Hadean Lands - text adventure game of the oldest school

So, during that largish gap between posts about Dragon Warrior 2, I didn't stop gaming. I was just busy with work stuff and didn't want to get too into a new RPG. I wanted to find a short game that wouldn't vex me too much.

 

Unfortunately, the game I picked vexed me quite a bit. Fortunately that is because it was amazing and haunted my dreams until I beat it.

 

This is Andrew Plotkin's MASTERPIECE of the so-called "interactive fiction" genre. It's called "Hadean Lands" and I loved it.

 

 

For those not familiar, maybe you remember the game "Zork"? Where the game world and the events in it are described as text, and you type your "moves" in using regular text.

At one time, this "genre" of games was commercially viable on early home computers. There were lots of commercial titles of that type, up into the early 90s. I had a collection of the best Infocom published games of those type on the big 5.25 inch floppy discs back in the day.

Anyways, there has been a kind of underground clique of talented amateurs making free games of this genre for years. Tons of amazing (and free) experimental interactive stories have been developed and shared by this community for decades now. (You can get them from the IFDB site, and play them on a variety of interpreters on a ton of platforms - I use Frotz app on iOS.)

The thing is, as a medium, it has some distinct advantages over modern graphical games just by nature of being pure text. Some experiences work better in text. Which is why people still read books instead of books being replaced by movies.

And Plotkin has been like a granddaddy of is fan-led niche of gaming. He's got a trove of great free games he offers. He is a deep thinker of the genre, a pioneer, and a purist at the same time.

Anyways. A long time back, he put up a kickstarter to basically pay him enough to quit his job and develop new IF games full time. He pulled it off by promising this game called Hadean Lands, set aboard an alchemical starship. It's a very unique setting, of which I don't want to give too much away...

You just have to trust me that as bizarre as it may sound, Plotkin is good enough to immerse you into his extremely singular and detailed world with small enough steps to help you make your way. It's all explained as you go.

Thing is, it took him a LOOONG time to deliver the game. Some people doubted he ever would finish it. But he did, and like I said, it's a masterpiece of the form. It retains the classic feel of old gems, and innovates as an iPad app to fill in the weaker spots. Navigation and user interface are drastically improved. Dying and complicated repetitions of steps (frustrations normally inherent in the genre) are also conquered in a unique, setting/plot specific way.

I really don't want to give too much of the game away, because the discovery and exploration really is part of the thrill. If you want to get it, here is a link to the iOS version on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hadean-lands-interactive-alchemical/id918958300?mt=8

Below is the review I left on iTunes for the game, for what that is worth. In summary, I loved it and if the genre appeals to you, you should try it.

-----

I've played a lot of interactive fiction games, but I've rarely beaten them. Usually, I get stuck on a difficult puzzle and I am not interested in the fiction enough to stick with it. This game haunted me for several days until I beat it.

On the puzzles - they are very challenging, and the game rewards you for exploring and does a good job of giving you hints through the game world itself. You feel really smart when you figure out the little twists you can do with some rituals. I did need a couple of hints, but once I got them they were head-slappers I could have figured out myself.

I think a lot of the reason this game was enjoyable all the way through for me was the unique and interesting setting (a wrecked alchemical starship stuck in some kind of time loop). It made all the room locations and equipment overall locale very interesting all by itself, even without interaction.

On the writing, part of what makes the game great is that it really plays to the strength of the format - if this game had graphics, it wouldn't be as good. The text works in the brain in a way that is much more immersive and moving than a graphical game can be, IMO. Stylistically, it's sharp and concise, without lacking detail. It also is playful to interact with the world and your inventory and the game feels very responsive.

On game design and coding - the "flow" of the game comes across at a very enjoyable pace. I found myself making many sections of great strides, punctuated by short gaps of having to dig deeper to discover what to do next. Every discovery leads to the next, and there are many tidbits that you can see but not use right away that make it intriguing to puzzle through.

I also liked how the reset mechanism worked as a game mechanic AND a literary plot device. And it's great to see many people furiously discussing the ending and debating what REALLY happened aboard the Retort. And I love that there IS no set answer for it - the plot itself is a puzzle and it changes as you play.

