#collecting all bits of lore while my friends kill half the map

[birbcake]

i got invested in fornite's lore this season so here are the siblings celebrating in a moment of calm

[gonk-droid]

HC What type of RDR player the VDL Boys are

Crazy idea that came at me last night, basicaly, what if the boys played the game in a modern setting ? Might be a bit meta. It’s my first time doing headcanons but I had fun ! If you want to propose a SFW scenario, I’ll try my best writing some more :)

Dutch:

- Would mostly follow the storyline and find Dutch (duh) to be the most intriguing character of the game

- Would be a super history nerd and spend time online explaining what rockstar did right or wrong

- Always dresses Arthur elegantly and change his outfits for each occasion

- In online, he would definitly want to be the leader of a big gang and do high reward missions

Hosea:

- Would start the storyline then get lost roaming around the map, taking the scenery in. Stops and sit on rocks when he wants to find some peace

- He probably would spent hours trying to find each legendary animal and fish before even thinking of continuing the story

- Actually enjoys reading each page in Arthur’s journal, and crafting things at the campfire

Charles:

- Master hunter. He knows everything you need to know about any weapon and ammo

- Has his camera roll filled with artistic pics of the night sky or his horse grazing next to pretty lakes

- Took a selfie of him next to the legendary alligator to show his friends

- Likes to spent time in camp, doing the chores and listening to every character’s line of dialogue

- Is trying to do all the challenges but has a hard time

Javier:

- Really enjoys playing as John more, cause he loves the second half of the map

- Not against fishing sometimes when he wants to have a slow day playing

- Pretty casual with his way of playing, touches everything but never get too far into any

- Does enjoy the song nights around the campfire, especially when Javier plays alone

- Biggest fan of the “great great antagonize” technique

Arthur:

- Would play the story and most stranger missions he came accross while roaming around the map

- He would definitely keep his first horse and play with them till the end

- Like to play RP and actually walk around towns, listening to musicians in Saint Denis or in saloons, greating them. Probably also went a few times at the movie theatre after the Mary mission

- Never changed Arthur’s outfit since the beginning, likes to stay simple

John:

- Wants to be good but somehow always end up having terrible honor. He’s the type of person who wants to buy some apples in the Valentine general store, then happens to miss press his buttons and end up beating up some random guy, everything snowballing into killing the whole town and having to escape (and didn’t even get to buy apples)

- Never goes close to water and hates fishing

- Enjoys playing dominoes or poker with the gang occasionally

Micah:

- Is a dick to most NPCs

- Antagonize everyone in camp just for laugh (His favourite interaction is when Arthur tells Jack he doesn’t look like a Marston)

- Makes it a tradition to always take the worst choice possible in any given mission he come across

- Probably dresses Arthur with dark and edgy looking outfits

- All of his guns have black metal parts engraved with gold accents

- Likes to smoke cigarettes a lot and wonder everytime if smoking will make Arthur’s condition get worse faster

Lenny: 

- Looks like a casual player, is actually a big nerd

- Watches all videos he can find about the lore and secrets of the game. Is definitely the guy who teaches each gang member where to go to find gold bars and collectibles.

- Like to get drunk and attempt missions like this

- He reads all the letters and newspapers and tries to find some secrets between the lines

- Would play online and be the kind to give his legendaries to low ranked players to help them

- Is actually sad Arthur and Mary didn’t end up together

Bill:

- Enjoys hunting the most, but still finished the storyline

- He cried when his horse died but will never tell

- Likes to use melee weapons everywhere and slash random NPCs with the machete or pirate sword (Lenny told him where to find it) when he gets bored

- Has most of the trapper’s outfits and always make Arthur wear one of those animal fur hats

Pearson:

- He played the main game but flourishes in online

- The type to have the best campsite ever with a perfect stew cooking at all time

- Likes to RP a lot with other people on RP servers

- Is sad that there isn’t really much to do in the main game with boats, even if he enjoys using them everytime he spots one

Sean:

- Arson. The guy tries to set fire to everything and would shout “BOOM!” out loud everytime he does it

