It's a sad thing that your adventure ended Here. Let's Play... Shadowgate!

TALK to that snake. Snakes are lonely and appreciate being spoken to. Once you've earned its trust, ask if its name is Kaa.

Trussssssssssssst in me...

EAT the APPLE. Don't worry, this game has already proven that there is no God.

Alternatively: BADGER, BADGER, BADGER, BADGER...

You stole the Warlock Lord's personal massager!

Oh my, is it gettin hot in here?

Wow! That's awesome. I think I just scared everyone in the house by laughing so hard. Liquidben wins the thread!

TAKE the snake. You'll clearly need to use it Indiana Jones style to whip yourself over a bottomless pit on the next screen.

Why did it have to be snakes...

Didn't you miss a death here? I thought if you hung around/moved down without a lightning rod you'd get hit by the lightning flashing all about on the lower level...

I honestly can't recall though.

It SHOULD have been a death though.

You immediately turn around and run out of the room, shrieking with terror beyond any comprehension, and end up plunging into the abyss. Again.


With a loud cry, you take the big plunge. The Grim Reapers stands below, ready to catch you

This time you decide to examine the huge snake, trying to pry out a weakpoint.



You laugh yourself silly at your little blunder. That crazy snake was just a statue. What a kook you are!



However, you are a kook, wielding a hammer, who was just tricked into running off a cliff, and even kooks have their limits. You decide to dispense some frontier-styled justice to the statue, via a steel-drivin’ hammer to the FACE.

The snake, clearly, is made of firmer stuff then your hammer.

While the Snake Statue may be creepy as all hell, and resilient to even the most furious of hammer swings, odds are that it wouldn’t react favorably to a reenaction of a biblical epic!

You wave your wand at the snake, showing the Pharoah (in this case, the Warlock Lord) what it means to piss off the guy with a flaming bush on his side!




It dematerializes and forms anew as a staff of tremendous beauty!

Oh… so the statue of a snake was the grippy-bit of The Staff of Ages? That… that’s pretty keen. The staff is still disassembled, however, so you won’t be defeating any Warlock Lords with this thing just yet. Still, it looks nice. You head back to The Throne Room, feeling more comfortable about running into the hole beneath the Skeleton King.



On the way back through the castle, you’re OVERWHELMINGLY surprised to find out that the Troll survived its fall off the bridge. And now it’s got your Spear too! However, since The Trolls hands are full carrying the spear, there’s no way it could wreck the bridge, so you’re safe to leave.


The spear pierces your chest and exits through your back!

Too late do you realize that he doesn’t really need to throw away the bridge to kill you now. Of course, you DO still have some gold coins, maybe you can bribe him away now?



Greedy little bastard. You pay him his extra shilling.


The troll picks up the Bridge causing you to fall into the chasm! The Grim Reapers stands below, ready to catch you!

BASTARDRY! Well, you’re not going to truck with any of this foolishness, you open up your spell book and invoke your one charge of Humana.


As soon as the magic is invoked, you lose sight of yourself. You’re as invisible as the wind!

“Suck on my thaumatalugical know-how, you legless baboon” you cry as you pass the Troll. That’ll teach him to try to earn a livelihood!



The Cyclops is also less comatose then he was before, but another quick knock on the head takes care of him again. There’s nothing else that stops you from reaching the Throne Room. And then beneath the Throne Room.



You find yourself in another one of the completely uninteresting rooms with nothing besides a branching pathway. You take the torches on the wall and head into the side door.

Suddenly, the Granite Slab above you gives way and crushes you beneath it. It breaks every bone in your body.

Right, well… you decide to head down the main door instead.



There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly dangerous in this room, just a pair of gargoyle statues. Yep, harmless statues. Not alive, not even remotely. Perfectly safe.

You decide to head into the room between the two statues.


The Gargoyles, angered at your presense, spring from their frozen state and rip you to pieces! There’s not enough left of you to even feed the birds.

Oh come on, Castle Wyvern hasn’t even been lifted above the clouds! You decide to say “The heck with you” to the Gargoyle statues and head into the less-defended room.


Swimming would not be wise.

Hah, you don’t know the meaning of the word Wise.


You’re brave, Warrior, but STUPID! Your body explodes as it plunges into the lava.

That was fun. You towel yourself off and glance around the room.



The door in the back of the Lava Room is too far to reach. So you head back to the Gargoyles, intent to kill them. Just because.

Do You:
A) Bash the statues with your mighty hammer
B) Reason with the statues, maybe they’re as afraid of you as you are of them?
C) Magic the HELL out of those jerks!

Death Count: 31
Injury Count:
Bruised Rump
Half-Deaf
Severely burned hand
Partial Mutation
Cut on Finger

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there shorty! You forgot to USE SWORD ON CYCLOPS after you knocked him down. (Preferably on a crotch pixel)

B) Reason with the statues, maybe they’re as afraid of you as you are of them?

I mean, can't we all just get along?

Lull the beasts with a capella soft jazz.

Use those Magic Hands, mister!