The technical innovations for this type of game - with the short cutting of known rituals and being able to jump around using the map were big pluses for me, having been a longtime fan of IF - it's neat to see an old dog doing new tricks, as it were.

I could go on and on - it's a great game. If you've loved IF in the past, this game will make you love it again. If you've never played IF, this game will make you love it (or hate it) but it will spoil you, as it might well be the best IF adventure game yet made.

Super great work, Zarf. Make more like this and I hope people buy them enough to support you to keep making them. Your love of the format and skill at it, through years of previous games, really shine through. I think it's a kind of masterpiece.

Dragon Warrior 2 - Un-puppy-fying the Princess

Not too much to add with this update. Last time, we found this gigantic dog in Hamlin, right?

This bitch again.

Then after visiting the ruined castle of Moonbroke, the ghost of the king told us that dog was actually the princess under a curse. And since she is the last member of our adventuring party, we needed to lift that. Another ghost in the ruins of Moonbrooke told us about the item we needed... The mirror of Ra.

Why does this ghost even know this?

This place IS geographically southeast of Hamlin if you look on the overall map. However, it's actually a lot easier to get to from the ruins of Moonbrooke if you can manage it. For me, I had gotten worn down so much going to Moonbrooke, that I had to go back to Hamlin to rest. I also bought a Wyvern Wing to get back to the save point in Hamlin faster.

I wish I had remembered to take a screenshot where I found the mirror,but I forgot. Basically, not too far to the east of Moonbrooke, there is a patch of swamp with four bridges in sight on screen. If you use the SEARCH command on one of the squares, you find the mirror.

Then, when you go back to Moonbrooke, you find the dog and use the mirror on it to break the spell...

This dog has a pretty reflection.

She is super grateful to not be a dog anymore. So, that's got to be good for your karma. Now, I wonder of the English version is missing something in translation here, because I found it weird that escaping from Hargon's attack in the intro would somehow "curse" the princess into dog form.

Well, you're welcome. Want to come fight monsters with us?

And why would I need a magic mirror to release her? That whole plot point seemed tacked on as an excuse to give me busywork.

You are weak as hell, girl.

Anyways, she joins the party at the weak ass level one, and has no equipment. So, next order of business is to level her up, and maybe go back to the earlier town of Leftwyne and buy her a magic knife. Because she can't use any of the equipment for sale in Hamlin.

But after that, we are going after the "Cloak of Wind" that gimpy guy in Hamlin told us about. I have no other leads to follow up on anyways.

Dragon Warrior 2 - South to Moonbrooke

So - been a little while. Over a month without posting. I had some end of the year business to wrap up. I actually played and beat another game I will write about soon, but for now, I've just gotten back into Dragon Warrior 2.

 

Last time when we left off, I'd found Prince Lars, and had to put in a little time to level him up and buy him some decent gear. We did that pretty easily and with that wrapped up it was time to head south to the village of Hamlin. It turns out that is on the way to Moonbrooke castle.

 

Which is the castle we watched get destroyed by the forces of Hargon the wizard in the intro. As you may recall, we are looking for the princess, who will complete our little adventuring party.

 

Hamlin is the first time I can think of that a place name in the game has come from actual folk tales (that I know of). As you may recall, the pied piper is set in a town called Hamelin. Anyways...

 

Hamlin is on the continent south of the starting one, but there's no bridge there. There is this little shrine you can enter and it's a lot like the swamp cave with the green dragon from DW1. It's an undersea tunnel. I had found it when exploring before, but the guards at the gate didn't let me pass without the prince. Now that I have him, here we go...

 

Not a grave. Just a shrine.

On the southern continent, you bump into Hamlin pretty quick. As you do in any new town you find in these old console RPGs, you chat up everyone. People will give you clues as to what stuff you need to find, and where it can be found. Like so...

These dudes still look like bondage gimps to me...

In addition to that bit of useful intel, we also find this little doggie. If you talk to it, it follows you around. Cute. Probably important.

 

That dog is sort of huge, proportionally...

Of course we also find a new weapon shop with new gear to buy... And we find ourselves short on the gold we need to suit up. So that means grinding for levels and loot outside the town. And that means fighting guys like these below (along with baboons and centipodes and zombies and magidrakees).

 

Those snakes are poisonous, which is super annoying.

