Avadon, The Corruption 4: THAT was PHUN!!!

Played all day yesterday! W00T! Did two epic dungeon crawls that kicked it!

First up was "Troezen's Treasure," an abandoned tinkermage workshop with all kinds of nasties inside just waiting to eat me. This may be the best dungeon crawl I've ever done. It has three different layers. First, you get in and confront constructs that keep generating. The more generated the tougher they become, so it's necessary to take 'em down as quickly as possible, um, except you don't know that until you get to the end. We wind around and get to the back of the workshop, destroy all the constructs, and then we're safe. However, we can't open the gate into the rest of the workshop. We make a drawing of it and take that back to the lady who gave us the quest, a tinkermage in Troezen. She takes her time in figuring it out, and won't figure it out until we've gained more levels. So we get on with the rest of the game.

At last we're sent back to Troezen, and at last she's figured it out. She gives us instructions, and we return to the workshop. We open the gate! Now we've got more baddies to fight and they're not really all that bad, but once we get 'em all slaughtered we find yet another gate we can't open. Back to the lady tinkermage and she can't figure this one out, but remembers that there's another way in. So off we go, slaughtering altered goo bats and various ghasts until we get to a window that allows us to see the gate mechanism from the other side. Take that back to the tinkermage and she solves it. Now we can get in to the inner workshop, with all the goodies.

But, first we have to get by a couple of really tough constructs that drop mines. That one defeated me the first time until I wised up and set up my towers right at the doorway so they couldn't get by. I've got two tinkermages in this battle: my main character and the other tinkermage that nobody likes, and that turned out to be a great choice. Was able to fire away at the constructs with my sorcerer taking no damage at all, and finally got through to the inner sanctum and the final, nasty battle.

I had to take a look at the forum for advice on this one. There are three "tinkermage constructs," each in a little alcove. These all set up their own hostile towers that shoot at you. Apparently you only have to kill one tinkermage construct to win the battle, but they're not all vulnerable at the same time. A little wisp circles one of them, changing all the time. When the wisp is circling around one of them, that one is vulnerable. Also, in the center of the room, more constructs are formed that eventually are going to attack you.

First, I set up with the south tinkermage construct, but got killed pretty quickly. Then I took the forum's advice and entered battle mode before going into the room, because the room doesn't become hostile until all three of our characters are inside. This time I chose the north alcove, because you're sheltered from the other two alcoves and their hostile towers there. Ran in one at a time, set up four towers, two for each of my tinkermages, then had my sorcerer run in and join me. 

How I did it!

Got killed again on the first try, but that was only because I neglected the center constructs for too long, and they shambled forward and slaughtered me fairly quickly. However, it clearly was a smart option, so I did it again. Summoned creatures with my summoning wands and used an assault crystal to get everybody charged up. This time I hid behind my towers, except for my sorcerer, who mostly stood back against the wall. When my tinkermage construct was invulnerable, I just shot at the constructs forming in the center of the room. They actually go down fairly easily if you keep hammering them. Whenever my tinkermage construct turned vulnerable, I whacked away at her, this time not forgetting the center constructs. It took awhile, but I had set up not only suppression, ice and razorblade towers, but a healing pylon too. 

So I got out of it with a nice win and not even too much damaged. 

Really, I think that was the best dungeon crawl I've ever done.

The second one turned out to be another solo effort for my main character, although I think I could have avoided that. We go to another of those temples looking for the bad guy Dheless, and this time we find him. We also find a truly powerful Tawon goddess, however and she sends us downstairs to hung Dheless, because he make her mad. She sends our two companions away, however, so we're on our own.

Now, I think I could have avoided most of that by just going downstairs with my whole party before I encountered the goddess. I might have a saved game that would let me check that out, but I'm not sure. Anyhoo, you have to slaughter ghasts and ghosts and rats, but these come at you mostly one at a time with the occasional twosome. Not too difficult to dispatch, as we heal up every time we go into peace mode after a fight. There are some decent goodies to loot, and thanks to the junk bag there's no limit to what we can carry. (Although my inventory was completely clogged at the end, because I found some good weapons and armor that I didn't want to sell--fortunately, as you'll see!)

