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A Strange Week For King Melchion The Despicable




ffproject
Thu Dec 1 20:18:13 2011
A Strange Week For King Melchion The Despicable

Another gamebook ready for online play.

In the magical land of Generica, a wondrous region ruled by the harsh and not particularly fair King Melchion the Despicable, you are Davor, a humble wizard trying to make his way in life. Usually you spend your time ridding cellars of rats or casting love enchantments for pimply teens. But today you are to be hired by a client with a very different problem indeed.

This is Kieran Coghlan's entry to this year's Windhammer competition. If you want to know what Stuart Lloyd thinks of it then go here : http://virtualfantasies.blogspot.com/2011/11/windhammer-competition-review-part-3.html. It's probably best to play it first though.

Jordan
Fri Dec 16 01:27:41 2011
Melchian was a great gamebook, thanks for writing and submitgting it, and thanks for allowing Andy to put it up online. I think I got the best ending, the one where the two of you are happy no matter what. Is that the best one, or should I try and play around with that recipe puzzle? *Shudders. I tried it at first, kinda difficult. Is there major differences based on whether you decide to fight the spell as an enchantment or an allusion? Thanks in advance.


asgardian
Sun Dec 18 10:49:58 2011
Jordan, I also enjoyed that one. I managed to find the ultra quick route on the first try, where you become the King. No female companion, but hey, who needs love when you have everything else on hand?

Also really liked the revamped Gem Runner, which was actually better than most of the other Windhammer entries. Curious as to why the author didn't submit this version, but it was great to play and I'd love to see more of this character. The new Trivia section with all the Gems was very interesting. If it was expanded to 400 entries and tweaked to fit FF it could be published, as I've never seen this idea before.

Looking forward to trying The Word Fell Silent!

adam
Thu Jan 19 08:46:06 2012
Just played a strange week for Melchion, what a great story, fun and a touching ending

dark
Wed Jul 10 09:35:48 2013
That strikes me as very much a spambot, especially in the total lack of punctuation annd repeating of a mail address.

I actually feel very sorry for all those propper Pagans out there when this sort of thing comes uup.

Anyway, I believe I've just finished King Melchion (beware! spoilage ahoy!).

I found the bard, we returned to the castle and it finished with the king and Davor the mage riding happily off into the sunset. I'm assuming that this was the final ending, since though I've tried some of the other choices such as contacting the Dark God and pleading with the witch, none seemed as promising, however it still seems a bit weerd that the Master Bard couldn't break the curse, ---- and even if as was intimated the King was quite happy as a woman in the end, I would've preferd an ending where he had the option of going back to being a man but opted to stay female out of choice.

Part of the problem is that even when the master bard saves the King from being hanged, the text was still a little short, which made it feel a bit inconclusive, just like the ending where you get the king killed and take over yourself, but I'm not sure if this is because there is! another ending, or just that the author wasn't quite as definite as he could've been in the text.

dark
Wed Jul 10 09:46:00 2013
spoilage below!

Okay, please disregard my last message, I just ried the harmonica instead of giving the scroll to the bard and that produced the absolute and final ending and also gave some explanation to the hole gender reversal thing, though a little odd that the scroll of lyrics (which is actually harder to find), wasn't the answer, ----- or maybe it was just that I did less exploring while looking for the Master Bard?

Either way, nice fairy tale, if whacky ending.

C-Star
Wed Jul 10 10:14:08 2013
There are actually people out there that text people and post on the internet just like that, with no punctuation and about 15 sentences crushed into one massive wall.of text. It gives me headaches.

@Dark
Melchion seems to have a *lot* of endings, a lot of which I haven't seen, but I don't think yours is the best one. (The ending I got was paragraph 400 and revealed why Melchion was cursed and who the witch really was, and gives a very positive future to the protagonist, so I'm assuming that's the best ending.)

SPOILER  
END SPOILER


dark
Wed Jul 10 13:25:59 2013
Well as to spambots, it's true some people do write like that but combined with the repeated address showings and the fact tthat this person didn't clearly know what this site was about implies spambottage to me.

Beware here be spoilers!

Melchion does! have a lot of endings, since I don't think I've seen the one you mention. The ending I had the mage still had his own appearence but ended up marrying the King. I got it by taking the option to search for the master bard, then first going to I believe the southeast and the old witch's hut on hens' legs and drinking the tea to get the harmonica, then going northeast and investigating the grass hut in the forest where I found the bard, dealing with the elves and then giving the harmonica to the bard.

