Shivers 7: Eating Ixupi

Finally some progress! I have caught the wax ixupi (that took some time, actually), and am in hot pursuit of the wood ixupi.

The pot and lid of the wax one were in the anansi spider music box room. And lo! There was a wax snake. Had to go in and out and in and out of the room to catch it there--and then it kept running away instead of getting in the pot. After about a dozen tries I went downstairs and did the Maya god door puzzle to get into the same room from the other direction, and this time I got it!

That door puzzle used to give me fits, but I got it on the first try. Also got both puzzles in the astronomy room. However, that multicolored disc puzzle is stumping me this time. I have solved that several times on my own so I know I can do it, but gad. It's elusive. 

Anyway, I got the wood head in the astronomy room, and had been carrying the wood jar until I put it down to get the wax one. Now I've got the two joined and have tried a couple of times for the wood monster. I've got him scared and on the run, and I'll try again when I have a few minutes to rub together.

But all of that was fun! I don't recall ever doing it this way before. Normally I solved everything and then went ixupi hunting. But hey, if I get lucky enough to get joined jars and lids, I'm going after 'em!

Alas, I won't be able to transfer screenshots from that computer to this one. The "new" iMac is so old (which is exactly what I wanted), it doesn't recognize the thumb drive. Have to stick to cute cat pics instead.

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Shivers 6: Escaping the Monsters

Really getting places in the museum now, but I'm running into ixupi everywhere, as usual. Problem is that I know where they lurk, so it makes things a bit more tense. However, now that I have the game playing on the iMac in almost full screen, I can evade the monsters much more easily. 

But! I got into the theater (had to do the door puzzle twice when I went back later--normally you shouldn't have to solve a door-opening puzzle more than once--hmmm.) Found the marvelous little film with Windlenot, and, alas, got into the clock tower. I remember that clock-setting puzzle. Not my favorite. Figured out how the chains work, re-set it to 12:00, and left it for later when I'm more in the mood for math.

I still couldn't solve the chinese checkers puzzle. I really tried. Then I printed out the solution from the Gameboomers walkthrough, saw where I ought to end up, and couldn't get that configuration on my own either. Problem with that puzzle is that you have to think well ahead. It's a good chess-players puzzle. Even though I normally can figure out chess puzzles, this checkers one is beyond me. Well, it's infamous. One of the most difficult puzzles in puzzle-gaming history. There was a separate WT just for that puzzle on Gameboomers.

I found the basement electrical room too, but because I know that's the endgame location, I stayed outta there. The electrical ixupi lurks there, and he's always the last one you get. I think the ashes one is always first, and the rest just might be randomized. 

Solved some nice puzzles though. The Egyptian sarcophagus puzzle, three door puzzles, the Sumerian lyre puzzle, the drums puzzle, and the siren singing in the Atlantis room. Didn't go into the maze though. I'll save that for later. It is of course easier for me, all of it, having played the game several times, even though it was years ago. These puzzles do seem on the easy side anyway (except for chinese checkers)--if you've spotted the clue somewhere along the way--usually in the books you find--you've got many of them. That flashback feature is excellent in this game. You still have to take some notes, but it saves a ton 'o time.

I've found both Beth and Merrick's ghosts. I must say, that except for the opening and closing scenes and that one awful VO from the sphinx in the Egyptian puzzle area, the acting in this game is pretty darned good. Windlenot takes some liberties going overboard, but he should. The narrator is really great--very Rod Serlingish, but with nice dry humor.

Tomorrow I'll venture into the third floor. Had good fun today. (And I was able to find Ferazel's Wand and load it, and it works perfectly!)

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Shivers 5: More Progress

Things are going well with Shivers and the new iMac, although I did have a few glitches today. Sorta normal with a new machine.

But I progressed enough to actually capture an ixupi! I managed to get the ashes one, which took three tries, but I got him. I went to the library to get the book that shows you which pots are which. Now that I have a large enough screen window I can see the designs, with a bit of squinting. Just got lucky and got the right head for the right pot. Looked in the book, saw it was ashes, and headed back to the office to capture my monster. Finally got him! 

