Revisiting Albion

[DavidN]

#6872

Albion is such an important game to me 🙂 I have a boxed copy of it with the amazing double layered 3D cutout thing. It sits in a wonderful zone of nostalgia, of playing games on DOS just as the shift to Windows 95 was happening. I think it was the first game I played that had a real unfolding storyline (I wasn’t into RPGs otherwise at the time). The alien world had an incredible sense of wonder to it. I named my band after it, until very recently when for the sake of uniqueness I changed it into something else that honoured the series: https://ambersun.bandcamp.com/ . The tons of bare catgirl boobs couldn’t have hurt either. And it’s odd to have realized I don’t like it all that much as a game.

To me when I was 12, CRPGs were impenetrable and boring – Albion’s amazing world distracted me from that, but I was always frustrated with how I never seemed to be able to get anywhere. I mostly remember it being about hoovering up items and becoming overencumbered, then dying of something fairly benign because nobody in my party could rest at that moment. I have a vague memory of seeing the ending, but I definitely consulted a walkthrough or cheated to the end – I just couldn’t get through it otherwise.

Until now I’ve always been fascinated more with the idea and setting of Albion than I have with Albion as a game, but this month I’m giving it another chance and trying to play through it as independently as I reasonably can!

[DavidN]

#6874

From exploring the Toronto at the beginning I’m already discovering a ton of backstory that I didn’t realize was available in the game! Just by talking to Herr Rainer Hofstedt, you can get a ton of information about who you work for, why you’re here and the history of human civilization up to where the game starts.

I was particularly surprised to realize that the Iskai weren’t the first extraterrestrial intelligence that humans had encountered – it had felt to me that finding alien species was a massive event for the characters, rather than just the latest in a series of them! But again from talking to Rainier, it sounds like there might only have been one before and they were all wiped out by a disease (at least, perhaps that’s just what DDT wants people to think). “At least we don’t have to listen to any whining like those flop-ears on Joshi!!” (I’m personally offended) I had no idea that the space humans in this story were in such a callous, megacolonial society – I thought the reason for covering up the true nature of Albion was just corporate desperation, but it sounds like it’s a common attitude not to really care about anything that isn’t human, even though to us these would be incredible discoveries.

People also seem to be a bit casual about Snoopy being distributed forcefully around the computer room! Is there no ship’s counsellor on board? Everyone seems to be momentarily shocked, then shrugs and says they might as well proceed anyway. Once again, it points towards the, uh, casual attitude to the value of life that this future society seems to have.

[Tijn]

#6877

Loving this so far, hope you get all the way to the end!

[DavidN]

#6882

Thank you 🙂

I did the gun sidequest at the start, which I remembered from playing the demo – in my mind it gave you a huge advantage but I’ll have to see if that’s true. I messed about with the guards a bit, going repeatedly through the comms room, but they don’t get any more annoyed by it.

I swear I remember you could show the security guards the gun, which made him respond “ARE YOU MAD?!” in double-height letters, and needless to say, confiscate it. But I can’t get it to happen this time – the security guard refuses to talk to you. I thought I’d misremembered, and tried the captain as well, but he says he’s too busy to talk as well. I must have been playing the demo at the time – perhaps it was changed.

Despite talking to the characters excessively, I still don’t really understand what over-c (which comprises both the drive and the COM unit?) is. The name sounds like faster than light (c as in mc^2) – is the same branch of technology used for communications as for actual travel?

[Tijn]

#6883

We’ll be interviewing Jurie Horneman (lead developer) soon, so if we get the chance we’ll ask him lol

[yozy]

#6887

Over-C usually means faster than lightspeed.

I think it is Rainer that mentions that some of the technologies that Humans possess are not yet fully understood, such as their FTL drives.

I suppose that they do need to share some common tech, between comms and drives. If you have FTL drive, then you probably do want FTL comms. Maybe it’s almost like homing pigeons and they just fire small FTL message tubes back to Earth 😀

[Ninetongues]

#6888

Sure, if you have the gun on you the FIRST TIME you’re leaving the COMMs room, they search you and confiscate it.

All the other times they are just dismissive.

