The Doom that Came to Mordavia: Let's Play Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness

Awww yeah; I was looking forward to this.

I know that a lot of people consider this the best in the series, but for me, the "dark" theme made it less appealing; I'll be interested to see if that impression changes after this LP.

Last week we explored a little of the town of Mordavia, met some of its colorful citizens and managed not to offend anyone too much! Last we saw Garcon he had just talked the Burgomeister out of the key to the town's Guild Hall.

There were some other topics that we could talk about so let's go ahead and clear those out as well:



Ask about the Castle



Monsters?



Who is Dr. Cranium?



What about Nikolai?



With the conversation exhausted Danar returns to hall and using the key he just got opens it up:




Okay, we've done this enough times to know what to do here:



Curious, Perseii flips through the earlier pages of the book:





What else is in here? There's that thing in the corner next to those cannonballs:



Seeing as we no longer have our magical one that we lost in Fricana, Jackson grabs the rope and grapnel and then explores the bookshelf:

Seepgood continues to peruse the Guild Hall's small library:



Remember feelies everyone? Next is a brochure of some sort:



Remember in game advertising everyone? It's older than you think! Next is a magical text and the last is something to do with eastern exotic arts or some such nonsense:



Garcon tries to move the bookshelf, just in case, but no dice:



He checks out the weird machine in the corner next:



Perseii is too tired to use it now. There's got to be more going on here though... What about that ring in the ceiling? What's that for?



Ah, I see I use the workout machine to increase my strength and stamina every day and then the rope and ring to increase my climbing skills. Really concentrating the stat grinding in this game! That's nice of them! Danar scurries up the rope only to find:



Ah, more thief marks! What does it mean though? Some lines above an eye? Hrm. That could be a table? Look under table? Don't you feel clever now?



Viola! Now that option is available to us when we click the eye on the little book stand!



What the hell does that mean?

I'll save you the trouble! Those are hooks rotated in different ways, the numbers below them is the order the hooks have to be turned and once that's down we can climb a ladder up to somewhere! Simple! Now where are there hooks?



Oh, right there next to the door... Danar rotates the hooks around until they look something like they did in the etching until:



Aha! It's not a ladder it's the bookshelf! I wonder where this all goes?




Don't be too subtle there... Jackson looks closer at the poster. A poster I might add is trying to recruit thieves inside a place that only people who are already thieves can even find... Also, is anyone else disturbed here about the collusion that must be going on between the Adventurer's Guild and the Thieves' Guild?



Garcon grabs the card from the poster. Turns out its an actual guild membership card. I guess he's in now?

Okay, so we have a guild card... What now? This is a test isn't it? Better start looking in all the most obscure off the wall places first! Like those two grills/drains in the bottom right:



Some more subtlety there... Closer looks reveal:



Okay. Let's look closer into the other grill:



A door knob? I guess we should check out the only door in this room?



Nothing about a knob missing though... Right tool? Going over his inventory the only thing that could possibly open the door is the plastic guild card that we just picked up:



The room beyond the door has another bookshelf and a safe. Danar looks over the bookshelf first:



Finished with the shelves Garcon turns his attention to the safe:



Using the one we found in the water drain! Jackson tries the knob on the safe, it fits perfectly. Now he just needs to crack it!



No numbers? There's no ear icon in this game either. How is Garcon supposed to get this FILCH safe open? The answer to that question is written right on the safe! If you assume that the dashes between the letters are also letters, then it is possible to spell the word FILCH:



You get the idea! That of course is the code to open the safe and inside:



Searching the base of the safe we find some more thief marks:



To this day I'm not sure what these marks mean... What I do know is that our next stop is the big oak desk at the bottom of the screen:



Always look for traps first. I repeat: always search for traps first! This means that you have to use the hand icon on a thing you wand to open before trying a lockpick or a thief kit on it. You'll see why in a second!



With the trap disarmed now we can pick the drawer open:

This game sure is giving us a lot of throwing daggers... I'm getting worried about what Seepgood is going to find out in the forests!

With a complete thieves kit on hand let's look behind those paintings! (does anyone today hide safes behind paintings? Is that actually a thing?)



Notice my health go down there? That's because I forgot to search the safe for traps. Well, I didn't forget I just clicked on it with the kit thinking the option would come up. It didn't. Garcon checks out the other painting:



(I didn't forget this time.)



Not seen here is the trap disarm game. Which is a 3x3 square grid. The squares randomly flash different colors. To disarm the trap you have to get three of the squares to be the same color by clicking on them when they flash. It's such a trivial task I wonder why the bothered implementing it at all... Inside the safe Perseii finds:



With nothing else to do we return to the Log book:




Sounds like someone is channeling a Lovecraft protagonist... that one entry was odd though, huh?