So now I have at last rejoined the game where I left off on the Thinkpad, but with more accomplished.

I did encounter some "Type 1 errors," which doesn't mean the same thing it means in research, that crashed the game. Kept happening. Most annoying. But it said to restart the machine, so I did, and it worked just great after that. Still, I am saving early and saving often, just in case.

I loaded some more great games today. Got all the Index+ games I enjoy so much, Crusader, Vikings and Genysys. They all work perfectly. Also got Morpheus, Timelapse, The Ring (which I've never played), Titanic and Traitor's Gate, which gave me a bit of trouble because I skipped too fast in it. At first the Traitor's Gate CD spun out of control and I had to crash, but it loaded and installed the game just fine on the second try.

I must look for Ferazel's Wand. I loved that game years ago, and I know I have it somewhere.

It is just so awesome to be able to play these old games again. They were marvelous in their time and they're still darned good today. The imagination is still there even if the graphics aren't what we'd expect today. I still enjoy the graphics.

And the Shivers museum still looks good, even if it isn't as sharp as today's hi def stuff is.

Awesome.

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Shivers 4: Restart with New Old iMac!

So I was surfing on E-Bay the other day, just looking at old blueberry iMacs to see what they tend to sell for, and I found one advertised as brand new, never even taken out of the box. 

Now, I don't need to be throwing money around right now, but I figured that I do have this inheritance, and I can justify getting just one thing that I really want. So I bought it! Cost lots less than I would have had to spend to fix my old one.

Yes, it was factory sealed! But somebody had used it, because it had payroll software on it, and it was upgraded to OS 8.6, when the box had 8.5.1 included. There were weird things in the extensions. 

I decided, because all the old games I have are really, really old--most running System 7, actually, that I could go ahead with the 8.5 OS, because the stuff already loaded was giving me fits. At one point my cursor froze and I had to consult the google on this machine to figure out how to get out of it. Yeah, I know 8.6 is kinda the cutoff point for later software, but the stuff I want to play is older software. If I need 8.6 or 9.0 (I know I have a 9.0 disc somewhere), it's easy enough to find on the internet, and the download is free.

So I did a clean install of the 8.5.1, which went well. But I still couldn't get Shivers to install--it kept saying it hadn't loaded one file. Yet, I knew it should run. 7th Guest wouldn't load either--said it needed Quictime 3.0, or Obsidian. 

But ha! I learned by loading stuff onto that IBM Thinkpad I bought that plenty of games will install the software you need. So I installed some more stuff. I got a copy of Quicktime 4.1 from my Alice CD--just loaded that. That made 7th Guest happy, although it still needed something else. So I kept loading games, and most worked just fine. I think I must have gotten some good software from my Zork Nemesis CD--which ran just fine.

Tried 7th Guest again, and voila! It runs perfectly now! Tried my beloved Obsidian again, and that worked too! (Oh man, I thought I'd never be able to play that again.) 11th Hour runs too, and Day of the Tentacle, and The Dig. Haven't tried much else.

And . . . finally Shivers loaded and runs! Ha ha! However, it still won't go full screen. Doesn't matter in this case though, because the window it runs in on the iMac is three times the size of the Thinkpad window. Perhaps it never did go full screen--but this window is plenty big enough to play just fine.

There are still a couple of games I've tried that won't load, but later on I can load newer software, or perhaps transfer some stuff from my old machine to this one.

Anyway, I'm only going to use this new machine for my old, much loved games. A few are being reproduced on the GOG site, but they don't go for adventures much. Most likely it will take years, if ever, for them to get most of my old stuff. I'll try to transfer some screen shots, but I might have to hook it up to the internet to get shots onto this blog.

Of course, the Thinkpad is for PC games. But I have dozens of old Mac games that I'd never be able to play again, without this new machine. So I'm pretty well thrilled!

