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[GAME OFF] Spellcraft: Aspects of Valor
TurnpikeLad
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
SPELLCRAFT: ASPECTS OF VALOR.
(Posted by permission of Captian K.)
You have probably never heard of this game, but it is one of the most awesome games in existence. It was made in 1993 by Asciiware, a small company founded by Joe Ybarra that came together for this one game and then disbanded. Perhaps that is why it fell so quickly into obscurity.
Spellcraft is the story of a man named Robert, from our world Terra, who is zapped via Stonehenge into the parallel world of Valyria by the old wizard Garwayen. You see, about 1500 years ago, Valyria split off from our world, taking all the magic and the wizards with it. Now, leaks are opening up between the worlds, magic is spilling back into Terra and the lord wizards of Valyria want to use those leaks to conquer our world. As Robert, Garwayen's heir, you are the only one who can stop them!
You are required to choose a magical college before you start playing. You can choose Earth, Water, Air, or Fire. However, there are six magical domains, because two schools -Ether and Mind- have been lost to men over time. The Lord Wizards for the two lost schools are thousands of years old.
The game was made several years before the modern genres were codified, so to the modern eye it seems like a strange mixture of genres. Like in X-COM, different aspects of the game play in completely different ways. So let's look at each of the different parts of the game one at a time.
The domains of Valyria.
You will battle the Lord Wizards and their minions on the terrain of Valyria. This screenshot is from the Fire domain. Although you are fighting various creatures on a large map, this part of the game becomes a strategic battle between you and your enemy wizard. Both of you can summon creatures, damage enemy creatures or inflict them with status effects, or cause great changes to the terrain - chasms, huge mesas, rivers, clouds of steam, giant walls, etc. The spells whisking every which way can get pretty confusing in a high-level battle.
This part of the game is an isometric real-time battle simulator, sort of like a proto-Diablo if you will. You can walk around by holding your mouse down in the direction you want to go, or by using the arrow keys. The large box in the lower left corner cycles through a mini-map, a status screen for either you or whoever you're targeting, and a roster of how many creatures and treasures are left in the domain.
When you come to an enemy, either click the right button of the mouse or click the little sword icon: this puts you into a battle stance. Your character will fight the creatures around him with his sword. This is automatic, sort of like Contact, and can be very dangerous because damage from multiple enemies can rack up very quickly. However, it is the only way to deliver the killing blow to the wizard who you are fighting. You can use spells to deplete his health, but to kill him you have to finish him off with your sword.
The top of the menu to the left is an efficient way to cycle through and cast the various spells you have prepared for this battle. There are around 100 spells in the game, and they are divided into six types: Attack, Defense, Personal modifier, Terrain modifier, Conjuration, and Transformation. Clicking the top bar lets you cycle through these types, and the bottom bar lets you select which spell you want. Once you select the spell you will be presented with a list of the variations of that spell you've created, and can choose which one to cast. Spells have different interfaces for casting, but they are all pretty self-evident. Some spells require you to target enemies - when there are multiple enemies within target range, press tab to cycle through them.
Every combat map has a little copy of Stonehenge that hurts any monsters who try to attack it. You can stand in it and be safe for a while, but it has its own health and can be destroyed. The process for fixing a destroyed stone circle isn't too hard, but it's an inconvenience.
The little house lets you return to Stonehenge which is your home base and where you can do things such as mixing spells and visiting Terra.
The workshop.
This is where you mix your spells. You will get hints for spells from wizards, in chests or on your journeys to Terra. Many of these hints will be incomplete and you will need other information to figure them out. Sometimes this will involve combining information from two hints, and sometimes this will involve looking at the spell book included in your manual. Yes, this game requires you to take detailed notes. A big part of the fun in the game is matching up the cryptic hints with the cryptic information in the spellbook, and making educated guesses as to spell formulas. Here's a list I made of spell formulas: (While this may be spoiler information, Defense spells are some of the more useless ones, and I doubt your experience will be significantly impaired:)
If you use the wrong formula, the spell will backfire and you will die. Tha manual is available as a PDF, and I recommend you print at least the spell book out for reference as you play the game.
Mixing spells is a simple process. Each spell requires a differing amount of four ingredients: Candles, Stones, Powders, and Jewels. Each spell also requires some of a certain Aspect (this is, I assume, the source for the title of the game.) Aspects are objects you find or buy that have magical properties. For example, an onion has the aspect of Protection, while a red ram's horn has the aspect of That Which It Is Not. Each spell also requires that you speak a certain magic word, of which there are four for each Magical College.
Casting spells in battle requires making more copies of spells, which requires using a bunch of ingredients. This is the main reason why you spend money and travel to Terra - to buy ingredients for your spells.
Spells are collected in a spellbook. From the spellbook, you can organize and rename your spells, make more copies of a spell, or modify a spell. Spell modification is an important idea in Spellcraft, and it's the only way you will really get full power out of your spells. The concept is, take a spell you have already mixed, and add certain ingredients to it to make it stronger in certain ways. Among other effects, adding powders will make it last longer but decrease attack, adding stones will make it have more health and more defense but less duration, adding jewels will make it faster and smarter, and adding candles increases its attack power but lowers its speed. Often it is useful to have two or more variations of a spell that focus on various characteristics. Each spell also has its own tolerances for modification - if you exceed the tolerance, the spell will backfire and you will die. This isn't as bad as it sounds, however.