[yozy]

#6889

Speaking of the gun, in all my playthroughs I’ve had FOMO to use it and never did.

This time I’ll try to go through the game without taking back Sira, so I suppose it might become more useful.

[DavidN]

#6890

I had the same trouble with the gun – I had no idea when the appropriate time to use it was 🙂 Maybe this time I’ll actually take advantage of it. (I also vaguely remember that I should have a compass and clock by now? I missed those somehow)

I’ve been following yozy’s tips now that I’m in Jirinaar – like most DOS RPGs, it’s unclear what you should be picking up and using. But I’ve done a lot of exploration this time round and really paid attention to the backstory of the magic guilds, the Formers who use magic to build things, and their disdain for those who train to use magic as a weapon. For some reason I’d idealized the Iskai as a utopian society in my memory, but from asking everyone about everything this time, they have some seriously messed up stuff going on.

I’m trying to stay conscious of the inventory limits and pack spare rations into a chest in the South Wind Clan’s house before I start having to throw them out. By today’s standards it’s incredibly awkward to have both money and rations count towards your weight limit!

[DavidN]

#6891

I think being given the objective of “just wander and explore for two days” did great things for how much I loved this game – there was so much just to learn about. And I’m reminded of something else that stood out to me about Albion – it’s a game that’s actually mature, not in a shocking or provocative way, just that it talks openly about crime, morally difficult practices, sex and relationships in this society. (I can imagine the Sebai ritual being a million times more tangled than abortion can ever be, for example.)

I’ve gone round to the battle trainer and poured a load of points into close range combat – it feels odd that you can boost Tom so dramatically at this point, a significant distance towards the maximum capacity he’ll ever have in the game.

I found the clock! This game doesn’t give you any hints, does it – it’s just lying around in a pile of scrap in the basement that looks the same as any other. I briefly questioned why the Iskai day is so suspiciously similar to ours, but then remembered they had set that up quite nicely by having Rainer mention that the planet’s rotation was exactly the same as Earth’s earlier 🙂

[DavidN]

#6892

I’ve now gone through the game’s first significant dungeon! I remember this being a huge roadblock to me when I first played the game, but it really isn’t anywhere near as bad as I remember. Perhaps spending gold on combat training made all the difference – I had a couple of points where more powerful enemies knocked Rainer out cold immediately, but I had enough healing items to keep going, occasionally going back to the world map and resting. The 3D view doesn’t really do the game any favours, though – it’s so hard to swivel round and see where you’re going even when you have a torch lit (and it’s nice that putting Drirr in the lead raises the light level more as well!) I find myself bringing up the map after just about every movement to make sure I’m going where I think I am.

But what is it with PC RPGs and the comically low hit rate in combat? Typical fights have both sides just flailing around uselessly and only occasionally landing a hit, a frustration that I remember from the Eye of the Beholder games. It makes me feel that my characters are less effective than they actually are, because in most other game genres, missing this much would be a serious problem! It seems that enemies suffer from the same, though.

The gun is an incredible advantage, more than I had remembered – I thought that it would suffer from the same hit rate as the close range weapons did, but it really makes a huge difference when you can take so many hit points off the bigger enemies at once. The way that they need to stay still during a turn for it to hit them is a bit of a disadvantage, but not enough to balance out the massive damage it can do.

Having completed the dungeon, I find myself not really sure what to do now – I think Drirr mentioned talking to Frill again but he seems unmoved by us having found Argim as well as the ex-murderer. I’ll ask around.

[DavidN]

#6895

Okay, I’m at the stage where I have to ask Rejira for a ton of potions – that should do it.

Characters are stored somewhere around A5BA in the saved game (I’m not sure whether it can vary, but search for the string “Tom”) – after the character name followed by a ton of nulls, the inventory seems to be in a pattern of [1 byte for quantity][3 bytes for ???][2 bytes for item type]. Blue healing potions are type 4E00, and even though the game normally only lets you stack 99 items in a space, you can edit them all the way up to 255, which is displayed as ** – I think this is used to denote items that are infinitely buyable in shops, but when in your inventory they act as the number 255.

