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Just a quick update on my initial impressions of the game. I just finished Glastonbury Tor. So far it is pretty great! I only have a passing familiarity with Arthurian legend, so it was nice to learn more about it and how they chose to present it in the game. The story so far is pretty interesting and the puzzles are challenging without being of the "bang-head-against-wall" variety. I did get stuck a little on the riddle stones. Fortunately you get a new set of riddles when you leave the screen and come back. It took a while until I was able to get a set of 5 that I could answer. For some reason, the two bottom stones gave me the most trouble.

From a technical standpoint, on thing that I liked was how well the parser was implemented. Early on, I get a rose and Guinevere tells me to "wear it." I tried typing that in, and the game replies that she was being poetic and I don't actually need to do that. So the game made it clear that an action was unnecessary and the player isn't left trying to solve a puzzle that isn't there based on a generic "You can't do that" reply. There were a few other times I encountered this. Kudos. I commented on this elsewhere, but see Codename:Iceman as an example of the exact opposite of this.

Yes! I figured you'd enjoy this game, because of the lore and how well it all ties together. I don't remember the improved "messages" (I do need to eventually go back and replay all of these again).

One hallmark of the Cristy Marx games is that they are very well researched.

Quick question. So I am in Jerusalem and taking the test of symbols where I have to identify the goddess based on a clue and place the correct symbol there. Identifying the goddess is easy; the descriptions are in the manual. What I am not sure how to do is to identify the symbol for the goddess. The symbols are not in the manual and the only one I know is Venus. Obviously I could find these on Wikipedia, but how are you supposed to learn them in-game? I went back to few places like Merlin's lab but couldn't find them. Have I missed something somewhere? No spoilers if at all possible. Thanks.

I believe there's someone you ASK about the symbols...

Tawmis wrote:I believe there's someone you ASK about the symbols...

Found him. I had go back a bit to get the symbols.

And... I finished! Very good game. I think this is my favorite one thus far since I started this little endeavor. I like the work that was done in creating the setting. Good story and puzzles that are challenging without being unfair. It doesn't seem like there were many places where you could dead-end the game, except for maybe where I had to restore an earlier save to learn the symbols for the goddesses. And like I mentioned before, it didn't feel like I had to fight the game to make it understand what I wanted to do. So the points for my first playthrough are:

Skill: 313/368*
Wisdom: 263/293
Soul: 350/358

Breaking the points up like this is also a nice touch. So I will be going through again with the aid of a walkthrough to try to get all of the points. I'm not looking forward to some of the arcade sequences, e.g defeating the Black Knight on Hard without being knocked off. Not going to be easy.

* The hintbook mentions that the maximum is actually 362, but a point list I found online say 366.

notbobsmith wrote:

Tawmis wrote:I believe there's someone you ASK about the symbols...

Found him. I had go back a bit to get the symbols.
And... I finished! Very good game. I think this is my favorite one thus far since I started this little endeavor. I like the work that was done in creating the setting. Good story and puzzles that are challenging without being unfair. It doesn't seem like there were many places where you could dead-end the game, except for maybe where I had to restore an earlier save to learn the symbols for the goddesses. And like I mentioned before, it didn't feel like I had to fight the game to make it understand what I wanted to do. So the points for my first playthrough are:
Skill: 313/368*
Wisdom: 263/293
Soul: 350/358
Breaking the points up like this is also a nice touch. So I will be going through again with the aid of a walkthrough to try to get all of the points. I'm not looking forward to some of the arcade sequences, e.g defeating the Black Knight on Hard without being knocked off. Not going to be easy.
* The hintbook mentions that the maximum is actually 362, but a point list I found online say 366.

I knew you'd like this... and if you liked this... you will like Longbow as well...

Tawmis wrote:
I knew you'd like this... and if you liked this... you will like Longbow as well...

Nevertheless, I will be putting the next one up to a vote.

notbobsmith wrote:

Tawmis wrote: I knew you'd like this... and if you liked this... you will like Longbow as well...

Nevertheless, I will be putting the next one up to a vote.

You can probably guess my suggestion already...

So I cheated a bit with the joust with the Black Knight. I used a version of DOSBox that lets you save states so I could save during the joust and get all of the points.

And just finished using a walkthrough/point list:
Seems that 366 is the correct number of skill points. And I managed to find an extra wisdom point. I asked the Old Ones about silver, which doesn't show up on any of the point lists that I've found.

Facing the Saracen on Hard difficulty wasn't as bad as I thought, though a status bar would have been helpful.

Another fun thing: having the MT32 LCD message say "It's Only A Model" was cute.

notbobsmith wrote:And just finished using a walkthrough/point list:

sciv_000.png

Seems that 366 is the correct number of skill points. And I managed to find an extra wisdom point. I asked the Old Ones about silver, which doesn't show up on any of the point lists that I've found.
Facing the Saracen on Hard difficulty wasn't as bad as I thought, though a status bar would have been helpful.
Another fun thing: having the MT32 LCD message say "It's Only A Model" was cute.

Good ol' Monty Python reference...!

notbobsmith wrote:And just finished using a walkthrough/point list:

sciv_000.png

Seems that 366 is the correct number of skill points. And I managed to find an extra wisdom point. I asked the Old Ones about silver, which doesn't show up on any of the point lists that I've found.

Can you explain how did you come up with 366 skill points?
I analyzed the game scripts and compared them to the official hint book. I couldn't find any unaccounted skill points.
I also managed to find an extra wisdom point, but it's not when asking the Old Ones about silver. You get an extra "undocumented" wisdom point when you ask the scholar about Jerusalem.

OmerMor wrote:

notbobsmith wrote:And just finished using a walkthrough/point list:

sciv_000.png

Seems that 366 is the correct number of skill points. And I managed to find an extra wisdom point. I asked the Old Ones about silver, which doesn't show up on any of the point lists that I've found.

Can you explain how did you come up with 366 skill points?
I analyzed the game scripts and compared them to the official hint book. I couldn't find any unaccounted skill points.
I also managed to find an extra wisdom point, but it's not when asking the Old Ones about silver. You get an extra "undocumented" wisdom point when you ask the scholar about Jerusalem.

I used this points list: http://www.the-spoiler.com/ADVENTURE/Si ... lot.2.html. I haven't compared it to the official hint book to see how they differ. I regularly checked my points against the above points list and the only deviation that I noted was asking the Old Ones about silver. Unfortunately, I deleted my savegames so I can't check quickly. The above points list does have the 1 Wisdom point for asking about Jerusalem.

Thanks notbobsmith.
I compared the point list you used with the hint book and my script analysis:
Your point list has the following extra points:

• Attempt to buy Grail in bazaar (1 gold, in smaller coins): +5 Skill points
• Asking the scholar about Jerusalem: +1 Wisdom point

The hint book has the following extra points:

• Asking the Old Ones about mother-moon: +1 Wisdom point
• [In the chapel] give silver coin to Mithras: +1 Skill point

Combining both lists, it appears to be possible to reach 367 Skill points, 294 Wisdom points, and 357 Soul points.