Death.
When you die, you are sent to the Death Domain. This is a scorched landscape filled with monsters, and you are prohibited from using any magic. This means you can't see the world map or the remaining amount of treasures or monsters. The goal is to find your stone circle and enter it to return to the world of the living, but there are sometimes important clues or aspects in chests in the Death Domain and you have to search the whole place to find them. Because you are only relying on your sword this can be difficult.
Terra.
You visit Terra to talk to your allies and to buy ingredients. As the game goes on, more people will appear on this map. It costs money to fly to the different places, but you pretty much have to talk to everybody in the map once in every section of the game because tons of vital information, pieces of equipment, and hints are conveyed through your allies. Different people will sell goods for different prices, and each of your allies only has a certain amount of merchandise (they restock periodically, it seems), so you have to be smart about where and how you spend your money.
You get more money mainly by selling used equipment and by selling Valyrian Pomegranites, which you find in treasure chests in the battle domains.
*************
OK, this game sounds great! How do I get it?
This game is no longer offered for sale. I managed to find two copies off of Ebay, and I guess you could too, but the game pretty much is the dictionary definition of Abandonware.
I've been given permission to post a link to the game's entry at Home of the Underdogs:
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1030
Here you can download the game and its manual. Remember, you pretty much have to print out the manual in order to succeed in the game. It is a really well-written and informative piece of game literature, but you only have to print out the last few pages - the ones that have the spellbook. Keep the rest on hand, though, as certain hints in the game refer to the book, chapter, and verse numbers of various fictional quotations in the text of the manual as hints for how to make the spells. It's a pretty elaborate form of copy-protection, but one that somehow doesn't bother me as much as the annoying thing at the beginning of LOOM for example.
Anyway, I hope you guys will check this game out.
(Posted by permission of Captian K.)
You have probably never heard of this game, but it is one of the most awesome games in existence. It was made in 1993 by Asciiware, a small company founded by Joe Ybarra that came together for this one game and then disbanded. Perhaps that is why it fell so quickly into obscurity.
Spellcraft is the story of a man named Robert, from our world Terra, who is zapped via Stonehenge into the parallel world of Valyria by the old wizard Garwayen. You see, about 1500 years ago, Valyria split off from our world, taking all the magic and the wizards with it. Now, leaks are opening up between the worlds, magic is spilling back into Terra and the lord wizards of Valyria want to use those leaks to conquer our world. As Robert, Garwayen's heir, you are the only one who can stop them!
You are required to choose a magical college before you start playing. You can choose Earth, Water, Air, or Fire. However, there are six magical domains, because two schools -Ether and Mind- have been lost to men over time. The Lord Wizards for the two lost schools are thousands of years old.
The game was made several years before the modern genres were codified, so to the modern eye it seems like a strange mixture of genres. Like in X-COM, different aspects of the game play in completely different ways. So let's look at each of the different parts of the game one at a time.
The domains of Valyria.
You will battle the Lord Wizards and their minions on the terrain of Valyria. This screenshot is from the Fire domain. Although you are fighting various creatures on a large map, this part of the game becomes a strategic battle between you and your enemy wizard. Both of you can summon creatures, damage enemy creatures or inflict them with status effects, or cause great changes to the terrain - chasms, huge mesas, rivers, clouds of steam, giant walls, etc. The spells whisking every which way can get pretty confusing in a high-level battle.
This part of the game is an isometric real-time battle simulator, sort of like a proto-Diablo if you will. You can walk around by holding your mouse down in the direction you want to go, or by using the arrow keys. The large box in the lower left corner cycles through a mini-map, a status screen for either you or whoever you're targeting, and a roster of how many creatures and treasures are left in the domain.
When you come to an enemy, either click the right button of the mouse or click the little sword icon: this puts you into a battle stance. Your character will fight the creatures around him with his sword. This is automatic, sort of like Contact, and can be very dangerous because damage from multiple enemies can rack up very quickly. However, it is the only way to deliver the killing blow to the wizard who you are fighting. You can use spells to deplete his health, but to kill him you have to finish him off with your sword.
The top of the menu to the left is an efficient way to cycle through and cast the various spells you have prepared for this battle. There are around 100 spells in the game, and they are divided into six types: Attack, Defense, Personal modifier, Terrain modifier, Conjuration, and Transformation. Clicking the top bar lets you cycle through these types, and the bottom bar lets you select which spell you want. Once you select the spell you will be presented with a list of the variations of that spell you've created, and can choose which one to cast. Spells have different interfaces for casting, but they are all pretty self-evident. Some spells require you to target enemies - when there are multiple enemies within target range, press tab to cycle through them.
Every combat map has a little copy of Stonehenge that hurts any monsters who try to attack it. You can stand in it and be safe for a while, but it has its own health and can be destroyed. The process for fixing a destroyed stone circle isn't too hard, but it's an inconvenience.
