[farsta]

Originally Posted by Junkface

Did anyone else notice (very minor spoiler)...

Yeah that got me wondering until the next scene came up. Where was he going? He he he...

[Cellardoor]

Hehe, playing a Keyser Soze character indeed would rock.

I always thought the Widow's three sons (Hal, Hob and Dickens?) were sort of a homage to QFG since they look and dress like the hero.

Originally Posted by Junkface

Did anyone else notice (very minor spoiler)

Spoiler:

Little John carries drunken Robin off in the opposite direction of Robin's cave, then suddenly materialises there?

I think that's because they're sitting on the opposite side of the river in that scene.

[After a brisk nap]

A little flashback to my youth:

When I first played Conquests, I didn't have a mouse. I had to move the cursor around with the arrow keys. If you try it, you'll find that the cursor jumps around in pretty big increments. That made it fricking difficult to aim the bow and arrow in the target shooting bits. I had to aim as best I could, then use the wind to do the final adjustment.

Finally I discovered that if you hold SHIFT, the mouse cursor moves in smaller increments. That made a pretty big difference to me.

Playing it again now, with mouse support, MT-32 sound, advmamex3 graphics filter, no fear of sudden out-of-memory-induced crashes, and the manual downloaded from replacementdocs, I can't help but think how much better things are now than they used to be.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. It's probably worth downloading NewRisingSun's patch for Conquests. This game isn't buggy like QFG4 or anything, but it will fix a few animations.

[Melanie68]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll get back to this tonight.

[MoriartyL]

(This post has spoilers.)





Okay, despite my personal shortcomings, I've made it through. (Thanks, Brisk!) So far, excellent. I think this is the first time I've played an adventure that didn't have puzzles thrown all over the place simply for the sake of having puzzles. (How refreshing!) Instead, this first bit sets the stage by giving a little slice-of-life, in order to give a sense of who Robin is and what his life is like. (I presume Marian will shake his life up a bit as the story progresses.) He is defined as a character by the selfless rescue of the peasant woman from the sheriff's man. So right from the beginning, we're getting good, strong characterization driving the story forward, instead of (as so many adventures do) relying for all momentum on the player's obsessive persistence.

The cutscene was nice, though the somewhat hard-to-make-out animations point to the limitations of this graphical engine for storytelling. The dream was- dreamlike. Good foreshadowing there, and Robin is appropriately astonished by the introduction of magic to the story, which helps us buy into the character. For this game, it's not enough for plot points to just push the plot forward- the writers (or is it just one writer?) are obviously equally concerned with the integrity of the character as they are with the plot which surrounds them. Very good storytelling.

The archery mini-game looks like it could be very fun. I wanted (at first) to stick around and practice archery because I didn't think my aiming did the character of Robin Hood justice. The problem is that he's only got one arrow, and you've got to wait through a few loads to get the arrow you've shot and come back. So if I messed up- no, when I messed up on most shots (since I've never done this before), it wasn't worth the effort to try again until I felt I could play Robin accurately. This is a bit of a problem.

And speaking of loading times: OY! What is wrong with this programming? No way do these graphics need to take that long. It makes simply walking around much more tedious then it should have been. In the opposite direction, I'm very grateful for the Speed setting. Walking animations are nice, but after a while?- Not so nice. Being allowed to speed it up can be a sanity saver.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by After a brisk nap

Finally I discovered that if you hold SHIFT, the mouse cursor moves in smaller increments. That made a pretty big difference to me.

Hey, I noticed that. I was playing around with the keyboard because I was looking for shortcut keys for each of the verbs. It makes no sense to me that there aren't any.

Oh, and by the way, it already has crashed DOSBox for me a few times. So not everything's better these days.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

The archery mini-game looks like it could be very fun. I wanted (at first) to stick around and practice archery because I didn't think my aiming did the character of Robin Hood justice. The problem is that he's only got one arrow, and you've got to wait through a few loads to get the arrow you've shot and come back. So if I messed up- no, when I messed up on most shots (since I've never done this before), it wasn't worth the effort to try again until I felt I could play Robin accurately. This is a bit of a problem.

You do have multiple arrows. Click on the hand to "reload" another arrow. And when you've fired them all (I think you have about five), Will goes and gets them for you. So you never need to go pick them up.

So yeah, I suppose there are a couple of gotchas in the interface. Looking ahead, I definitely recommend that you have a look at the manual so you'll know which puzzles are copy-protection that require outside-of-game information.

[MoriartyL]

I did read a lot of that manual before playing. I read through the whole boring history of Robin Hood (which I then instantly forgot), and I learned Nine Men's Morris, and I learned how to play the fight scenes. (After that I stopped reading, because I get very bored reading.) And I don't recall anything about the archery. I probably just missed it. Couldn't there have been a short intro tutorial before you start playing?

[After a brisk nap]

I'm happy that so many of you say you like the intro, because it's one of my fondest memories of this game. I could probably sing most of it from memory.

The first day is primarily an introduction to the setting and the characters, I think. By exploring the different locations, you'll be ready for when the story and gameplay kicks in in the later episodes. I think the entertainment value of stepping into the shoes of Robin Hood carries it through the day, but if you're stuck for a long time I can see why it would become boring.