- Doesn’t really care about his horse, probably steals horses whenever just cause he can, and then get angry when his main horse doesn’t answer his whistles (he never bonded with them)

- Takes the notorious “Micah in prison selfie”

- Never pays his wanted prize, so the boy is constantly running away from bounty hunters

- In online he would duel any player he can find and end up spending all his time respawning everytime he got killed

Kieran:

- Spends most of his time trying to find THE perfect horse

- Always picks the lawful answer to any stranger mission (he does them all and loves them)

- Probably pets every horse he can find everytime he has to stop in a town

- Sad you can’t have a dog that follows you in your journey

- Is scared senseless of the serial killer side quest and had to ask Lenny to stay with him before he had to enter the basement

Uncle:

- probably plays once in a while cause the boys told him it was a great game

- He does play the story but keeps adding his commentary on every bad choice Dutch makes

- Thinks Guarma is wasted potential

- Tries to get on with prostitues then complain when he discovers you can’t

[twilightknight17]

Today on Royal: Pain! :’D

He’s eating the map and I’m getting steadily more weirded out by all of this the longer it goes on.

I’m definitely worried now. Where the fuck is the Velvet Room. How is he powerful enough to override the Velvet Room?

So he wants me to see “his reality”. Which means going out and seeing how happy all of Akira’s friends are. And they are happy! ...but not happy enough that a few well-placed dialogue choices can’t start poking holes in the story they’ve been fed. Maruki’s not perfect at this. And honestly, he’s taken Akira’s friends, not given him anything. We went from everyone wanting to spend time with Akira to everyone having other things to do. Ryuji doesn’t even know why they’re friends. Thinking about how they met is what starts to crack his illusion.

While I was looking for my friends, I ran across this couch outside the furniture store in Kichijoji.

Examining it yields only this:

So now I gotta go back to Kichijoji after it frees me from the plot so I can see what’s up with this conspicuously Velvet blue couch.

(I will say, if I have one complaint about this part, is that it’s six days of the same thing. Wake up, locate Friend, see how they’re doing, return home, spend evening in bed contemplating whether this is a good thing because Friend is happy. You can’t do anything else, see how any of your other confidants are doing... What does Iwai’s ideal world look like? Takemi’s? Hifumi’s?)

I think out of everyone I feel the most bad for Morgana.

I mean, he spends half the game as it is worrying that he’s some sort of monster instead of a human. And now that he’s human and I’ve gone and jabbed a hole in his dream, he’s spending a week growing more and more afraid as he realizes that something isn’t right about himself. That’s just straight-up existential terror.

Goro didn’t really find a lot during his week of investigating. Mostly just that Maruki’s been doing cognitive psience stuff since college, and that Okumura and Wakaba are...actually alive.

Does that mean if we end the dream, we’re murdering them?

Not taking the Misericorde with me feels like a betrayal of my role as heir to the title of Trickster, but I can’t really turn down an extra thirty points of attack. X’‘‘D Especially since Goro and I are going into the Palace alone.

Other than the weird security cameras, this place really is beautiful. And apparently the music that I like so much is called “Gentle Madman”. Stop hitting all these fucking tropes I like, Maruki. It’s not fair.

Oh heck, wait, are we doing this now? This is an actual question? I assumed that was for the endgame. Well, if I’m here... The safe room was right downstairs...

Let me be selfish. Just for one moment. Please.

Please.

.....no, wait, this hurts.

This hurts a lot.

Because they deserve this. They all deserve this happiness. I’ve never heard Goro sound that genuinely happy as he did in this ending. But the only way to give them this is to leave them trapped under the will of a dictator. And they deserve better than that.

From the Den:

They’re looking at you. Judging you for the sin of the choice you made.

I find it interesting that while Akira and Goro are clearly looking at you with full knowledge of what you did, the game itself doesn’t seem particularly judgemental. I got the “view the ending” trophy and the option to save clear data, which to me implies that it’s...obviously the wrong choice, but a valid choice regardless. I never got the “Good” Ending in vanilla P5, so I don’t know if that offered the same level of legitimacy. This was treated as a real ending.

