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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 9:22 am

I think my characters are currently level 8. Regardless of level, there's no protection in Curse against "getting stoned" if you fail the saving throw (50% of the time) or the Beholder's disintegration ray. The Beholder is immune to magic, and is insulated behind other monsters. So getting to him takes at minimum one round (unless I fireball the crap out of my own characters, which I may try tonight). His normal attacks aren't scary - just his unstoppable disintegration ray.

By the way, when I watched Blue Ankylo's video, I noticed right off the bat that he had far far fewer minotaurs to deal with. I must have 3X as many as he did. I wonder if that mod of his allowed his to run the game on "novice stage", too. My Curse doesn't let me dial down the difficulty. It just "is what it is".

I'm going to keep at it over the weekend. There has to be a way to get one freaking round of pure luck on the saving throws.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 12:20 pm

When I loaded up Curse I did check to see if the difficulty option was where I remembered it. It's not there in Curse, at least not for the Amiga version. It must be Secret of the Silver Blades that introduced that. I took a peek at a couple of his first videos for Curse just to see if maybe it was in the DOS version; but the man does not need to mess around in camp too often due to his time savors there. lol. For fixed encounters I believe a lower difficulty will drastically lower the enemies HP, reduce saving throws, and might even lower the enemy count... Not sure about the last part though. I'm positive that random encounters will actually have far more enemies when in a lower difficulty as a kind of balance. I fast forwarded through a couple of the early videos to try and figure out what he was doing there but I couldn't tell.

Are you the type to hold onto scrolls? Seems like the perfect kind of battle to have some fighters use those scrolls to keep the others around. I can't recall any strategies I might have used for the beholder... Are you near a wall by any chance? Could a lightning bolt go down a line and bounce back to create a path for others to get to the beholder? I don't recall this exact battle; but these are the types you live for... It's all about finding that perfect strategy.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 1:13 pm

A very nicely done guide that I recall looking in on from time to time in the past. Unfortunately; looks like there are no special secrets for this one. Cast all the buffs you can, it says you should be able to reach the beholder by the end of the 2nd turn; and at that point it's just a matter of luck.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/curseoftheaz ... ercave.php

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 2:30 pm

The graveyard... Not too bad when waiting this late into the game. I didn't get my levels drained once. The mummies, however, will always be a pain in the ass. The second a battle starts with even a single mummy; Half your characters become paralyzed with fear. This did cause a few party deaths. Finally; with a genie on our side, and a random magic user I found in the graveyard who ended up NOT being on our side; this place is clear.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 3:34 pm

Cast all the buffs you can, it says you should be able to reach the beholder by the end of the 2nd turn; and at that point it's just a matter of luck.
Yeah... it's freaking insane! By the end of the 2nd round I typically have 2 dead characters already who've barely done jack.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri May 19, 2017 11:06 pm

Oh.
My.
God!

I finally figured out how to beat this scenario. And I shall take the secret to my graaaaa-aa-ve-uh!

Well, or at least until I get to the full review (that alone will take days, I'm fairly sure). I might sneak the secret it in there... :) But hell, I'm not even done yet. As far as I know there may be 15 more magical guillotines waiting for me!

Holy hell.

I finally made it past that fight, but I'm out of spells and somewhere in the middle of this dungeon - a dungeon that when my son saw the red, bleeding walls asked me tonight, "Are you in hell?" I thought, "Hell fucking yes I am!" Then I figured it out after he went to bed. Needing to find my way out now but I can't rest or I get attacked! Talk about walking on egg shells.

I will say this in the review later, but if this were a pen and pencil campaign the Dungeon Master would easily be called out as an "asshole" big time. Grade A prime, and full on nasty!

<3

Good times!

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Sun May 21, 2017 8:31 am

Until Intric8 meets you again... So long to the big T. Let the review process commence.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Wed May 24, 2017 3:45 pm

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So while I'm editing this massive game into review format... Anyone care for the kick ass intro music recorded directly from my Amiga500?

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu May 25, 2017 9:46 am

Trippy synths? A tension filled slow back beat, almost like a heartbeat? And at least 6 instruments from what I can hear. (How are you recording your music directly off the game, by the way?)

I have to admit, after loading Curse for weeks on end, its intro song really grew on me, too. Sometimes, when I hear a great story on NPR I might find myself sitting in my driveway when I get home until the story is done. Great intro music can be like that, too. Oftentimes I'd just sit and wait before pressing 'Play'.

Curse's tune is very complex for only using one instrument (dual channel, which gives it symphonic depth).