Instead of just grinding levels around town though, I decided to go on walkabout and find the ruined castle of Moonbrooke and see if I can find that missing princess. Turns out having Lars and his magical healing spell is VERY handy for this journey. You have to cross a bridge to get here, and as you know, crossing bridges means harder monsters in Dragon Warrior. But eventually, here we are...

 

Looks familiar...

The castle is surrounded by swamp, which damages you to walk through. And it is, indeed, ruined inside. And everyone who was killed has been turned into a flaming ghost. But they do have some useful info. Like this clue about the Mirror of Ra, and where I can find it...

 

Thanks for the tip, buddy.

Then the ghost of the king himself drops this bomb on me.

 

Ooh, a PUN!

That dog in Hamlin that follows you around IS the princess. We are going to have to figure out how to fix that. Probably one of these items I've been told about (the cloak or the mirror) will sort it. But first, back to Hamlin to buy the new gear: Broadsword, Full Plate, Steel Shield, and then an Iron Spear for our buddy Prince Lars.

 

 

Dragon Warrior 2 - the early game.

So, after a lot of DESCRIBING the opening sequence of Dragon Warrior 2 last time, I didn't do a good job of responding to it. I hope to do better with that in the future. The point of the blog isn't just to play the game and tell you what happened. It's an exercise in criticism.

So that said, that opening sequence would be hugely influential on later console RPGs. Especially the other series I'm focusing on as part of this project, Final Fantasy. I think the first in that series (which I will be playing next) was being developed concurrently with this sequel, as they came out only a few months apart.

It seems to me that one of the goals of that competing game was to insert more narrative. That desire for storytelling would bring criticism in the later games, becoming like a push button video novel with some monster fights woven in.

But anyways, especially after just playing the first DQ which is narratively sparse, it felt really fresh and expansive to begin this game with where the previous one ended, but jump us far into the future with prologue text and an "in media res" cutscene (ala Star Wars).

This makes the events of that previous game into the ancient history of this game - which parallels how the hero Erdrick's story was the ancient history of the first game. In fact, Dragon Warrior 3 (which we will play after FF1,) is a prequel, bringing this first "trilogy" within the series to a close.

So, though it was sparse, the narrative and plot lines quickly became a part of console RPGs, including backstory and in-references to the previous titles. It's no wonder this became an ongoing feature of both series when it was such an early development in the proto-genre.

Enough about all that - let's talk about the actual gameplay. The first thing to notice is that combat now involves MULTIPLE ENEMIES, even combinations of different types. It's amazing how a simple detail like that can really amplify the strategy of playing the game. Mainly because you want to take out the toughest monster first.

Triple trouble! Just kidding, slimes are still one hit wussies.

 

It also makes resource management a little trickier because the difficulty of the encounters can vary pretty widely. I find myself fleeing a lot more in the sequel. But anyways, grinding out levels is something you have to do.

While doing that, I explored the starting continent without crossing any bridges (since that invites MUCH tougher combats). My goal was to find the other two anscestors of the first Dragon Warrior and figure out how to fight this evil wizard.

Moving West and counterclockwise from the starting Castle of Midenhall, I found:

1. The town of Leftwyne. Someone in my own castle told me about this place. They had better armor and weapons, so I am rocking a chain sickle, some chain mail, and a leather shield. Sold that lame gear the king gave me to start. Earning the gold for this took a while, so I came back around and bough the stuff as I could afford it.

2. A cave to the west on the south side which had some kind of portal that the guards wouldn't let me use without the prince I am looking for.

3. A cave farther west on an island in a little lake, that I explored and looted. I found a metal key that unlocks all the metal doors in the game. The key handling is different in this game. In DW1, you need to buy one magic key per locked door, and they re-locked if you left the area. In DW2, keys of a certain type are reusable, but only open doors of a certain type.

4. Crannock Castle, where that prince is supposed to be. I healed up and saved and then went looking for him far to the east in the Spring of Bravery, which his sister told me he had headed off to.

5. The Spring of Bravery, where I met a nosy guy, got a magical bath from a wizard, and found out the prince it was looking for went to Midenhall to look for me. Doh! Full circle...

That's none of your business, weird gimp who lives in this cave...