[reloading save data]

Of course we can’t accept this reality, why would he even think we would do that? X’‘D

Sumire is throwing a fit because she still wants to be Kasumi, and is getting ready to fight us. Shit. Still, she’s inexperienced, and both of us are strong enough to han--

Goro: I could deal with this, but I’m assuming you want her to leave here alive, right?

It’s sweet of you to take what I want into consideration, but yeah, I’d really rather not kill her, so just tone it dow-- Aaaaand he’s walking away and leaving me to fight her alone. Thanks, honey.

Shoutout to using the same strategy as the battle arena and just equipping something that repels physical. She took her own swords dance to the face and got knocked out.

......what the fuck are you doing? This just looks like torture.

I know for a fact that that’s not Nyarlathotep because I’m pretty sure I’d have had people beating down my door to point it out already. Because crucifixion pose by itself? Common imagery. Tentacles? ...coincidence, probably. But if this had been Nyar puppeteering Maruki or something? I’m one step away from being Super Duper Valid. I already feel pretty valid anyway.

HELLO, Persona 3! Nice(?) to see an out of control persona again. I wonder how close her persona was to reverting to a shadow? Sumire feels like more of a “dungeon” sort of person. Since she’s suppressing something.

But...what was Maruki’s goal here? Beating us into submission? He’s just letting Sumire’s emotional torment go out of control; hell, he’s literally feeding into it with the Biyarkis. He’s using her to fight us, and that’s...disgusting, honestly. You want everyone to be happy, but you’re going to let her throw herself at us over and over? Really?

Why do I feel like all of this “I want you to understand, we can talk, you’ll see things my way”, all of this asking for consent, is bullshit? Does he really want us to see things his way? Or can he actually not alter our reality without consent?

Thank god for the cavalry because this battle was clearly impossible from the first round. I love that the other Thieves have no idea what the fuck is going on, but their leader is in danger so they’re gonna Fight.

I think there’s not. We don’t want to talk. Fuck off. And also stop swiping tropes I like. You’re not Rubicante; you’re not earning my respect by refusing to fight me when I’m tired.

Goro, I know you’re Done with everything, but that’s really not helping.

The Phantom Thieves are momentarily baffled, because it’s clear that we have to change Maruki’s heart, but they’re getting thrown off by the fact that he’s not “evil”. Yeah, he’s not. He has good intentions. But he’s doing bad things to accomplish those intentions. Doing bad things for good reasons is still bad.

...if he wasn’t like this... maybe it would be okay. If he could make everyone happy, erase their trauma, make the world better...without rewriting memories or being a brainwashing dictator... That might not be wrong. But he’s made it pretty clear that he’s on a power trip and doesn’t want dissent, which is no better than Yaldabaoth.

What we did to Futaba and what he’s doing are vastly different things.

...Morgana calls her “Lady Lavenza” and that’s really cute, actually. I’m realizing I portray Lavenza as more of a child than the game does, but I like both.

Oh so now we can press Morgana for what’s wrong. Learned from your prior mistakes, huh, ‘Kira? XD

.....I love her.

It’s extremely weird to have the whole squad interacting with the Velvet attendant and addressing her by name. That’s so strange in comparison to how it usually is. But these are strange times, and once again, it’s unnerving how much power Maruki has.

He’s strong enough that he’s suppressing the Velvet Room. That’s horrifying. I wonder if he knows they exist; I could see him considering them a threat to his ideal world. Normally I’d be sure that Igor and Lavenza could kick his ass if he tried anything, but... I genuinely don’t know anymore. Igor is still recovering from being imprisoned, and Lavenza is barely able to manifest to talk to us.

Meanwhile, Maruki is using a persona.

Normally I’d be fussed about him summoning in reality, but apparently reality is still half-fused with Mementos, which in the greater scope of Persona lore feels like something similar to what was happening in P1 and P2. The collective unconscious is very close to the surface. I’d be curious whether or not the kids could summon outside of the Palace with a bit of practice, but I’m sure the game won’t go into that.

...although, that doesn’t explain him being able to use his powers in reality before the beginning of the year. Mementos only started fusing with reality in December.

