Giant Bug appears! You're dead! Let's play Cavequest!

*Images marked with an asterisk in this LP are animated gif files. Some of them aren't playing in the thread for me for some reason, so if you see an image with a star that's not moving, try reloading or opening it on its own or something.


Hi guys, and welcome to Let's Play Cavequest! I'm guessing that you're not familiar with the game, and that's ok. I'm not hugely familiar with it myself. It's a shareware dungeon crawl from 1985 that I had a copy of sometime in the '90s. For some reason I started thinking about it the other day, and thanks to the miracle of the internet, I managed to find it despite not being able to remember the title or much else beyond that it looked sort of like a roguelike (but with fixed dungeons), you could find ingots lying around, and that the instructions described zombies as the most deadly enemy, because they're already dead so they're hard to kill. Something about burning them and cutting them up, I think.

After a series of non-productive searches along the lines of 'ingots zombie ascii', I hit up the mobygames database and got lucky. Once I'd found out the title, I plugged 'cavequest' into google, which got me a bunch of more recent games I wasn't interested in, so I tried 'cavequest -"cave quest"', and struck gold. That blog post revealed that it wasn't actually an ascii art game, but the familiar content let me know I was onto the right thing. A little further down the list of google results was a download of the game from the internet archive. Nice!

From there it was just a matter of installing DOSBox (how have I never done that before?) and getting started:



We're looking for QUEST.COM



Here's the title screen. As you can see, my downloading the game off the internet for free is perfectly legal. I hope. The SCROLL files I believe contain the manuals for the game. I should probably read them, but I'm itching to get going and I've read them before anyway. I'm sure it'll come back to me.

I hit Y for sound effects, and the screen goes blank while the simulated sound of a PC speaker climbing through its frequency range comes from my headphones. I'm glad I'm not wearing them. As the sound gets high the screen flashes and Zeus speaks:



Clearly he's put a lot of thought into his choice. Actually, getting kicked out of the land of the gods to become mortal sounds like kind of a raw deal.



Looks like there's some kind of save feature. Nice.



Alright, the stats screen. I have no idea which of these will be useful, or if they'll level up later or be fixed for the whole game. I take five levels in each:



This leaves me with 1500 life points. They'll be converted to silver for buying stuff in the town before the game starts.



I descend through the stars to earth and land in the armory.



I spend most of my cash and get what seems like a decent initial setup. I'm not sure how much weight I can carry before it slows me down or whatever weight does in this game. I'm also not sure how much difference better gear makes.



Aww fooey, I forgot about the Witches Lair! I spend all my remaining money enchanting my sword (which plays a little sound effect) and buying what little I can afford, mainly healing potions. Again, I don't really know what all this stuff does.



There are five levels to the dungeon, each more difficult than the last. I decide to start on level one.



Alrighty, here we go! That's me at the bottom, the walls are funny a's, and the little dot near my sword is some money.



I walk over to it, hit 'G' for get, and I'm one copper richer. My life points have also gone from 0 to 20. Why? Dunno. The black line through my belly is where the treasure was before I took it.

*

I move on to the next room and encounter my first monster: a skeleton! Crap, how do I attack? It closes in on me quickly, and I hit the 'A' key for attack. This causes me to draw my bow. I guess 'A' is for arrow. I try 'S' for sword, and the monster dies. Nice! This nets me another 20 life points, and bumps my total slain from zero up to one.



I pop across the room and pick up another treasure. This is going pretty well! Now, everybody knows that the way you navigate a maze is you hug one of the walls. I usually stick to the left side, but since I'm on the right already I might as well go that way.

*

The right exit takes me from room 2 to room 18. Maybe I should have gone left! There aren't any monsters here, at least, so I march forward and snag that 50 coppers. Nice! Then again, I was spending silver before. I wonder what the exchange rate is? I notice that I'm getting 20 life points for each action. Didn't my life points get converted into money when I fell from heaven? How does that square with collecting small amounts of money? Hopefully once I get enough points I'll be able to buy stat ups.

I carry on to the right:

*

Room 19 is no more dangerous than room 18, but significantly less generous. I try moving by holding the button down in this room, and aside from making me harder to see this also depletes my restedness pretty quickly. If you get too tired you can't act. Luckily, it's recharging pretty quickly too. Say, let's check the inventory:



I guess that's what I bought from the Witches. I don't know what these things do, and I also don't know how to make them do it. Oh well.



Room 20 appears on the same screen as room 19, but with different walls. In fact, room 19's walls have changed, too. I think that happened when I came out of the inventory screen. Weird. Anyway, you can see here that the game is kind of picky about where you stand when you pick stuff up. Despite my sprite's hand being in the exact place where the treasure is in the second shot, I can't grab it until I'm standing on it (also I guess 'G' in this game is for grab, not get).

*

I move on to the right and face some more skeletons. You can see it took me a little while to attack the first guy, but his attacks on me weren't doing any damage. I guess my armour or my shield or my dexterity stat or something is just putting me out of reach of skeletons. After I put it out of its misery, another appears. I think that that's just how things work in this game: one enemy at a time. I kill all three, and move on to the north.



Once again the next room appears on the same screen, but this time there's nothing in it. My plan dictates that I take the right side exit.

*

!

OK, so exposure to this in my childhood might explain my fear of spiders. This giant bug kills me before I have a chance to act (and these .gifs are running significantly slower than the game is. I think I need to fiddle with the settings in DOSBox). I guess I need better stats or gear or something before I go this way again.



Zeus is a generous soul. I continue and wind up back at the armory:



I dunno why they bothered with this, given I just lost all my money. Maybe if I'd changed to cheaper gear I'd have gotten some money back?



I select to go back to level one.

