After having so much fun with Avernum 3, I almost started it again on "hard," but I was poking around in my games folder and remembered this fantastic game from 1997. This is a truly iconic game that set standards for a long time. I remember that they insisted they would never port it to Macintosh, but I was able to play it many years ago on my Mac with a virtual machine of Win 97. Worked perfectly.
Got this copy on GOG, which is pretty good about keeping things up to date and working in the latest OSs (better than Steam, I think). This works fine, although there is an annoying problem that I had hoped they would have fixed by now. Nevertheless, I found the solution so it's going to be fine.
UPDATE: GOG has at last updated the game and has solved the empty dialogue box problem described just below. Now you get the Yes and No options just as though there were never any problem. Download the game from GOG and enjoy!
I noticed when I fired this game up about a year ago that when you tried to quit, all you got was a white rectangle in the middle of the screen. If you hit "escape" you can briefly see that it's a dialogue box with "yes" and "no." But the image fades almost instantly, so you just have to get lucky with your cursor to quit.
However, I checked the GOG discussion board and learned that although there is a fix for it, all you really have to do is hit "y" or "n" and the game will respond. And it does! So I'm OK. Some people had this same problem with saving, but my copy is working fine that way.
Well! That problem solved, I decided to dive into the game. I played it, as I said, many years ago, and I remember that I agreed with the hype: it really is one of the best adventures ever. Also, I finally have a copy of the sequel, so let's go!
We open with a strange dream that our protagonist, April, has:
What world is this?
My apologies for the black borders around the screenshots. Actually there is one other problem with the game. I can't take screenshots with the PC. So I've gone to a YouTube walkthrough to grab some shots for this blog. Extra work, but at least I can get what I want and not just forget to grab a shot during the game.
We get a bunch of mystical transformation shots:
Is someone controlling April?
And then finally April wakes up in her room. As a good gamer I search the room and take whatever I can, then head downstairs for an extremely lengthy conversation with the boarding house owner.
This lady loves to talk
And no, I didn't forget to grab the matches on the table. You always need matches in an adventure game. I also checked the bulletin board and found out how to manipulate things to ask about items. Got a nice new item that way.
So, I think I'm ready to head out into the world! And will do so tomorrow!
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