 

Back at the starting castle of Midenhall, I saved and rested and the king told me the Prince left to go find me in Midenhall - which was confusing since that's where we were. Turns out that's a bug since he meant Leftwyne.

Back in Leftwyne. I spent my new loot and suited up (and also tried every metal door with my new key) and finally caught up to that evasive Prince. It's actually a neat way to advance you through the plot while letting you grind levels along the way.

I think the wandering search for the guy is designed to make you visit each major location on that first continent, and doing so will leave you strong enough to explore new areas.

Now that we've found him, we have another innovation in console games, successfully porting over a more common feature of more complex PC RPGs: multiple party members. Another first for the genre (which only involves one game and its sequel at this point.

I've been looking all over for you...

 

Of course, that creates a new problem. I'm level 8, and the prince somehow managed to get this far and still remain at level 1. And his gear sucks. The next step is to level his ass up, and buy him some matching equipment.

One last big twist in this game - in DW1, your main guy can cast spells. In DW2, he can't. But the prince can, so I can finally cast HEAL and not have to use herbs to recover health while wandering he countryside busing up on monsters. So that's nice.

Back in a few with the further adventures of Dragon Warrior 2 (which has not mentioned a dragon at all yet).

 

 

Starting something new - Dragon Warrior 2

I'm just getting into Dragon Warrior 2. Here are a few thoughts on it after only an hour or so in...
So far, it's better than DW1 in every way - it simply improves on every aspect - from graphics to music to user interface to story to combat...

I thought the intro screen was really well done. The game opens with your main character approaching in a dark cave, with his torch eventually lighting the title, but only partially. Then two more characters approach, with their torches eventually living the full title (See image)

Fancy compared to part 1

One big component that DW2 adds is the ability to have up to 3 party members. DW1 had only one. This is a neat way to highlight that new major feature right in the intro screen. You start the game with just one, though.

But unlike DW1, this game doesn't just drop you in immediately. This one has a full on intro cinematic sequence. According to a text prologue, the hero and princess from the end of the first game did successfully settle a new kingdom of their own. Generations later, their heirs rule their own parts of that old kingdom, and we start the story in he kingdom of Moonbrooke.

Already, that's a LOT more back story than the previous game. But it doesn't stop there.

Everything's fine...

In the opening in-game movie sequence, we see the king and princess of Moonbroke chilling in their castle doing royal stuff when BOOM. The evil forces of the wizard Hargon show up and start fucking shit up.

Well, shit.

So the king and princess are about to get away and he has to turn back to fight off these demon things. They end up surrounding him and killing him. She gets away. Then you see the castle get overtaken and destroyed and as royal guard gets away in hopes of warning the nearby kingdom of Midenhall.

Well, shit.

You get to see him arrive in Midenhall and get brought before the king and the prince. He collapses after telling his story, and the king then basically turns to you and tells you that you're the one who is going to stop this wizard business.

Lazy.

So, basically, that's how the game starts. Your goal is to set off and figure out how to set everything right. You get some gold and a sword and an implied pat on the buns. Time to be a hero.
Priority #1 as a gamer? Talk to everyone in the castle, get the best equipment I can buy, and get a few levels while checking out the lay of the land.

Dragon Warrior - Modern iterations, and extraneous thoughts

I wanted to share some insights on the most modern version of Dragon Warrior (aka Dragon Quest) available. That would be the iOS version. Which is not so much "new" - it's an English translation of the SNES remake of 1&2 that was originally Japanese-only.

That "!" Means you can push the button in the middle of the d-pad and interact with him.

After I beat the NES version over a couple of weeks during the holiday, I also played through the iOS version and beat that as well. It's not really a fully modern recreation, but the graphics are sprites from the 16-bit era (SNES and Sega Genesis).

There are many enhancements beyond just updated graphical details - lots of the speech responses from NPCs are more detailed, for example. Some of the dungeon designs are different. Some areas are given a different "look" - like Erdrick's Tomb actually has a monument in it instead of a chest that calls itself a monument. The shrines also have a unique look to he, instead of appearing just like any other cave in the game.

Gameplay-wise, the UI is more elegant. There are fewer items in the menu, and there is a unified action button for things like talking and searching and opening doors. There is also a little indicator icon (!) when you are near something you can interact with. That will definitely seem friendlier for modern users who aren't nostalgic for old control schemes.