*

Then I immediately turn and leave. Notice the lack of treasure in the room. If they aren't respawning then I'm in the same position I was when I first entered the dungeon, minus the 62 coppers I removed from the game before dying. No thanks!



This gives me the option to save, which I decline, some undeserved congrats from Zeus, and the option to quit, which I take. In retrospect, this would have been a good time to see if leaving the dungeon would give me the chance to up my stats using my life points, and to convert my treasures to money to get better gear. Oh well. Next time.

So, that's all for today! My plan for this LP is to map out all five levels of the cave and hopefully learn how to play the game properly. I'm not sure if there's a win condition or if I'll just be stopping when it seems appropriate. If it's all too hard, that might be pretty soon!

Step one for now will be reading the SCROLL files, I guess. They're pretty lengthy, but pretty neat, too. SCROLL.HNT is a short list of hints, as the filename suggests. SCROLL.USE is the manual, written with a nice combination of practical directions and game flavour, and SCROLL.OLD is "History and Descriptions", which I think is maybe supposed to be an old scroll your character finds lying around with information on the cave in it, though it starts "Hail and well met!", so maybe it's an old guy talking to you. Here are some samples of each file:

Ah, memories! I had all these printed out as a kid, and I'm enjoying reading them again now. I'll be taking that advice from the hint file (just gotta find some graph paper), and I'll be reading the list of key commands in the manual before I go delving again.

Participation time! I'll be starting a new character for my next run. How should I build him/her? I start with 9000 life points/silvers, and all the prices are on the shop screens. If you wanna plot out exactly how I spend it all, I'm into that, but if that's a bit too much work and you just want me to pump it all into strength and take on the caves naked with a stick, I'll give that a shot too. Or you could have me spend none of it, but that'll probably be a pretty short run.

Pump everything into Wizard Skills. Don't need anything but a stick if you have enough Wizard Skills.

What exactly does Charisma help with?

Regardless of your answer, I think we need to Johnny Depp it up in here.

I am in favor of both charisma and MAD WIZARD SKILLZ. I'm assuming you need some intelligence to MAGIC so we'll need some of that too.

Strength should be kept at 0 to start because I think it's funny that you can have no strength.

OK, Mogri, how you wanna do this?

Righto!



So, here's Mogri's build: I pumped Wizard Skills to the max (18), and bought nothing at the armory. I took a little leeway at the witches lair: since it cost nothing to enchant my stick I went ahead and did it, and I bought some magic items. Although they're not outright called "Wizard Skills", Mogri won't have any actual skills unless I buy some magic items. I also got him a magic cloak:

This is definitely not within Mogri's order, but I figure I need some kind of protection and this is as close to wizardly robes as the game offers. Now, what are my wizard skills good for, you ask? Well:

So I don't think you actually get more powerful, you just get access to more powerful stuff. With level 18 skills, I can use any item I can afford. To avoid too much manual dumping all at once, I'm gonna tell you what each item does as I use it.

*

Mogri has entered the cave. Unfortunately, with a stamina score of zero and a weight of 55, each step I take is exhausting. After two steps, I have to take a break before moving again.



In room 2 I get attacked by a skeleton. Note that my health is at 40% and my restedness at 12. In this shot I've just fired off my Light Burst:

With the skeleton stunned, I move away and try one of my magic items. When you press 'M' for magic, the game asks for the number of the item you want to use. If you look back to my inventory shot from earlier, I have a fire ball in pocket #3. Let's give that a shot (the skeleton is invisible in this image because when I moved away from it after stunning it my character overwrote it):

*

Hey, that wasn't a fire ball! What's this Sphere of Essence business?

That sounds pretty good, actually, and it certainly did the job. But it's not what I asked for! Let me check my pockets again:



Huh. So when I used the light burst, it was used up, and all the items lower in the list moved up a place. The sphere of essence, being a permanant item, is still in my possession. I think I'll be getting a lot of use out of that.



I took a left this time, and picked up 50 coppers in room 11. That's upped the weight I'm carrying by 15 points. Let's see what that does to my movement:

*

Now one step takes most of my restedness, and attempting a second before resting up will fail because I'm too tired. Great. I carry on to the left and meet another skeleton. Before I show you that, though, let's see what the documentation has to say about skeletons:

Sounds good! Let's do it:



It doesn't go so well, perhaps because I'm too busy reaching for the screenshot key to cast spells. In the first shot there I've hit the magic key causing the game to pause so I can pick an item, but whatever I chose must not've done the job, because I'm dead in shot two. Possibly because when I tried to use the item I was too exhausted and didn't actually use it. Too bad for Mogri.



OK, I'm gonna try this again with a slightly more well-rounded build.



Very slightly.



I again buy no gear beyond the magic cloak. I pick up a few more light bursts than last time now that I know they're consumable, and I hit the cave again:

*

Those stamina points have done me a world of good, and I can now move somewhat freely. Unfortunately I neglect to hover my finger over the 'M' key when entering the next room and am killed by the first enemy before I manage to hit it. Whups. Zeus offers to let me continue, and I take him up on it, sacrificing the copper in the first room and the life points that came with it.



At least I get to keep my magic items.

*

This time I've learned my lesson, and I fire off the Sphere of Essence before the skeleton reaches me, killing it.

*

I head off to the left again, encountering another skeleton. This time I fire off a fire ball for the kill. You might notice that the only visual difference between using the fire ball and using the sphere is that after the fire ball my number of items drops by one, because it's a single use item. Back in the 80s, gamers had imagination. Here, maybe this will help:

I move on to the next room:

*

Aww, come on! I coulda killed that bat with my sphere, but it was on me so fast that I was dead before I could act. I've had enough of this! I may be a powerful wizard, but it's not doing me any good with so little defence. Time for another suggestion.

I'm glad you asked!

18 Charisma sounds like easy mode, so long as I can get a word in before the monsters attack.

Sounds good!