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

The troubador brings the player back to the time period (what time period is this again?) without getting bloated with little details from the time.

Consulting the history of Richard I, the game must take place in 1193, during the king's captivity in Austria. At the start of the game I would think it's spring or early summer.

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

And speaking of loading times: OY! What is wrong with this programming? No way do these graphics need to take that long. It makes simply walking around much more tedious then it should have been.

Yeah. The coding in Sierra games is notoriously poor, and I think this is an example of that. You could try playing it outside of DOSBox (with VDMSound), which I think speeds up the transitions quite a bit.

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

I did read a lot of that manual before playing. I read through the whole boring history of Robin Hood (which I then instantly forgot), and I learned Nine Men's Morris, and I learned how to play the fight scenes. (After that I stopped reading, because I get very bored reading.) And I don't recall anything about the archery. I probably just missed it. Couldn't there have been a short intro tutorial before you start playing?

I don't think there's anything about the archery in the manual. I just thought I'd mention it to avoid similar problems with puzzles later in the game. I really enjoyed reading about the history of the Robin Hood stories, but then again I'm always interested in how stories and beliefs have changed over time.

[Ledz]

Spoiler:

Spoiler:
Little John carries drunken Robin off in the opposite direction of Robin's cave, then suddenly materialises there?

Spoiler:

if memory serves me (I'm not participating in the playthrough because I played it recently and it's too fresh in my mind) the scene where Robin drinks is viewed from the direction opposite to the one during gameplay, so if the cave is south during gameplay it will be north in that drinking scene. you can verify that with the position of the lake I think.

[Cellardoor]

Originally Posted by Ledz

Spoiler:

if memory serves me (I'm not participating in the playthrough because I played it recently and it's too fresh in my mind) the scene where Robin drinks is viewed from the direction opposite to the one during gameplay, so if the cave is south during gameplay it will be north in that drinking scene. you can verify that with the position of the lake I think.

Precisely.

Since this is my first playthrough, I am curious about when and how often we will be "allowed" to continue playing. Not only is finishing day 1 a matter of minutes, I'll also be on a vacation in 11 days from now. It would be a shame not to be able to finish this playthrough which I'm already enjoying immensely.

[Melanie68]

I for one won't be finishing day 1 in 'minutes.' I think people who have played lots of Sierra games before may have an easier time and do things faster just because they are used to how these games work maybe?

I've never played a Sierra game all the way through (I played a little of the KQ1 Tierra remake).

[Mordalles]

cool, i just downloaded the game. i've never even heard of it before! thanks! ill also join the playthrough!

edit: wow, really cool game. my favourite part is the archery. thats a really nice touch. im at the start of day 2 now.

[Kurufinwe]

OK, I've finished Day 1. I still can't get enough of this game. A few random comments:

1) Min score: 0; max score: 260.

2) The music is great. Especially the MT32 score, but the AdLib version is not bad either.

3) One thing I love about Christy Marx is that she can be concise. Contrary to Jane Jensen or Ragnar Tørnquist, she doesn't need pages upon pages of dialogue to tell her story or convey her characters' personalities. That's good writing.

4) I also like how the story begins. So there's this first day, which sets the mood and casts the player as Robin doing what Robin is typically expected to do, but then the dream sequence sets the story in motion, and adds an unexpected element (magic) which shows that this is not exactly going to be Robin's story as we know it. Another nice touch.

5) I thought the whole idea of having the player find the archery range / overlook rather dumb. Robin would know where they are; what's more, if you didn't note where John and Will were going at first, it's hard to know where to go then. Thankfully, the game doesn't have many more silly sequences such as this (though the start of day 7 comes to mind).

6) I really like the character portraits in the game, especially the fact that there are so many for Robin. We've already seen three (normal Robin, grinning Robin -- a variation of the former -- and angry Robin), and there are many more to come.

And that's mostly it for now. Let's wait for Day 2 (where not much happens either).

[eriq]

Oooh Longbow. Christy Marx is one of my all time favourite designers. She did the classic "Conquests of Camelot" which, in my opinion, is one of Sierra's absolute most marvelous games ever.

Let's pretty up this thread with some inspirational artwork from the good old days:

[eriq]

And a classic scan from one of my InterAction magazines from 1991:

[Cellardoor]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

1) Min score: 0; max score: 260.

Hey, I only scored 250 points... Where did you get those extra ten?

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by Cellardoor

Hey, I only scored 250 points... Where did you get those extra ten?

Spoiler:

Give money to Simon (?) at the archery range.

[mrdriller]

Finished day one as well. Very short! How many days are there in all?
I also noticed the three brothers wearing very similar outfits to the Hero in QFG. Nifty.

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by mrdriller

Finished day one as well. Very short! How many days are there in all?

Thirteen. The first four are very short, 5 and 6 are huge, and the following ones are medium sized.

I also noticed the three brothers wearing very similar outfits to the Hero in QFG. Nifty.

Except that Longbow was published long before QfG3, so I guess you should put that the other way 'round.