Well, well, well, this is a 54-ref work, and apparently it was intentionally written as a prologue rather than something truly standalone. I wish these limitations weren't there, but I would say it does about as well as it could even in their presence!
In particular, I really like the way this work makes skill checks feel as not just a formality, or perhaps a way to suddenly fail that you just have to hope to pass, but as genuinely gruelling struggle against numerous obstacles from your character. Out of what I have seen to date, only Nye's Song really captured this feeling this strongly. (Although my beloved A Princess of Zamarra, as well as The Word Fell Silent and Soul Tracker, also come to mind if effective use of skill checks is to be discussed.)
That, and ref 2 is one of the most impressively written bad endings I have ever seen. The others, such as 36, are really good as well. There is also a decent amount of variation for such length, including near the end.
However, it is funny that
SPOILER
Background says Diuron is presumed dead after he was captured by mutant goblins, but that whole episode somehow doesn't warrant even a single mention during your reunion. I did like that if you have managed to break through to him, he'll not only be at his weakest (while you'll be weakened if you do not talk to him at all before the fight), but there's an extra ref with a prayer over his body.
I am also curious about how Chaos is treated here. Not only does this story insist on writing it in lowercase (as well as "warriors of chaos" in the bad ending), unlike Hellfire, but the portrayal is different as well. Warriors of Chaos in Hellfire seemed far more energetic and independent-minded in Hellfire: the second one didn't seem to manifest existential anguish and depression both Diuron and the evil player show, and the first didn't ever seem to have her will overridden in the manner seen here. I do not know enough about the canonical books to even know when Chaos was introduced into the setting (and if it was before or after it entered Warhammer, since the two franchises started around the same time), let alone how it was portrayed there, so I wonder which of these FFP stories is closer.
END SPOILER
Lastly, I should note that it's considerably better proof-read than some of the other similarly-old and similarly-sized works, which have somehow managed to be absolutely littered with various grammatical issues in spite of their short length. However, it is not completely free of such issues either. (To day, Bloodsworth Bayou might have been the only one that was free of them.)
SPOILER
Background:
"Less than a year ago, Salamonis was threatened itself" (itself threatened?) + " find out first hand" (firsthand?) + "and (the) lack of aid by your people." + "you have only enough food" + "it could take you weeks yet to locate" (is "yet" in the right place?)
2 - "a well used" (hyphen.)
4 - "even you own clan!"
4, 5, 8, 9, 55 - spaces before question marks.
5 - " in mid scream"
7 - missing question mark at the end.
8 - "to almost half way up" + "to take in the implication this damage" + "less hide bound" (?) + the lack of a question mark in the penultimate sentence.
9 - "about half an hours walk" + "at right angles to the one you're in," (?)
11 - at least the last two sentences need to end with question marks instead of periods.
20
"as best you can." (as?) + the long sentence with three "enough"s is hardly ideal writing.
34, 42 - "dark edged axe"
36 - " so bone deep tired."
37
"How could I be such a fool." (question mark?) + "something unhuman" (inhuman? And would a dwarf even use either word in the first place?) + " dark tinged axe"
Won, but it was a tiring and not very interesting process. Mostly a matter of collecting gems and guessing which direction to go in or which block to step on.
After checking out the remaining options, I really appreciate that here, traps are not eternal, and actually degrade and rot! While I certainly agree with one of the other comments there isn't exactly character development or the like going on, the only example where I can recall it happening in a slmilarly-sized story was A Midwinter Carol, where it was extremely awkward. (Brings to mind some critical arguments that adult personalities are typically sufficiently strongly formed that character development ends up unrealistic more often than not.) Refs like 14 are fun enough to read that all is forgotten.
First things first, though - some comments have already mentioned this many years ago, but I have to confirm that at 78, "Go east ?" seemingly redirects back to 78.
SPOILER
27 + 46 - space before the final comma and a question mark.
I was able to beat this one by immediately scrolling to the bottom of each page (to avoid the stomach-churning descriptions) and refusing to say anything.
