then suck the rope, the male and the prey back into the ocean. If you see the male Gnuga Fish shoot towards you, your best chance is in hitting it back into the water with a frying pan or similar. If you do get bitten, you will not be able to remove the teeth or cut the strong rope. Instead you must pull the female Gnuga onto land before you are pulled into the water. On land the female cannot eat you, and both fish will die after a few hours. The dead male will fall off after a week or two. > read page 6 posted:It is a Prophet Fish. These tiny fish seem to either know the future or control reality in some way. They swim in formations forming letters, words and sentences. The sentences are advice to the people watching. The advice always seems good at the time, but a person who tries to follow it somehow always sets off a series of events culminating with the person ending up dead in the water where the Prophet Fishes live, even though the advice seldom involves the water or the fish, and often concern things far away. Just ignore them. Now that's the stuff Lostclock would like! Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 00:36 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 1, 2022 22:36
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lmao the Gnuga and Prophet Fishes are classic Thorsby.
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May 1, 2022 23:25
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I know there's no chance but I really want a Thorsby comic about the prophet fish.
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May 2, 2022 00:35
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What would happen if we gave the sword to somebody and then summoned the tentacle monster?
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May 3, 2022 15:24
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flavor.flv posted:What would happen if we gave the sword to somebody and then summoned the tentacle monster? We tried giving the sword to the goblin, and he refused it. I suspect most NPCs will behave similarly, but for all I know you just solved a puzzle we haven't seen yet.
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May 3, 2022 15:59
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:We tried giving the sword to the goblin, and he refused it. I suspect most NPCs will behave similarly Right - everyone just has a generic refusal message if you try to give them something they're not interested in. > give sword to barbarian posted:“That’s not a proper treasure!” > give sword to dwarf posted:He looks at the sword and gives it a thumbs-down. > give sword to hoverist posted:“When you reach the thirty-ninth stage of Hoverism, you will realize that there is no need for possessions.” > give sword to fish posted:The fish lacks arms to carry stuff around with. Also, I glossed over it before but the sword doesn't actually consider the tentacle monster a threat and doesn't vibrate when you bring it out. (That might just be a convenience thing so you don't have to juggle your inventory every time you use the staff).
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May 4, 2022 00:33
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Chapter 4 - In which we learn the importance of responsible Orb Handling> look posted:
Last time we took a good look around the Treasure Caves, but failed to find any Treasure. This time, we'll start out by investigating the teleporter we found. > goblin, stand on teleporter posted:The goblin gets on the teleporter. We have to make sure it's safe first, of course > shake lever posted:You shake the lever. There comes a low humming sound from the teleporter. Excellent! Now for our turn. > stand on teleporter posted:You get on the teleporter. Looks like that's the last we'll be seeing of the gremlin! There's no way to keep him caged past this point, he always gets away sooner or later. Before we get too busy with the new room, let's pause for a moment. Until now, we've always had the goblin with us. He can't be ordered to stay behind, and nothing we've seen could disable him. But now we're alone for the first time, and there's no way for him to reach us on his own. What happens if we touch the orb now? > touch orb posted:
Where are we? > talk to people posted:“What’s going on here?” you ask. They keep talking, if we wait. quote:The man in the uniform points to the staff and says, “This was the scepter of a king.” We need more information, clearly. > point cow-o-meter at woman posted:According to the cow-o-meter, the woman has seen 399 cows. That doesn't really clear things up. Let's take a look outside. > west posted:You step outside. But what is this? Buildings hundreds of floors high! Horseless carriages driving around on hard black streets! Machines flying high in the air! Cell phones having been invented! Let's take a step back. Unknown place posted:A huge room. There are several exits, including one to the west that seems to be leading outside. Touching the orb took us to this strange place. If we touch the orb again, it'll take us back! > touch orb posted:Suddenly everything looks different. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Voluminous cave posted:This cave has an exit to the east. In the middle of the floor is a round hole. Lesson learned: do not touch the orb without supervision! Parents, talk to your children about responsible orb handling. Back to the room at hand. Let's see if the book has anything to say about the elf-eater > read 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? > read 63 posted:Does it have hooves? > read 72 posted:Is it hairy? > read 79 posted:Does it have large bulging eyes? > read 80 posted:It is a Gloov. The Gloov has no brain, and steals all its thoughts from other creatures. If a mosquito thinks about sucking your blood, the Gloov might also try to suck your blood, which would be bad, considering it is bigger than a horse. If it is near a bird that thinks about flying, the Gloov might end up crushing someone, as it has no wings. To get rid of it, think very hard about running away or bashing your head against a rock. Neat! But enough stalling, let's loot the elf's dead body. > take backpack posted:Some of the monster’s teeth stick through the lower half of the backpack, and thus the backpack is stuck. But you feel something inside. Not sure what he was planning to do with the nosehairscrew, but a good find all in all. We probably got some cuts and scrapes from all that monster fighting earlier, so let's test out the gun. > shoot self with gun posted:You pull the trigger. A white ray shoots out of the gun and hits you. You don’t feel anything. How strange. I guess it must be a dud  We know from when we teleported the goblin that we can jump down the hole to go back, but let's explore a little farther. > east posted:
> talk goblin posted:“Hey, what are you doing here?” you ask. I hear you. Probably no chance of that happening, though. It looks like there's nothing else here, so we'll just continue on. > northwest posted:The female goblin blocks your path. “You can’t go in here,” she says. So that's how it's going to be, huh? You leave me with no choice. > touch goblin with staff posted:You hit the goblin woman with the staff. Nothing happens. She says, “Ha! My medallion protects me against magic! It also makes me super strong!” It seems we've met our match. Our points have gone up since the last time we died, so we'll do the honorable thing. > stab self with sword posted:You stab yourself in the chest. Speaking of carrots, let's wrap up by learning about some ungulates. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? Yes. > read page 65 posted:What is its head like? Horned: > read page 66 posted:It is an Egnurg. They are bloodthirsty but slow, so just attack it before it attacks you. Many animals have developed the same colors as their environment so as not to be noticed. An Egnurg will instead change the environment. One can often find an entire forest or small mountain painted in the Egnurgs characteristic pattern of pink with purple triangles. This makes the Egnurg hard to spot, so just close your eyes and go by smell. An Egnurg smells like old socks and pasta. Candy: > read page 67 posted:It is a Wugga. It will try to trample you to death with its poisonous hoofs. You have to hang on to its shoulders, so that its legs can’t reach you. Then, to kill it, lick its head until it is completely gone. This will take several hours, and the entire time the Wugga will try to throw you off. Luckily the head has a delicious strawberry taste. And the ones without arms? > read page 68 posted:What kind of ears does it have? Slightly long: > read page 69 posted:It is a Horse. They are the evil minions of humans. Shoot it with a silver bullet. Long: > read 70 posted:It is a Donkey. I think they are like the queens of the horses or something. See the entry on Horses: page 69. Attached to tentacles: > read page 71 posted:It is Peter Robinson. He has been like this since a heated argument with a wizard. He is not dangerous, but if you meet him say “Hi” to him for me. Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 13:33 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 01:59
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Honestly, a cow-o-meter sounds like something I need to purchase right now.
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May 4, 2022 02:49
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Zap ourselves while not wearing the anti-magic ray ring
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May 4, 2022 04:33
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Foxfire_ posted:Zap ourselves while not wearing the anti-magic ray ring It's a good thought. > remove ring posted:The ring is stuck on your finger But naturally, it's not going to be that simple. edit: vvv good catch, fixed Snake Maze fucked around with this message at 13:34 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 12:10
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You accidentally refer to the gremlin that escapes after the teleportation as a goblin.
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May 4, 2022 13:17
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"Egnurg" backwards is "Grunge". I wonder if that means anything. I think if we can find a place to stick the tentacle monster without getting stuck, we could stick either the tomato sauce or the sword into the orb and so carry both around at the same time.
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May 4, 2022 20:38
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Once upon a time I read spoilers for this game, from fear it would never be LPed. Hopefully it has been long enough that this is an original idea: orb the goblin in that tight room under the safe.
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May 5, 2022 11:26
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Feels weird just calling him the goblin. Can we ask his name?
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May 5, 2022 15:57
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Mzbundifund posted:Feels weird just calling him the goblin. Can we ask his name? Nope, we can only "talk to [npc]" and it's up to them what the conversation is about. Our loyal companion is strictly professional and only responds to "goblin" or "sidekick".
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May 5, 2022 19:15
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might be nice to start calling him by his job title instead of his species, then 
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May 5, 2022 20:41
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His full name is Goblin R. R. Sidekick. e: Can we summon the giant tentacle beast in the gap under the safe?