So, what qualities does Johnny Depp have? Well, he's charming, and he'd never make me move through the world resting after every step. Is he smart, strong, dextrous, or wizardly? No idea. Let's assume that he isn't. That way he can also be rich.



I pick up some basic gear. The documentation for the gear pretty much says that it gets better as you get more expensive stuff. Because I don't have the wizard skills to use the magic items, the only things I get from the witch are a magic cloak and enchantments for my blade and armor:

The enchantments only last until you leave the cave, so you have to refresh it each time you enter.



Here we are. An advantage of not trying to be wizardly is that I'm not weighed down by a pile of magic stuff.

*

I enter the room and hit 'T' for talk. A sort of squiddly sound plays, which doesn't come across too well in .gif form, and the skeleton lets me pass. Then when I take the treasure in the room the skeleton attacks, but I again talk it out of it. Yep, I really am charming.

*

I'm also a rat bastard. I cooly approach the charmed skeleton and strike a blow with my dagger. Unfortunately with low (0) strength and weak weapon, one blow doesn't do the job. Fortunately, with my chain mail and small shield the skeleton is having trouble hitting me and I'm able to finish it off unharmed.



I carry on to the left as before, charming and then murdering skeletons as I go. Through that door on the left is the bat that ended Mogri II's adventure so quickly. Well, I've learned. I hover my hand over the talk button before entering:

*

I hit 'T' in time, and the bat stands down. Unlike with the skeletons, I'm not quite brave enough to try killing this beast, even with my improved defence, so I just move past it, pick up the treasure, and talk to it again immediately so it'll let me leave the room. This is working out pretty well for me, but every enemy I'm not killing is an enemy that won't give me life points. I don't really need better stats if I can just talk my way out of every situation, but I'd be more comfortable if I were stronger.

*

In the next room I kill a couple skeletons. I charm the first, but the second I just turn around and stab. It's quicker that way. The manual has a nice explanation for why you only get attacked by one enemy at a time:

I assume the real explanation is that it's 1985 and your computer can't handle two monsters at a time, but I guess back in the day people were less jaded about questions like "why don't they attack all at once?".



I carry on charming and killing my way down the corridor. That bat actually took a swing at me before I talked to it, but didn't manage to hurt me, which suggests I'm being more cautious with bats than I need to be.



I make my way back out from the end of the passage, stopping through the room I skipped on the way in. There's nothing in there.



So here's what I gained from the left fork of the level. 144 coppers. Last time I wondered about the exchange rate. Now I know:



I take the chance to save as I leave, and buy a point of strength.

That'll let me kill things quicker, which will make attacking them much safer. The armourer doesn't recognise me, but he exchanges my stuff at the right rate.



I take the chance to upgrade my armour to full plate, leaving me broke (I had close to 2000 silver left when I first entered the cave). I can still afford to enchant my dagger, but the cost of strengthening my armour is way out of reach. Luckily, I think the strongest armour in the game will suffice for the first dungeon.

*

Back in level one, I try out my weight/stamina ratio. I can move across a room quickly a reasonable distance without tiring out. The stamina in this game is an interesting but kind of annoying mechanic. If you're in a room without any monsters, it just makes it take longer to get to the next. If you're in a fight it can be more interesting, because you risk running out, but it all happens so quickly that I don't feel like I'm in much control. Maybe if I slowed the clock speed the emulator is running at it'd be better, but then it'd be even slower to move around. Anyways, I take the top exit. There was no skeleton or treasure in room 2: kills and collects are persistent. I could go kill the bats I skipped last time, but I'm more interested in exploring new areas.



I carry on upwards, talking to monsters and killing them. That's actually a waste of time, really. When you talk, the game pauses while the sound effect plays, and then the monster is no longer hostile (if the dice roll goes your way, but with my maxed charisma it always does). That's great, but skeletons are incapable of hurting me now anyway. That bat could be another story, though. I've got it charmed, but once I pick up that treasure:



It attacks again, and I kill it without taking a scratch. Nice!



I keep sticking to the left wall, picking up treasure and unnecessarily charming bats.



I'm also wasting time charming skeletons. The treasure drops are getting pretty big up here, though. I carry on upwards:

*

Oh cripes! The giant bug gets in a hit before I talk to it, but in my armoured state it only takes 5% off my health. I've actually cut out a few seconds of nothing happening from that .gif: I panicked and hit 'T' more often than I needed to, resulting in a few extra seconds of talk noises. I manage to kill the bug, but almost exhaust myself in the process. Luckily there's only one in the room.



100 more coppers. Sweet! I head back to the entrance to reequip and save before taking on the last leg of the level.

I pick up another point of strength. If I wind up facing multiple bugs, I wanna be able to kill one without exhausting myself.



I upgrade my weapon to a broad sword at the armoury, which pushes the cost of enchanting the blade beyond my means. Hopefully an unenchanted broad sword will outdamage an enchanted dagger, though. The upper branch of the cave got me twice the silver that the left one did, but my main source of income is actually the 20 life points I get after each kill or treasure collection. The 100 I had left over after increasing my strength were converted to silver when I reached earth again.

*

The right branch has the high room numbers and seems to be sending more enemies and treasure at me. I guess I'm doing things in the right order.



I carry on down the right corridor and take the next branch from it.



There are a few twisty hallways, one of which takes me to the next segment of the main corridor:

*

I swing back to pick up a treasure I missed, then carry on to fight some skeletons:

*

This is just free experience at this point.



All of these rooms were empty of monsters and treasure. The doorway to the right is where I got killed by a bug on my first foray into the cave. I think I'll take the upper exit first.

*

Things aren't much better up here. The bug is fast, but not very damaging. Each hit takes 4% of my health, which I quickly recover so long as my stamina is full. That's a far cry from the one hit kill I got on my first try.