So, this is the URL where I got the Spider-Man bug:
(DELETED)
I think the bugs to do with POSSESSIONS might be caused if their presence is combined with some of the things you do not need on the true ending path? Then again, perhaps I really did not look hard enough that time.
Also, I am glad to see that some typo fixes have already happened by now! Now that I finally know how to win, I can focus more on the text specifically, and have to offer some more.
SPOILER
2 - "But they soon leave. ." (extra period at the very end, an whole line down.)
7 - Walk west ?
12
"It looks at you, its face a mask of blood" (I thought it had two heads?)
108
" it has a demonic human face ... and a deadly bite."
123
"Then you walk in up to your waste" + "But it's probably nothing. You tell yourself." (Does this need to be two sentences?) + " is a fine looking silver mace" (hyphen?)
134
"All you have do now is defeat it ..."
154
"- it's not real after all." (Perhaps "not animate"? It is still a physical object, after all.) Also not sure if "war-hammer" needs a hyphen.
173 - the first two options are missing question marks.
194
"You consider running ... but a previously hidden rock-door" + " There are 2 objects behind the growling Manticore one of which glints provocatively" (comma?)
203
"with jet black hair" -shouldn't there be a hyphen here?
212
"But please go ahead ... I'm feeling hungry."
217
"As you reach the body of the Werewolf it changes back into the man it once was, he looks far less threatening now, peaceful even." (run-on sentence: perhaps needs to be split in two, or something other than commas?)
221
"your short rest as best you can"
263
"as good as dead ..."
276
"laughing high above you ..."
294
"a tall, scruffy white-haired young woman." (missing comma?) + " is apparently unarmed ... and strangely silent."
302
"and ... AARGH!" + "gets up and backs you into a corner ..."
303
"It's strange ... but the further"
336
"two pale skinned men" (hyphen?)
355
" your now useless weapon" (hyphen?)
366
"you wish you were that creature ... it is some time" + " complete with large red, handle" (missing "a" and a comma in the wrong place?)
367
"and he bids you, "Get lost."."
395
" you realise you're trapped ..."
405
"and ... find some!" (Also, perhaps "throw an item" should say "throw a rock", to make it clearer you are not wasting a Possession by trying this?)
433
"never solved anything ... unless you're a demon." + "before you can even think about saying, "So what?" "The latest version," (shouldn't there be SOME punctuation between two different quotations?)
456
" If ever you think you've found" (?) + ""Is it ... useful?" + "Yeah ... sure it is!" + "his name ..."
458 - spaces between question marks and the last three options.
463 - "to look down at you causing you to freeze in cold terror." (comma?)
483
"and carry on ..." (space)
515
"each with a picture of animal" (an?)
END SPOILER
I think I have in fact discovered one way in which this version is harder than the document due to interface specifically, and it's hardly what I would have expected.
SPOILER
At 426, the original writes out that the amount he wants is determined by a 2D6 roll, while here, you can easily assume that the amount is the same every time, only hidden. After going with 10+ most failed attempts to be on the safe side, I first went down to 9 and then to 8 on the winning run. Emboldened, I attempted 8 on this playtesting run as well, only for it to be insufficient (and to lose because I forgot to turn south at a key point.)
END SPOILER
Lastly, I just want to say that
SPOILER
When 299 describes cat's claws as ninja weapons, I was at first convinced that what you were REALLY supposed to do with them was to offer them to a librarian. Oh well.
Similarly, it's weird that you are told no-one has ever made it past the "Honour" password, yet once you are in Trinitour's room, there are a whole lot of dead and tortured warriors regardless? Did so many of them get captured by his servants and brought there?
END SPOILER
Thanks for the URL, I've fixed the Spider Man bug now. It is an issue associated with clicking on USE at a mid-fight reference, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are other instances of it out there.
Wow, this is the first gamebook I won on the first try, and with SKILL of 7 to boot! I didn't try too hard, and really expected to get killed by the options somewhere down the line, but nope, somehow the most important skill checks got passed, and the whole thing worked!
