Dunjonquest Morloc's Tower

[ballyalley]

On 10/25/2020 at 2:10 PM, zapsterx said:

please give the attached image a try and let me know how it goes.

 

Okay, I'm a bit frustrated.  Maybe someone can help me out.  I'm playing difficultly 1, which is the easiest level.  I've played this level quite a few times now and the Traps, Treasures and Monsters appear to be static, that is, they are not random.  Maybe they're only random on difficulty 2 and 3?  I'm playing the game on real hardware (I'm using my 130XE and loading "Tower" from my SIO2SD).

 

Morloc appears on Level 5, in Room 21.  My Sword Flares in that room, which means Morloc is there.  I lock him in the room with the Treasure 2, the Pyramid.  In this game, I kept getting attacked by a Hound in that room.  Eventually, I stumbled upon Morloc in this itty-bitty room and I killed him with Magic Arrows (as my Magic Sword seemed to have no affect).  When I killed Morloc, much like often happens with other Monsters, another baddie appeared... and it was Morloc.  Again?  Hmm.  That's weird.  This time Morloc killed me and my game was over.

 

Has anyone managed to kill this Mad Magician, Morloc?  Can anyone tell me if Difficulty 1 is the same on everyone's real hardware?  I was pretty surprised by this non-randomness, as the game is pretty specific about the Traps, Treasures and Monsters always being in random places, yet that wasn't the case with about five games I played in a row this evening.

 

Why would I be able to kill Morloc twice?  I thought that was supposed to end the game.

 

Adam

[ballyalley]

On 12/11/2020 at 10:25 AM, zapsterx said:

Glad you were able to give [Morloc's Tower" a go. 

This is a video overview I made over the last few days of the Atari 8-bit game, "Dunjonquest: Morloc's Tower," released in 1980, by Automated Simulations.  In this video, there is a 12-minute overview of "Morloc's Tower" and some of the other Dunjonquest games, such as "Temple of Apshai," along with some commentary that accompanies about forty minutes narrated gameplay.

 

https://youtu.be/DJcftw31VQw

 

(In case the above link doesn't turn into a video-thumbnail link-- sometimes this works in the AtariAge forums, but sometimes it doesn't work at all-- here is the URL to the video: https://youtu.be/DJcftw31VQw)

 

I have some trouble with my face-off off Morloc.  Maybe someone can help me to figure-out why I can't attack Morloc even when he's in the same room with my character, Brian Hammerhand (see the video for details).

 

Adam

[_The Doctor__]

Try different OS? Try Arrows. Just some guessing? It there a treasure item to U se?

[ballyalley]

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

Try different OS? Try Arrows. Just some guessing? It there a treasure item to U se?

 

I tried everything except a different Atari OS.  I played on an Atari 130XE.  I'm sure that there is an answer on how to attack the wizard, but I got impatient trying this a few more times and I gave up.  I guess Morloc wins this round!

 

Adam

[+MrFish]

Never played it myself, yet. But 2 things come to mind, since this is a 1981 title. OS-B, is one obvious thing; the other might not be so obvious, and that's BASIC Rev. A. I've seen at least one older title that would only run on Revision A of BASIC -- although it worked with any OS version.

 

[ballyalley]

29 minutes ago, MrFish said:

But 2 things come to mind, since this is a 1981 title. OS-B, is one obvious thing; the other might not be so obvious, and that's BASIC Rev. A. I've seen at least one older title that would only run on Revision A of BASIC -- although it worked with any OS version.

 

 

Yes, this is an early title; that's for sure.  I think it's actually from 1980.  The game does work (now that we have a new dump).  However, the older dump had an issue because it was on a disk with a "newer" DOS.  The game only works right with an early Atari DOS.  This means that idea the game might require BASIC A is interesting (though news to me; I've never heard of this before).  Also, the issue with me not being able to kill the wizard could also be something as simple as my plain old stupidity (let's not rule that out yet, guys!).

 

Maybe someone can fire up Morloc's Tower and give that old magician a solid "talking to!"

 

Adam

[_The Doctor__]

spoiler alert, in case you don't want to know, your eyes you should avert!

The glowing blue pyramid prevents Morloc from leaving any room that he is in- after you dispatch his buddy and heal up- a thrust or two of your sword should kill him. magic arrows soften him and his buddy up. Morloc seems pretty good at nailing you, so go for the kill. Heal and kill. That's my advice.

 

So explore the dungeon and find magic sword, a glowing blue pyramid, and a magic incinerating egg that does massive damage. Don't take the tierra if you can avoid doing so. Grab rings etc. that provide protection against fire & magic.
"(U)se" the tv like treasure to tell you were Morloc currently is, wend your way to that level and room.

Search the room until Morloc appears and beat away at him until he's dead. Enjoy your winnings and your score. The score is from the number of creatures you killed, how quickly you wasted Morloc, and the difficulty level you played at.

Edited January 19, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, MrFish said:

I've seen at least one older title that would only run on Revision A of BASIC -- although it worked with any OS version.

There are several.

 

Most of the ones I have seen so far do USR()-calls which do not pull the argument count from the stack and RTS to oblivion. Due to some lucky coincidence Rev. A eventually will return to BASIC anyway. All other BASIC revisions just crash.

 

This cannot be the case here since Morloc does not crash, but I am sure that there are some other subtle differences between BASIC revisions which might (only) lead to unexpected behaviour.

This would be similar to the initial no-go situation with the DOS 2.5 image of Morloc. It had more than one file buffer allocated and therefore MEMLO was at little too high for Morloc to work correctly.

[ballyalley]

34 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

spoiler alert, in case you don't want to know, your eyes you should avert!

 

Eyes NOT averted!  I'll have to try that the next time that I play the game.  When I beat Morloc I'll have you to thank for it.

 

Adam

[+MrFish]

18 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

There are several.

 

Most of the ones I have seen so far do USR()-calls which do not pull the argument count from the stack and RTS to oblivion. Due to some lucky coincidence Rev. A eventually will return to BASIC anyway. All other BASIC revisions just crash.

 

This cannot be the case here since Morloc does not crash, but I am sure that there are some other subtle differences between BASIC revisions which might (only) lead to unexpected behaviour.

This would be similar to the initial no-go situation with the DOS 2.5 image of Morloc. It had more than one file buffer allocated and therefore MEMLO was at little too high for Morloc to work correctly.

 

The particular instance I'm referring to is the Atari BASIC version of Instedit (character set editor). When running under any version of BASIC other than A, editing the pixels of any character will yield unintended results (pixels other than the ones chosen being turned off/on). I have no idea what the problem is related to, exactly, as I haven't examined the source code regarding those operations; but the program does not crash as a result of the problem (it just makes a mess out of your characters  ).

 

[_The Doctor__]

Kill Morloc with thrusts of your blade if that isn't clear, as your going to going to need to beat him up and he's almost never going to miss, you wanna get close and be quick with your blade.