Posted March 01, 2024
Revised List
Bugs
Inn Unwanted Rest. Sometimes when I go to the Inn and select a character for action, it just assumes that I want him to rest, which is not the case. I just want to select that character to see his or her stats and items.
Tavern Remove Characters. I play a party of mixed good and evil alignments. I don’t know if this bug occurs as a result of that or is true for all players, but I have trouble removing party members at the tavern. It works fine if I try to add a member of the wrong alignment, then after the message of being unable to have parties with mixed alignments the removal goes smoothly.
Training Ground Change Class 1. When I had a character change class, I could not go immediately to the inn and trade items. It also prevented me from changing class of a second character. Both features worked fine after I went into the maze and went back to town.
Training Ground Change Class 2. Another class change bug is that I made a mistake and reloaded an earlier save to redo my class change. The game would not allow me to do any change to any class. It start working again when I closed the game and relaunched it.
Character Inventory. The item menus for Equip, Discard, and Give to Party Member make it too easy to choose an action that you really did not intend. In fact, it is actually bugged. Once I selected the top item in inventory to give to another character. Instead it chose the 5th item, perhaps because it was near the Give to Party Member choice?? Somehow this should be fixed or improved. Combine that with some lag and special items that can be invoked, and it is a dangerous combination. I tried to equip a rare Muramasa Blade. I believe it is the rarest item in the game. Over the years I have found fewer of those than even the fabled Lord’s Garb. Either I got lag and accidentally invoked it, or it is bugged. The item became broken, and I had to throw it away. Yes, I threw away a Muramasa Blade!!!
Quick Action. Sometimes the quick action key (Left CTRL) puts the default on Fight! Other times it puts it on Take Back. Whatever the result is the same for ensuing rounds of combat. Since we are using this as a shortcut, it should always default to Fight!
Friendly Enemies. I have never seen party action toward a friendly group of enemies affect alignment. I realize that the original game had only a small probability of this happening. But I have had many such encounters, always allowing my party including an evil Ninja to allow the friendly enemies to pass. I’m trying to make my Ninja good. Too bad this appears to be currently broken.
Calfo. During chest trap identification and disarming, if you first do one or more Callfo spells to identify the traps, then make a mistake and hit Open instead of Disarm, then hit ESC to exit out of that mistake, all of the Calfo identifications will disappear.
Chest Typo. Many times the chest opening has the typo “recieves.” It appears when announcing items received from chests, not gold.
Caster School of Magic. When I go to camp to have a Priest or Bishop casts multiple healing spells, after each cast the next cast is set up for Mage spells. It should stay on Priest spells the next time I cast.
Mouse Support. Not all of the mouse support is fully functional. For example when going to camp and exiting to town, the last button cannot be clicked with a mouse.
Malor Inconsistency. I often use Malor at the entrance to the Maze. I enter 8 Down, 8 East, 2 North. Sometimes this puts me on Level 9 right next to the chute down to Level 10. Other times it drops me into the start of Level 10. It’s no big deal, but it should consistently send you to the same place.
Level 10 Message. On Level 10 the second hallway is missing a message from Werdna. I know it should be there because of how often I played this game on other platforms.
Instability in General. The game is still somewhat unstable. Once it just froze on me on Level 10 for some unknown reason when I went to camp after a battle. I could not execute any commands including leaving the game, and I had to force the game to close. I’m not sure if there is consistency on when it occurs, but the game freezes about once every two hours or so under different circumstances.
Suggestions
Fast Starting. It would be nice to be able to skip through the Digital Eclipse intro screens. I know who you are after starting this game so many times.
Version History. Where is the versioning history? You highlight some bigger changes at in the Release Notes. I don’t expect a description of every little fix, but a list of the bigger ones would be nice.
Delete Saved Games. Add a Delete Game command to eliminate some of the Saved games.
In-Game Manual. The game really needs to include the original manual like players who bought the game in 1981 received. Without it players are worse off in 2024 than they were in 1981 unless they resort to fan sites.