Got to a room where I had to fight Tawon soldiers, but these came at you one at a time, and I had my towers to suppress them and heal me. I didn't bother with shooting towers because I could whack away at 'em on my own. Got all those guys and used up a buncha lock picks to get into sealed areas and get some better goodies. Finally went upstairs, where I had to avoid a construct that patrolled the halls just as in Avernum 6, so I knew how to do that. Fought a buncha ghosts there and took down a buncha hostile towers--easy for a tinkermage with some tool use.

Another upstairs level, and this one had internals to fight. Needed my suppression and healing towers for those, but it went easily after that. Then we get to a "test area" where you have to prove your worth to the goddess. But hey, I'm a tinkermage, so I can set up my towers and the bad guys will whack those instead of me while I shoot and whack them. Wasn't difficult at all and I came out of it almost unscathed. Then I got a really nice sword from a treasure chest as a reward, as well as a key to the final tower, where you find Dheless. Won't say what happened there.

But back I go to Avadon to find that my sorcerer has disappeared. This happens in the Avadon games--each of your characters will have some kind of crisis and you have to go rescue them. That would be fine, except that my sorcerer disappeared with all the good gear on him! Luckily I had scored some good stuff, and I had a good breastplate for my blademaster, as well as a buncha other stuff I hadn't sold yet. She had her own good weapon, so I gave the new sword to the tinkermage that had gone with me on the last mission, as he was already tricked out with the good armor. I only had to buy a helmet for her--I had necklaces and boots and gloves and what all for her. She won't be as strong as before, but she won't be vulnerable.

So now I can start gathering my wandering characters. I've got two to find, as I didn't go after the first one earlier. Will do that before I start any more major quests.

Whew! That was major PHUN! Two great dungeon crawls! Took me all day, but I earned it!

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Avadon, The Corruption 3: Got 'Em!

Wasn't going to play any more last night, but I started watching a DVD  movie that wasn't very good, so I went back to the game. Either I'm much stronger now (well, yeah), or the titans were tweaked here, because I was able to take 'em on and slaughter them without much difficulty. 

First, I snuck by them completely to reconnoiter the rebel fort. Did that and reported back to the base camp, where Commander Odil led us on a major raid of the camp. With my towers (really, I'm routinely using just the suppression tower and the ice sprayer), and with the help of the Avadon troops, which included a sorcerer to keep us hasted and healed, I was able to get those baddies too, although I did lose my shaman and blademaster. But I survived long enough for the troop to win the fight, so it was OK. Got some nice loot, then had to go underground to fight the rebel leader.

The underground fights were much better, i.e, tougher. First I encountered a nasty sorcerer, but I left him and got their smithy instead. Fortunately he had a couple of magic anvils, so I was able to enhance some new equipment and clean out the inventory a bit. He and his construct were tough, but with my towers I was able to get 'em.

Then I went back to the sorcerer. Darn, he was on four spaced-apart platforms and kept leaping from one to another. Therefore my suppression tower could only get him sporadically. He left "infernals" in his place when he leaped, but those were actually pretty easy. I just kept following him around and finally got my party together on one platform. Eventually he'd leap right into my clutches, get hit by my suppression tower and nicely slowed, and I was able to whack away at him. Mostly I had to hit him with projectiles, but eventually those wore him down until he expired. 

It seems the rebels were getting serious magical help from somebody major. The plot thickens.

Next I had to face the rebel leader in her stonehenge-like circle. Jeff used a longstanding Spiderweb tactic there by making her invulnerable when she summoned ghosts. I know that tactic. You have to kill the ghosts and then she'll be vulnerable again. This time you only had to kill two ghosts to get her, and the ghosts were pretty weak, so it didn't take much. Again, kept hacking away at her with projectiles until she took her dirtnap. 

After that I went hunting for loot and was extremely disappointed that I couldn't find any magic switches. I've got the game hacked (with advice from the forum) to make the switches easily visible, and I swear, there weren't any there. Darn.

I did get some nifty gauntlets from her and a few other nice magical things, but the sorcerer only dropped a black oak staff and I've already got one better than that. Well, it'll sell well.

Traipsed around to see if I could get anything else from the area before I left, and indeed, found some lizards, including a couple of basilisks--these don't kill you as they did in Avernum, where you needed a character carrying a crystal shield to get 'em, but only stun you for a few rounds. So again, the game is made easier for newer players. I also found a nice nest of titans with a good boss and a shaman. That ought to have been tough, but I was lucky (or smart) enough to place my towers right where the bulk of the enemies would be, and my towers pretty much took care of 'em as I stood back and hurled projectiles at 'em. Fun.