In all, Bad Moon Rising certainly warrants its "easy" rating. Personally, I prefer at least the difficulty of Impudent Peasant! (where some wrong choices can still kill even really early on), up to about A Princess of Zamarra, with the upper end of difficulty like Hellfire and Soul Tracker requiring the ability to anticipate some extremely arbitrary logic more than anything else. Still, while this is about as easy as Tomb of the Ancients, Bad Moon Rising is a far superior work, with a much stronger sense of location and a far better defined protagonist (not to mention more interesting supporting cast.)
There's only so much to say about a winning run of <50 refs, so I might as well post what I have encountered so far right now, to preserve this moment, and proofread the other paths later.
SPOILER
At 12, no option to walk away from the iron grille and go either east or west? (Not that it appears necessary to win.)
12, 16, 17, 29, 33, 41, 78 - extra spaces before question marks.
1
"Out in the torch lit street, walking quickly, your cloak and Jakob's great-coat" (shouldn't hyphenation be reversed here, going from great-coat to torch lit?)
5
" it's ragged little feet"
7
"The right hand wheel"
12
"looks far too heavy for you to think of moving," (it?) + "right hand" (twice) and "left hand".
13
"begin to hit it open palmed." (hyphenation?)
17
"It's off white" (hyphenation?)
24
"to discard the shield ," (extra space.)
26
" with a tall vaulted ceiling." (Comma?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
29
"The corridor is low ceilinged" (hyphenation?)
30
"you notice a couple of torches strapped to the walls, and, after a short struggle, manage to get it lit." (them?) + "is a another grid-style portcullis" + "by two stone lions heads" (?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
32
"The wheel spins round bonlessly." (?)
35
"two open mouthed lions" + "wider set" + "Peering into their maws, but it's difficult to see much inside either of them." (Shouldn't it be "You peer" or something?) + space before the final comma and a question mark.
42
"- deduct one stamina point." (not capitalized?)
44
"isn't enough to let you see (how?) deep it is."
62
"Billy's other henchman's gaping open mouthed at his screaming boss" (hyphen, and the apostrophes are weird.)
72
"and his two thugees" (?)
77
"foot of the grave-marker - a stout stone podium, on top of which lies a carving of a tall, stern faced man made of some rough looking, dappled grey rock." - again not sure about where hyphenation is present and absent.
"It's started to rain" (?) + "overgrown south-east corner" + "reading the grave-stone" + "The whole front-plate" (is all this hyphenation necessary?)
Not easy. Needed to go through the downloadable version to figure out that I had to retreat immediately and kill the beast. The most annoying part was counseling the couple.
Forgot to enter a name before hitting submit the last time, and it seems that this erases "the victor's star" from your post when you do re-enter your name. Oh well.
Speaking of stars: the more works I check out here, the more I am interested in seeing a fourth kind of post-run symbol. There is currently a star (victory), shooting star (all-challenge victory) and a skull for everything else. I think it would be nice to see a symbol for the endings where the character does not reach the initial stated goal, but also doesn't fail catastrophically, with outcomes ranging from acceptable to arguably better than the main ending(s). I am thinking of
SPOILER
The Defender, Necromancer and Count endings of Outsider!, "go adventuring with a skeleton" ending of A Princess of Zamarra (perhaps some other intermediate endings too), the adventuring and rule alone endings of Melchion's Week, one or two endings of A Day in the Life, and perhaps even the Kneecapper ending of Lair of the Troglodytes.
END SPOILER
White flag would be an acceptable pictogram, I guess, though some stylized flower might be even cooler (since a lot of those endings are comparatively peaceful next to the primary ones.)
Not a bad idea. I'll have a think about a suitable symbol.
I have already seen many comments on other works' threads warmly refer to this tale, and I can certainly see why! Like his first work on here, Lair Of The Troglodytes, it's a cleverly written and humorous look at the low-powered side of Titan. Unlike it, it's a lot less restrictive - while your limited options in that story were mostly well-justified by the inherent weakness of the character, being automatically forced to march to Chief's Lair sooner or later felt like an overkill.
That, and being a human peasant fighting goblinoids is clearly more relatable than being a troglodyte warrior to a typical reader as well. While some of us may malign this inherent bias, it's hard not to admire the details here, like player's regular preoccupation with the weather and having to deal with leaks in his roof all the time. The concerns and preoccupations of only somewhat wealthier farmers and merchants come alive on the page as well, along with all the locale descriptions.