But this sounds great! It's also about twice as long. Thanks for sharing. It's in my iTunes now. <3

Oh... I almost forgot. After a nearly 4-hour non-stop session last night, I finally finished Curse! So much to say on that and I'm trying to organize my thoughts. It's extremely difficult to rate a game like this after all the problems I experienced. But it was so very rewarding to have made it to the finish line.

When it was all over, 2 of my characters were dead and my magic user was on 5 HP (thanks, T-Rex!). If I were to replay the ending again (now that I know what to do) I think I could escape in much better shape. But it doesn't really matter, honestly. Regardless, after seeing the congratulatory final screens, the game ended on the character sheet. Everyone was back to full health. I saved that sucker to a new game slot... even though the "begin game" button was grayed out. :)
curse-nearDeath.png
Obliterated, but mostly still standing.

curse-finalScreen.png
A proper celebration, in my honor. Bring more ale!


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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Thu May 25, 2017 11:00 am

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That's what the little asshole did to me, by the way. :D - I did it twice though, one for the video and then I reloaded for the pics. I did better on the video, with only one person dying. My poor Stygian died both times though. lol. So her constitution is the only one that's going to end up getting drained; cause I'm keeping the first one! Just to let ya know, ya never know what those dice are going to roll, you might fail miserably the next time! haha. You see all my characters on each side of him? Well magic does not work on him, and he has a lightning bolt attack which gives off 80 damage, instant kill for anybody in my party, along with anyone standing behind that person. So it's no use trying to hide someone, and if you do then that's just one less target for him to go after, which means he's going to mow down your fighters faster. Ah, Thrax... I hate you but I love you!
intric8 wrote:...And at least 6 instruments from what I can hear. (How are you recording your music directly off the game, by the way?)
I think there's only 4 at any one time and a couple of spots where the same instrument is played at lower octaves to give the impression of more. 4 is the default max but with lowering the quality you can get 8 and I think 10 by disabling stereo. And I think there's even more "tricks" to do various other things with what's available.

For Pool on the Amiga that music is played not only when you load the game, but every single time you camp. - And I never got tired of hearing it even once. Sometimes I'd just leave it going in repeat. It's the only way I could hear the entire song actually. The song is too long and the menu screens cut it off before it's finished. Cuts off really early on my machine since I was running it from hard drive. I wish they all at least had the option for playing music while you played, particularly for the camping screens while you're memorizing your spells.

I recorded the music the same way I recorded my own music made from the Amiga. I've got the special RCA cord spliter where one end goes to the Amiga's speakers and the other end can plug into a capture card. I just use a rather small and cheap capture card I got a long time ago at Microcenter. I plug that via USB into a laptop and I record from there. Threw it into Cakewalk Music Creator just to combine the short intro with the main song as well as fade it out at the end. Converted files from .wav to .mp3 as well.

I normally just use my cameras microphone to capture sound but when I come across music I'd like to hear away from the Amiga and share with others I will expend the effort for the direct hook up.
I have to admit, after loading Curse for weeks on end, its intro song really grew on me, too. Sometimes, when I hear a great story on NPR I might find myself sitting in my driveway when I get home until the story is done.
You might be interested to know that the intro to Curse is actually the intro to Pool, too! Well, it's the original Commodore 64 musical intro. That's what Pool "should" have sounded like I imagine, but the developers took it upon themselves to not only up the graphics, but give their own musical take as well. I have no idea why they kept the same song for Curse; other than they were "keeping it Gold Box", use as much stuff from the last one that you can... Kind of sucks for the C64 people though, they just have the same tune for two games!

Here is the original music for the C64 (and my God I think it's even in NTSC mode!!!), which is also the music for most versions of Curse.

- I do the same thing when listening to NPR in the car :D
...But it was so very rewarding to have made it to the finish line...
I've always felt it was about the journey with these CRPGs; but the endings are usually quite satisfying. And of course with these particular games, the ending is only the start of the next game. :D I have other games that I'd consider my favorites over these (Several Might and Magic's) but there's just something about these Gold Box games. They're special. So many memories with them because they made so many games. They put you in so many crazy situations. Hard as nails at times but so rewarding when you master it. I always gotta love them all. I wish Pool would have had more of the full screen artwork. The Gold Box games would put more and more of those into them as time went on. Those single screens can add incredible amounts of atmosphere. Much more than the couple inches devoted to it normally in game. Another thing I liked more about the Might and Magic games; they devoted more of the screen to what you were seeing!





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