I’m looking directly at you, Atlus. You made a human villain stronger than what I imagined for the strongest persona-user?

......oh, Mona, I’ve got like 3 different notes documents for you to read about why that can be allowed. X’D

*cracks knuckles*  Not to take Goro’s side, but...we already killed one god, didn’t we?

But...this is our fault, and we have to fix it. I don’t completely understand how Maruki granting the Thieves’ wishes transferred the belief of the masses to him, but... This can’t go on. If Mementos completely fuses, this becomes permanent, and there will be no way out. Time to go.

I really do appreciate that Goro was invited as one of the Phantom Thieves. And Ryuji asked for his input on whether we’re going after Maruki.

...you all said it. He’s one of you now. No take-backs.

[thenickdefalco]

My Very Late  Halo 5 Review

I have been debating posting this for a very long time. I wrote it in November of 2015 for a friend who was going to publish it on his new gaming website, so now here we are over a year later, and it was never posted. so here it is, I hope to star posting reviews for other things like movies and games, so hopefully this will not be the last and only review...

Hunt the Truth that is what Microsoft and 343 industries have been asking us to do for the better part of six months. However as I put the last bullet into the last Forerunner enemy I sit and wonder, what Truth was I Hunting. While I completely understand that mass market advertising can be misleading, but in no way was I expecting what would play out in HALO 5. The plot of HALO 5 is a bit underwhelming, to say the least. Part of that has to do with the set up you were expecting after some of the more reveling advertisements that ended up on TV and across your social media. These ads would have led you to believe that the Master Chief and Spartan Locke are engaged in a great philosophical battle, between the Chief and his former command and Humanity in General. Yet this is most definitely not the case, instead you spend most of the time as Spartan Locke, about 80% of the campaign, and Master Chief the other 20%. The big showdown you expect never really happens; it all plays out over a few cut scenes, and some in game chatter. As the game progresses, it sometimes makes you wonder, am I missing something, did I skip a cut scene? But alas you are probably not the only person, a lot of the backstory seems to be missing, or even major plot points. HALO 5 expects you to have played and completed the first four HALO games, and to be heavily invested into the lore. While I understood most of what was going on, as I have fallen deep into the rabbit hole that is HALO cannon, I was still left questioning many things. There is also the question of character motivation and growth. It seems to be lacking both, as great as HALO 4 was; HALO 5 is seriously lagging behind. The world HALO 4 expanded on is almost completely missing; Captain Lasky is relegated to a tertiary background character, Dr. Halsey is magically a good guy again, Captain Palmer is just an afterthought, Roland the AI gets a longer exposure time, and even the Arbiter is in almost blink and you’ll miss him cameo, ok no not really, but you get the point. That’s not to say I didn’t like the campaign, I liked it very much. The Squad aspect is something new and injected a new spark into the already awesome HALO formula. The set pieces are some of the most beautiful landscape’s I have ever seen in a video game. The Enemies have never looked better, and the weapons are majestic. This is truly one of the best next gen games graphic wise that I have seen. The story is also not as convoluted as I may have made it seem either. There is a clear beginning middle and end; just how you get there is muddled. The squad based combat however is where the campaign truly shines, the interaction between the characters is great, and allows you to understand who your team is without having to read anything or visit a wiki page. This also allows you to last a little longer in the harder difficulties, as you can revive your time and they can revive you. It also allows more for a more vertical playing field, like no other HALO campaign has had before. It creates a new element that allows you to find new angles to defeat your enemies, as well as find hidden Skulls, a HALO Staple, and Intel. The new Spartan abilities also add to the fun, with the clamber ability and of course the new fan favorite SPARTAN Ground Pound, being able to take out horde of enemies in a single go, without a grenade is always fun. While no HALO has ever really had boss battles, the few fights with the Warden Eternal, a new Forerunner enemy, is a welcome break from the normal action. His fights require skill and tactics to beat him, and patience when fighting him on higher difficulties, especially on Legendary where you might have to muster some willpower to outlast him. I did welcome the return of the Arbiter, as it was nice to see that his fight was still going, however if you were one of the people that found and watched all the Terminals in HALO 2 anniversary, and beat HALO 2 anniversary on Legendary, then again you will find yourself wondering, what 343i was trying to achieve, as those cut scenes do not necessarily add up to what is going on in HALO 