Going through the introductory sequence the first time around, it was at this point that we realized we were missing some game information. Not a single game we owned came with a manual. (Copyright protection was rather poor at the time.) Anyway, this time around I stopped to read Kyle the Younger's "History of Britannia", which was quite fascinating. I did not know that the geography was described nor did I have a beautiful map of Britannia. This would have saved a lot of time wandering around. On the upside, the wandering around provided plenty of experience.
The History even tells you about the townes and their associated professions, the mercantile, the magical arts, and has a bestiary! It would have been very useful ahead of time to know that there were eight and not six reagents (more on that in a later post)! We would also have saved plenty of time if we had known that the Electric Field was a field that could be dispelled. The manual even tells you that it is blue in color. I'll have to see for myself when I encounter one. (We were stumped for quite a few days on this one back in the day thinking it was just an impassable barrier.) For that matter, until discovering the nature of the fields (which we only saw in monochrome), we had never tried to dispel them but just took the damage walking through the field. But more on that in a later post.
After reading the History, I was planning to read through the Reference Card and the Book of Mystic Wisdom. But just before that, I tried to recall the commands, spells and reagents I had learned to use. It was shocking how much I remembered! I could recite all the A-Z commands, almost all the spells, and remembered the reagent combinations of approximately three quarters of the spells. It only goes to show how much I was immersed in it back then. To think that 27 years later I could still recall these "useless" bits of information makes me wonder why my brain chose to remember these rather than many other important things. Worse, I'm already becoming forgetful and have trouble remembering things from last week. In any case, now that I have I read through everything I realize that I wouldn't have wasted so much time and so many reagents trying to find the right combinations needed for spells using a brute force systematic method. I would also have figured out how the moongates worked much sooner.
I then progressed to the character selection portion. I remember the first being very confused by why we were being asked all these questions and I think we picked (A) for all the answers, and not surprisingly ended up as a mage outside Moonglow. I decided to think a little bit more this time about what the questions were asking but ultimately decided that I would always choose the Honesty card when it appeared so I would get to start at Moonglow again. It did for the most part fit my personal choice in answering the questions as "honestly" as possible. (It also helps to have a spellcaster who can advance very quickly in magic points!) So here I am outside of Moonglow.
The first thing I did the first time around was go straight into Moonglow. I decided to do this again and take notes on the merchant offerings and the conversations. I did not ask things that did not flow from the conversation so I "missed" some important information that I will have to come back and relearn in a later visit. I did learn about the shrine, mantra, honesty, truth and Deceit. Honestly (pun intended), I had no idea what any of the Honesty gibberish was about when we first played it, but we took copious notes anyway. This time around I'm taking fewer notes because I understand the important points when they come up. I also did not "learn" about the rune on this visit. Back in the day, however, fresh out of beating Exodus, we found it by accident because who would let a free treasure chest in a towne sit idly? Yes, I took Mariah's gold that first time. And then the cobblestone below it looked out-of-place from the surrounding grass terrain, we searched the spot. Anyway I'll have to come back for it later.
While at Moonglow I bought some food, some reagents, and mixed a couple of Cure spells. Leaving the town I remember that the first time around we did not recognize the marsh terrain which resulted in quick poisoning and our restarting the game (because we did not know what reagents were needed to mix the Cure spell). In any case it's always useful to have some of those handy.
I am not going to retrace my steps from 27 years ago. At that point, we had no idea where the moongate was. As you can see from the screenshot, it is just out of view on the west side across the bridge. And since the moongate only appears at particular times (we did not know this), it took a while before we stumbled upon it by accident (no pirate ships having traversed in the meantime). We tramped all over Verity Isle (I did not know its name then) and visited the Lycaeum but I will do that another time. In the meantime I am going to prioritize: I need a sling for combat, and a companion that is likely to have higher dexterity to open treasure chests. No Appar Unem here, because back then it was much later before we learned to mix the reagents for the Open spell, and by that point we realized that it was more cost-effective to have Iolo just open the chests and cure or heal him when necessary. But I am getting ahead of myself. That's for the next post!
369 moves to-date. Time spent on the game: 1 hour (including reading manuals). I will not be recording time spent writing the blog. (I don't think I want to know.)
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