The little house lets you return to Stonehenge which is your home base and where you can do things such as mixing spells and visiting Terra.
The workshop.
This is where you mix your spells. You will get hints for spells from wizards, in chests or on your journeys to Terra. Many of these hints will be incomplete and you will need other information to figure them out. Sometimes this will involve combining information from two hints, and sometimes this will involve looking at the spell book included in your manual. Yes, this game requires you to take detailed notes. A big part of the fun in the game is matching up the cryptic hints with the cryptic information in the spellbook, and making educated guesses as to spell formulas. Here's a list I made of spell formulas: (While this may be spoiler information, Defense spells are some of the more useless ones, and I doubt your experience will be significantly impaired:)
If you use the wrong formula, the spell will backfire and you will die. Tha manual is available as a PDF, and I recommend you print at least the spell book out for reference as you play the game.
Mixing spells is a simple process. Each spell requires a differing amount of four ingredients: Candles, Stones, Powders, and Jewels. Each spell also requires some of a certain Aspect (this is, I assume, the source for the title of the game.) Aspects are objects you find or buy that have magical properties. For example, an onion has the aspect of Protection, while a red ram's horn has the aspect of That Which It Is Not. Each spell also requires that you speak a certain magic word, of which there are four for each Magical College.
Casting spells in battle requires making more copies of spells, which requires using a bunch of ingredients. This is the main reason why you spend money and travel to Terra - to buy ingredients for your spells.
Spells are collected in a spellbook. From the spellbook, you can organize and rename your spells, make more copies of a spell, or modify a spell. Spell modification is an important idea in Spellcraft, and it's the only way you will really get full power out of your spells. The concept is, take a spell you have already mixed, and add certain ingredients to it to make it stronger in certain ways. Among other effects, adding powders will make it last longer but decrease attack, adding stones will make it have more health and more defense but less duration, adding jewels will make it faster and smarter, and adding candles increases its attack power but lowers its speed. Often it is useful to have two or more variations of a spell that focus on various characteristics. Each spell also has its own tolerances for modification - if you exceed the tolerance, the spell will backfire and you will die. This isn't as bad as it sounds, however.
Death.
When you die, you are sent to the Death Domain. This is a scorched landscape filled with monsters, and you are prohibited from using any magic. This means you can't see the world map or the remaining amount of treasures or monsters. The goal is to find your stone circle and enter it to return to the world of the living, but there are sometimes important clues or aspects in chests in the Death Domain and you have to search the whole place to find them. Because you are only relying on your sword this can be difficult.
Terra.
You visit Terra to talk to your allies and to buy ingredients. As the game goes on, more people will appear on this map. It costs money to fly to the different places, but you pretty much have to talk to everybody in the map once in every section of the game because tons of vital information, pieces of equipment, and hints are conveyed through your allies. Different people will sell goods for different prices, and each of your allies only has a certain amount of merchandise (they restock periodically, it seems), so you have to be smart about where and how you spend your money.
You get more money mainly by selling used equipment and by selling Valyrian Pomegranites, which you find in treasure chests in the battle domains.
*************
OK, this game sounds great! How do I get it?
This game is no longer offered for sale. I managed to find two copies off of Ebay, and I guess you could too, but the game pretty much is the dictionary definition of Abandonware.
I've been given permission to post a link to the game's entry at Home of the Underdogs:
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1030
Here you can download the game and its manual. Remember, you pretty much have to print out the manual in order to succeed in the game. It is a really well-written and informative piece of game literature, but you only have to print out the last few pages - the ones that have the spellbook. Keep the rest on hand, though, as certain hints in the game refer to the book, chapter, and verse numbers of various fictional quotations in the text of the manual as hints for how to make the spells. It's a pretty elaborate form of copy-protection, but one that somehow doesn't bother me as much as the annoying thing at the beginning of LOOM for example.
Anyway, I hope you guys will check this game out.
TurnpikeLad on
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Posts
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Edit: Oh yeah, if you are wondering what the game looks like during a high-level battle, just watch the intro. It's pretty awesome and if you like what you see, you will like playing the game.
sc -s
That will open a sound menu that will let you decide which kinds of MIDI to use. I'm currently using my internal speaker, but that's because I have an odd affection for it. Sound Blaster and Roland work modern cards, I think.
You can start the game from the sound menu, and then whenever you start the game in the normal fashion (sc.exe) it will keep the options you chose.
right-click -> save as?
edit: Oh now it works. I guess their servers were just getting hammered for whatever reason.
Right, title change coming up :P
The question marks mean that the ingredient of the indicated type is supposed to go into the spell, but the amount is not given. The double asterisks mean that only a spellcaster from that school can cast that spell. When there are two asterisks without a school attribution, that means either that each college has their own seperate version of the spell made from the same ingredients, (like personal barrier) or that it is exclusive to some school but they're not telling you which school. (For example, I've played through at least three times and I still haven't figured out what the only second level transformation spell is.)
Right, so print that out in large font and you should be fine.
A noble end for a great hero!
You don't, runs just fine in DosBox.
just.....
Is anybody playing this game? How far have you gotten?