It's a pity you cannot attempt to use the torch to either set the goose tree on fire or to generate smoke to scare off the bees, but then again, the torches are already essentially the most useful thing you start off with by far. After all, bow and arrow is rather underused when compared to, say, what you could do with in A Saint Beckons (written nearly two decades later, I know.) I was hoping you could attempt to use it against the final boss, or at least against more of his forces before the big battle begins.
And I suppose everyone who had played this to completion knows that he fishing rod is practically a trap option, not only making it harder to win the more you use it, but even a typical fishing day is actually far MORE dangerous than a typical job board day. (To the point that a "spend the entire week fishing and see the town destroyed" or "spend all but one day fishing, survive" challenge might make sense.) I am surprised that you are not able to just abandon the fishing rod and flee, and must fight to death every time instead.
Now, typos. Firstly, there are excessive spaces again (a lot of the earliest submissions seem to have them?)
7, 9, 11, 21, 31, 33, 34, 41, 45, 53, 55, 60, 64, 68, 77, 79, 80, 83, 85, 89, 90, 91 - extra space between the options and the question mark or period.
2
"whose antadorned surfaces" (hyphen?)
8
" a large, crowlike bird" (hyphen?)
15
" cooks what appears to be the remains" (tense?)
23
"it has more than four legs,"says" (missing space.)
24
"You may fire an arrow at the RAVEN, but the it is a difficult target to hit."
27
" Also, by doing so in such weather lessens the risk of us setting all this corner of Allansia aflame" (is "by" necessary here?)
37
"of his two remaining dogs. " (extra space.)
39
"small, fireblackened figure" (hyphen?) + "near to you" (is "to" needed here?) + "and dressed like some sort of sneak-thief." (a?)
46
"of once what was its neck."
47
"you may eat one meal , two meals or nothing." (extra space.)
57 - mentions multiple carcasses even if you had only fought one carrion bug.
66
"the prospect of a day of unpaid idle however," (idleness?)
68
"You job would be"
79
"Galana the Gardner" (?) + "its highcolumned galleries" (hyphen?) + a strangely placed paragraph break.
1) The character who IS present at 112, 5 or 77 spends most of his time in "polemics against Governor Brandon and the 'Secret Merchant Elite'".
2) At 77, he demands proof that "you're not one of them".
3) At 84, the scrolls explicitly mention "the Secret Merchant Elite", as well as encouraging the fight against Brandon.
4) Ergo, it seems obvious that your character would try and present those scrolls as a proof. Even if their presence would somehow backfire, it makes no sense to hold onto them and not show them in this situation.
END SPOILER
Another observation.
SPOILER
At 124, you lose 2 Stamina if you have no weapon, 1 Stamina if you have a dagger...yet, if you have an Axe, you still lose 2 Stamina instead of 1 or even none?
Further, at 2: "Your fresh water has run out and you endure more of the Sun. Hunger also sets in - lose 1 STAMINA point." - wouldn't a waterskin have at least SOME impact on this?
END SPOILER
Some more grammatical details:
58
"that catches your eye is the barbers." (apostrophe?) + "which may be interesting :" (space).
68
"runs away to the leg that you can now see." (to a leg?)
It would obviously still be a trap option if you had learnt the spell and bought the spike and the mallet the first time you go through, then went back and this time healed the Chaos Warrior and broke the chain, as you would have still walked past the right door for that. Perhaps you would get the option to go back to the door in that case, but then that monster who appears but is not fought when you learn the word "Honour" would be summoned for real once you have opened that door, in a battle which you might survive, but she probably won't? It would at least to make the player in the end stretch feel any strong emotions besides frustration.
END SPOILER
Now, the remaining typos I spotted (I didn't try most of the post-acid trap options, particularly the ones which only appear with failed checks, so I would suggest ffproject personally gives them a second look.)
SPOILER
3
"that the on the western wall"
6
"What will you do: Open the door?" (no paragraph break)
7 – spaces between options and question marks.
39 – spaces between options and question marks.