Of course, it isn’t practical to be this greedy – Rainer (or Dieter as he is now known due to some other experimentation) is unable to move at all here as he’s loaded down with 510 potions with a combined weight of 0.2 metric tons.

[DavidN]

#6897

Time to set sail for celts in space! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXICetXfDac

I remember the game a lot less clearly from here on – I do remember all the recommendations to stay on the first island for a while, but I’m not sure if this is to give the player an advantage over the intended balance of the game, or to make the game possible due to astonishing lack of balance. I’ve gone to a halfway point and got Sira up to the point where she learned Frost Avalanche, and I’ll see where things take me from here.

And at the moment, where it’s taking me is the king whispering to ask if I could go round the pharmacy and retrieve an embarrassing medication on his behalf. It seems a bit unglamorous compared to my last quest. (No, I don’t know why it’s green either.) Hail Hoots.

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[yozy]

#6899

Weird green tint indeed 🙂 In my current playthrough I only stayed on the first island until I could get Big Iskai Sword and Iskai Armor for Drirr, and Frost Avalanche for Sira. You could level it all up but it’s not really necessary. On the second island Frost Splinter and Frost Crystal are more than enough (and fully trained Frost Splinter works even against Animal 3, which I don’t think avalanche does)

[DavidN]

#6904

The dungeon beneath the great library made me ask myself questions about why Albion has both 2D and 3D environments. The first part of Drinno is unusual in that it’s played from the top-down perspective that you’ve so far used for wandering around and talking to people – your characters have never been in danger in this mode before (unless you count trying the local Iskai alcohol).

But it highlights that the 3D mode isn’t really necessary – every switch and floorplate puzzle works arguably better from this perspective because you have so much greater visibility and agility. Just turning round on the spot to face a different direction is so slow in the 3D dungeons, and you never feel like you have enough awareness of what’s beside or behind you because the field of vision is so low. The maps are obviously based on a rigid grid, and I wonder if it would have been better if you were also confined to grid movement to make things easier to navigate.

I’m surprised to learn that monsters don’t respawn in the 3D dungeons – once you’ve cleared them out once, you don’t have to worry about them coming back. Given that, I was able to get to the third floor basement of Drinno before looking at a walkthrough – when I discovered I was meant to raise a portcullis directly without looking for a switch despite that never having been possible anywhere else! Grrr.

Also finally encountered a fourth monster. There really aren’t very many.

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[DavidN]

#6906

Is this a good time to mention I’m colourblind

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[Tijn]

#6908

Oooof

[yozy]

#6909

I think the main reason for the 3D is the scare factor. In 3D the oppressing nature of the dungeon with monster sounds is much better, and you get the “monster jumped you from the side” element. Scary 2D games require blacking out most of the screen and rather costly light effects.

Btw that plate part, later in the game it’s a good sport to revisit the place and just wreck all of the trapped monsters.

Also, if you move your mouse to the very bottom of the 3D view, the arrow changes and you can look down (same goes for up). I found navigating the maze easier that way.

[DavidN]

#6910

“if you move your mouse to the very bottom of the 3D view, the arrow changes and you can look down (same goes for up)”

It doesn’t help colourblindness but thank you 🙂 Actually, when I switched back to the game after writing that post, my torch had gone out – and because of the VGA palette, the green tiles now appeared grey in the darkness, making the task much easier!

I remember this section very vaguely – I actually thought it was much later in the game, but I do remember some workaround, a spell that just obliterates all Animal types and makes the apocalyptic encounter incredibly trivial.

I think you’re right about the 3D sections’ oppressiveness – I had been thinking of the awkwardness, limited visibility and mobility as an accidental feature, but it makes a lot of sense if it’s by design 🙂

[yozy]

#6911

there are some spells that can insta kill everybody like banish demons or fungification, but unless you have grinded like a madman during the first part you don’t get these.

[IS4]

#6912

At least you can get them in scroll form later in the game, which also helps immensely if you haven’t trained them yet. As for the 3D, combat and the feeling of “enclosedness” is where it is most useful, but puzzles are just annoying there.