5. Spoiler Warning! The biggest change of pace that comes with HALO 5 is the return of Cortana. If you finished HALO 4 then you know Cortana was presumed dead, and lost forever. However in scenes similar to the first half of HALO 3 Cortana reaches out to the Chief seeking his help, and through what seems as random cuts of cut scenes in the Locke portions of the game, we find out the Cortana may not be the same. As it turns out, she has “cured” her rampancy, what happens when AI begin to lose competency, and has taken on the Mantle of Responsibility from the Forerunners. And as such that is why you are fighting the Warden Eternal, as he is tasked with protecting her. Thus Cortana is now the main antagonist of the game, and if you beat the game on Legendary you will see that HALO 5 is only a set up for future HALO games, such as the ending of HALO 2. Spoilers End. After playing the campaign I wondered about the whole Hunt the Truth, was this plan all along, did Microsoft and 343i just want to make you think? Obviously they knew what would happen, and possibly did not expect the backlash. Maybe, just maybe the whole point was to throw you off the main trail, and if you listened to the accompanying Hunt the Truth on Soundcloud it would make a while more sense that the whole point of the ad campaign was to throw you off. Now let’s get down to what really makes HALO the behemoth that it is, online multiplayer. HALO 5 has one of the best multiplayer experiences since HALO 2 redefined first person shooter multiplayer way back in 2004. After last year’s debacle with the Master Chief Collection 343i needed to make waves and deliver a solid multiplayer experience and they did more than that, they brought the house down. The maps are solid, as ever, and the Spartan abilities, like clamber, the ability to climb up on any ledge, makes for a more well-rounded experience. It has been a long while since I wanted to sink my teeth into a HALO, and this is the one I have been waiting for.  HALO 5Multiplayer has two modes, WARZONE and ARENA. ARENA has 6 ranked modes; one unraked, and has an additional ranked playlist that changes almost every weekend. The Ranked modes include Team Arena, SWAT, Slayer, Breakout, Free-for-All and Holiday Doubles, or Big-Team-Battle, depending on the season. You earn your rank after 10 matches of a single playlist and will be ranked bronze, silver, gold, platinum or diamond. If you are ranked ONYX or Champion Division that means you are individually ranked between 3000 and 1 overall, 300-201 for ONYX and 200-1 for Champion Division. Forge is also back in HALO 5 and is the best yet, every year Forge gets more fine-tuned and adds more depth and customization, making it easier and easier fr you to become a HALO level designer. Yet HALO 5s biggest best mode is the new WARZONE. It is a massive 12 on 12, along with enemy AI. It all plays out on four of the biggest maps ever made for a HALO game, and is arguably one of the best and most fun additions to the HALO universe.  The biggest change that comes to HALO Multiplayer and is a major component of WARZONE is the REQ system. According to the Halo Wiki, the REQ system is “The requisition system is a feature in Halo 5: Guardians Arena and Warzone multiplayer that grant players cosmetic and in-game bonuses. Requisitions (REQs) are unlocked by obtaining Requisition Packs, which can be earned through gameplay or purchased via the Xbox Store.” You earn Requisition points in every multiplayer match that you can use to buy one of three REQ packs, bronze, silver or gold. You also earn REQ packs by leveling up; finding them in various promotional items such as one of the HALO themed Xbox one controllers, different MEGA BLOCKS HALO sets, or you can earn them simply by leveling up and earning different commendations in HALO 5 multiplayer. There are two types of REQ cards that a player can earn as well, one time use, and unlimited use. Unlimited use REQ cards are mostly cosmetic and can be used in WARZONE and Arena. This includes Spartan Armor, Helmets, visor color, assassinations and weapon skins. While the one time use cards can only be used in WARZONE and still have to be unlocked via REQ level in WARZONE. So no play to win here, as everyone has is on “equal” footing at the start of every WARZONE match. WARZONE itself has two different modes to play, WARZONE and WARZONE Assault. WARZONE is one the most fun I have had in a long time. WARZONE pits two teams of 12 against each other, and the first team to 1000 points overall wins. Each game starts with your team trying to take back your base from AI invaders, being either Forerunner or Covenant. After you take back your base you are now free to roam the map, where three more bases are available to capture. Once your team captures two basses you are able to start manually racking up points. On top of capturing basses and killing enemy teams, various AI bosses will appear on the map, and the team that kills the boss gets a huge point boost, so if your team is lagging in the base capturing department set your sights on a regular of Legendary boss and just watch as the point gap virtually disappears. On average WARZONE games last about 20 minutes, unless your team is so good you can lock up the three bases and boss kills and finish the game in 10 or less.