45
"You whip out the warhammer and start to whack lumps of the crystal giant-man. (off?)"
50
"Will you continueor"
55
"few scraps of plain ill-fitting chainmail armour (plainly?)"
59
"in other words; it's transformations"
76
"but no sooner do I enter this terrible place than I have my sword stolen"
"the way you're going" you tell him with a frown." (period.)
"as I speak." you tell him."
86
"but it holds fast. Thenit"
120
Attack him regardless – missing question mark
156
"clean of his hoofed feet"
157 and offer you no danger." his voice is cracked and weak. +
" I will fight back" The"
177
"(of enemies anyway, traps, are another matter):"
180
"atquite incredible speeds"
192
"a similarly restrained silent, warrior" (unneeded comma?)
194
"Try the tunnel ? (extra space.)"
199
"my last line in defence," (of?)
"the ABOMINATION" (missing period.)
"Its misshapen body (is?) covered in"
203
"a life-size painting of a beautiful, young, dark-skinned women" + "149-168AC"
214 "The women doesn't seem surprised" + "Deduct one LUCK point ." (extra space.) + "Use these spells on any enemies you suspect of being false by selecting it below" - singular/plurar confusion.
223 "amongst its body-parts."
226 "as best you can,"
227 "You may nevertheless try another question :"
228
"and its heading straight towards you." + "What will you do, fight this giant or run north as the Sentinel is quickly backing you into this tunnel." (Question mark?)
241
"And is reaching for you" (a pronoun might be missing here?)
244
"and shout 'Begone!'."
255
"seem unbearably loud"
273
"painted on the skull of some huge animal is , "To a" (space.)
288
"than a humans speech."
318
"all right, all right!" - capitalization.
"Your heart is full of goodness warrior...what little help I can.' (inconsistent quotation marks.)
"has come a little to late for me"
320
"most defiantly a monster;"
321
"and heaven knows - you'll need it!"
327
"which will you try ?" +spaces between the options and question marks.
330
"until you think you may finally of found something of interest"
337
"where will you search: the Rhino-Man?," + may be setting some sort of trap, (a?)
338
"it's only purpose in life"
354
"I can help you.".
363
"When ever you encounter a situation"
365
"whilst wiping tears from your face ,when, "
369
"you scream in the creatures face."
375
"A completely harmless (and?) rather cute animal" + "and covered in thick dark, brown fur." (may need another comma?)
379
"Give him the potions ?"
"he's a particularly thirsty fellow." the snake winks at you."
385
"If ever you think"
"The door isn't locked though, very strange ..."
399
"absorb the poor things good-fortune."
411
"when you here a strange, soft noise"
422
"your former opponent carefully.He begins" + "Just then, with out so much" + "Ignoreit?"
430
"(and hopefully not in to Hell.)"
448
"The women is chaotic;"
463 - hoping for the best. (question mark?)
477
" a fate worse then"
479
"and far from pleasant ..."
483 "you pass into a bone filled tunnel where you observe a rat casually munching (on?) a piece of cheese."
466
"Because you've forgot all"
483
"ignore the thing and carry on ..."
486 + 167 + 108 - spiders are not insects, come on!
Firstly, I'll go for a very common grammar issue which appears unique to this story: the tendency to place unneeded space before every ellipsis "..." Even the background is absolutely full of this. Other typos are only included when they are on the same ref as this.
SPOILER
40 "healing potions ... has she cast some sort of spell"
51
"Now ... do you own"
90
"it's face a picture of fear" +
"Well ... you have discovered my final deepest secret, you cause me to ... admire you" + "it's face a picture of fear"
110 "You wonder what the next one is ... you walk"
155
"I didn't think you ... had it in you ... brave warrior ... you are ... the ... victor ..."
+ "Please ... no"
+ "sprout to giant-sized wings"
+ "is the demons reply"
160
"you bravely enter the cloud ... the" + "Leave north (portcullis)?"
188
"of the most battle-weary of warriors ... but you're used to it now ..." + "Don't listen ... to him." + "the ... Demon" + "and ... save our souls" + "you ... can do it"
237
"and enter the mirror ... and pass through it safely!"
