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Gemstone Warrior - Mystery items


Lord Thag

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I found myself playing this old classic after work this week, it always amazes me how far ahead of the time it was considering how popular roguelikes are now, and that it's substantially more fun than Rogue proper was.

But here's the thing. There are a few items that I don't, to this day, know the function of. They were listed as 'unknown' in the manual. The bent dagger I believe you can throw at monsters, and the dice throw up some kind of forcefield... but the flower? No idea. And even more mysterious is the 'ancient black thing', the floppy disk item. No one seems to know what this does, it's listed as unknown in the manual and not a single forum post or faq anywhere online seems to know what it does either.

So, does *anyone* know what the heck the disk item does in this game?

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Hello Lord Thag

Hail, hale and well met! :)

 

I did not know there was a fully functional, playable version of Gemstone Warrior.

All versions I've tried from the usual sources lock up after opening screen. :?

 

A scanned manual for Gemstone Warrior would be great!

Not sure if you'd seen this but attached is txt doc of instructions for Gemstone Warrior from here at AtariAge in a post by MrFish (hope it's okay to repost this!).

 

Looks like the use of the floppy disc is listed as "unknown" but I hope this helps!

 

Good luck and best regards

Fingolfin

Gemstone Warrior.txt

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Hello Lord Thag

Hail, hale and well met! :)

 

I did not know there was a fully functional, playable version of Gemstone Warrior.

All versions I've tried from the usual sources lock up after opening screen. :?

 

A scanned manual for Gemstone Warrior would be great!

Not sure if you'd seen this but attached is txt doc of instructions for Gemstone Warrior from here at AtariAge in a post by MrFish (hope it's okay to repost this!).

 

Looks like the use of the floppy disc is listed as "unknown" but I hope this helps!

 

Good luck and best regards

Fingolfin

I had issues with the Atarimania one, but the download from Fandal works fine for me on SIO2SD, but not on my SIDE2 cart:

 

http://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=4047

 

I have the physical manual (still have the original game CIB). As I mentioned, 4 items are listed as 'unknown' as you said. I'm hoping someone here knows what the flower and disk items do, or maybe inspire a few others to mess around and see if we can collectively figure it out. It's a really fun game.

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Thanks for the link, Lord Thag! I look forward to trying Gemstone Warrior! :thumbsup:

 

I seemed to have repeatedly missed that you looked in the manual when I first read your post/question.

Somehow thought you were looking for a manual...sorry 'bout that, need some sleep. :sleep:

 

Very cool you own a copy of Gemstone Warrior. ;-)

 

FWIW here's a copy of a good scan of a Gemstone Warrior Manual for Apple II and C64 downloaded from archive.org.

Gemstone_Warrior.pdf

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Thanks for the link, Lord Thag! I look forward to trying Gemstone Warrior! :thumbsup:

 

I seemed to have repeatedly missed that you looked in the manual when I first read your post/question.

Somehow thought you were looking for a manual...sorry 'bout that, need some sleep. :sleep:

 

Very cool you own a copy of Gemstone Warrior. ;-)

 

FWIW here's a copy of a good scan of a Gemstone Warrior Manual for Apple II and C64 downloaded from archive.org.

No worries, it's late lol. But do check the game out, it's basically an 8-bit precursor to games like diablo, titan quest etc.

 

And if you figure out what the heck the disks do, let me know.

 

Anyone else have a clue?

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Some things have very specific circumstances in which they can be used (like the resurrection item). I know theres a list somewhere, Ill do some digging. Back in the day I had almost all of them figured out.

Any luck, by chance? This is one of those decades-old childhood mysteries I wanna solve :-D

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No I haven't had any time to look. I found this list in an FAQ (which I assume you've found too) with some annotations from me.

 

White potion: Strong Poison. Leaves you on the edge of death
Green potion: Weak poison. Takes away life
Purple potion: Strong Healing Potion. Heals you fully
Crystal ball: Bomb. Destroys all enemies within the vicinity
Scroll: Illusion. Projects you as a skeleton (monsters ignore you)
Cup: Weak Healing Potion. Partial healing
Book: Cures poison
Skull staff: Protection (shield)
Horn: Allows resurrection

 

Flower: I don't know
Bent Dagger: I don't know. (P)ut it to throw at monsters?
Dice: Seems to put a bubble around you--protection?

 

 

The Dice might be another form of shield that is either stronger/weaker than the Staff or lasts shorter/longer than the Staff. I'd have to do some comparisons.

 

The Flower might be a bonus point item or something else useless. That I remember never finding a use for.