The only thing that Jackson hasn't searched is the barrels around the room. We do that now. Not finding anything until we get to the one lying on its side at the center back of the screen:



Again, I missed a screenshot. It's the same 3x3 square grid that the disarm trap minigame takes place on. This time though the tiles don't flash colors. You click on them and each click cycles through the colors: blue, yellow, red, green, purple. What's the pattern though? Remember that odd page in the Logbook? That's the key to solving this puzzle. the first row is blue, blue, yellow. The second is green, green, green. And the last row is red, green, red. When the pattern is completely entered:



"Ah! Kill it! Kill it with fire! It's Peter Lorre turned into a giant bug!"




Join me next week as we talk to disgusting bugmen and mad scientists!

I have no idea what the left one means but I think the middle one means to look under the barrel that is standing up.

Looking at it again do you think the first image is supposed to be the wall where the secret door is? The second image is the barrel telling you where the panel to open it is and the third is showing that the book in the desk has the key to the panel in it?

I assumed the thieves hid their guild inside the adventurers' without the adventurers knowing.

I mean, they're all stealthy and everything.

I think the leftmost symbol means "What's in this room?" because the box equals the room... according to the Hero magazine that came with the game.

The Quest for Glory Anthology contained alternate languages, which lead me to discover that the poem wasn't localized. I already had the solution memorized but I always wondered how non-English speakers felt not being able to solve that without a guide.

A couple weeks back we left Garcon in the secret basement of the Adventurer's Hall which doubles as the Thieves Guild. After some sluething, lockpicking, and safe cracking managed to open a secret wall and meet the Master thief here in Mordavia. Who happens to be a giant bug. I guess we should talk to him?



Ask about the castle:



The Thieves' Guild:



Other Thieves:




Secret Passageways:



Disarming Traps:



Thief Jobs:



Monstrous Shape:



How Can I Help:



Cause of Condition:




Is it fun to be a Monster:

Perseii and the Giant thief bug continue their conversation.

Ask his name:



Town:



Ask about Monastery:



Burgomeister:



Dr. Cranium:



Inn:



Old Man:



Sounds like we've found the one and only place in town we can hit up for cash!

Store:



And with that Jackson has tapped out the Chief Thief and so leaves the Thieves' Guild and the Adventurers' Hall and heads to the north-east section of town beyond the monastery:



That old man folded over himself? That's Nikolai, the guy the Chief mentioned. His house is the one one the right handside of this screen. The door on the right? That's the entrace to Dr. Cranium's lab:



Danar talks to the fellow:



What's your name?



Rumors:



Town:



This old bag was no help whatsoever! I can't wait to burgle him blind!

Before we risk Dr. Cranium's lab Garcon takes the small amount of money he's found around town and heads to the general store to pick up a few items:




We pick up eveything but the hand broom. Getting a minimum of ten trail rations. What's a trail ration?

With his bag bluging with goods Seepgood heads back to the east part of town and takes a closer look at the entrance to Dr. Cranium's lab since it's the only other thing in this section of town:



To enter the lab you've got to do a little "Simon Says" game. I manage to complete the puzzle successfully and Garcon enters the lab:



Weird, I know. Perseii takes a closer look at the strange machine that is sitting in the entryway:



Next Danar checks out the door on the right:



Bouncing? Where have we heard bouncing before? It sounds awfully familiar...

I'm sure it's safe. Let's just open the door:




That's right Antwerps! You might remember them from the first Quest for Glory where an Antwerp, a much larger one I might add, guarded a secret entrance into the Bandit's hideout.



Yes, I suppose Seepgood should be grateful. What the hell are baby antwerps doing in that door? Seepgood checks the remaining two doors in the room but neither of them will open. With nothing else to try Garcon takes a closer look at the Transcendental Receiving Animal Processor:




Subtle...

Okay, well I suppose Danar is supposed to catch an Antwerp? Let's use the TRAP:



Yes



Yes



No



Yes



Yes



No



No



Also no



Yes

The machine tries to tell Danar its a bad idea to want to trap an Antwerp. But he persists and learns that Antwerps are partial to avacados. Jackson baits the trap with one of his rations and before he knows it:



Yay! We have an antwerp! Now what do we do with it?

Find out next time!

Yay, update!

Loving this so far! The character art for when you talk to someone up-close is amazing, and I like the text descriptions for a lot of things.

Yeah, it was much better than previous games. I was disappointed they switched to the postage-stamp portrait in QFG5.

There is an awful lot to be disappointed about in QfG5...

We should compile a Top 50 List.

Last time we left Garcon cooling his heels in weird hall seemingly filled with bizarre creatures and near useless machinery. He had just captured a juvenile Antwerp using the TRAP system. And while Perseii has the TRAP open he decides to ask it about another strange creature that keeps popping up all over Mordavia. The Hexapod:





Ho ho ho aren't you hilarious?