Back to Avadon, and got some good cash for all the stuff in my junk bag. Finally getting some cash to spend. I can go back and get some more blessings from the hedge witch up in the Tawon area, or maybe buy another house! (why?) Or I could get some furniture for Skyrise Farm!

Also went back to the Corruption before taking on the new major quest, as I've got a few minor quests in that area and because I finally acquired two drake skins. There's a tailor in Monitor Base C who makes good stuff from drake skins, so I got a nice suit for my shaman that will help him make wolves. I'm using the "call aid" function from time to time, but not nearly enough. Really, with these towers and the call aid function, we can have a goodly number of fighters on our side, so it's silly not to use 'em.

However, I got so caught up in the game again (yay!) that I finally looked up and saw that it was 1:30. Oops. Hauled myself off to bed, but not before realizing that I hadn't swapped out all the equipment on my allies. Really, that is getting to be tedious and is my only real complaint against the game.

So I'll probably do more today! Fun!

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Avadon, The Corruption 2: Scouting out the Fort

Just played a little bit tonight, just to get back in the swing of the game. I finished my major Kirkus review rush, got everything in, and I'm settling down to enjoy the evening. If I stayed away from the game much longer I'll forget how to play (a problem that absolutely is going to mess me up when I finally get back to Baldur's Gate). 

Found a couple of minor quests I'd probably missed earlier. When you find these quests late they're usually a piece 'o cake, and these pretty much were. Had a minor battle with one, and probably already had found the clue I was looking for on the second one. They had rewards that would have been quite nice earlier in the game, but now I'm just putting them in the junk bag to sell. So. Those are done.

My major quest, which I've just started, is to scout out the rebel fort. I'm about to sneak in through the back, but I'll have to get past some Titans, who, I am warned, will want to eat me. Joy. I'll have to fight 

Titans. No doubt it'll just be one at a time, and I'm probably just strong enough to do it by now. However, I saved at the point of entry into the new area.

But I'm pretty sure I haven't lost much, despite my time away. Earlier I was opening this game several times a day. Having lots of fun with it. 

One fun thing, when I chose the tinkermage as my main character, the game gave him a name: Harmon. Hah! Harmon was the name of the little eaglet I watched a couple of years ago on the Minnesota Bounds Eagle Cam. He even had a song written for him, which often becomes a major earworm for me. So I love it that my character has that name!

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Avadon, The Corruption 1: Getting into the Game!

So. I started with Avadon 2, finally, when I had a teensy break in my Kirkus books. Have been having a fantastic time with the game. The feeling is just like when I first played the original Avernum games.

Jeff has added a new character type in this game: the tinkermage. I was so interested in it that I chose that as my main character, and I'm glad I did. The tinkermage makes these little towers that do pleasant things, such as firing bolts at your enemies, and, after you've put lotsa points into them, even shooting ice and fire streams at 'em. I've become quite fond of the "suppression" tower, which slows the enemies at every turn. Extremely effective. I've also managed to get a tower that does group heal, but I need to boost that power on that one still.

I've probably played more than half the game so far, and was having too much fun to stop and blog it! I'm starting to return to the original areas on new quests, and although I know I haven't yet opened up the whole map. I'm getting to be fairly powerful. I have more scarabs than I can use (we earn, or sometimes buy, scarabs that can be attached to each character, giving special, and very useful, powers. These can be switched around when needed, but only on the first floor of the Avadon home base. Ergo: pay attention to what you have and what powers you might need.

Jeff has included plenty of his trademark humor in this game and I'm really enjoying it. That's probably why it reminds me so much of Avernum--the little quips and droll phrases. Love it. Plus, the fights are tough but doable. I keep learning. When I get wiped out, I think, then try again. Usually I can figure out how to handle the battle much better on the second try.

I confess that I have had to consult the forum a couple of times, especially when I got caught in the dragon's lair and couldn't find a way out (you just get to take in your main character to that--thank goodness mine was a tinkermage!!). Also when I ran into constructs that couldn't be killed. I had to find out that ignoring (or rather, distracting them with tinkermage towers) and slaughtering the monsters behind them would render them inoperative.