*

In the next room I kill two with no difficulty, my stamina dropping to the 40s at its lowest ebb.



Taking the left exit leads to another corridor. Each of the three small rooms along the bottom had skeletons in them.

*

As did the first part of this area. I kill them and the bugs and pick up my first gold. That's ten silvers, or a hundred coppers, so it's actually no more valuable than what I was getting in the left wing of this level, but as a single coin it weighs less than the larger denominations. That bug fight was a bit tougher than the earlier ones since there were so many, and I actually ran out of stamina a couple times, but my health was never in danger.



I get 50 silvers in the first of these small rooms, which is equivalent to 5 gold, but its weight is 15. Each of the others has 10 silvers, the same value as one gold but weight 3, along with a bat guardian that's easily dispatched.



The upper corridor has more skeletons, and the rooms each have another 10 silvers and a bat.



Except for this one, which has another 50 silvers. Tidy! I'm now using 7% of my restfulness with each action, which increases my chances of getting exhausted in combat, but nothing seems to be able to touch me in this level anyway. That I can't walk very fast is more of a problem.



I make my way back to the room with the bug that killed me in the first game. Time for revenge!

*

No problems!

*

The next room doesn't go so well, though: facing three bugs I run out of stamina and come quite close to death, my health dropping to 20% with alarming rapidity. I think I might've been trying to swing my sword while too tired to do so, which tired me further without doing any damage to the bug. Luckily, I pulled through.



The last two rooms are pretty much uneventful, with 100 silvers in each and a single bug in the lower one.



I make my way back to the entrance. I've now killed and collected everything in level one. Oh wait!



I take the left fork and clear out a couple bats I skipped the first time through. There we go! Now I've cleared level one. I've got 2280 life points to level my character with, plus whatever's in my pockets:



By my count, that's 343.3 silver. Not a bad haul! Not enough to enchant my armour for level two, but not bad.



I make my exit and save my game. This seems like an appropriate place to stop for now.

Next time:

Time for me to take your advice:
Level two has hidden doors. There are two ways to find hidden doors: one is to look for them. That's what intelligence is for. If I've got 18 intelligence, I'll always find a door if I look at the wall that it's in. If I've got less than that, I'll have to look multiple times. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun. It'll cost 3600 life points to get 18 intelligence, which is more than I have. Alternatively I can buy the cap of Merlin (1000 Silver), which will find doors for me if my wizard skills are above level 9 (2700 life points, again more than I have). Should I aim to get smart, should I get my wizard on, or should I just not worry about hidden doors and build up my other stats and equipment?

P.S. Sorry Daneno, I'd already played this update and taken some strength before you posted.

If there's nothing on level two but storage, then maybe you'll get enough treasure to upgrade to the Cap of Merlin shortly?

Anyway, this is a nifty LP, thanks for doing it.

If Intelligence is good for anything besides doors, go for that. Otherwise, let Johnny bear Mogri's torch.

While I think running around with a Merlin Cap is hilarious the life points it would cost are exorbitant. I say use them for more immediately useful things like strength and stamina.

I just wanted to see if you could deal damage with 0 strength and you fulfilled my wish twice over.

Hey guys, I haven't had time for another gameplay update, but I thought you all might like to know the epic backstory of Cavequest, so I'm gonna post some quotes from the game's documentation. These files are available in full with the game (see the archive.org page I linked to in the first post), so if you enjoy the quotes you can download the rest if you like.

I'm quite fond of the flavour text for this game, but I have the advantage of it having thoroughly captured my imagination when I was a kid. What I'm not so fond of is naming the land after the game. "Cavequest", while a pretty good name for a dungeon crawl, is a pretty silly name for a place.

I'm not sure if I played this or read Lord of the Rings first, but either way, one of my first encounters with digging too deep.

That's some old testament stuff, right there.

I love the way that events are implied here. This guy actually knows more about what happened hundreds of years ago with the original inhabitants of the cave than he does of what happened to his contemporaries in the cave. Apparently it all just went to hell, and nobody who was there has made it out to tell the tale.

Anyways, he's calling on the gods to intervene again. Presumably without killing everyone and everything involved like they did last time. Fortunately, that's where we come in. As you may recall from the first post of this LP, I've been sent by Zeus.

Hey, I guess the armorer must be the narrator of SCROLL.OLD

I see his plan: exploit adventurers. He tells you about the monsters, the gear, the magic items, and the cave. So far we've seen three monsters. Let's see what he has to say about those:

I've been killed by all three of these, but Johnny D is close to invincible againt them at this point.

The magic items that I've used:

Of these, I'll always have my magic cloak. I won't be buying any more light orbs, because Johnny can achieve the same thing with the talk command. Fire balls I might get some use out of, but the sphere of essence seems like a wiser purchase. So long as I've got quick fingers and my stamina holds, I can fire it off multiple times before enemies close in. Of course, so far just hitting things with my sword is working out fairly well.

I've set Johnny up with full plate, which is preventing my enchanting my armour at the moment due to the cost of doing so. Even without enchantment, so long as I keep my stamina up the enemies on level one are little threat. How level two will go remains to be seen, of course.

I haven't been using projectiles, and I'm not currently planning to. Enemies move too fast for me to line up shots. I assume on a 1985 computer things were a bit slower. If I start dying a lot in melee combat I might try talking to enemies to give myself time to aim projectiles, but it'll mean putting points into dexterity, which would be points that aren't going into wizard skills, and wizard skills don't seem to need aiming.

Good to know I didn't miss any secret doors back in level one. I'm hoping but not really expecting that level five will lead into the lands of the evil ones themselves.

What's all this talk of wandering monsters?