Keyboard Command List and Key Binding. We need a place where we can see a list of the keyboard commands. The game really should key binding by now too.
180-Degree Turns. I would like to see a command to turn the party 180 degrees.
Protection Indicators. We need a symbol showing that our long-lasting protections (Shield for Maporfic, Light for Milwa/Lomilwa) are running. There could also be other symbols for ones in combat. I see that from the old Apple II display that when I am wearing a Ring of Healing, there is a + symbol next to my character’s Hit Points to indicate that they are regenerating. This is not carried through in the remaster display.
Interaction with Signs. It would be nice if sign translations and other messages would appear immediately, rather than having to click a button to make them appear. Some of the misleading direction signs on Level 3 can be completely missed by players if they are not watching carefully.
Dumapic Improvements. The Dumapic full map should show hidden doors, traps, teleporters, and other unusual locations. Even when we made paper and pencil maps on graph papers we noted these on our maps. The whole Dumapic automap is a nice quality of life upgrade, but showing these special squares is not an additional spoiler to what we would have done manually (or through available online maps).
Critical Hit Indication. When monsters kill one of your characters in a single blow, the game notes this occurrence. But when your Ninja one-shots an enemy, you are not told. The only way you know is that the damage they did should not have been enough to kill the enemy apart from their critical hit ability. The battle log and on-screen damage indicator should tell you that your Ninja delivered a critical hit and killed an enemy.
Will O’ Wisp Health Bar. The Will O’ Wisp health bar is sometimes very close to the turn order bar or the party info area, making it hard to see.
Improved Item Sharing. It is too easy to give the wrong item to another party member. Maybe redesign the interface to make it easier to avoid mistakes. You should at least get a warning message if you are giving an equipped item.
Malor Command. The Malor directions are confusing. North 1 is North +1. South 1 is South -1. Huh? Isn’t negative South equal to North? It should say South 1. The same goes for negative numbers for West. Sure, the game may use the negative numbers to calculate location, but that’s not how the command interface needs to be displayed.
Bugs
Inn Unwanted Rest. Sometimes when I go to the Inn and select a character for action, it just assumes that I want him to rest, which is not the case. I just want to select that character to see his or her stats and items.
Tavern Remove Characters. I play a party of mixed good and evil alignments. I don’t know if this bug occurs as a result of that or is true for all players, but I have trouble removing party members at the tavern. It works fine if I try to add a member of the wrong alignment, then after the message of being unable to have parties with mixed alignments the removal goes smoothly.
Training Ground Change Class 1. When I had a character change class, I could not go immediately to the inn and trade items. It also prevented me from changing class of a second character. Both features worked fine after I went into the maze and went back to town.
Training Ground Change Class 2. Another class change bug is that I made a mistake and reloaded an earlier save to redo my class change. The game would not allow me to do any change to any class. It start working again when I closed the game and relaunched it.
Character Inventory. The item menus for Equip, Discard, and Give to Party Member make it too easy to choose an action that you really did not intend. In fact, it is actually bugged. Once I selected the top item in inventory to give to another character. Instead it chose the 5th item, perhaps because it was near the Give to Party Member choice?? Somehow this should be fixed or improved. Combine that with some lag and special items that can be invoked, and it is a dangerous combination. I tried to equip a rare Muramasa Blade. I believe it is the rarest item in the game. Over the years I have found fewer of those than even the fabled Lord’s Garb. Either I got lag and accidentally invoked it, or it is bugged. The item became broken, and I had to throw it away. Yes, I threw away a Muramasa Blade!!!
Quick Action. Sometimes the quick action key (Left CTRL) puts the default on Fight! Other times it puts it on Take Back. Whatever the result is the same for ensuing rounds of combat. Since we are using this as a shortcut, it should always default to Fight!
Friendly Enemies. I have never seen party action toward a friendly group of enemies affect alignment. I realize that the original game had only a small probability of this happening. But I have had many such encounters, always allowing my party including an evil Ninja to allow the friendly enemies to pass. I’m trying to make my Ninja good. Too bad this appears to be currently broken.