 

The Dagger might be a stronger projectile weapon. Try throwing it and seeing.

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No I haven't had any time to look. I found this list in an FAQ (which I assume you've found too) with some annotations from me.

 

White potion: Strong Poison. Leaves you on the edge of death

Green potion: Weak poison. Takes away life

Purple potion: Strong Healing Potion. Heals you fully

Crystal ball: Bomb. Destroys all enemies within the vicinity

Scroll: Illusion. Projects you as a skeleton (monsters ignore you)

Cup: Weak Healing Potion. Partial healing

Book: Cures poison

Skull staff: Protection (shield)

Horn: Allows resurrection

 

Flower: I don't know

Bent Dagger: I don't know. (P)ut it to throw at monsters?

Dice: Seems to put a bubble around you--protection?

 

 

The Dice might be another form of shield that is either stronger/weaker than the Staff or lasts shorter/longer than the Staff. I'd have to do some comparisons.

 

The Flower might be a bonus point item or something else useless. That I remember never finding a use for.

 

The Dagger might be a stronger projectile weapon. Try throwing it and seeing.

Yeah I'd seen that.

 

I believe the dice are a slightly longer lasting shield, like you said, but I've no idea what the disk or flower do. I always kind of wondered if it had something to do with saving, but it never seemed to have an effect that I could figure out.

 

I'm beginning to think no one knows. I'll mess around with it again.

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Yeah I'd seen that.

 

I believe the dice are a slightly longer lasting shield, like you said, but I've no idea what the disk or flower do. I always kind of wondered if it had something to do with saving, but it never seemed to have an effect that I could figure out.

 

I'm beginning to think no one knows. I'll mess around with it again.

 

Someone will just have to look into the code I guess. It's also possible they are purposely useless but I kind of doubt that. They're probably just situational and we've never tried them in the correct spot. They also could have something to do with the timer once you get the Gemstone assembled (increasing it or decreasing it). Since I've only done that once I can't say for sure.

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Someone will just have to look into the code I guess. It's also possible they are purposely useless but I kind of doubt that. They're probably just situational and we've never tried them in the correct spot. They also could have something to do with the timer once you get the Gemstone assembled (increasing it or decreasing it). Since I've only done that once I can't say for sure.

Yeah, I suspect you are right, and it's something along those lines. We should probably get to that state in an emulator and save it, and then experiment around with it using save states. I've only gotten that far once myself, it gets pretty hardcore after that. Maybe this weekend.

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Yeah, I suspect you are right, and it's something along those lines. We should probably get to that state in an emulator and save it, and then experiment around with it using save states. I've only gotten that far once myself, it gets pretty hardcore after that. Maybe this weekend.

I've got MGC this weekend but next week I'll fire up an emulator and see what I can find. It's been a long time since I've played this.

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I've got MGC this weekend but next week I'll fire up an emulator and see what I can find. It's been a long time since I've played this.

I'll do the same. I played it some the other day. It's surprising how fun this game still is still.

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  • 2 years later...

I have never played this before I got an SD Max and want to give it a go as it came on the SD card with it. However since the other similar games are missing files on this SD card(Phantasie II, AR) they are currently unplayable. While GW. starts up and plays i don't know if I have all the files(discs). So does anyone how many discs or files rather GW needs?

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IIRC, GW was just a one disk game, I used to own the original until the great software catastrophe of the late 90's. (personal catastrophe). Great game, I started playing it again about a year ago as I never finished it back in the day.

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On 4/7/2018 at 11:38 PM, Lord Thag said:

No worries, it's late lol. But do check the game out, it's basically an 8-bit precursor to games like diablo, titan quest etc.

 

And if you figure out what the heck the disks do, let me know.

 

Anyone else have a clue?

Would you be interested in scanning the actual Atari manual?

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There are two versions of the manual for the Atari. The early one, that was just the Apple/C64 one which had a seperate sheet for the Atari. Then in 1985 the did a new manual that had the Atari in it. That one still needs to be scanned. No I don't have it but once I get one I will.

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I don't have the '85 Atari manual but I do have something else. I'm working on it now. Hopefully I can finish it today.

 

Update: Uploading to Archive.org now.

Edited by Allan
Missed a page. Re-uploading.
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5 minutes ago, JagChris said:

They should have cartridgized(I think i invented a word) all these games once the XEGS came out that they could have. Would have helped with sales.

For sure.  I started collecting the XEGS carts recently, they actually released a lot more than I thought they would have. 

Gemstone Warrior was one game I never got that far in, as I would either die or it would crash on the 800xl. 

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