Random encounters. Great. I'm not sure if there are a fixed set of wandering monsters that can be killed off like the guard monsters in level one. If not, then I'll be able to grind indefinitely against them if need be. Otherwise, I might be facing a hard limit on available experience. Still, given how overpowered I came out of level one, there's probably enough to go around.

SCROLL.USE also has some nice flavour text about your trip into the caves. I've quoted the bit about the armourer above (and about the stick in a previous post), but here's some more:

Seems like a nice lady.

Seems like a terrible lady.

This I think is a nice touch. The enchantments wearing off when you leave I think is intended to encourage you to take longer trips into the cave and risk getting killed so you don't have to keep spending money, but they managed to fit in quite a tidy lore reason for it. The witch is draining magic from the caves (either to contain the evil seeping out or to power herself up, I guess), and the magic you take out of the cave is no exception.

Seems like a nice guy. I wonder if he's also hauling out the monsters that have been attacking the town?

Alright, now we're acquainted with the backstory.

Sounds likely! I'll start saving up.

As far as I can tell from the manual, each stat does only one thing. Intelligence seems like it should increase the potency of wizard skills, but it looks like all it actually does is help you find doors. I'll start putting some points into wizardry.

Although it looks like I'll be heading for the hat, I'm always happy to have more points of strength and stamina.

Thanks for saying so!

Participation time:
I've been thinking about how I should handle death: the sensible way to play I think is to quit after each death and reload, because if you continue you lose all your treasure and life points, and they're not replaced in the cave. By reloading you can recollect them and avoid whatever killed you. On the other hand, that's pretty lame. Having a consequence for death beyond replaying a bit of a level might make things more interesting, and certainly more challenging.

Should I continue when I die, or reload?

So what you're asking is, should you play it like a roguelike, or play it sensibly?

I have a zest for roguelikes, but then again I'm not the one playing it...

Makes no difference to me! Do what you like.

Welcome back! Today, I'll be taking Johnny into level 2. Level 2 has secret doors, which he'll need intelligence to discover and open. Unfortunately he's as dumb as a bag of hammers, but we've come up with an alternative plan: instead of getting smart, we're gonna get wizardly. Merlin's Cap will (hopefully) do all the door-finding we need.



Sadly I don't have the life points to up my Wizard Skills enough to use the thing, but I make a start, also putting a couple more points each into strength and stamina.



The treasure from the last wing of level one tallies up to 388.3 silver. Not bad! More than I thought I was gonna get, in fact.



I upgrade to the large shield and enchant my sword, and then I'm outta cash. Even though I've started to put points into wizarding, I don't have the skills to use any of the items yet, aside from the cloak (which I already have) and the light burst (which I don't need, since I can stun monsters with charisma instead). Even the healing potion requires level five wizard skills.



Well, here we are at the start of level 2. I'm gonna stick with my plan to hug the left wall as I explore.

*

I'm taking a slightly more aggressive approach to my .gif editing here, hence the slightly disjointed action above. This first branch has a few small treasures and some weak monsters. Nothing I can't handle.

*

I also took the time to search for hidden doors with the 'E' key. Nothing found! Is that because there's nothing there, or because I'm too dumb to find it? I dunno. With anything less than maxed intelligence, there's a chance you'll fail to find a secret door. I assume that with zero intelligence it's a certainty that you'll fail, but even with a high non-perfect rating I'll have to examine every wall multiple times to be sure that there's nothing there. Or I can use the cap of Merlin, which examines all the walls in a room for you. There is the possibility that the results are based on intelligence, meaning I'll have to use it multiple times to be sure of finding things, but I'm hoping that that isn't the case.



I pick up the single copper on offer in the entry hall and move on.

*

A skeleton comes to meet me as I carry on up the hallway. It takes a while to reach me, so I move towards it myself. It's generally a better idea to let the enemy come to you, so that your stamina is full when it reaches you, but if I run out of stamina against a skeleton I can just stand there and recharge while it fails to hit me.

*

I take on the next leftward branch. The monsters are starting to get tougher and to appear in larger groups (there are like six skeletons in room 28), and the treasure is increasing to match. The fifty silvers in room 24 pop my weight up by 15, but that's nothing to the 50 weight point jump I get from the thousand coppers in room 25.

*

I meet a couple giant bats in room 3. Now, the end of this corridor looks familiar. It's years since I've played level 2, but I have a feeling that there's a hidden door in the far wall.

*

Unfortunately I lack the smarts to find it. You may be wondering if I'd have better luck if I stood closer:

Nope!



There are no monsters on the way to these silvers. Perhaps level 2 has already exhausted its supply of dangers?

*

Or not! I make short work of it, but that leech is the next step up in enemy toughness from the bugs.

It's nice to meet a new enemy without immediately dying for once.



With the leech defeated I'm able to reach this silver unmolested.

*

Room 19 is not so friendly, and has the same value of money in less convenient copper form.

*

Room 18 is even worse, with more enemies for only one copper.

*

On my way over to the right side of the level, I ignore the manual telling me it's pointless and get up close and personal with the wall, searching it until I'm exhausted. It gets me nowhere.

*

Over on the right I face more enemies for little cash. Of course, each treasure I get earns me 20 life points (which convert to silver if I don't use them to level), so that 1 copper is actually worth 201 coppers to me.

*

More bats and small change.



I decide to compress the rest of this branch into screenshots rather than a jumpy .gif. It's quicker to read that way, and the only info that's really missing is that I fought more bats in room 52.



I head back to the middle part of the corridor and take the right exit. I'm rewarded with more small change and a skeleton.



That's more like it.

*

Bat and skeleton city around here. I guess the big finds in this level are behind me, now that I'm getting closer to the entrance.

*

An interesting thing happens in this bat fight: I run out of restedness and become too tired to attack. Partly that's because I didn't bother to rest up before entering the room (which is just sloppy play), partly it's because I'm carrying so much stuff that I'm losing a lot of stamina with each action. Fortunately, giant bats can no longer touch me.