[DavidN]

#6917

I’ve retrieved the embarrassing medicine (which turned out to be a bit more of a quest than it sounded, didn’t it?) I was planning to go back and pick off some of the huge wave of monsters that opens near the end that you’re meant to block with the gate, but they were a bit far beyond my level even individually so I’ll go back to them later.

I’ve now reached my next stop Beloveno, and this game is getting less exotic all the time – I’m just in a town that could have been in any RPG in the last four decades now. It’s another affirmation that what I actually like is the first hour of Albion – the idea of discovering a new world and just being left to explore and converse in this town of naked cat people. I remember it feeling so big and momentous on my dad’s colossal 17″ CRT monitor.

Playing this again has made me want to go back and record one of my earliest songs, also called “Albion” – but as I’ve played through it I’ve realized the original lyrics missed the point so atrociously that I actually want to completely rewrite it. At that time, my understanding was limited to “humans destroy things, catgirls that live in balance with nature must be saved” – and while the game does have an environmental theme to it, there’s a lot more going on than that.

https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=61823

[yozy]

#6918

Nice. I’m in the Beloveno part as well at the moment, but taking a bit of a break to play something else.

Right now I was camping the small village Kantos to wait for the trainer who only visits between 8 and 9. This is a bit of a bummer mechanic, as you can’t really advance time while in a 2D part, and the 3D cities are a bit far to plan this well.

[DavidN]

#6930

Yes, the third island definitely slows the game down a lot, for the reasons you mentioned and just for it being so large with the points of interest taking a lot of time to move between. I’ve picked up Khunag, who I have renamed to Treguard of Dunshelm, https://alchetron.com/cdn/knightmare-18a34109-a5b5-4a38-9b02-ffd5845396c-resize-750.jpeg , and have been encouraged to assassinate some goverment officials. It feels like he doesn’t really have a plot reason to be there so far, he’s just tagging along for something to do, but his magic is useful.

The game is currently urging me to remember to talk to people multiple times so unsubtly that it’s almost like a comedy at this point, with the woman wandering around Beloveno who talks about her asking her neighbour about borrowing his stepladder or something. I assume that means there’s going to be one crucial conversation somewhere across these three cities that moves things forward.

I still haven’t been annoyed by any issues with the translated script, exactly, but I’m noticing a fair amount of little bugs in it where the highlighting isn’t closed, or someone’s name gets dropped, or once when someone remarked “Wrong text number (PC speaker beep)”. I also enjoyed that a zweihänder sword was overtranslated to “two-hander” 🙂

[DavidN]

#6937

There is a series of sketches by UK comedians Mitchell and Webb that are about the adventures of superheroes Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. In every scene, BMX Bandit comes up with some elaborate plan involving spins and wheelies, and Angel Summoner just conjures up an army of angels to do everything for them. Eventually, with his partner fed up of not getting to do anything, they go instead with a plan made up by BMX Bandit, who immediately dies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

What I’m getting at here is that Sira with her Frost Avalanche is Angel Summoner – it makes battles that would be dangerous into very easy encounters, and ones that would be impossible into just medium difficulty. And the trouble is that I can’t imagine the game being playable without it – on the third island, you start getting gigantic hordes of 10+ enemies at once which would quickly overwhelm you without being able to freeze them all and pick them off without them retaliating. I can’t make a guess at how much grinding it would take to make the game feasible otherwise.

There really isn’t a lot of direction in this part of the game beyond “talk to everyone and see what you can learn”. And it sounds odd for me to call this a drawback after praising just about the same thing in Jirinaar at the start of the game… it feels that this time, you’re just searching for something to do, as opposed to exploring (and I’m almost certain part of it is that I just find the furries much more interesting!) The whole political storyline would be much more involving if you had had any kind of introduction to these characters at all – as it is you’re just trying to find a quest for the sake of having a quest.

Speaking of which, I’ve just left a dungeon that was just there for the sake of having a dungeon! You talk your way past a guard (you can fight him instead but I really didn’t want to kill him, it’s so out of character for your party), then it pointlessly switches to a 3D section which has a load of doors and traps and monsters without any explanation as to why it’s there or why you’re exploring it.