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May 6, 2022 21:16
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Chapter 5 - In which a safe is crackedquote:Voluminous cave The goblin guard is still blocking our way, so for now it seems we've done all we can up here. > up posted:You are not testing the Rocket Socks That Let You Escape Through The Ceiling Of Any Room Or Cave this trip, that’s next month. > down posted:You jump down the hole. You land in a pile of hay. You get up. > down posted:You are not testing the Trained Mutant Super Digging Mole this month, that was a couple of years ago. You still keep landmines buried under your house. We found some new items up there that might be useful, but let's ignore them for now. habituallyred posted:Once upon a time I read spoilers for this game, from fear it would never be LPed. Hopefully it has been long enough that this is an original idea: orb the goblin in that tight room under the safe. megane posted:His full name is Goblin R. R. Sidekick. We could have done this any time after we entered the cave, although there's never been too much reason to do so. Let's check it out. > sw posted:
It's the age old question: what happens when an immovable safe meets an enormous tentacle monster? > touch fish with staff posted:Which do you mean, the slimy fish, the fat fish or the sluggish fish? God forbid we orb the wrong fish. > touch fat fish with staff posted:The fat fish vanishes. Really wish that healing gun worked right around now. Still, any adventurer worth their salt can walk off a light explosion or two. Most of our items are missing, and I don't see the goblin sidekick either. Let's grab what we can and take a look around. > take all posted:pair of mirrorshades: You pick up mirrorshades and wipe the sludge off them. > southeast posted:
> take all posted:Creature Manual: You pick up the book, and remove the bits of the safe that are stuck in the cover. Then you open the book and shake it. Sludge, and a very flat fish, drips out. The treasure > southeast posted:Just as you are about to leave, a huge glob of turquoise sludge falls from the ceiling. It lands with a splash. Then it begins to moan. My gosh, it’s the goblin! He gets up, start shaking sludge from his body and laments “Let’s never, ever do that again!” He's okay! Let's get you patched up, buddy. > shoot sidekick with healing gun posted:You pull the trigger. A white ray shoots out of the gun and hits the goblin. The goblin smiles and wiggles his ears. He looks at his foot. > southeast posted:
> take all posted:goblin sidekick: You try to lift the goblin, but he is too heavy. > southeast posted:
We can't pick up the sword at the moment, since we're holding the hot sauce, but that's all our items located. So what did we get out of all this, aside from some injuries and a thick coating of sludge? Well, our staff doesn't have a tentacle monster in it anymore. Which means we can do stuff like this: > touch hoverist with staff posted:The Hoverist vanishes. We can drag people to other rooms! quote:The dwarf kicks you in the rear end before running off in the direction you found him. quote:Confused, the barbarian says, “Where is Grirgr now?” He runs away in the direction you found him. They just run back once we let them out, so there's nothing particularly productive we can do with this ability at the moment, but I'm sure it'll come in handy. Incidentally, the safe-busting itself could have played out a little differently. First, what if we still had the gremlin with us? > touch sidekick with staff posted:The goblin sidekick vanishes. Aside from the cage being left behind in a different room, this is the same as letting him escape after using the teleporter. We could also have weathered the storm in the comfort of an orb. > touch orb posted:You suddenly find yourself in another place. This lets us skip the injuries, and even keep the gremlin in his cage, but doesn't actually open up any new posibilities. (The injuries from the explosion don't come up again). We also could have swapped the goblin sidekick into the orb, but the only difference is you don't get the scene of him showing up. Let's go back to the main timeline. quote:Gigantic cave We weren't able to go north here early due to the blinding light, but we found some mirrorshades in the dead elf's backpack that should help with that. > give shades to sidekick posted:You give the pair of mirrorshades to the goblin. But you would look cool as hell!! Fine, fine. The sword thought there was something dangerous ahead, but knowing that thing it was probably just scared we'd hurt our eyes. > wear shades posted:You put on the pair of mirrorshades. Now THAT looks like a real treasure. We just have to get that baby home and we can start writing our review. > take diamond posted:This thing is really heavy. You just barely manage to pick it up. Your back creaks ominously. Hmm. > drop diamond posted:Dropped. Looks like we'll have to figure something else out. Let's take that knife and explore the other rooms. > sidekick, take knife posted:“The pedestal is too high, boss, I can’t reach the knife.” Ah well, I'm sure that's of no great significance. > take knife posted:You pull the knife out of the pedestal. You notice the following things: Alright, so: part of our head was just cut off. Now, it's true that this isn't a good situation to be in. But one of the worst mistakes you can make in a crisis is to start panicking. Let's calmly asses our surroundings and see if there's anything nearby that can help. And hey, on the bright side, we figured out what the sword was so scared of! > talk to sidekick posted:“Aaaaaaaaaaargh! I’m bleeding!” you say. > shoot self with gun posted:You pull the trigger. A white ray shoots out of the gun and hits you. You don’t feel anything. The bleeding doesn’t stop! Doesn't seem like that's changed. Let's take a look at the other rooms. > west posted:
> talk old troll posted:“Aaaaaaaaaaargh! I’m bleeding!” you say. Conversation isn't much of an option right now, for some reason. > take saxophone posted:Taken. Alright, no sax for now. Let's check out the room to the east. > east posted:
This looks like an interesting group. Sadly we can't ask them what their deal is right now. > up posted:
Is that a bluff? > open chest posted:You open the chest. There comes a terrible ringing sound. An alarm! There are five gold coins in the chest. You quickly grab them before running towards the ladder. You hear something behind you. With one foot on the ladder you turn your head. It’s the hatch; it has opened, revealing a female goblin peeking through. She is holding a crossbow. She shoots you through the eye. You fall down the hole. Hey, it's her again! It appears the sign is accurate, so that's more useful information. We're learning a lot! > undo posted:Titanic cave Only one direction left. Anything good to the north? > north posted:
Hmm, some of these creatures are new to us. > read page 2 posted:So, you have spotted a monster. How many legs does it have? The genie has no legs, so page 3 > read page 3 posted:Which of the following body parts does it have? 
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May 9, 2022 01:51
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I wonder. Would shooting the gremlin with the healing gun zap the effect back onto us via the paired rings?
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May 9, 2022 02:08
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Oh come on, it's just a major head wound. What do they make adventurers out of these days, if they can't cope with losing 2/3rds of their brain and 300% of their blood?
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May 9, 2022 02:10
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