I return to room 1. The doorway on the right is the only path I haven't explored yet.

*

Fortunately, there's only one room in there. One room and a heck of a lot of bats. I manage to keep my restedness above zero this time, despite taking several swings at empty air between bats (each of which costs the same 10% as a successful hit).



My reward is a gold piece. That's worth 100 coppers, but doesn't add to my weight like so many coppers would.



And that's all for today! I've explored as much of level 2 as I can without being able to find secret doors.

Next time:
Either I find that damned door, or we check out level 3.

See you then!

Yer a wizard, Johnny.

Welcome back to Cavequest! I've managed to get my wizard skills up enough to use Merlin's Cap, and I've also put another point into stamina. I'm saving the rest of my life points, because I forgot to keep track of how much treasure I got last time I went caving and I don't wanna come up short of the 1000 silvers I need to buy the hat.



Good thing, too, because it turns out I didn't make a lot of money.



I skip over the armory and pick up the cap at the witches lair. I'll save the rest of my silvers for later - I can't afford anything useful right now.



Here we are back in level 2. Hey, what's that treasure doing there? I thought I cleaned this place out last time?



I duck into the next room to see if its monsters/treasures are also back (they are), then I move on to room 3 and the hidden door I'm sure is there. Time to use my new hat!



I check my inventory to find out which pocket the hat is in: #2.

*

I cast the spell, and the door appears. Neat! Looks like I don't need intelligence, so long as I have the hat. Now to open it:

*

What?! Lemme just check the manual:

Nuts! Looks like I won't be going any further on this foray.



I clear out a couple rooms on my way out so that I'll have some life points for some intelligence.



I make myself as smart as I need to be, and pick up a little more stamina to boot.



At the armory I upgrade my weapon to the great sword. I now have the all the best equipment. Still no projectiles, though. With my 0 dexterity, they're currently of no use to me.



When I return to the cave, the monsters I killed before are still dead. I think that what's happening is that when I quit and restart the game it respawns all the monsters. That's kind of a shame: the win condition I've set myself is exploring every room in the caves and killing everything I find, and if they're respawning I can't really do that. Plus it means that I don't have to worry so much about resources, because if I run out of treasure and enemies I can just quit and they'll be back. On the one hand, that means I can't put myself in an unwinnable state, but on the other it kills the challenge. I've decided that I'll be continuing after each death, and my thinking was that this would mean permanantly losing whatever I'd collected on that run. Not so any longer!

Anyway, before heading for the secret door at the end of the main corridor I enter every other room I can reach in level 2 and use the Cap of Merlin. I don't find anything.



Finding secret doors is pretty great. You guys can't hear it, but a little tune plays and the game excitedly tells you in all caps that you've found something. Now to open the door:

*

Yeah, that one point I put into intelligence still doesn't make me very smart. I keep trying for a while, and then:



It opens! Huzzah! I don't think I'll ever actually need more than one point of smarts, but opening doors is gonna be a hassle until I get some.

*

I head on through and kill some bats. The secret door closes behind me, and I have to use the Cap of Merlin again to re-reveal it (along with another secret door at the other end of the corridor). I open it again after mercifully few attempts. I know I just said I won't need any more intelligence (and I like the idea of keeping my character moronic), but one situation where it could be helpful is if I go through a secret door and find a tough enemy on the other side. Being able to quickly open the door and run away could be helpful. Or I could just talk to the enemy and take all the time I need to escape.

*

I carry on to the left. Looks like the enemies behind the door will tend to be tougher than the ones before it. The treasures haven't improved much, though.

*

Or maybe things are just the same. These giant bats are no threat, and there aren't even all that many of them.

*

The next room at least has multiple leeches. Scary stuff.

*

In room 16 I remember that I should be checking for doors, but I don't turn anything up. I take a moment to check the other rooms I've visited on this side of the secret door, but I don't find anything. Back to exploration!

*

Huh.



I guess I should have seen that coming. If you look closely at the .gif, you'll see that it actually took the rat three hits to kill me. Sure, those hits occurred over the space of 12 frames, but I guess my armour is doing something, despite appearances.

Nearly as fast as a bat. Hmm. Looking ahead, at least two of the monsters we haven't seen yet (all of which are stronger than the rat) are faster than the rats. Something to look forward to.



I choose to continue, forfeiting my silver, life points, and treasure. The game doesn't bother with the land of the gods after continuing (no point without any life points), but it still sends you to the armory and witches lair despite your not having any money. Anyway, I get back to the dungeon.



I immediately turn and leave, which allows me to save and quit.

Next time:
I charm a rat, and explore some more of level 2.

I can't help but think this game would be easier at its original speed.

I certainly hope so, though I'm kind of reluctant to find out because waiting for stamina to refill while I walk around is kinda slow enough as it is. Since I've got almost as much defence as I can have (unless it turns out that the stats have undocumented effects and I'd be dodging hits if I had some dexterity or something), I think I'm gonna have a hard time in the lower levels if I don't get better at the combat, which probably means slowing it down.

I am amused at how these bats, rats, bugs, and skeletons are able to understand English well enough for you to talk them into inaction. Especially since you're arguably too dumb to know much in the way of wordplay.

Great now I have this mental image of your character pushing with all his might on a hidden door ... that you have to pull to open.

Thread : 5 stars.

edit: I think you should do more. (Once inspiration strikes. Don't try to force it.) Also, I think "oogedy boogedy" should appear in all of them.