"No"

The TRAP then goes on to tell Jackson that hexapods have a soft spot for garlic. And since this valley seems to be teeming with the stuff it shouldn't be too hard to find.

What now Danar? That door on the left looks interesing. This time though he reads the sign:



I beat he's going to need that key to get anywhere in this place!

Seepgood opens the door:



The Antwerp jumps in place coving about three spaces if you divided the maze into a grid. Falling into one of the holes will set you back at the beginning. Rotating the maze itself around timed to where the Antwerp is in its jump/fall is how you navigate through the maze. The objective here is to get the Antwerp to the key and then to the exit of the maze you can see just below the key on the screen above. I didn't take anymore screenshots of this because that would be very, very, very boring. Needless to say Garcon gets the key.



With the key in hand we head to the back of the room. If we had bothered to read the sign we'd have seen this:



But Perseii didn't. He's too cool for school!



This is how you determine "superior intelligence" a puzzle? Not even a slider puzzle? Just put the picture together? Okay! Don't know how I'm going to figure this one out!? (Note: This puzzle and all the other puzzles in the game could be more difficult but I pulled the that slider in the options screen down to the lowest because none of these type of puzzles in QfG4 are any good. Professor Layton this ain't!)



With the keyhole revealed Danar uses the key he just got on the door and enters the lab:




Before we run down the conversation tree with Dr. Cranium Jackson takes a look around:



"Fascinating!"



"name"



"science"

Yeah, yeah Doc. Science sounds great! Tell me more!





"Stamina potions"



"But I'm lazy..."

"Healing potions"



What's this? Another puzzle? No! It's the copyright protection scheme for QfG4! The game manual contained a list of formulas for various ingredients. The player had to consult their manual (or a photocopy of it) and simple enter the formula of earth, air, water, fire, and pizza to continue playing the game. Now if you couldn't do that. You could keep playing but getting through this game without healing potions or poison cures would be an impressive feat!



"poison cure"



"Empty flask"



"Experimentation



"Scientific Elements"



"Hypothesis"



"Pizza"



With the Science topic tapped out we go back to the original one and ask the Doctor about "Magic"



"What rubes!"

But Doctor tell me more about these ridiculous scrolls you were given?



With the magic scroll in hand Garcon opens it and reads the mystic runes inscribed therein:



I don't know why but this is one of my favorite lines in this game.

"Igor"



"Igor's business"



"Tombstones"



I see what you did there Doc. It isn't funny.

"Cemetery"



Yay... Back to the top:

"The Fluid"



"Laboratory"



"Dead to Life"



"Perfect Tea"



"Research"



"Lab Equipment"



Once again having finished the sub conversation tree we return to the first one and the last topic on it to boot! You didn't realize that this game was mostly a conversation simulator? Now you know!

"Mad Scientist"



With that Dr. Cranium has nothing more for us right now. Perseii did get a spell off of him as well as a healing potion and a poison cure though. And we'll be returning to him consistently throughout the game to replenish our supply of them.

That's pretty much the town. Except for the creepy monastary, which we'll be visiting when we're better equiped and Nikolai's house. Which we'll be visiting tonight. You remember Nikolai right? He's the old man that the Burgomeister said was ill and that the Master Thief said was an easy mark. While we wait for nightfall though Danar gets a workout in:



It'll be important to do this everyday in order to increase Seepgood's stats. It wouldn't be a RPG without some grinding in it, right?

Jackson exhausts himself a couple of times working out, resting, and then repeating in order to burn through remaining daylight. Once night falls he returns to the eastern part of town:



Garcon starts to sneak and makes his way to the house on the right side of the screen:



The front door is barred from the inside so Perseii is going to have to go through the window:



(It took a couple of climb attempts before Danar was able to get up and into the house. This is going to be a theme for the game got to raise those numbers!)

Once inside Nikolai's house Seepgood pulls out the magic torch he found in the old one cave and prepares himself to get into some mischief:



We'll find out how that went next time! Thanks for reading!

yayyyy

For some reason the silly writing in this game speaks to me, so well

There's just SO MUCH of it!

Did you ever play Castle/Island of Dr. Brain? Also by Lori and Cori Cole. Dr. Cranium is a ridiculous little throwback to those games.

I'm trying to imagine which celebrity Dr. Cranium would sound like.

I remember reading about them in InterAction magazine. But I never played them.

They're 100% puzzles in the style of Dr. Cranium's lab. The writing holds a very similar flavor (silly) to the QfG games, though they're very kid-focused. /derail over

I might LP the Dr. Brain games if I ever finish Crawl. They're excellent!

I played the first two Dr. Brain games. I liked that they came with books full of educational facts like the periodic table and stuff. I also liked that they included in-game "hint coins" for when you get really stumped on the puzzles. I remember struggling a lot with the logic puzzles that they put together.

I'm also done derailing.