Carol Reed Shades of Black 1: Some Good fun

So! Jonathan Boakes released a surprise Halloween mini-game that takes place on Halloween and falls between The Lost Crown and the forthcoming (later this year!!) The Last Crown: Blackenrock. Natch I grabbed it on Steam for less than $5.00.

I got it installed with no problem and accessed the main screen. Thought I was good to go. That was two days ago. But now, when I want to play it on Halloween, it's a mess. It's eating up the disc space I have on my Fusion XP program. So I deleted it, because I can always reload when it's fixed. I also deleted my TWO copies of The Lost Crown, because I've got both of them too. Deleted more stuff that I have online. 

But I had bought this latest Carol Reed game when it came out, and I decided that if I couldn't play the Halloween game on Halloween, then I'd play this instead.

And it was a great choice!  

Of course it's a typical Carol Reed game, but what I like about these games is that while much of the game is pretty easyish, large parts of it require some thinking. And this time the in-game hint system isn't working too well (it's giving me a clue to a puzzle I haven't found yet--UPDATE: this turned out to be my own misunderstanding. The hint system works fine.). Fortunately, there is always the Gameboomers walkthrough. I've had to look at that a few times.

Mostly you get into trouble in these games by missing something. Often the hint system will tell you that, but that doesn't make the thing much easier to find. I traipsed back and forth looking for a bird house that just was not very visible. Finally had to go to the walkthrough to get a hint of where to look for it. At last I found it!

I've kinda zoomed through much of the game. It's pretty good at pointing you in the right direction, giving you a hint of where to go next. Of course, sometimes you have to backtrack. Right now I'm in the murderer's house, poking around, and I'm pretty firmly stuck. I've been playing for much of the day and enjoying myself quite nicely, but it's getting dark now so I think I'll do the rest of it tomorrow.

There are some really lovely shots in this game. Yeah, Nyqvist throws in a few derelict places (I really cannot imagine where he finds this stuff, all of which is photographed), but for the most part this is a really pretty game to look at.

For example:

A Nice View

A Night View from the Treehouse

And we go to various places, such as the Furniture Museum (are these places real??) with it's very impressive "sign":

Yes, it's about chairs

And we meet nice people, such as this nice lady who runs the motel with the underground room:

A very nice Swedish lady

Note that you also will meet another Swedish lady with a rather different agenda. Just sayin'.

And of course, you cannot have a Carol Reed game without Bigge:

He always has a little extra puzzle to solve

Or Jonas:

Not in the garden this time

So far the puzzles have been quite fun. My problem right now is that I'm missing a key somewhere. I will shamelessly go to the WT for that, because I play these games to enjoy them!! I manage to figure out a good 95% of the game. Although I will say that I do look forward to doing one without a hint someday, but not this time.

And I think I know who might be the true culprit in this game. I also think I know where the body might turn up.

But I figure that I'm a good four-fifths finished. I'm gonna watch some Doctor Who tonight, I think, and then I'll finish tomorrow.

After that it's back to Baldur's Gate! But fun with Carol for now!

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Baldur's Gate 38(b): Grinding Ankhegs

So. Because I want to keep the party I've got, and I just dual-classed Imoen into a Mage, I kinda did a baddish thing. Now, Imoen is my thief, and you really have to have a thief in this game. On the last play though I got Corin, whom I really liked, but this time he would take the place of Minsc, and I like Minsc even better (plus, Minsc is a sequel character). So I can't get Corin this time.

The problem is that until Imoen get up to Level SEVEN as a mage, her thief abilities will be inactive. That means I can't do the Cloakwood mines and certainly not Durlag's Tower, because you need trap finding abilities for those areas. (Maybe I could have left her behind at Cloakwood and grabbed Corin for just that area, but darn it, I want Imoen.

So I went back to the Ankheg hole and just ground 'em up until I got Imoen up to Mage Level Five. As an added bonus, I also got my protagonist, Emerald, up to Mage Level Five as well. And I got Ajantis up to Level Six as a fighter, and Viconia up to Level Six as a cleric.

As another little bonus, I got plenty of nice spells from the ankhegs, including another copy of Knock for Imoen! Plus lotsa jewels, which got up nearly 2,000 more coins. You can't sell the Ankheg shells at this point in the game, sadly, so I'll have to save up for Imoen's Magic Robes.