So! Back to Shivers! I've solved the gazebo puzzle again, although it took three tries this time. I didn't remember everything on the Stonehenge puzzle, but I'll go back and scope out the clues. Then it'll be easy to get back to where I left off on the Thinkpad.

Woo Hoo!

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Shivers 3: Memories

Just some quick play tonight. Poked around in the office and found background material, newspaper article about missing teens, Windlenot's scrapbook and a letter from his wife about his son Geoffrey. A tape recording that appears to include Windlenot getting bitten by an ixupi, plus more instructions about what we're supposed to do in the game.

Navigation is kinda slow, which worries me about the ixupis. If you turn away from them right away they can't bite you. But this game doesn't react very quickly. Best thing is to stay away from them, which I normally used to do anyway. They make a unique sound before they bite, and if you react quickly enough you should never get bitten.

But still.

Problem is, I keep remembering where the darned things are, and sheesh, they are all over the place. There's the ash one in the fireplace in the office. That one's easy. Then I remembered the wood one in the woodworking area off the office. Then there's the water one, but only once you've filled the fountain in the lobby. Then there's the metal one in the iron horse, the sand one in the plant room.

Darned things are everywhere. And that's just from my memory.

Nevertheless, I've already solved a puzzle! Yay! Kinda easy, actually, the drawers puzzle in the woodworking room, which yielded a pot. Also found a lid in Windlenot's desk. Swapped that for the pot. Then found another lid in the bird heads on the wall in the lobby, and another pot in the plant room, which I didn't take. I'm keeping notes about all these. Later, I'll find the icons in the library that tell me which is which.

I wandered into the Atlantis room. As I recall there is one there, but it's pretty much out of the way, and I remember that there are at least three puzzles in there. Also remembered to push the little buttons at the entrance of each exhibit room--you get points for that.

I'm having a real problem with this thing running in half screen. Have to get my nose right up to it to see some details properly, and to read stuff.  Still, it's the Shivers I remember, so I'm mostly happy.

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Shivers 2: Out of the Basement

I'm out of the basement! Of course I remembered where the professor's desiccated, dry body was, and got the "Hieroglyphs Explained" book (I will certainly need that later). 

Then we have the task of moving the boat. I knew there was a trick to it, but I finally noticed that the cursor was pointing down at certain points. That's the problem with this half-screen view--you can't see everything as well as you should. However, I found the trick, and "rowed" the boat across the basement lake (I mean, how many folks have a lake in their basement? It's a museum of the "strange and unusual," after all). The shape of the cursor also can give clues.

And halfway across, the water ixupi jumps out and grabs some of my life essence. I know there's no way to avoid that. Once Dad managed to get that bit of life restored quite by accident later in the game, but I have no idea how he did it.

So I watched the professor's little video which tells you basically what you need to do in the game, and headed off down the next maze. Really not much of a maze, because this one has clues: you can see the direction of the lighting source. Follow that, no worries.

And I faced the first of the elevator puzzles. These are really kinda nifty. This one only has four squares so it's much easier than some others I remember, but it's still a little bit of a challenge! Solved it, rode the elevator up to the office, and saved there.

The stuff that made this game so good were the really excellent puzzles, good variety of puzzles, the outstanding graphics, especially for its time, and that little bit of fright factor from the ixupis. Plus, you can wander around at will once you open up new areas. In fact, you have to access the whole museum in order to win the game. It's important to take notes about where you left the pots and lids, because you can only carry one at a time.

Ah yes. This is as much fun as I remembered! Except for the half screen view, which appears to be unfixable.

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Shivers 1: Back to the Old Days!

NOTE: 
A complete 2018 replay of this game begins here.

I first encountered adventure gaming when I was given a copy of the old 1985 Mac game "The Uninvited," a floppy-disc effort that worked with my first computer, an old Mac SE with the 9-inch black and white screen. It was a black and white graphic little game, in which you negotiated a haunted house. It played in a tiny square in the small screen, so I would have my nose almost touching the screen. When I encountered my first ghost, I jumped in my chair, it scared me so much.