238
"A pity ... I was so looking"
261
"It must be ... it is!"
295 "it begins its decent back down to earth" +
"a transformation takes place ..."
328
"Of course ... it has to be!"
334
"by another familiar scene ... you"
344
"You find three ... but all look impossible."
413
"of course ... this is"
447
"and wish to offer you help ... tell me,"
END SPOILER
Now, the other typos are once again taking up too much comment space, so I'll place the other observations here.
SPOILER
* I am saddened you are not allowed to even TRY the flute on snakes.
* Or that candle does not work at 453, for that matter.
* Interesting that you have to use blunt weapons to fight stone and crystal enemies, but a solid steel one can beaten with a sword. Granted, it’s not real in the first place, so I suppose removing the option to use a sword would make it too blatant that the scroll is necessary. (Or convince people even more that fighting it is needed?)
* No option to turn back at 149.
* 189 is weird, considering how you discover an unidentified spell in the first place.
* Weird that the werewolf is guaranteed to hit you and drain a belladona even before the fight begins in the online version, but not in the original one. The software obviously supported on-hit effects leading to other refs already (i.e. cockatrice, ghoul, spider-man) so why not here? Did ffproject decide the whole thing needs to become harder still?
* Or was that an adjustment for the reduced number of trap items in both shops, or for the trap spectre not hurting you when used randomly?
* Similarly, how come you do not have the option to try the sword in the devil-shaped handle?
* Phil Sadler has commented many times here that his written version is easier than this one, but other than the ability to Ctrl-F/flip through, I am not quite sure what he means? Discovering the right use of scrolls through adding/subtracting paragraph numbers is hardly easier than simply trusting the computer.
* It would be nice to have SOME explanation at 405 of why the golden wish ring is worth 2 Luck points? It doesn't need to explain its only real use, but some hint of what it CANNOT do (i.e. save you from acid) would be great.
* It's so, SO cheap that both times you get the option to spare someone, but the only winning move is to kill, they die anyway. With the Rhino-Man, there's the added incongruency where he describes the place as his TOMB - but then begs for mercy, and bleeds as heavily as if he was alive. The Chaos Warrior scene could have been a lot more than shock value if healing did save her, and would have allowed her to act as a companion in battle (perhaps after you break the chain with mallet and spike?) This is like the ONE moment where the key item getting dropped by Trinitour directly would have been preferable to the state of things (you respect her sanctity too much to find the scroll, and this outweighs the whole thing getting bloodsoaked on the intended path?)
* Whose female laugh are you meant to be hearing when you fail to obtain/identify the Hellfire counterspell and die? The Chaos Warrior's? The librarian's? The other Chaos Warrior's? (Is there meant to be any relation between the two? I once tried seeing if offering potions to the first on the 2nd loop would make the second act nicer to you once you get there, but nope.)
END SPOILER
I'm not going to bother with ellipses. From the references online that I've seen so far, it appears that putting spaces before them is the correct thing to do anyway.
I practically have no words. This is the first, and hopefully only, gamebook where I didn't just resort to checking the comments section (happened a few times before), but also to right-clicking and even Ctrl-Fd through the downloadable version by the time even time itself couldn't beat the acid pool, tired of going in circles and beginning to doubt if ANY of the myriad items on the way were actually useless. (Turned out, many were.) This seemed preferable to putting up with the incredibly arbitrary logic of the proceedings, which can at most be condensed to loose guiding principles
* The stupidest possible thing is usually the right one, BECAUSE BRAVERY!!!
* If something hurts you when you pick it up, you'll definitely need it to win. Vice versa, if something actually raises your stats, you have most likely found a trap and should try anything else next time.
* Something which was the right thing to do once will probably be the wrong thing next time you are in a similar situation, and vice versa. Except when it still works the same way, that is.
* Oh, and don't expect even physical continuity. In the exact same locations, a slightly different choice can suddenly cause the character to overlook what he would otherwise spot in the same room, going the same route.