[DavidN]

#6948

Oh dear god this part of the game is awful. You have to go back and forth so much searching for the one little action that will make the game progress, over three spaced out locations in the most awkwardly laid out path ever. It’s infuriating how the hitboxes of everything on the world map are a bit too big, meaning you have to detour around large areas that look like you should be able to walk on them. And if you get the order of your actions wrong the game dares to make characters angry at you for being a bit slow. Aaaaaaagh!

It took me looking at all three available guides on GameFAQs, plus an article on LPArchive with some additional commentary at https://lparchive.org/Albion/Update%2007/ , to understand what to do! (The playthrough there observes that suddenly, you can’t ask anyone about the Toronto in this section of the game – as if the game has forgotten about your objective, or is hoping you will so that you don’t realize this part of the plot is completely irrelevant to your mission.)

I believe that this is the complete list of actions you need to take…

– Talk to everyone in the council house and learn about the various members of the council: Herras, Perron, Gard and Riko.

– Talk to Kariah, who will tell you about a rumour of an assassination. You’ll only have the option to reply incredulously.

– Possibly talk about every available option to the drunk man and talkative old woman in the tavern, I don’t know if this matters.

– Go to Kounos, the village at the top of the mountain. Get to the basement by whatever means you prefer, mess around in the dungeon for however long you like, then go and talk to Kontos.

– Go to the hut slightly to the north and find Mellthas’ friend. He’ll talk about some doubts he has about Kontos getting too extreme.

– Go back and talk to Kontos and he’ll act much more impatient to you, talking about the Iskai and their shrine, and will invite you to go and talk to the Iskai in Srimalinar.

– Go back to Beloveno and enter the council building again. Observe that tensions are higher, with Gard and Riko being very annoyed that you’re there. Perron and Herras will talk about talks with them being tense and unproductive.

– Go to Kariah again – your options will be a bit more believing of her. Tell her you’ll see what you can do.

– Trudge your way to the north (you have to turn south to get down the vines after going north of the village) and wind your way to Srimalinar. Talk to the Iskai behind the bar in the tavern and pay him for his information.

– Go to the residence in the northwest part of Srimalinar and verify your new information with Arrim. Mellthas will recommend going back to talk to his friend in Kounos.

– Go south to Kounos and DO NOT TALK TO MELLTHAS’ FRIEND! Instead, a new character will be wandering around outside the houses – talk to her and she’ll tell you to hurry back to the city, not to stop for anything.

– Go to the council house in Beloveno again. Gard and Riko will be gone and Perron will be even more nervous than usual. You now have to talk to Herras about “assassination” – this isn’t an option that appears in the list, you have to type it in specifically. He’ll tell you he’ll make arrangements – Herras is now safe.

– Go back to Kounos AGAIN and this time, visit Mellthas’ friend. He’ll say that the Kounos cultists are heading off to the shrine, then tell you he has something important to say (these appear to be the wrong way around…)

(I found that a third piece of dialogue appeared, overheard snatches of conversation, if I had messed up here and the assassination had taken place – it didn’t appear when I had finally got the order of actions right, but I’m not sure if that’s related at all or just a coincidence.)

– Go back to Beloveno and talk to Herras in the council house (who you will notice is still alive). He’ll give you the key to the treasury, and therefore FIVE HUNDRED GOLD PIECES plus a few jewels.

– Turn your computer off and go to sleep!

[yozy]

#6949

That’s not the end of it yet either, because you still need to resolve the conflict between the humans and the iskai.

Have you gone to the optional cave dungeon? (South of Kounos near a waterfall). That one is a doozy 🙂

Maini is definitely the weakest part of the game, I do agree. There is not much rhyme or reason why particular people have some information.

Also note that the dungeon below Kounos is not pointless, but the reason to go there is given to you only at the very end of this part of the game.

[DavidN]

#6950

Right. So I’ve done the optional treasure cave now – I see what you mean, and I’ve got to admit that I was wrong about Maini. I described it as awful – it is instead absolutely wretched D:

The treasure cave is… something else. Hundreds of little nooks, all of which look exactly the same, made virtually innavigable with the decorative stalagmites and the supremely awkward constantly looking up and down to see the ceiling or floor to travel between the pits. The monster parties are just relentlessly boring and Angel Summoner Sira can deal with them single-handedly between rests and an unhealthy number of potions.