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 330: House of Usher (1980)

                House of Usher

United States

Crystalware (developer and publisher)

Released in 1980 for Apple II and Atari 800

Date Started: 27 May 2019

Date Finished: 27 May 2019

Total Hours: 5 Difficulty: Moderate (3/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

A few months ago, commenter Dungy alerted me to a little-known 1980s developer called Crystalware. Around the same time, their catalog of games, all dating from 1980 to 1982, went up on MobyGames. House of Usher was listed as an RPG when it first went up, but it has since been revised to “action/adventure.” I played it anyway because I found it hard to categorize. It’s one of the oddest and most original games I’ve played since starting this blog, although that doesn’t mean that it was “good.” I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

The game is based loosely on Poe’s famous 1839 short story, and it begins with an appropriately gothic tone. A few strains of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” appear behind the title screen, which swiftly dissolves into an image of a mansion in a thunderstorm. Lightning bolts flash across the screen with accompanying sound effects–all impressive for a 1980 title. After about 30 seconds of loading, your character appears on the front walkway of the titular House of Usher, and the game begins.

             A briefly animated introduction is unusual for 1980.

            The player starts with a stamina of 999, no courage, an offense score of 25, a defense score of 50, no wealth, 150 pounds in weight, and a gun with several dozen bullets (or a bow with arrows; the game and manual are inconsistent).

            Beginning in the front yard.

          It is 18:00 when the game starts; you must achieve one of three winning conditions by 06:00 or you lose. This only takes about five minutes in real-time. Your stamina also decreases rapidly during this period, but unless you over-burden yourself, it stays behind the timer.

           Running out of time is a common way for the game to end.

         Your task is made all the more difficult by a routine that ensures items, treasures, and monsters appear in randomized locations, although the layout of the mansion remains fixed. There are only 7 commands to the game: four directions of movement (using, unintuitively, the 1-4 keys), fire your weapon in the direction you last moved (5), use a carried item (6), and drop a carried item (7).

            Doing a little inventory management.

           The three winning conditions, any one of which brings up a winning screen, are:

           Collect 1,000 wealth points

Increase courage to 1,000

Solve the mystery

             It’s worth a quick review of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which I’ve always liked least among Poe’s work. An unnamed narrator goes and stays at the dilapidated mansion of his friend, Roderick Usher. Roderick’s sister, Madeline, also inhabits the house. Neither is doing very well, mentally or physically. Madeline is suffering from some kind of paralytic catatonia, and Roderick as a consequence is a pale, nervous wreck. After a few days, Roderick announces that Madeline has died, and gains his friend’s help in interring her in the family tomb in the basement. For the next few days and nights, the men are plagued by noises, visual hallucinations, insomnia, and a general worsening vexation. At last, they come to the realization that they in fact buried Madeline alive–an epiphany accompanied by Madeline herself, bloody and emaciated, having crawled out of her living tomb, suddenly appearing at the door and falling into her brother’s arms. The siblings collapse on the floor, both dead, Madeline apparently from the effort of her ordeal and Roderick from terror. The horrified narrator flees the house just before it splits in two (along a crack that the narrator previously noted) and sinks into an adjacent lake.