I decided to experiment. I've been running the game at 3000 cycles (which seems to be the DOSBox default), but I took shots at the rat encounter at about 1000 cycles:



and at 7000:



And yeah, it was easier at a slower speed: I managed to kill the first two rats without being struck. I deliberately didn't attack the third so that I could see how long it would take me to die (not very). Higher speed was pretty much the same as at regular speed: very prompt death. I read someone online* saying that the trick to the game is to run it at max cycles, because your health regeneration is tied to the speed the game runs at. I tried cranking it up, and at first it seemed to be working. I was able to hold the move button and move indefinitely, because my restedness was regenerating faster than I was using it. But then this happened:



I didn't even make it to the rat. Seems like the fast cycle idea is a bust.

One thing with the speed though: you can't tell from the .gifs, of course, but the sound was all messed up on different speeds. At 1000 cycles the sound effects were way too slow. At 7000 they were over almost as soon as they started. At 3000 they sound just about right, which makes me think that it might be the speed the game was intended to run at.

I think I'm gonna stick with 3000, but I might start slowing it down for fights that I'm having trouble with. I've still got a few other options for dealing with rats that I haven't tried yet, so for now I won't change anything.

*Here, and looking again he was running it at ~450 cycles and switching up to "a few thousand CPU cycles", so I've misunderstood.

Here we are again. It's been a while, hasn't it? I've made my way back to the rat that's been killing me so successfully of late. Here's the plan: I'll talk to it to charm it into submission, then hit it, then immediately talk it down, and repeat until it's dead. Let's watch:

*

And the plan works very slowly perfectly! Unfortunately, I was so pleased with my success that I neglected to take care of the second rat in the room.

I took a shot at adding subtitles of my button presses to that .gif so it'd be clear what I was doing. It went very slowly well, but in the process I converted the video to a format that my .gif-making program wasn't able to read, at which point I decided I couldn't be bothered. Sorry gang! Please accept this by way of apology:



Well, what a mess. I choose to continue and make my way back to the room:

*

Aww yuss! Rather than talking between each hit, this time I just mash S to attack until the rat dies, then talk the second one down and slaughter it too.



I collect the treasure (a cool 10 gold) and check for secret doors (there aren't any).

*

In the next room I come close to slipping up: against the first rat I don't hit the button fast enough, and it gets a swing in. Luckily it misses.



I score 50 gold in room 13. I check for doors again, and again find no doors. In fact, I'll be checking every room I come to for doors. I'll let you know when I find some. I head across the hall to check out the right side branch. I waste time talking to the bat in room 43. It's no threat to me, but if I wait to see what enemy is in the room before I start talking there's a chance it'll appear on top of me and I'll die before I can act. The treasure is 10 coppers. Pocket change compared to what the rats had.



Nothing too exciting to note in these rooms. The top right had four leeches in it and 50 coppers, the bottom right no enemies and a silver, and the lower left three skeletons and no treasure. The treasure in the hallway was 100 coppers.

*

I again struggle to get the door open, having learned nothing from the last one. Eventually I make it.



Room 5 appears completely sealed when I enter, with no enemies or treasure to be seen. With my magic hat, I'm able to reveal secret doors in three of the four walls. With no door at the end, I'm guessing that I'll be done with level 2 soon, unless the level layout breaks with what it's been so far and the side branches go on a ways (spoiler: they don't). There are five skeletons in room 9. I was going to say that I don't see the point of putting skeletons this far into the cave, since anyone who wasn't able to completely ignore their attacks wouldn't be able to make it this far into the cave, but looking back I guess you only face skeletons and bats if you take a direct route to this room*.

*

That's more like it! Rats'n'gold!



I kill a leech and a bat and pick up 150 silvers and a gold. No hidden rooms so far.



More bugs in the next room. Boring! But there's also a hidden door! Enemies will attack you if you take treasure after talking to them. I was curious to see if they'd let me open a door. If I ever walk through a secret door into a room full of zombies and need to make a getaway, it's good to know that I can chat them up and make my escape.



Another bat and a silver, and I'm done with the left side. On to the right!



One rat and one thousand silvers. Score!



One rat and one hundred coppers. No score.



A whole mess of bats and some coppers, a couple leeches and some silvers, a single skeleton and a silver, and I'm done with level 2. Hooray!



All that's left is to clean out the first part of the level again.



With my kill and treasure count doubled and nothing left to kill or take, I make my exit.



I save and exit. Next time: Level 3!


*I decided to try this out for myself, and thus the adventures of Brains:



I made him smart so I could get through the secret doors, and gave him high stamina so I wouldn't get too tired.



Unfortunately I wasn't left with enough money to buy anything. I'll be heading in naked, armed only with a (magicated) stick.



Here we are again. First room goes well. Now, if I recall, room 2 has a skeleton in it. Should be easy!

*

Huh. I guess with no strength and only a stick I'm either doing no damage at all or so little that 20 hits aren't enough to kill the weakest enemy in the game. I guess Brains wasn't so smart after all.

And we're back! With the life points I built up in level 2, I max out my wizard skills and level up my strength and stamina some. At this rate I'll have no place left to put points but dexterity soon. I guess then it'll be time to try out some ranged weapons. I won't be upping my intelligence any time soon, rest assured. Johnny's smarts are part of his charm.



I managed to hold onto a decent selection of treasure, too.



I've already got everything I need from the armory, so I spend up big at the witches lair. I add magic to my armor and blade, and buy a sphere of essence (the weak magical attack item I tried out as Mogri), the Ring of Zeus, and a Spell of Gigos.

This is a pretty good deal at 500 silvers. It'll make a bug into a skeleton, a leech into a bat, and so on.

Gross! I pick this up just because I have a little money left over.



Here's room number 1 of level 3. What do we know about level 3?

No hidden doors! That means I won't have to use my Cap of Merlin in every room. That oughta save us some time!

We'll be seeing wandering monsters for the first time in this level, and (spoiler alert) we'll be seeing a lot of them.



Here's my inventory of magic items. It's important to know which thing is in which pocket when you're casting.