I counted what I think are exactly 38 pairs of pits to fall down/climb across five floors of monotony, noting them down until I had exhausted the English alphabet and used a few letters from Greek and Cyrillic as well. Anyone is welcome to use my map – I never want to see it again. (This isn’t even all of it, I ran out of room and had to draw a further seven caves on the back of the sheet.)

Did you also notice something strange with the movement in the 3D worlds in this chapter of the game? Between the three earlier dungeons and the Kounos basement and here, the viewpoint height is adjusted to make spaces seem smaller or larger without actually altering their scale. This also (feels like it) comes with altering the speed at which you move through the dungeons, making it difficult to judge where you are without referring to the map constantly. It’s very strange.

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[DavidN]

#6952

This whole episode has made me want to work on Phobian Odyssey again, a dungeon crawler I wrote last year based on the Doom universe – https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/125587-phobian-odyssey-episode-1-doom-dungeon-crawler-for-nanowadmo-2021/ . It was mainly an experiment in writing a game on the GZDoom engine, but I wanted to make a dungeon crawl style game where the environments were much more unique and memorable rather than monotonous – even games like the modern Etrian Odyssey dungeon crawlers have very featureless dungeons for the sake of nostalgia.

Perhaps, as I’m enjoying this game less and less, I might use the engine for the basis of an Albion game of my own eventually – something set in Albion the world that I was so fascinated with, separate from the awkwardness of Albion the game 🙂

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[IS4]

#6956

Did you also notice something strange with the movement in the 3D worlds in this chapter of the game? Between the three earlier dungeons and the Kounos basement and here, the viewpoint height is adjusted to make spaces seem smaller or larger without actually altering their scale. This also (feels like it) comes with altering the speed at which you move through the dungeons, making it difficult to judge where you are without referring to the map constantly. It’s very strange.

Yeah the maps differ quite a bit in the physical size of the blocks and the eye level, especially the caves which have very narrow blocks and high viewpoint, making it hard to see the floor or even the kritahs that come after you.

[yozy]

#6958

The viewpoint does change, there are several caves that are given this more “large” look. Problem is that then the chests kind of look tiny…

Since the 3d engine is basically at the level of wolf3d, one can not really ask for more I suppose.

The optional cave is kind of fun I found, the loot is great (you get the best helmet and the second best sword) and with a bit of memory jogging and backtracking you don’t even really need a map.

[DavidN]

#6976

To the Dji Cantos island! I love the scenery in this place, it really feels like a reward to explore this incredible hidden palace after all that drudgery above – something about the architecture and environment reminds me of the less annoying parts of my recent exploration through the Myst games. I can see why Rainer wants to stay here instead of spending another weeks-long stretch in a cave being chewed by small aggressive mammals.

This reminds me that I haven’t mentioned that the sprite work in this game is absolutely beautiful – after spending a long time in the 3D sections it’s easy to forget it due to the monster sprites and environments’ incredibly ugly scaling and monotony, but all of the 2D sections just look wonderful. I love how detailed they all are, with so many different object sprites for books and drinking horns and cutlery and containers lying around, and little touches like irregularities in the tiles or carpets on the floor. The environments look very realistic in the sense that they’re being lived in.

The level of information dump is… intense here, with you learning a lot about the relationship between Earth and Albion and their respective deities very quickly, tying the history of Albion in to the history of the ancient Celts, Greeks and throwing its own mythology in there as well. It is possible, but not guaranteed, that I might understand all this by the end of the game.

The other really important thing is finally getting access to the “world map”, you can now access all the places in your so-far linear journey as you like and go back and learn spells and collect things that you’ve missed. I’ve immediately used it to retrieve our two snugglewumps from Srimalinar – I wonder why the game has them leave for plot-related reasons when you can recruit them right back again.