I still don't know what to think of that thing
SPOILER
with the silver bow and arrow. I was UTTERLY convinced that assembling the full set was one of the main reasons the whole time travel was in place, and the moment you get all three is a triumph. I have no idea if all of this being a trap was an interesting subversion, or just awfully written waste of time. Same as the shop, the one which forces to do more counterintuitive BS just to interact with it in the first place, only for the entire thing to be proven useless again.
END SPOILER
At least I don't have to struggle to express my feelings about the ending - it was godawful. I can't say I was overly disappointed, as by that point I was far too tired of the whole thing to care much either way. There's a reason why video games frown upon drawing enemies out of thin air - and it's the same reason why being literally teleported to the dungeon by your enemy, having items or even teleporters summoned out of thin air for you by the villain or getting commented on in real time or told hints by him is such a nightshade to any narrative investment. The villain actually standing in place and rattling off the literal laundry list of what you need to try and kill him (well, most of it) is hilariously bad. It's particularly incongruent with the detailed violence, which lends surprising gravity to the proceedings - only for all of it to get wrested away by the above.
I did find it funny how I completely forgot the intended reason for why the character even went to that dungeon in the first place (beyond the whole "skies raining blood" thing) as the result, and had to reopen the starting page to recall who the ending even mentioned in the first place. And it is neat that clicking "CONTINUED..." lets you directly carry over your endgame stats to the sequel. What I see of it right now isn't exactly promising, though: just how out of touch does one have to be to think that anyone who went through ALL OF THIS is going to want MORE Trinitour, in any way, shape or form?
Why did I even bother to cheat so much so to get to the end, if I lost any real investment in the proceedings by then? Simply put - because even though this is the very first playable story on here, around 22 years old, I STILL found a massive trove of various typos and even outright bugs by the time I had to resort to cheating, and wasn't going to abandon that, or post them while only part-way through.
First, the literal bugs:
* Neither the silver mace, nor a certain shield, actually show up in your POSSESSIONS list (that last thing really convinced me at one point that the character simply didn't pick it up in the first place, and wouldn't do that without using one of the scrolls.)
* You can use the Potion of Fortune right as you get "Spider Man is preparing to bite!" message, but then it just takes you to 571 and nowhere else, and the way it appears with a clipped interface is clearly bugged.
* 305 and 392 do not show you "The End" or any comment box.
* drinking at 216 still gives the option to swim all over again afterwards. 273 still lets you go west even after you have already been there.
I am running out of comment space to include the typos, so I'll just end this comment here. offer a couple more observations on the differences between online and written versions, and on the general logic.
I can't reproduce the issue with the mace and shield not showing up, or the Spider Man one; if you see these again, could you send me the URL?
Interesting ending, especially with the main character being homicidally insane. But there was a lot of wandering around through a maze of pretty bland descriptions. More clues or hints about our state of mind would have spiced this up a bit.
Excellent! I particularly like how besides the main plot, there are also the background details about the fate of the three lost warriors who preceded you, which you mainly learn through making the wrong decisions. And of course, the weakness of Skuznut himself and even the clan itself are all well-conveyed, making this a very different experience from the most.
Unfortunately, the one thing which it has in common with too many other stories on here is the lack of proofreading. Then again, better (20 years) late than never, right?
SPOILER
11 "extract two tusks worth of dentures." (apostrophe?) + "you decide it might a good idea" + "to get of here quick"
17 "with a worse headache then before," 20 "Do you want to enter the Dark Places ?"
25 "change your mind and play Spot the Beetle ?"
29 "and your memory quicken forgotten"
32 " in the direction of the Fungus Gardens ?"
33 ""you notice that your are now"
34 " Angeror submission ?"
38 "and as your stagger back"
40 "something snaps at you ankle"
41 "you may restore one STAMINA point.Tipping the rest"
47 "Would like to bet a tusk or two "
50 "Suddenly , as you ponder" + "is that if this the Chief's Room" + "makes my skin itch...replies the guard" (missing quotation mark.)
59 "getting guard to check it first"
84 At anytime during
99 "has to dig around the Den to find another.You" or "you lose one tusk.You may play again" or "swears and reshuffles.You may" + "you win one tusk.You may play again,"
END SPOILER
Yes I appreciate the corrections even after all this time.