All the endings I found where the mage takes the King's appearence seemed to end badly, either the king kills or banishes the mage or gets killed her/himself leaving the mage to rule in his/her place.

Still, I believe there is one avinue in that plotline I've not quite explored so I'll try looking through it.

Much credit to the author in writing a book with so many different end points.

dark
Wed Jul 10 13:35:03 2013
spoilage again!

Well it seems there are two ways to get to 100 and that hapily married ending, though I personally prefer the above mentioned method with the Master bard where Davor marries the king as himself, indeed I'm quite surprised given how badly some of the other opportunistic endings went that that one worked.

Still, much credit again to the author for having so many ways to win and yet not making the hole book too easy.

C-Star
Wed Jul 10 21:37:49 2013
The path to my ending was rather strange.

SPOILER  
END SPOILER


This was a few months ago, so I'm a bit rusty on the details, but I'm pretty sure that's it.

bcyy
Thu Jul 11 01:02:13 2013
Speaking of Melchion, I found the ending somewhat revolting. The thought that the main character is marrying a woman who was a man only a couple of days ago sets off all sorts of alarm bells in my head.

Funny how Melchion exposes my transphobia, which I had not been aware of.

SPOILER  
END SPOILER

C-Star
Thu Jul 11 08:20:51 2013
I was a little bit grossed out when I realised the ending was going, but when it kept describing how happy they were I really couldn't keep feeling negative. It was still a little bit disturbing though.

And as for Outsider and the eating and sleeping thing... At the risk of sounding like a bit of a jerk, that does sound like a pretty big overreaction. How old were you when you played Outsider?


dark
Thu Jul 11 13:37:26 2013
Beware! more Melchion spoilage ahoy!

@C-star, I found the other ending to Melchion, though I do think it is a rather more random path to that than the ending with the master bard.
In terms of odd reactions, to be honest I didn't personally have a problem, they were in love and both were happy which is a good ending in my book. Indeed, I would be interested in seeing in fiction more of this kind of none standard romance without! accompanying graphic s/xual descriptions or themes, just having two people of the same, or different, or transient gender who love each other much as two people of different genders would. The Falcon Banner series by Chrystopher Lidan is a great example, a full on space opera romance with a dethrowned royal, psyonic powers and a reliable general, ---- it made absolutely no difference that the principle couple were two men, or at least not to me.

Outsider I've not completed yet, or at least not got that ending, but that would probably be less my thing since I do suffer from genophobia meaning even descriptions of normal s/x I find somewhat disturbing (especially in the second person, indeed I had to stop playing one of the choseyourstory games yesterday for this reason).

That however is a rather specifically personal thing.

Btw, Chooseyourstory is a sight that lets people write gamebook style things with an inbuilt scripting language. There is unfortunately a lot of absolute dross on there, however there are some good ones (just go by site ratings), In particular I'd recommend dead man walking and dungeon stompage, the one being a very well written zombocalypse, the other more a traditional fantasy with rpg type mechanics. find the site at http://www.chooseyourstory.com/

bcyy
Fri Jul 12 00:37:13 2013
About 19, give or take a year, when I completed it.

23, when I learned about the more "adult" stuff. A female colleague was joking that she doesn't kiss her boyfriend in the mouth and everyone was laughing, but I didn't get the joke. So I looked up "kissing" on wikipedia. Would have happened anyway without Outsider, but it definitely augmented the shock.

Rhian
Sat Jan 4 07:45:22 2014
Star - optimum ending reached
Superb married a hot queen.

Sunni
Tue Jun 10 01:33:13 2014
Star - optimum ending reached
I didn't realise the online versions were different from the d/led ones! I solved this one relatively quick though, just by adopting the mindset of a powerful wizard who seeks to minimise bloodshed and cannot resist the charms of women, young and old.

2 down, many more to go.

reader
Tue Oct 14 20:59:54 2014
Skull - non-optimum ending reached
How do I save him

Dude
Mon Dec 15 06:25:35 2014
Skull - non-optimum ending reached
Awesome

Jonathan
Sun Mar 22 13:58:46 2015
Skull - non-optimum ending reached
I like the ending! Lots of fun! Highly recommended!

relaxn Ralph
Wed Jun 10 08:56:19 2015
Star - optimum ending reached
An Enjoyable jaunt.