There are lots of interpretations of the story. Depending on how you read it, you can see Roderick and Madeline as incestuous, or vampires, or ghosts, or whatever. However you interpret it, it seems a strange source material for a video game, but not only did it produce this House of Usher but also a 1984 platformer.

             The game adds some lore elements. There’s no “Virginia” in Poe’s story.

           In this game, the player can visit around 40 rooms, although you’ll never hit even half that in a single session. Some of the rooms are drawn from the book, like the crypt and the guest room. Others are simply imagined from such an estate. The layout is complete chaos, as my Trizbort map shows:

                  The layout of the House of Usher (click to enlarge).

           Partly responsible for the chaos are a handful of “maze rooms,” including the “secret passages,” two “catacombs,” and a “cell block,” all of which connect rooms quite far apart and in somewhat random directions. All of these special rooms have borders on the rooms’ interiors that draw randomly every time you enter, sometimes allowing passage through the room, sometimes blocking it.

           Trying to navigate the “cell block” is mostly a waste of time.

           Many of the rooms have pieces of furniture or other objects represented by large grey squares. Bumping into these items produces random results. Sometimes you get a message or bit of lore about the house. Other times, there’s some positive or negative consequence. For instance, bumping into a grave in the graveyard can result in a message about a heavy breathing heard nearby, the player falling into a grave and finding treasure, the player falling into the grave and getting seriously wounded, or a hand grasping at the player’s leg and causing a loss in courage. Bumping up against the piano in the conservatory might cause it to play (and put you to sleep for an hour) or snap shut on your fingers.

         A bad outcome from bumping into a grave marker.

          Smaller grey squares are randomly scattered throughout the rooms, representing items. These might be treasures of various values and weight (e.g., pouches of gold or silver, pocket watches, statues, copper kettle), melee weapons that increase offensive skill, or items of armor that increase defensive skill. Occasionally, you find nutrients or potions that you can use later to restore stamina. They might also be harmful items like spider’s nests, ghosts, or human heads which do various bad things to your statistics.

            A helpful item.

          Finally, monsters occasionally appear, including mummies, corpses, slimes, scorpions, and “hatchet men.” The game gives you a few seconds’ warning when you enter a room with a monster, and you have that long to try to line up shots. Most creatures take several hits or shots to kill. If they manage to get within melee range, they usually deplete your stamina too fast to defend.

           A giant scorpion appears in the wine cellar.

         I couldn’t quite catch the shot in-flight in my combat with this mummy.

           For all their limited graphics, I find the rooms a lot of fun with their different configurations and fixtures, suggesting possibilities perhaps too advanced for a 1980 title, yet intriguing and evocative all the same. One room, the “room of death,” actually shrinks slowly after you enter it, squishing you between the walls if you’re not fast enough. Why didn’t Poe put one of those in “Usher”? That would have livened up a dreary story.

          I have to get to that top doorway to escape the Room of Death.

         The easiest way to win is to get courage to 1,000. It only takes two or three enemies. You just have to find them. On one play, I had them in the first two rooms and won with many hours to spare. Winning by finding treasure is harder because you have to carry it. As your encumbrance goes up, your stamina depletion also increases. After a few hundred pounds, it runs faster than the clock.

The hardest way–at least until you figure it out–is by solving the mystery. It’s also perhaps the only satisfying way. I haven’t done it yet, though I feel like I’m on the right track. Here is “The Mystery” as given by the game manual:

               Part 1

Son coeur est un luth suspendu;

Sitot qu’on le touche il résonne.

Part 2

While, like a rapid ghastly river,

    Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh–but smile no more.

Ververt et Chartreuse Belphegor

Directorium Inquisitorium

Part 3

. . . there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of Lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes and the evidence of some bitter struggle on every portion of her emaciated frame . . .

               The two lines of “Part 1” are the epigraph of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” presented before the text. They mean, “His heart is a lute suspended / As soon as one touches it, it resonates.” 