Calfo. During chest trap identification and disarming, if you first do one or more Callfo spells to identify the traps, then make a mistake and hit Open instead of Disarm, then hit ESC to exit out of that mistake, all of the Calfo identifications will disappear.
Chest Typo. Many times the chest opening has the typo “recieves.” It appears when announcing items received from chests, not gold.
Caster School of Magic. When I go to camp to have a Priest or Bishop casts multiple healing spells, after each cast the next cast is set up for Mage spells. It should stay on Priest spells the next time I cast.
Mouse Support. Not all of the mouse support is fully functional. For example when going to camp and exiting to town, the last button cannot be clicked with a mouse.
Malor Inconsistency. I often use Malor at the entrance to the Maze. I enter 8 Down, 8 East, 2 North. Sometimes this puts me on Level 9 right next to the chute down to Level 10. Other times it drops me into the start of Level 10. It’s no big deal, but it should consistently send you to the same place.
Level 10 Message. On Level 10 the second hallway is missing a message from Werdna. I know it should be there because of how often I played this game on other platforms.
Instability in General. The game is still somewhat unstable. Once it just froze on me on Level 10 for some unknown reason when I went to camp after a battle. I could not execute any commands including leaving the game, and I had to force the game to close. I’m not sure if there is consistency on when it occurs, but the game freezes about once every two hours or so under different circumstances.
Suggestions
Fast Starting. It would be nice to be able to skip through the Digital Eclipse intro screens. I know who you are after starting this game so many times.
Version History. Where is the versioning history? You highlight some bigger changes at in the Release Notes. I don’t expect a description of every little fix, but a list of the bigger ones would be nice.
Delete Saved Games. Add a Delete Game command to eliminate some of the Saved games.
In-Game Manual. The game really needs to include the original manual like players who bought the game in 1981 received. Without it players are worse off in 2024 than they were in 1981 unless they resort to fan sites.
Keyboard Command List and Key Binding. We need a place where we can see a list of the keyboard commands. The game really should key binding by now too.
180-Degree Turns. I would like to see a command to turn the party 180 degrees.
Protection Indicators. We need a symbol showing that our long-lasting protections (Shield for Maporfic, Light for Milwa/Lomilwa) are running. There could also be other symbols for ones in combat. I see that from the old Apple II display that when I am wearing a Ring of Healing, there is a + symbol next to my character’s Hit Points to indicate that they are regenerating. This is not carried through in the remaster display.
Interaction with Signs. It would be nice if sign translations and other messages would appear immediately, rather than having to click a button to make them appear. Some of the misleading direction signs on Level 3 can be completely missed by players if they are not watching carefully.
Dumapic Improvements. The Dumapic full map should show hidden doors, traps, teleporters, and other unusual locations. Even when we made paper and pencil maps on graph papers we noted these on our maps. The whole Dumapic automap is a nice quality of life upgrade, but showing these special squares is not an additional spoiler to what we would have done manually (or through available online maps).
Critical Hit Indication. When monsters kill one of your characters in a single blow, the game notes this occurrence. But when your Ninja one-shots an enemy, you are not told. The only way you know is that the damage they did should not have been enough to kill the enemy apart from their critical hit ability. The battle log and on-screen damage indicator should tell you that your Ninja delivered a critical hit and killed an enemy.
Will O’ Wisp Health Bar. The Will O’ Wisp health bar is sometimes very close to the turn order bar or the party info area, making it hard to see.
Improved Item Sharing. It is too easy to give the wrong item to another party member. Maybe redesign the interface to make it easier to avoid mistakes. You should at least get a warning message if you are giving an equipped item.
Malor Command. The Malor directions are confusing. North 1 is North +1. South 1 is South -1. Huh? Isn’t negative South equal to North? It should say South 1. The same goes for negative numbers for West. Sure, the game may use the negative numbers to calculate location, but that’s not how the command interface needs to be displayed.
Post edited March 09, 2024 by BrutusTheSword