The only problem is that I left Minsc and Jahiera back at the Friendly Arms Inn while I did all this. (I needed Viconia to use her command spell on the ankhegs, and Ajantis disappeared when I tried to remove him from my party so I had to take him along too). Downsizing the party like that allowed me to get experience points much faster. The only problem is that now Minsc and especially Jahiera are a bit behind the rest of the party, but I'm not worried about Minsc, and Jahiera will catch up as we go through the game.

So it maybe was a little bit of cheating, but the game allows it, and darn it, I just want to finish the thing this time. I'm really not a very good player, so it's going to help me enormously to have two advanced mages at this stage.

Now I have to go through all the wilderness areas and get Imoen up to Level Seven so she can get her thief abilities back. After that, things ought to be much easier.

Could just grind ankhegs with the whole party and I will if I find that I have to do it, but let's just play the game again now!

(Off topic update: Jonathan Boakes released a little filler game in the Last Crown series for Halloween on Steam. I got it for less than $5, and I really do want to play that. It shouldn't take too long. It's supposed to take place between the Lost Crown and the next game in the series, the Last Crown: Blackenrock, which I fervently hope will be released before the end of the year, along with Bracken Tor!)

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Baldur's Gate 37(b): Movin' ON!

After an enforced vacation from the game to do massive amounts of Kirkus books and house repair, I have returned to my quest!

(Kinda had to get back to the game before I forgot how to play. Certainly my skills have deteriorated, but I will regain them!)

I did the Nashkell Mines, and found them to be a lead-pipe cinch. Easy peasy.

But Imoen hit Level 6, so it was time to dual class her into a mage. However, once you do that, her thief skills will be frozen for eternity (or at least for the rest of the game--I dunno what happens in the sequel). She has find traps at 100%, which is great. However, at first I thought I had put too much into open locks. She will, after all, have the knock spell to use, and I wanted her to be able to pick pockets too. But I read on a forum that picking pockets isn't all that necessary. True, I have found only one Potion of Master Thievery, but I know there are more to buy in the city of Baldur's Gate. So now she has open locks at 85%, and pick pockets at only 25%.

I was going to wait until she hit level seven, but even with that I could only have got pick pockets up to 50%. I might have gone back to when she was level five and reallocated the points, but that would require even more replay. Worse, she wouldn't get her thief skills back until she hit level eight as a mage, which would take me close to the end of the game.

So I decided to just jump in and dual class her as she is. Open locks 85%, find traps 100%, pick pockets 25%. The stealthy stuff I don't really know how to use anyway.

I'm going to be wandering around the wilderness areas, doing stuff just to get her mage levels up. But also I think I will head back to the Ankheg area with just Imoen, my main character (always "Emerald") and probably Viconia, leaving the others at the Friendly Arms Inn. I'll slay a buncha ankhegs, dividing the experience points between just those three, and that ought to boost Imoen up pretty quickly. I'll try it at first with just Imoen and Emerald, but I think I'm going to need Viconia's command spell, which really helped me last time. I won't be able to sell the ankheg shells, of course. I just need the experience points.

I had another difficulty. When I went to get the reward for my expedition to the Nashkell Mines, I got up to 19 level reputation and Viconia left. Permanently. I went onto some forums to see how to drop a few rep points, but nothing they suggested worked. So I wrote to Heaveron and he agreed that it was just best to kill somebody and drop nine points. I got one back already, but now I'm back at average reputation. I can spend some money in temples to boost it a bit, but I don't want to get it too high. I'm going to run into this problem again, and I really want to keep Viconia.

So I stole some money from a house and killed the guard who tried to arrest me. Big rep drop, but Viconia is content. 

I've got Imoen her sling and some bullets, and a quarterstaff. Not plus-one equipment, but no doubt I'll find some of that eventually. I got her a few spells, and we just had a nice sleep so she could memorize: one. She has one spell. No wizard's ring for her. Hope I find another one somewhere.

But I did dual class her the last time I played, and it was really handy having two mages. Plus now I have a real cleric and a druid. So that's four spellcasters. That's gonna help!

I have plenty more reading to do this week, but I really want to try to play just for a short period every day. I don't want to take off this much time from the game again. I have some other games I'd like to get to, but I really do want actually to finish Baldur's Gate for the first time. I came close the first time! This time will be better.

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