Use HAMMER on GARGOYLES.

You crack your knuckles and prepare to give those statues a piece of your meta-physical mind.

You’ve already used Epor, Humana and Terrak, so that just leaves Illumina and Motari. The scroll for Motari mentioned being used to form a bridge over burning death, which doesn’t quite fit this situation, so you crack out Illumina, figuring that the light of the sun will cause the Gargoyles to turn back into statues.


It takes you a few moments to regain your senses from the nova burst. It seems the Gargoyles were also affected and haven’t yet recovered from the spell.

Congratulations, you’ve defeated a pair of Gargoyles with the same skill and aplomb as a third-string X-Man.

Before you run through the door the Gargoyles were guarding, you suddenly remember (again) what the Motari Scroll said about being used to cross burning death, and assume it lets you pass that Lava Room through the other door. While both paths likely lead treasures, you assume that the flaming pit of death is the safer way to go, for now.





You’re pleased with yourself and pass the vaguely Cthulhu-esque statue going into the next room.



3-to-1 odds that this room actually is the jaw of a huge beast. The room contains a set of switches connected to a cylinder and a seemingly bottomless pit. Without a second thought you proceed to lean way over, down the pit.


He decides to eat you for breakfast!

What a ugly monster. You wave goodbye to the Reaper as you rewind time and decide to NOT look into that pit this time.

Those switches, there’s something faintly familiar about them. Almost like the patterns in a sequence of bricks in an earlier room. You could swear that if you were to, say, pull the switches in the same sequence as the Bricks the puzzle would be solved.

You decide to pull the switches at random.


The handles return to their original positions

Sadly, your adventure didn’t come to an end here.

You decide to do that brick-sequence thing, since playing with the levers constantly wouldn’t be a very entertaining use of 9 screen shots.


You’re momentarily dazzled as the darkness is lit by a blinding flash! The Silver Orb is revealed! As soon as you remove the Orb, the Cylinder closes.

Hey, a Silver Orb. Didn’t that crappy poem about defeating the Warlock Lord mention something about a Silver Orb?

Yes, apparently it did. More over, you also got the Staff of Ages, a Golden Blade (that looks more like a spiky bone) and a Platinum Horn. Yep, I’d say you’re about ready to vanquish yourself a Warlock Lord.




You head back through the Gargoyle room and enter the previously guarded room.

You wonder just how many wells, lakes and fountains this Castle has. It seems preposterously high considering how there’s only one human occupant.

Such an obvious well obviously is there for a reason, so you open ‘er up and take a look inside.

]
The well was deeper then you imagined. You have broken every bone in your body.

Right… so don’t leap into wells. Good safety tip. The door is locked, and you’re out of keys to try in it. Also, you’re out of conspicuous rocks to move, rugs to burn and books to read to reveal keys, so this door is STAYING locked. That leaves the well.

Well, it’s a conspicuous well, with no water, near the final chamber in a Wizards vast, terrible fortress. Chances are that you have to pay it to render some variety of service. As is customary when faced with wells. You fiddle in your pockets and draw forth your three different kinds of coin.



You cavalierly toss in one of your Copper and Gold Coins, but see nothing happen, so you take out the mysterious Big Coin.

]
Well, that seems pretty obvious, in retrospect.


It reminds you of the small “Dust Devils” you see in the Autumn months.

You faintly remember one Birthday when Lakmir decided to turn those into literal devils made of dust. They weren’t especially dangerous on the whole, but they stilled ransacked the countryside, and caused all of the kingdoms people to blame you for the inconvenience. You tried to explain that it was Lakmir who made the little bastards, but they were hearing none of that, and spent the better part of the long weekend trying to pelt you with large stones. It was the third worst Birthday you’d ever had.

Anyhow, the huge updraft coming from the well now means you can now leap down the well without dying.


You stand above a beach, looking down upon a river.

You begin to wonder how a beach managed to get placed deep under ground, but then get distracted by the shiny skull-gong. The warm, inviting skull-gong. You move toward the gong, but trip slightly, sending you into the river instead.


Your cries for help are cut off as your lungs fill with water!

You’re a bit more cautious, this time, and you ring the gong, instead of lunging at it.


The Ghostly Ferryman doesn’t look friendly. You hear a faint voice ask for a fare.

He looks less pleased with himself then he does when your adventures come to an end. Oh well. You’ve got an impassable river, and an Anthropomorphic Personification asking for a hand out. You try to remember the lessons that the minstrel Christopher DeBurgh taught you.

A) Pay the Ferryman
B) DON’T Pay the Ferryman (till he gets you to the other side)
C) Attack the ghastly shade!

Death Count: 34
Injury Count:
Bruised Rump
Half-Deaf
Severely burned hand
Partial Mutation
Cut on Finger

Oh snap! Jubilee? Dazzler? Gambit?

Pay him. I mean, he's doing you a favour, right?

Although, if it's a trick, you should kill him afterwards and take back the money for yourself.

Use FERRYMAN on HAMMER.

Hell-ooooo sailor!