I was able to find my way through a tough puzzle under a temple--touching three basins of water. Trouble is, the basins are in the back of a buncha monsters and once you touch the thing you can't get out. Solved that by placing my weakest character outside the fight area and out of range of the monsters. Then went in with my other two characters, touched the basin and let them get killed. Once you end the battle with the peace button, your dead characters come back to life (a feature of the game that I'm sure is meant to please newish players, who always complain about the difficulty). I felt pretty good about winning that one.

Had to take a good week or more away from the game because I had a boatload of Kirkus deadlines to meet. Having met them, I think I'll do a bit more in the game before I forget how to play!

Fun ahead!!

(I must include one gripe: I know Jeff has added some complexity in forcing players to choose which allies we want to accompany our lead character on each quest, but frankly, I prefer the original Avernum (and most other RPG's) style. Build your party and go with that. OK, Baldur's Gate allows you to change your party members--and actually, so does Avernum--but I really prefer just going with what I've got rather than having to change all the time. On the up side of that gripe, though, it's true that the Avadon system does allow for much more replayability, and that's good. We have different strengths and weaknesses wherever we go. Of course, I could just choose the same characters all the time (except when the game demands certain characters), but I'm going along with Jeff's ideas and choosing different parties each time. I guess my main difficulty is that it just takes a bunch of time to dress each character when I want to use them--taking that great cloak off the sorcerer and putting it on the shaman, for example. Swapping out the good armor and necklaces and boots, etc. You really have to re-do your two companion characters every time you leave for a quest if you want to use all your firepower. It's time consuming and it's getting to be tedious.)

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Cold Case Summer 3: Finishing

Had to take quite a while off from the game while I tended to some serious health issues and lotsa Kirkus books. However, tonight I have a book so bad I simply couldn't take it anymore, so I put it down and picked up the game again.

Mostly I was able to float along, meeting new folks, as Carol gives you pretty good clues at this stage about where to go next. However, I spent so much time away from the game that I did have to consult the hints more often than I would have liked. My first puzzle, back in the awful bunker, was backward from the way I interpreted it. I was able to figure out some stuff, but the final puzzle is still a mystery to me.

The clue says to use a specific card. I had already decoded that card. It worked on getting me to the last box to open (this game has numerous puzzle boxes), but that was the only number on the card. The hints gave a completely different number. I have absolutely no idea where it came from.

This time we had not one, but two attacks on Carol. The last one was placed, as usual, at the endgame. Figuring out how to get out of that one was a cinch.

Really, some of the items we're supposed to pick up simply require painting every screen, although I should have looked at one specific location that would have netted me a nice item. 

As always, except for the derelict areas the scenery was great. I especially liked the shots taken in Stockholm. Also, there was an odd wooden structure on a beach that we got to climb through. Also, one of the characters propositions Carol (she gets away quickly). Fun.

A wooden pathway

So it was a typical Carol Reed game. Mikael Nyqvist showed up in a minor role, as he sometimes does. Sadly, at the end of the game, there is a memorial to Randy Sluganski, who ran the Just Adventure website. Apparently he died after a 10-year battle with lung cancer. Sad, although my friends from Four Fat Chicks broke away from that site after some disputes with him that I never knew much about. Still, the site is running and active. I was a regular visitor on it for years.

A lovely night shot

Glad I finished the game! Wish I hadn't taken so much time away from it. At least I already bought the next game in the series (Bosch's Damnation). I have a few others I want to play first, but I'll get to that when the mood strikes!

This series always provides good entertainment without too much complexity. Fun enough for me!

Cold Case Summer 2: Poking Around

Just a bit of playing today, but I have delved more deeply into the puzzle. First, in wandering around the "Dead City," which is a deserted, half-built city for lepers (before they cured the disease), I saw colored rocks I could pick up and examine. There was a gray one and an orange one. I remembered them. No doubt they're clues to a puzzle. Of course they are.

Then I found a map that assigned colors to some buildings in the Dead City. I went back and looked, and those buildings have numbers. I noted which numbers went with the colors on the map. Now I have colors and numbers. This is just the kind of puzzle Mr. Nyqvist likes.