I enter room 2 and start talking before I see what's coming at me. Turns out it's a skeleton. Once we're friends, I kill it. Then:



What? Two monster types in one room?



Looks like these are the wandering monsters I've been hearing about. Ordinary monsters come in one type per room in fixed number. Wandering monsters, as you can see in the .gif there, apparently come in one type per room at random intervals and unlimited number. I assume if I were running on a machine closer to 1985 specs they wouldn't be appearing quite so quickly.



I take a right, breaking with my hug-the-left-wall maze strategy. Starting this level, I'm drawing maps as I go, so I'll be able to see if I've missed any rooms by looking for unexplored doors. I'm also gonna try to be a bit less thorough in my write-ups. If you wanna know exactly what was in each room, check the map at the end. For now, though, this room had two skeletons and ten coppers.



Sorry for the extremely long .gif there. The downside of me drawing a map as I go is that my playthrough video is full of long pauses as I draw it. On the plus side, against a harmless enemy like these bats, I can just draw with my right hand and hit the S key periodically with my left for effortless life points.



I carry on up the right side tunnel, facing mostly bats in the hallway and scoring some loose change. Not all of the rooms have wandering monsters in them, fortunately. I'm not worried about bats, but an endless stream of something tougher might wear me down after a while. Actually, let's step back in time to when I entered that right side room:



Rats! Now that my armor is enchanted, that initial attack didn't manage to do me in, but it came close. Luckily there were only two and I was able to get rid of them quickly. There were two rats on the other side, too, but I got them without event. If I find a room with wandering rats in it, I'm gonna have to be careful that I don't run out of stamina. Good thing I'm so charming!



This looks a lot like the previous section of the hallway, but this time there was a giant bug in the middle (rats again on either side).



I carry on and come to a corner. The enemies are getting tougher: a leech to start with, and infinitely spawning bugs to follow. Bugs are no threat at this point, though.



As I make my way across the northern corridor and its branches, I meet a new foe:

Grody. But like he says, it moves slowly. These upper rooms are full of 'em, and the rewards are commensurate: the treasure in this room is 50 gold, and once I go through the southern exit from this hallway I'll get 100.



I decide that since I'm fighting tough foes, I should try out my magics. I talk this slime into submission, then hit it with the sphere of essence. That doesn't kill it, so I try the ring of Zeus, converting it into a giant leech. The sphere also fails to kill the leech, so I use the ring again to make it into a bat. Then I accidentally fire off the cap of Merlin, failing to find any secret doors, before killing the bat with the sphere. It works, but so does hitting it with my sword a couple times.



The next room has another slime and then infinity skeletons. I rack up some kills while I work on my map. Although I've completely failed to keep to scale, it looks like I'm directly north of the entrance, so I guess I'm halfway through the area.

The next room is a short hallway with like a bajillion bugs in it. I use the ring of Zeus to convert one into a skeleton, and the next enemy to spawn after it is also converted to skeleton. I guess since they were all in the room waiting to attack one after the other it makes sense. Then wandering bats show up.



The next room contains quite a few leeches, followed by wandering bugs. It also has 1000 silvers. Quite a haul!



The next room, at the center of level 3, has an unprecedented four slimes in it. I take 'em out, but my restedness starts to run low. Last thing I need now would be for wandering monsters to show up.



Oh no! Leeches start appearing from everywhere. Leeches were still able to damage me when I was in level 2, but I didn't have magicated armor on then. I'm not sure if they can hit me or not now. I try out the ring of Zeus, converting one of them to a bat, but the ones that appear after it haven't been converted, I guess because they weren't in the room when I cast the spell. The smart thing to do would have been to convert one to a bat and then ignore it, since bats can't get through my armor.



Instead I keep on fighting leeches and pick up the 1000 gold (!) I find on the floor. From the looks of things, I've got too much defence for leeches to even touch me now.



I make my way back up to the T-junction at the top of the level and carry on leftwards. All these rooms have slimes and decent amounts of gold in them. I'm expecting pretty much a mirror of the trip into the level as I carry on. The toughest part of the level is behind me, and it's a good thing, too, with all the weight I'm carrying now.



I carry on around the corner. At this point my map ran off the edge of my page. I'd started drawing on the left side. Johnny's not the sharpest.



On my way back down I let a rat get a hit in. Sloppy. It'd be a real shame to get killed now, when I'm all loaded down with treasure.



I reach room 31, the mirror of room 9 on the other side. I didn't explore the branch from 9 on my way in, but I assume it's just another small room.



Turns out I was wrong! There's a middle passage connecting the two sides. The center hallway has 1000 coppers, matching the 1000 each of silver and gold in the center rooms branching off the upper hallway. The branched rooms have mostly bugs and leeches guarding 50 or 100 silvers.



As I make my way back through room 8 I don't even bother with the bat that comes at me.



Going this way gives me the chance to explore the branches I didn't take on the way in.



I eventually reach the bottom left corner of the map, and room 31. That's where I branched out into the middle corridor a little while ago.



I turn for the exit, and remember I haven't used my spell of Gigos yet. I rearrange this bat's internal organs. Sorry, bat!



On my way out I notice that I've got 348 kills for this run. I knock off a couple bats to get myself up to a nice round 350. Sorry, bats!



Here's what I have after clearing out level 3. I'm rich!



Toodle-oo!

Here's the map Johnny drew:



And here's the same map after I crudely rearranged the bits to go where they were supposed to:



And here's the scene when I returned to room 8:



And that's level 3!

Next time:
Level 4!

"You put your left lung in, you pull your right kidney out, you rotate your heart 180 degrees vertically, and you shake it all about"

As a fan of NUMBERS GOING UP, ending the update without showing the NUMBERS GOING UP was a huge disappointment.

(Love the LP otherwise!)