Return of the Sword
Is “old school” too broad a term to describe a game? This FEELS pre-90s in a lot of ways, which is mostly what I mean by that. A cheerful “let’s go on an quest!” type of text adventure, with a fun goal (You’re trying to find Excalibur!), with a maze, with a 230 point scoring system (it increments in 10s, so not quite as intimidating as that might appear!), with colorful text that hearkens back to pre-Windows graphic stylings, and loads of puzzles, some exploration, and a sort of kitchen sink approach to its world-building. Certainly a much larger game than anything else I’ve played this ParserComp.
I really enjoyed it! There’s a sort of genial charm to the whole thing. Light on story, a diverse set of not particularly punishing puzzles, but engaging throughout.
And there are efforts to modernize this as well. There’s been a lot of thought put into the thorough HELP text, so the player isn’t just left to fend for themselves; lots of explanations about the types of commands this uses, constraints, and tips too. There’s a good HINT system in-game, and also a downloadable walkthrough if you get stuck. HELP says there’s no unwinnable states, but I did hit one, and had to reload (saving often is probably still good; don’t leave area 2 without adding at least 4 things to your inventory!). Function keys (F1, F2, etc) are all mapped to commonly needed, slightly longer commands (GET ALL FROM IT, PUT COIN IN SLOT) which is a thoughtful inclusion.
The whole thing is written in qBasic64, and you know what, it’s probably one of the most thoroughly implemented custom engine games I can remember playing. No problems, could’ve been an Inform game for all I really noticed, outside of the way you get items from inside containers, but the HELP text is very clear on this idiosyncrasy. Also never did figure out how to really turn BACK the pages in a book; I just closed the book and started from the beginning again whenever I needed a prior page, but I assume there was a better way I missed.
A lot of the likeability is in its world, which has a certain wonder to it. There’s a main chamber you’ll return to often, with a dial that turns 1 to 5, a slot, and a switch. Put a coin into a slot, turn the dial and flip the switch, and you’ll be transported to different areas, and perhaps different eras. I would compare the tone to Myst, but note that’s from someone who never actually played Myst! There’s a cheerful sort of disregard to necessarily trying to explain what’s going on, but the results is I never entered a room knowing what to expect. My inventory included a spellbook, a remote control, potions, a pair of spectacles, and a stepladder. Walk through a mist covered heath, past a door set in a huge boulder, down through a small passage, and emerge in a huge cathedral! This has a large variety of rooms, without necessarily having a large number of them.
The puzzles are similarly wide ranging. Yep, a traditional maze is here (thanks to the Samurai and Kappa for giving me a refresher course on Maze Solving 101!). Keypad codes. passwords. inventory puzzles. One favorite puzzle was in a corridor, where there was this aperture that would close when you got near it but open when you went to the other side of the long corridor. So then how do you get what’s inside? There were some other puzzles which felt a bit obscure, and which I went to HINTS to (the password for the boulder door? I didn’t understand that one). Puzzles generally are not overly tough, but there’s some possibility you might have to look at hints.
The complicating issue with the puzzles is that they take place within all this wide open, haphazard world design; without a more concrete structure, it’s easy to just miss things, because important items are just strewn about everywhere. Is this closed compartment something I should try to open? Oh, the HINTS say that I should just go back to it much later. How do I get past this closed and locked door in the church? Oh, apparently I missed a room in the previous area, so I didn’t get the item I needed back there for this. There are things that you need to solve later, but also just loads of red herring items, and then also puzzles that aren’t just self contained to one area but need items from other areas, and it all leads to a messy sense of paranoia about what needs to be solved NOW and what actually CAN’T be solved just yet. I feel like self-containing puzzles to its own areas is what I’d probably personally prefer in this sort of design, otherwise what’s the point of segmenting all the areas, but regardless, its current structure just felt a bit arbitrary, which like I said, creates a sort of atmosphere, but which also did made some puzzles harder.
I liked the writing! It’s straightforward and unfussy, with some slightly different turns of phrase and grammar choices (to describe it more: the vocab is very simple, the grammar is kind of formal-ish?), but I dunno, I just had an immediate affinity for it. I read through everything, I didn’t start skimming, never got confused, and hey, those are all pretty strong indicators for good description writing. Generally functional descriptions, except that sometimes you’re just told something like “there are exits in all directions” to a room, so I leaned on the EXITS command a lot. Here’s an example of the writing:
At The Moatside
You are standing on the side of a wide moat which stretches out in front of
you and which has every appearance of being very deep. On the other side is
situated a castle, the walls of which are built of enormous blocks of stone
and look to be very strong. The entrance to the castle is by the means of a
massive drawbridge constructed of wood reinforced with iron. The forest ex-
tends right up to the edge of the moat, and blocks exit in all directions
other than to the south which leads back into the forest.
This also has a slight text-being-typed, fade-in effect which I liked for transitional text that happens when moving between rooms.
Overall: maybe there’s a certain alchemy here, or perhaps it’s just the general sense of discovery that carries things, but I think there’s a way this could’ve come off as more generic than it does, with the way it cobbles a lot of fairly well-worn puzzles and places together. But instead it managed to have its own unique voice. I greatly enjoyed pecking away at it over a week or two while also playing through other entries to vary things up.