Incidentally Jim Aikin sent me the outline of the sequel to Not Just An Ordinary Ballerina complete with code and sketches, octopus and all as I recall some time ago. Sadly I think he abandoned it as a game too far.
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Search For The Lost Orb you say? I shall search for that mysterious bauble.
If you could point me to a working download?
I love this quote!
āNot much is known about this game, but it appears to be of commercial quality.ā
That neatly sums it up, from what I can tell by reading the first few descriptions. Thanks for showing me the way into another deep hole of adventure.
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It is tough but very good. Much conjecture has been made about whose writing style and puzzle content it most resembles. It kind of reminds me of Derek Haslamās games Gateway To Karos and its sequel Mirror Of Khoronz but he didnāt write it. Very Phoenix stable like as well, viz. Jonathan Partington and the gang.
Wow I have eventually completed this magnum opus after twenty odd years! The feeling of elation after being shut in a dank castle for two decades is incredible. I hope Tony Blair isnāt Prime Minister any more. I must buy a newspaper and see what George Bush has been up to as wellā¦
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Congratulations!
I havenāt dared set foot in Castle Ralf yet. Itās quite intimidating even just hearing about it.
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It is really hard. Off the top of my head I would say there are a dozen ways to soft lock it and very few are obvious at the time. It is however worth playing just to experience the sheer enormity of the key retrieval puzzle. It is quite extraordinary in size and complexity and definitely much larger than in any other game I have come across. If you know the the board game Mouse Trap and imagine it strung across many different rooms and even floors you may get some idea of its scope. Iād imagine the writers had a riot constructing it.
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I looked at it again recently-- I played it on and off with a housemate over about 6 months about 30 years ago-- and remembered that it doesnāt have the X shorthand and walked away.
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While Iāve nothing to add to the conversation, having not played the game, I read the first post and noticed that Canalboy appears to be a chap I worked with for over a decade.
Small world.
Jeremy
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I finally nailed the gold key puzzle after the passing of several million years and subsequently realised how close I was to the end. The entire set piece puzzle occupies several rooms, some of them on different floors. The whole retrieval process can be irrevocably screwed up in a dozen different ways, not all of them immediately obvious. A cage, a steel ball, various shaped holes and slides, an arrow, a bag of sand, a chain, a garage door opener, a de-humidifier, a conveyor belt, a french horn, a boiler room with gas line, a room that canāt be enteredā¦and so on and on. Forget the babel fish puzzle from the Hitchhikerās Guide To The Galaxy, that was a walk in the park compared to this.
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