I switched back to the game while writing this to discover that I had boosted some statistics by standing around on some flowers – on repeated tries it says that the energy of this place needs to be recharged, but I wonder if I could just raise everyone to their maximum limits given enough time here.

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[yozy]

#6979

I remember reading somewhere that you can use the flowers 15 times or something like that.

This is also a good moment to return to the first island, and touch the two glowing pillars in the old Dji-Fadh building (the reward for promise of the music crystal).

As for Sira and Mellthas, it gives you a bit more flexibility on how to make your party. For example this time I’m going to go with Siobhan and Kunagh, rather than having to lug along the useless piece of trash which is Mellthas 🙂

[DavidN]

#6982

I took the bonus from the pillars in the Former building right after Sira joined the party! A bonus of 10 to three different stats at that stage of the game is significant, and I decided I’d rather not wait until this late in the game even though it meant a couple of characters would miss out on it. Actually I wonder if that’s made the difference for me compared to the bad time jefklak is having…

It never occurred to me that you had the opportunity to take both Siobhan and Kunagh, with free space in your party! I imagine that Sira and Mellthas won’t agree to join unless there’s room for both of them? It’s an interesting opportunity, but I don’t think I could survive the rest of the game without Frost Avalanche 🙂

Moving around the maps is still awkward even with fast travel, the caves always seem to dump you miles from anywhere and the view isn’t quite zoomed out enough to have a clear picture of where you are. Nevertheless I’ve taken the chance to go back and learn spells I wasn’t high-level enough for before, stock up on free healing potions, and have uncursed the Shadowsword. That last one isn’t a real option in the game as far as I know, but clearing the fourth byte of the inventory slot containing it sorted it out.

It’s interesting that the data about weapons seems to be split between the inventory and elsewhere – equipping this purified Shadowsword gives a huge bonus to stamina and makes you really good at lockpicking for some reason, and it can be removed from your hands freely, but the message about it being cursed still appears when you equip it. So the fact that the Shadowsword has those bonuses and is expected to be cursed must be in a table somewhere else in the game data – but it’s the data in the bytes of the inventory item that actually define the effects of the curse. This implies that there might have been (or still is?) some way to uncurse items in the game, or otherwise change their effects.

Inventory slot +0 bytes: Quantity
+1 byte: Spell value – number of charges left
+2 bytes: Enchantments value
+3 bytes: Bitmask:
0x01 for an item having been identified (allows the “More…” menu in the inventory screen).
0x02 for an item being broken.
0x04 means the item is cursed – this seems to reverse any bonuses defined on it and makes it unremovable when equipped.
(Possibly more in here as well!)
+4 bytes: 2 bytes for the item type. Shadowsword is 74 01

I’ve noticed that over the last few games I’ve joined in DOS Game Club I’ve grown to love pulling things around and seeing what happens, solving the puzzle of how the game works as well as the actual challenge of the game itself 🙂

[DavidN]

#6983

Right then

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[yozy]

#6991

Could it be that the cursed bit makes the bonuses inverted? Normally the shadows sword gives you -50 stamina, -30 life and -30 lock picking. (https://albionworld.fandom.com/wiki/Shadowsword) Could the that the game code allows for all the stat changes to go only one way. (althought this wouldn’t really work with normal non-cursed weapons which give maluses to combat skill). Anyhow for Drirr it’s a very good weapon, stamina affects damage taken and how much you heal if you rest. With Hannah’s Restoration the second point is a non-issue and drirr can usually kill anything in one turn and has enough speed to go first most of the time.

To my knowledge there is no way to un-curse objects or even make them better, maybe it was planned at some point?

I found that identifying objects actually exists in the game though! But it’s horribly expensive.

[DavidN]

#6993

I think that’s exactly what it does 🙂 And how fascinating that there’s an Albion wiki (and unfortunate that it’s on Fandom, which seems only to exist to host wikis that are so advert-laden as to be completely unusable). I wonder what else I can find there…

I’m on Umajo, the fourth island chapter of the game! Beloveno reused Celtic and Iskai graphics as you would expect, but this area is strikingly different – fittingly, as these are the only people who can construct things from metal. It’s really a nice detail that everything is so different here – you haven’t really noticed throughout the game that metal is absent from the everyday objects lying around the houses, but suddenly you see that bathtubs, tables, and other items of furniture all feature metal prominently. I’m really seeing what I love about Albion emerge again – the exploration of the world and its alien nature.