You'll need to equip DRACULA'S EYE before he'll take you to the right place. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have that relic, but maybe you can just swap out one of your own and fake him out by using BLADE on SELF.

If that doesn't work, you might need to advance to using BLADE on FERRYMAN.

"With a great deal of clenching, you manage to work the ferryman up into your anus. Not surprisingly, this is horrifyingly painful and culminates in your demise.

It's a sad thing your adventures ended here..."

LMAO! *APPLAUDS*

I'll take you to a good place. Heh! Heh! Heh!

A torch worked on the Wraith so long ago, why not here? Burn the ferryman!

You stand briefly transfixed while entertaining various thoughts about The Ferryman that you would think to be a little to awkward to repeat to him. After a few moments you hear what could only be described as a spectral being clearing its non-existent throat, and another faint whisper asking for money.

You respond by lighting the ghost on fire.


The Ferryman will not let you cross, he is still waiting for a fare

Well, that didn’t work. You ring the gong again, and the Ferryman re-materializes, looking somewhat more annoyed then previously. You toss him a couple of gold coins for his trouble and he whisks you away.




A stone skull stands against the far wall, screaming silently. For some reason, you feel as though you are standing on sacred ground.

Actually it isn’t screaming at all, since the door in its mouth is closed.

There are three notches in the wall in the exact same shape as the Talisman you snatched from the exploded Wyvern, and your years of fitting blocks into similarly shaped holes has you prepared for what to do next. You’re relatively sure that another weird scroll you found had some insight on this matter as well, but you’re not one to heed what you’ve been told before.


You have placed The Bladed Sun in the wrong hole. You did not heed the warnings and now the Warlock Lord’s defenses end your life!

You rewind time and put the Talisman in the crown-hole and are rewarded with the same display of pyrotechnical skull-play. Via process of elimination, you’ve determined that the Sword is the best place to put the Bladed Sun.



Good for you. The skull-door still won’t open, though. Didn’t that other weird scroll mention something vaguely relevant about this?

Well, why not? You pull out the Platinum Horn that you took from the Hellhound and give it a pitifully quiet toot, almost as though there was someone napping on a nearby couch, and you didn’t want to wake them.


Suddenly, you hear the sound of grinding rock. The jaws of the skull begin to descend! Hot wind erupts from the mouth, giving the impression that the skull is alive!



Cool, you head into the stone skull and enter the final chamber of the castle. Just in the nick of time to stop the Warlock Lord and save the world from his tyranny! Or, more accurately, save the world from not existing anymore. Which is much worse.



Your stomach knots up as you stare at this new horror. The Beast is indeed incredible! You wonder for a moment how you can defeat a creature such as this!

Oh crap, too late. The Gate of Shadows has been opened and the world is about to die. You briefly entertain the thought of running the hell out of the castle to notify your next of kin, but then you realize that unless you stop the Behemoth, you’re not going to have any more next of kin to notify.

With uncharacteristic bravado, you fling yourself at the Behemoth, hoping to prevail with your fists where entire armies could not.

Flame shoots from his staff and engulfs your body. You have failed!

Okay, that didn’t work. You shrug and figure that the Staff of Ages is the only thing that’s going to save the day this time. You pull out the Staff, Orb and Blade and set about assembling them.

Luckily, the Warlock Lord is too busy giving a pep-talk to his world-ending menace, and doesn’t see what you’re doing. This is good, since otherwise he’d probably magically destroy you again. You’ve got to do it in the right sequence, since otherwise the parts don’t fit.


Then, the Golden Spike slides smoothly onto the staff and locks into place.

Okay, Blade on Staff, that worked, now for Orb on Staff.



You’re holding on to the Staff of Ages, the most powerful magical device the world has ever seen. You describe the sensation as being like holding a lightning rod covered with frozen, red-hot bees. Then you correct yourself, because it feels like the exact opposite of that.

You lower your weapon and attempt to reason with the Warlock Lord, since, you know, you’ve got the deadliest weapon ever devised, and you’re PRETTY sure that makes you a bit more dangerous then he is right now.



It’s not too polite to call him an “it”. Of course, maybe he can’t understand you due to the fact that what you’re carrying is making that sizzling, buzzing, crackling noise. Oh well, you tried diplomacy, now your have to try violence. You raise the Staff again and let it work its cosmic devastation on the frail wizard.



Oh I see, that whole bit again. Well, lets try rewinding time and aiming a little to the left.

As you walk out the door, you stumble, again, and fall on your torch. You get up screaming, and trying to beat the flames out, and in your mad panic, you accidentally set the rest of the castle on fire. Within minutes it is nothing but a smoking pile of rubble. The Reaper looks at you for one final time, shakes his head, disappointingly, and implies that, no, you’re staying dead this time. It’s a sad thing your adventures have ended here.

Death Count: 38
Injury Count:
Bruised Rump
Half-Deaf
Severely burned hand
Partial Mutation
Cut on Finger


Congraturation! The Story is Happy End!

Whoo, congrats!