The lines of the first part of “Part 2” are from Poe’s “The Haunted Palace.” “Ververt et Chartreuse” refer to two separate 1734 poems by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset: “Vert-Vert” and “La Chartreuse.” “Vert-Vert” is a comic poem about a parrot; I have no idea what “Chartreuse” is about other than it’s a liqueur. Both poems are mentioned as existing in Roderick’s library in “Usher.” So are Machiavelli’s Belphegor (1549), about a demonic prince coming to Earth to find a mate, and Nicholas Eymerich’s Directorium Inquisitorum (1376), a manual to help inquisitors investigate and prosecute witchcraft.

“Part 3” is a direct quote from the conclusion of “Usher.”

The best I can figure is that they’re instructions for a specific order of rooms, probably starting with the conservatory, where you can nudge the piano into playing a tune. The haunted lines that begin “Part 2” may refer to the graveyard or crypt, both of which are a short distance from the conservatory. One move away from the graveyard is the “summer house” and various plants, which might have something to do with the “green-green” of vert-vert. One screen away from the summer house is the vineyards; chartreuse isn’t a wine, but the authors would have had to work with the allusions they could find. From the vineyards, it’s only a short distance to the “seance room,” which could have connections to either demonology or fighting it. (There’s no library, or else I would have assumed that all of the books might be associated with it.) Touching the table in the seance room has a chance of sending you through a “vortex” to a random location in the house.

Unfortunately, if my logic hasn’t fallen apart by then, it does afterwards, as I can find no good location to conclude the path. In the book, the quoted scene takes place in the guest room, but I’ve tried that (it’s pretty far from the seance room, unless you’re lucky with the vortex) to no avail. I’ve also tried ending in the other various bedrooms. One potentially-promising room is the “red room,” which has a humanoid figure on one of the items of furniture, but I can’t get anything to happen there.

              I feel like there must be something to do in this “red room,” with its figure on a bed (?).

            I fiddled with other potential paths. Another goes conservatory (Part 1), graveyard (Part 2 first), garden paths (vert-vert), wine cellar (chartreuse), seance room (Belphegor), chapel (inquisitorium), and then to any of the possible end rooms. This is a lot harder because the rooms are spaced farther apart and you can barely make it in time. Another possibility, of course, is that you’re supposed to get things to happen in each of the rooms (or some of them), but no I can’t figure out the combination no matter what. The game manual promised a $100 prize to the first person to solve the mystery. I assume someone did. Until the solution comes to light, I’ll just have to be happy with my courage-based win.

            Not the most satisfying of the ways to win, but a win nonetheless.

           It’s best not to belabor the GIMLET on this one, since it’s not really much of an RPG. It gets a 14, doing best in “gameplay” (4: quick, replayable, challenging) and “quests” (3: multiple ways to win), but scoring 0 on the important “character development” category, since all development is by inventory. Even the inventory-based “development” is questionable because the game is over so fast you’re more likely to time out than to actually employ that chain mail against a mummy.

             The manual had decent production values, and of course the promise of a $100 prize.

            If Crystalware’s first outing is notable for its originality, it would definitely continue in that tradition. Between 1980 and 1982, the developer put out games set in ancient Sumeria, modern Egypt, the Iran-Iraq War, Arthurian Britain, a Westworld-style fantasy land, and several science fiction settings. MobyGames currently tags seven of them as RPGs: Beneath the Pyramids (1980), Escape from Vulcan’s Isle (1981), King Arthur’s Heir (1981), Fantasyland 2041 A.D. (1981), Sands of Mars (1981), Crypt of the Undead (1982), and The Haunted Palace (1982). These are all tentatively on my list pending confirmation of their RPG elements.

The titles are mostly credited to Crystalware owners John and Patty Bell, although Mike Potter is credited on the Atari 800 translations. Crystalware apparently started as Crystal Computer, a physical store in Sunnyvale, California, that transitioned into game development and publishing.

                          After its brief heyday, the company seems to have taken some odd turns. My Google searches turn up John Bell now associated with “Crystalware Defense and Nanotechnology” in West Virginia, although he seems to have returned to gaming with a virtual reality title called World of Twine scheduled for a 2019 release. As I work through the load of Crystalware titles dumped onto the list, I’ll try to contact Mr. Bell and find more about the inspiration for these unusual settings.

             source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-330-house-of-usher-1980/