Uka wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:28 am
But this topic used to be named "Catacombs/Cornucopia"?
It did. I've changed it. It'd be less confusing to have a separate thread for Cornucopia; this one is already a bit of a mammoth read.
I'm really impressed with how much of Catacombs has been solved. If the original PET game was as interesting as the remake then it's even more of a shame that it has been lost, and largely forgotten for so long.
Apart from the few problems that remain unsolved. Catacombs wasn't that hard and was actually quite fun to play. It reminded me of playing Horror Hotel (PC) also a long and complex, but solvable game.
If you really want to play a hard game you should try Demoniak (Amiga/Atari/PC) or The Galleon (c64).
Uka wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:56 am
Although I've heard that in 1991 Supersoft has re-published at least "Witch Hunt" with bugs cleaned and digitized sounds added - but that could be just a press-review version that was not released commercially.
Yeah, that's an odd one.
Sue Medley was reviewing the whole Classic Quests series, first in Syntax and then later in Red Herring, having paid over £20 for each of the games... which was definitely a rip-off in 1991 for what were, at the time, "ancient" adventures. She didn't think much of Goblin Towers and Forestland.
Witch Hunt, reviewed on page 29 of Red Herring issue 2, faired slightly better but the first two "PC" copies Sue had were bugged. It was only with the third copy that things started working. That was the "1991" version with added speech and sound effects.
I think the whole experience must've put her off the series for good as she never went on to cover Cornucopia or Catacombs.
Uka wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 5:56 am
Infocom games did have some clear endings, but that's not the case with all the others. Especially early games created by a single author, like all the five Classic Quests.
No, that isn't quite true. The Brian Cotton games *are* fairly unusual in not having at least some ending text. Canalboy is an expert on the very early mainframe adventures.
It's worth reading Jason Dyer's blog if you want to get an idea what other adventures at the time that Catacombs originally came out, were like: https://bluerenga.blog/all-the-adventures/.
(If people do start playing Cornucopia, it would be worth making a new thread for that.)
O
Slightly off topic but Jason, Russell Karlberg and myself spent many a happy and frustrating week on Warp which I managed to get from Dan Hallock in the States and put up on IFDB. Likewise John Laird's Hauntis worth a look. He is still around on email too.
Alastair wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:40 am
Stamp and swim we know about but what of the other two?
I am not sure that "defile" is important. Yes, you can defile the altar, but that would only mean getting to hell = death. The good book warns us not to defile the holy altar, so could that be something you have to do? I doubt that. Maybe only a way to call the rider?..
Interesting, I will have to re-read through this thread to remind me of numerous things before I make any attempt on the game.
That said, if per LanHawk's post you are supposed to use the sword on the web and you cannot coat the sword to protect the sword in some way from the acid, are you instead supposed to first do something to the web to neutralise the acid? Once I get around to re-playing the game I will try a few things out to test this idea before I replace "18" (the sword) with "1C" (and yes, I do know what this is - that's one of the disadvantages of decoding the text).
I made the random number change and the dark hooded figure on horseback has turned up, plus the horse has delivered its present! Since I have had no success in getting past the web I will make the second change and see how things develop.
With the second change I have managed to score 250 out of 250, my thanks to LanHawk. However the mystery of the purple sphere remains, having gone to all the trouble in getting the sphere there appears to be no use for the thing. Also the zombie bug remains, the zombie can be dealt with before the bug appears but what if the reason for collecting the sphere is to get the zombie to follow you and have the zombie deal with the web or some other problem? Many questions remain and unless a bug free version appears the answers may remain elusive.