Overall, it seemed the game was easier. I'm not certain that the leveling curve is friendlier, but it seems like it might be. Maybe it's just that I knew exactly what to do and just did it faster? However, one thing that definitely makes it easier is they out a sparkle animation on top of hidden items, like the Fairy Flute. If you're observant, you might pick it up without even being told it exists or where to look. Not sure how I feel about that one.

It also gives you a world map - which is handy if you get lost, but it's not a complicated world to begin with. I didn't have trouble without it.

One thing about the controls. I played the original on an emulator on my jailbroken iPad. As a controller, I have a device called a Thinkgeek iCade 8-bitty.

They don't make me no more...

Which is a Bluetooth controller the size and shape of the original NES controller, but with the SNES buttons. It's awesome if you have these emulators. If you don't, not too many iOS games supported it. So they stopped making them and you can't get them anymore.

However, this thing appears to be a good replacement - I might get one of these anyway - they come in original NES flavor, or even the Japanese SuperFamicom version.

8Bitdo thingy.

Anyways, the point is, controlling a NES game with a NES controller is basically how this thing was meant to be played and it felt right.

The iOS version obviously has on-screen controls. Be aware it's made for phones vs. tablets, so I
found the controller positioning was not comfortable but could be on a phone. Even though the control options were more elegant, I liked them less. It could be fully due to preference and nostalgia.

Back to the game - the iOS version was easier except for the Dragonlord himself. He was tougher in both forms, and while he was not too tough at level 20, he put up more of a challenge than in the NES version.

Still has Dracula hair...

He also actually breathes fire -
and is the only monster in the game
with any animation.

In conclusion, if you've never played it and want to try it out, but aren't geeky enough to be messing with jail breaking and emulators and Bluetooth controllers, check out the iOS one. For a few bucks, it's a fun game that I feel has merit beyond just nostalgia and historical interest. If you can play for a while and the quirks of it don't irk you, you'll get a very satisfying feeling from beating it.

Some more blah blah blah...

I first beat Dragon Warrior 1 on my Gameboy Advance. I actually was not that into console RPGs when they were emerging s a genre. I preferred platformers and action games.

Comparing that to beating the original NES version is an odd experience. Because in a way the Gameboy version was more advanced, but then again, more primitive. For example, it had more colorful sprites and tiles, but a smaller visible screen area.

This is the Gameboy Color version - pretty, but primitive.

My point is that going back and playing the original really did give me a new appreciation for it. However, since I already beat it, and had some pretty clear memories of the secrets and stuff, I "cheated" my way through with a walkthrough guide (via Gamefaqs.com).

So that said, if you've never played the game before, I'm not sure how engrossing or tedious it would come across to actually play unaided and try to discover everything from scratch. I'm going to find out playing Dragon Warrior 2. I've never played that one before so I am going to attempt to play it without a guide.

Wish me luck. It's apparently one of the harder games in the whole series.

 

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The end of Dragon Warrior and some thoughts overall

This is the post that made me think I needed to start a blog somewhere to collect these posts since I apparently intend to continue...

But here is how Dragon Warrior ends. After you defeat the Dragonlord, you're told peace returns to the land. You could just teleport back to Tantagel Castle but if you walk it, you'll notice all the monster encounters stop. That's a neat touch.

When you return to the castle, the king and the princess are waiting to greet you. The king offers you the kingdom as a reward, and you say no, that you want to go off and start your own.

Always making things difficult...

Then the princess (who we rescued about halfway through the game) offers to join you as your companion. If you say yes, you scoop her up, and get a nice little musical salute, and a very old-school text-only end screen.

If you say no, it turns out she just insists until you say yes.

I found the asking thing neat. I didn't try saying no to her, though when you first encounter the
Dragonlord, he asks you to join him and split the kingdom. If you say yes, he says "Really?!" And if you say yes again, the game ends the "bad" way.

But if you say no, you fight him and see the ending I've shown here.

The end... Until the sequel.

Before moving on to the next game, I wanted to note a couple of things that stood out to me about this game.

1. It's a full on sandbox game. There are no real walls stopping you from going wherever you want - only tougher monsters to encounter. It's a "soft" barrier. This came out in 1986 - that style was typical of PC RPGs, but not of many console games for decades.