Uninvited Screenshot. The beginning of graphic adventures.

So that was it. I was hooked on adventuring right then. 

I managed to finish The Uninvited, and replayed it enough that I finally wrote my own movement-by-movement walkthrough for it. That was a real accomplishment, because it was before the internet, or at least years before I was on the internet, so there were no walkthroughs to consult. I got some other adventures for that old Mac, but can't remember much what I did with them until I finally got an old Performa with my job at the university and played Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within because it had German in it. That grabbed me. Somehow I got a copy of Shivers. I either played it on that Performa, because it's in color, and that's the first color machine I had, or when I bought my blueberry iMac after I moved to New Hampshire.

Anyway, it was The Beast Within and Shivers that really grabbed me for adventure gaming, with Shivers grabbing me for puzzles (and excitement with those dangerous ixupis!). Great graphics, excellent puzzles, many of which really made you think hard, and some thrills when the ixupis jumped out at you. In fact, the graphics still look good even today.

I played it with Dad when I first moved back to Oceanside, and he loved it too, although he never could figure out how to move around. But I always had an amazing amount of fun with it, it was so replayable.

My old system 9 iMac has developed a terrible buzz in the sound system, so I've retired it until I can afford either repair or a "new" one on E-Bay (I have so many system 9 games that I'll really have to replace either the part or the computer). But I wanted to play Shivers again now, darnit. I just got the bug for it. I now have this great old vintage IBM Thinkpad running Win98SE, so I went back to E-Bay and got a good copy of the game for a little over $6.00. Even though I'm seriously poor right now, the $6.00 isn't going to hasten my demise too much, and it'll keep me in a happy mood.

It runs great, except that for whatever reason, it won't go full screen, which is seriously annoying. But aside from that, there it is! Actually Shivers!

So I'll blog this next, because it was the game that cemented my love of adventures. They don't make 'em like this anymore, but these old games haven't lost any of their punch.

I skipped most of the opening movie, because the opening and ending "movies" with the teenagers are just lame. However, I got the letter from the dragon's head by the gate, looked at the sign outside the front of the museum, climbed the stairs and found two of the colored symbols I'll need to get in, listened to the door announcement, and headed to the back and the entrance puzzles. 

The voiceover work really is great in this game. I dunno who that guy was, but he milked his lines right in line with the spooky but slightly humorous spirit of the game, and adds a lot to the gameplay.

I remembered where to look for the other colored symbols, but I didn't remember how to open the gazebo puzzle. It has a three-number combination. I went looking for numbers. Looked in the letter, which has a three-digit number in it, but nope, that didn't work. I trekked back up to the museum entrance, but nope, no numbers there. Finally I tried manipulating one other thing that is manipulatable, and there was a two-digit number. I plugged that in, starting with zero and voila(!), the puzzle opened! Solved! 

But now I faced what really is a toughie, one that I always took several tries before I solved it when I played the game before. I did remember the trick, but that trick still won't work unless you do everything right. The Gaming Gods were with me--I solved it on the first try! Wow! I know I never did that before! After all these years!

So I trekked across the stones to get to the Stonehenge puzzle. I remembered the colors of the symbols. Again, my ancient memory of this game must have helped, because I solved that easily too. I got the lights turned on, and saved at the beginning of the maze that leads to the underground lake. (I'm still not actually in the museum, just under it.)

If only I could get this thing to go full screen! I can't understand why it won't. It's a Win 95 game that ought to run just fine under Win 98. It has a "full-screen" option, but clicking it just doesn't have any effect. Very strange. 

Still, so far it's meeting my expectations. I can play Shivers again! And it's been so many years since I've played it that I know I'll have trouble with some of these puzzles. I never did solve the chinese checkers puzzle--always had to follow a WT for that. However, that's quite a ways ahead. 

Obviously, I can't put any screenshots here, because the old Thinkpad isn't going to be compatible with my state-of-the-art Mac now. But I will blog my progress anyway, with cute cat pics.

To the Museum!

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