The exposition dump on Dji Cantos is still a bit much for me to take in, but the storyline suddenly comes back here after mostly being forgotten on Gratogel and Maini in favour of a series of rescue quests. Rainer was skeptical of the idea that the planet is aware and vengeful on people who take from it, but talking to the people here seems to confirm that experience and I’m not going to argue! So if our gigantic mining ship digs its claws in and starts drilling, I don’t think it’s going to be long before all our crewmates start dying in mysterious supernatural circumstances. The urgency of getting back to the Toronto is once again present!

Rations suddenly become ridiculously expensive here, justified in-game in that they have to be shipped from elsewhere due to the desert climate. On the other end of the scale, I saw that there was an item called “hammer” available at the weapon smith for 0.1G, thought that it was obviously going to be part of a puzzle later on and encumbered myself with ten of them weighing 3500g each (it appears only one is needed and I would never have thought to try it out without looking at a guide).

I was surprised at the sudden appearance of a stealth section (which everyone loves) – thankfully it was brief and I was able to overhear the ritual and find out the centuries-old magic password within about two minutes. Now I’m spending absolutely years walking down a maze of boring passageways that are blatantly far too long, solving puzzles that involve going to one end of the map then the other – DOSBox-X’s fast forward feature has come in very useful.

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[DavidN]

#6995

The dungeon in this section of the game is actually interesting again, it’s a little clumsy in terms of being able to tell what you’re doing at first but is based around turning a room in the centre around to access four different parts of the tunnels. It’s a welcome change after the featureless warrens of the bonus dungeon on Maini.

The main roadblock is… pictured below. Sixteen Animal3s is the worst of them, but the game starts throwing these absolutely ludicrous piles of enemies at you and it’s very difficult to imagine how you’re expected to deal with them without the high level spells (actually just Demon Exodus, because in an inspired touch, using Frost Avalanche on this many Animal3s crashes the game). Faced with this, I can only see two options:

1. Just hit them with a levelled up Demon Exodus and make the battle trivial
2. Die

I’m really not sure whether I’m cheating around the game here, or if this is the intended way to do it – it feels like there are only about three spells that are really worthwhile in the game, particularly as you have to cast spells repeatedly to make them useful. This is just one aspect of the game where grinding becomes necessary – there’s a lot of busywork getting in the way of just playing the game and experiencing the world.

Anyway. I’ve now retrieved the Stone of Visions from a chest in the deepest part of the dungeon, and have made my way back up only to realize I can’t remember why I wanted the Stone of Visions or what it might be used for.

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[IS4]

#6997

I hate to tell you this but the Stone of Visions is not the primary reason why you’d want to go into that dungeon. The dungeon has another purpose, but it might be too early for you. If your current task is to find Toronto, the Umajo-Kenta inn is a good place to start finding information. As for the Stone of Visions, some people in the city may know more about it or what to do with it.

And sorry I made the wiki on what is now Fandom 😉 It was better when it was Wikia, but still I don’t see many issues browsing it now (I have AdBlock).

[yozy]

#7002

Yeah IIRC the Stone of Visions dungeon is basically the last one before the final stage, so it’s normal that it’s harder than it should be at the level you come in there.

[yozy]

#7003

I’m in the dungeon as well, because I wasn’t sure which place let’s you know the Toronto’s location. Thanks IS4 🙂

[DavidN]

#7109

Just for the record, I found the dialogue that I mentioned above! I’m still unsure how to trigger it – I had remembered it as being what happens when you show the gun to Colonel Priver, but by the time it’s possible to have the gun he won’t talk to you and you can’t get to the normal conversation menu.

text 5 ; "{HIGH} \"Are you crazy?\" ^ {NORS}\"Hand over the weapon immediately! This will have serious consequences for your personal record, Driscoll, I promise you that.\" ^ ^ {INK 001}Priver takes the weapon from Tom."