2. There's also no set order you have to go about your quests. You talk to people in towns, and they give you clues of items you might need and places you need to go. You can tackle them in any order, though some are easier to get based on your level.

3. When you first start the game, you can see the final castle you have to enter to fight the big bad boss. You just can't get there yet. Some of those quests require getting some magic items to make a magical rainbow bridge to the island it sits on. But it's very neat to have that goal right in your face from the start. A much more modern game that did this well was Half-life 2, where you can see the Combine tower in the distance and each level it gets closer and closer until you fight the last boss inside it.

4. There are very few "dungeon" environments. There's Erdrick's cave (which has no monsters), swamp cave, Garin's Grave, and Charlock Castle. Most of the game is traveling all over the overland map. But when you do go in caves and such, you need either torches, or to be high level enough to cast RADIANT. I actually got stuck at one point in Garin's grave with no magic left, no light, and at too high a level for monsters to kill me. I had to restore from an emulator save because I couldn't find my way out of the maze.

5. It's pretty hardcore for a console RPG. You can't replenish your health unless you go to an inn (until you can cast healing spells). You can't restore magic points at all without visiting an inn (or that one old guy in Tantagel who blesses you). A lot of the game is staying alive and making sure you can rest up somewhere nearby.

6. You can't permanently die - you can talk to the king and he'll write your name on the scrolls of legend (aka save your game) and if you die, you start back there with half your gold. They deliberately wanted to make a more casual RPG for console gamers that had to ever played one on PC. But even this lack of a "game over" situation is still tough.

Because they designed it well enough that later in the game, you need a LOT of money to buy the better gear. And to get the money reasonably fast, you have to fight the tougher monsters. And therefore, there's always a risk of dying and getting set back on those monetary goals.

The saving grace is that you keep your experience points and level. So the monsters keep getting easier over time.

7. On those simplifications the designers made to pare down the PC experiences like Ultima and Wizardry they were trying to imitate, the one that stuck out was handling your gear. There is no inventory of items to equip. The game equips your best stuff as you get it, and the shopkeepers buy back your old stuff automatically. That's a very console-y streamline.

8. The user interface is very reminiscent of the PC games that inspired it. To a level that is almost unnecessary. Like, do I really need a STAIRS command? Later games like Final Fantasy leave that behind and only have a combat selection menu, and have all over world actions happen either on contact or with a single action button.

9. Another oddity was the SEARCH command, which lets you search the square you are standing on. This literally has an affect only three places in the whole game. Once to find Erdrick's Armor in the ruined town of Hauksness. Once to find Erdrick's token in the southern swamp. And once to find the secret dungeon entrance in Charlock castle. That would have been a cool thing to have been given a more productive use. Like if you could find useful items like herbs and things sporadically. Maybe they wanted to implement that and couldn't.

10. Though crude compared to now, the game shows deep polish and balance as well as design that gets you to fully explore the world they built. It also recruited Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball and DBZ) to draw all the character art and enemies, and also hired a famed TV composer to pen the music. Those things definitely stand out and are very memorable parts of the play experience.

11. While a lot of this stuff is impressive looking at it as a product of its time, and considering how vastly influential it was in starting a sub-genre all by itself, I'm not sure if I would recommend revisiting it to anyone who doesn't have nostalgia for it. I'll be putting in some time on the most modern remake of it released for iOS to see if UI updates and modern touches make up for the old idiosyncrasies.

12. If you do play it, play it on an emulator that you set a fast forward key on. Walking around at default speed is agonizing. Later remakes of these older games sped up that part and for good reason. If I had to play this whole thing at default speed, I might have quit before finishing it out.

13. The design of this game was basically genre-creating as mentioned above. It spawned many sequels, and even a rival series in Square's Final Fantasy. That series owes everything to the market created by this design. And they bit a lot of it (which was admittedly adapted from PC games that came before). But the overland/town/dungeon/combat breakdown created here still serves as the standard for console RPGs to this day. And for good reason: it's fun and simple and it works.

That's a good stopping point for now. Next is Dragon Warrior 2 - which features the continuing adventures of the ancestors of our hero and his princess, set in the kingdom they founded.

Until then! :)