I remembered finding the black and orange rocks. I went back to places I'd been and looked for them. Sure enough, I found the black one. Kept searching and found a new one: green. Finally remembered where the orange one had to be and went back there. Yes, I found it. So now I have numbers associated with the colors and three buildings corresponding to three of the four colors, only missing the blue one.

I managed to break into Harri's summer cottage (where I found the aforementioned map). That was fun. As usual, you have to go back to other locations to find the clue or the item you need. There, the in-game hint system can be most helpful. Otherwise, you'd spend hours wandering around in complete stuckness. I'm still having fun, but I confess to using the hints on occasion.

(Also, I got into both the locked desk and the blue cabinet in the bunker. The keys are always somewhere else, but you find them. Remember where things were locked, go back and try them, and you're in!)

I noticed a neat thing last night, so tonight I went back to grab a screenshot. Look:

Whenever we move to a new location in these games, we get a sepia-toned photo of the place. This time, Mikhael has added color to the flowers in front of the building. It's like the Lost Crown. (Boakes  did a voiceover in one of the earlier Carol Reed games.) I'm sure it's a nod to Lost Crown. Nifty.

Anyway, next time it's back to the bunker, one of those derelict places Mikhael so dearly loves to put into these games. Fortunately we also get lots of lovely scenery too, but I gotta say, these trashed areas get a bit old. 

So I decided to do that tomorrow. I think I'll watch some Doctor Who on Netflix for now.

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Cold Case Summer 1: Back to Carol!

So at last I'm back to Carol Reed. These games are wonderful diversions for those of us who'd enjoy visiting Sweden without any language barriers, seeing some gorgeous scenery, and solving some moderately challenging puzzles. Plus, there's always an intriguing storyline. 

Along with the gorgeous scenery we also get plenty of derelict buildings and industrial areas, as well as messy apartments to explore. I always enjoy the apartments.

This time Carol investigates the murder of a man who was tied to the Olaf Palme murder (Palme was the Prime Minister of Sweden who was shot in the street in 1986. The crime was never solved.) An anonymous man contacts her for help, but he stays hidden. Next thing Carol knows, the police contact her because she's the last person he phoned, and now he's been strangled. 

As she pokes around, breaking into apartments, she (or rather, we) open coded boxes and discover clues that lead us closer to the man, dead for several years, who had been accused of the Palme murder. Seems this man was a lifelong friend of our murdered guy, Harri.

So far I've poked around in an old air raid bunker where there is a green cabinet I need to find a key for--there's a locked desk in Harri's apartment that I need to find a key for--and there's what appears to be some kind of colored tile puzzle in a very interesting, deserted area.

Also, to get to one of the new places on the map, Carol had to borrow Jonas's car.  It wouldn't start, so we had to find the items necessary to clean the spark plugs. That, as always, involves going back to another area.

There are some innovations in this game. For the first time, if you hit the space bar you can see hot spots. That's quite useful not only for finding stuff, but also for not wasting time on a scene that has no items or actions. Also, for the first time, there is a map within the larger map. We navigate to different areas in these games by going to the area map. When we learn about new addresses, these are added to the map, making it a nice dynamic in the game. This time there was a large area that had it's own map. No doubt I'll be back there, because Carol refused to enter the Hospital area of the place.

As always, we talk to people by clicking on dialogue written for us on notepads, like this:

The characters answer us in voiceovers, with subtitles (I always have these on but you can turn them off if you wish). And as always, the actors are amateurs, which I think lends a really nice atmosphere to these games. These folks aren't professionals, but they are sincere and really authentic. I like them.

Here's Jonas responding to a statement from Carol:

I figure I'm about halfway through the game, judging by the length of time it usually takes me to finish. Yeah, I could probably stay up and do the whole thing tonight, but I'll leave the rest to have some fun tomorrow.

Now that I have my Fusion virtual machine back, and XP is nicely updated, I've got all my games back! I bought this one just last week, and number 10 came out yesterday. I got that too! Not too difficult to get them into the virtual machine. I just click the link in the email that takes you to the download page, copy it, open the virtual XP machine, open Google Chrome and paste the link into the address bar. Voila! It starts downloading immediately. Takes awhile, but it's all there. I also wound up with a copy on the Mac side, but of course that won't open. Didn't want to get that but it's an automatic download. 

So, I've put Carol to bed until tomorrow!

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