axewater Posted July 4, 2005 Share Posted July 4, 2005 wowzers ... you kicked my azz ! congrats on grabbing 1st place ... and even more congratulations on that flamesword !! I was reading on the alternate reality mailing lists that some people played the game for years trying to find on ... and you found it in your first day !! anyway if I get moved down from 2nd place, I'll start a new character... I enjoyed reading your adventures very much and it got me itching again but I have so much other stuff to do..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted July 6, 2005 Author Share Posted July 6, 2005 (edited) Yes, they are hard to find. I have only found one ever and that was after playing for a whole summer when I was a kid. I never found Magical Crystal Plate in The City though, it must be even harder to find because I rarely see any screenshots or people talking about finding it. However, overall, I bet the rarest thing to try to collect would be a full set of the finest most expensive clothing. Edited July 6, 2005 by Xebec's Demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartwhois Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 Greetz all - today was a bit better than yesterday; no close calls with the Grim Reaper First off, I discovered that since I'd saved and restarted, I could now re-enter the banks. *Phew* I flogged off my gems and jewels - one of which was worth a tidy sum: Soon I realised my assets - and decided to actually carry around all my money, rather than leaving it in the bank (although the interest was pretty... um... interesting!) (In case you miss it, that 1,138 GOLD - w00t! ) Now that I'm rolling in moolah, I figured that I can join some of the exclusive clubs - the Misty Mountains, for example. Shame it's so expensive to buy a round of drinks in here, though!! More friends are always welcome - although I'm starting to get concerned that if I have so many friends in all the different taverns, the liklihood of me encountering them - and most likely killing them - is beginning to increase. Not a nice thought - how to become evil instantly! To advertise my richness, I decide to splash out on some tasteful clothes: I was originally trying to get all white stuff, but nobody had more than the two I got (a jerkin and a cloak) - until, of course, I bought some gold things... then *everyone* started selling white clothes! Argh! I find some more potions - no treasure finding this time around, but I suspect that somebody is trying to tell me something... ... and so I'll call it a night. Still no resolution to the depleting HP, though. I stacked up on 30+ water flasks and 20 food packets, and tried sleeping for days on end. I'm now midway through the month of "First Fruits", having slept for most of the month of "Sowings"... and I'm still not right. Ah well, at least it ensures that I sleep regularly! It's getting obvious that it's harder to increase in level now - this one session acquired 13k experience (a whole load of encounters - mostly outside the two shops in the south-west corner) but I'm still level 8... *must try harder* 882489[/snapback] dude!!! dozens of tf pots...flamesword...magical junk up the butt....100k exp....all in one week!!11!! get out of town...Xebec that is...admit it you cheated! whats...funny is eveyone here beleives you...lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chunder Posted July 14, 2005 Share Posted July 14, 2005 dude!!! dozens of tf pots...flamesword...magical junk up the butt....100k exp....all in one week!!11!! get out of town...Xebec that is...admit it you cheated! whats...funny is eveyone here beleives you...lol Dude! You're talking out of your arse! LOL!!!11!!1ONE Have you tried "magical junk up the butt"? Such a turn on! Nice and tingly! The character disk is there for you to try - I haven't gone back to play with the same character yet (my last 9 characters have all died *extremely* quickly ) - perhaps anyone using the same char would have the same kind of "luck"? There are also regular screenshots - you can see when the stats go up, when the level changes. I also posted screenshots showing the "You found a ..." message in order to allay suspicions like this. Go pack your bong again, dude, and chill yourself out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted August 1, 2005 Author Share Posted August 1, 2005 (edited) Chunder, I have to admit, that I wondered the same thing after seeing your character get potion after potion of Treasure Finding. Usually, finding potions is hard enough, but Treasure Finding potions are very few and far between. Of course, all it takes is the 5 second editing of the potion counter or Treasure Finding stat to 255 to give any character the same outcome. With AR so easy and tempting to cheat, we have to rely on the honor system. Therefore, smartwhois, unless you can prove him wrong, it's not a good idea to make such accusations. He could have just been really lucky. Good job Chunder. Edited August 1, 2005 by Xebec's Demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chunder Posted August 2, 2005 Share Posted August 2, 2005 Exactly - I'd already experimented elsewhere with other characters to try and understand more of the inner workings; there's no point cheating in a competition that doesn't even have a prize!! :) I also made the character disk available so that anyone can play the same character, and see how the same things happen to them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chunder Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 (edited) Damn... double posteration... Edited August 11, 2005 by Chunder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chunder Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 (edited) Wo - Look who I just encountered!! I've not seen one of these guys in the City before; I must've picked on the wrong person :-) (Note that this was with the Thoreandan character disk that I linked to earlier; I was playing around to see if I was as lucky as previously... this sequence of pictures will probably tell you if I was or not...) Fastest. Death. Ever. Hit hit me first with a different poisoned weapon than any of the subsequent ones he used; I've never seen such a lethal attack, nor such a variety of weapons - most creatures only have two... RIP Thoreandan... for the second time! Edited August 11, 2005 by Chunder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hicksman Posted August 12, 2005 Share Posted August 12, 2005 Damn, i didnt know weapons could be poisoned. I really need to play more. Hey Chunder, take a look at my posts in Xebec's original AR thread. I have some questions you might be able to answer. Good luck with your next character! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted August 24, 2005 Author Share Posted August 24, 2005 Wo - Look who I just encountered!! I've not seen one of these guys in the City before; I must've picked on the wrong person :-)909379[/snapback] Very nice screenshots! I don't ever remember seeing one of these guys. Was it the hit from the Poisoned Shri-Ken that Paralyzed you? If it was, did it Paralyze you the first time you were hit? Supposedly they have the following attacks: poisoned shri-ken strangling wire poisoned dagger nanchucks longsword sword Did you notice all of them and do you remeber the effects of each? Is it the strangling wire that can kill any character in one hit no matter how many hit points? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trusty Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Whoa! Was just surfing around and stumbled upon this port to a cartridge! I will DEFINATELY be scoring one of these! A little story about Alternate Reality- The City: I was first exposed to the insanity of Alternate Reality through my Commodore 64. Seasons passed while roaming the city. I lost all track of time. One day something curious happened. I don't know exactly how I did it, but I inserted one of the disks and the game freaked out on me. Once I restored order, I noticed I now had a pre-loaded character that I could use. His name was Mondo-Awesome!. The funny thing about using this character in game was that everywhere you went, NOBODY would want anything to do with you. If you went into an Inn, Tavern or talked to somebody on the street, you were promptly told to "Go Away, We Don't Deal With The Likes Of You!!" Has anyone ever heard of this crack in the game? I seem to be the only one thats ever encountered this! Anyway, Giant KUDOS for making this into a cart! This is truly one of those games that will forever live in my memories. SjN http://www.sjnstudios.com/weblog/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axewater Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I don't think he cheated. I was also more lucky in the characer I posted here then ever before. I found tons of treasure finding potions, I don't remember ever finding that many when I played it on my real atari back in the good old days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilog Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 I was first exposed to the insanity of Alternate Reality through my Commodore 64. Seasons passed while roaming the city. I lost all track of time. One day something curious happened. I don't know exactly how I did it, but I inserted one of the disks and the game freaked out on me. Once I restored order, I noticed I now had a pre-loaded character that I could use. His name was Mondo-Awesome!. The funny thing about using this character in game was that everywhere you went, NOBODY would want anything to do with you. If you went into an Inn, Tavern or talked to somebody on the street, you were promptly told to "Go Away, We Don't Deal With The Likes Of You!!" Has anyone ever heard of this crack in the game? I seem to be the only one thats ever encountered this! I'm sure I've read about this recently, probably in the AR conference texts thread. Guilherme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 I'm BACK! Yeah! I've been playing AR the City the last few nights, again, I do this once every few months, and I have a character I built up to level 8 and just recently aquired the FlameSword! with the help of a potion of treasure finding, which I have never had too much trouble getting if I get potions at all. The trick is to be in bad parts of town at night or in the rain, that is when you meet imps and gouls and similiar creatures of the night that carry lots of potions. I'm hacking up Knights, assasins and green dragons with ease now, before they use to kill me quicker than I could blink! I want to start a new AR competition, tow actually, for both the city and dungeon running in parallel. I wnat to make it with no cheating per-se, but you CAN back-up your character, unlike the last contest. This way, we can see some great characters down the road. My only other rule I'd like is that the character must have been started within the last 6 months. I don't want to be competing against someone's level 50 character that's been around since the 80's or anything. What do you guys think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 For HSC3 we can have a 1 year contest on both - see how much experience one can get through the year on both - backups allowed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paradigm76 Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 I know this isnt the right place to ask but im dying to play this game but i cant get it to work. I played this game a little bit on our old Tandy 1000 when i was a kid and forgot about it since and was amazed when i stumbled on it again. I downloaded the DOS version but when i get into the gameplay i cant make anything out. I make a new character, get my stats and then i cant see where im going, i can only see the stats and a few other words. I appreciate any help, thanks Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted February 14, 2006 Author Share Posted February 14, 2006 Download the Atari 800 version along with Atari800win emulator for your PC: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...ndpost&p=852519 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thoréandan Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 (edited) Wow, this looks so cool. Is there anybody still around playing this competition? The last post here was in February 2006, and it's now November 2006. Maybe we could start a whole new challenge if there is nobody still playing. I'm keen to give it a go. I'm an old AR fan from way back. Edited November 2, 2006 by Thoréandan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 I just rolled my absolute best character ever, 15 minutes ago! And it was all by chance! I loaded up Atari800Win to watch the Numen demo and because it already had AR Disk 1 in drive 1 it booted AR. Since it was already loading, I decided to watch the entire AR preview and song. It was a nice review. Then at the green character menu I just had to go for a character! Watching only the WIS and SKL numbers, which are right next to each other, I waited until they were both 19+ - the awesome bonus is that when I looked over to see my STA it was on 20 also! I was so excited and unprepared that I missed my own screenshot rule (forgot which key to push for the screenshot in the emulator, you really don't have a lot of time - its F10!!!). Since others have had the same difficulty, it might be good to recommend a screenshot, but not make it a requirement. Its going to be tough to get going with such a low STR and INT compounded by the difficulty of only getting 102 coppers to start with, but I'll do my best playing ever to try to survive! Welcome our newest entrant, Teris: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thoréandan Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 I've been practicing, and getting ready to join the competition here. I'm using the Atari800Win PLus emulator on my Win2K computer. I have a question... The game works fine, and I have developed a Level 5 character named Ozob. He goes out a lot at night and in the rain, and hangs out in back alleys searching for Goblins and Gremlins. His stash of Magic Potions is quite incredible now :-) However, he recently returned home (to the Sleeping Dragon Inn, Southeast quadrant) just as the sun was beginning to rise, but the innkeeper wouldn't let him in the door. Each time he tries to go in, it says "Entering..." and then "Leaving..." straight after it. Getting rather weary, he decided to return to the City Square and spend the night in the hyper-inflated Inn there instead. They wouldn't let him in either. Now it seems that other establishments are refusing him admittance also. I remember having this problem once before, when I was playing this game on my orginal Atari 800XL 8-bit computer back in the 1980's. I can't remember what caused it, nor what the solution was. I'd hate to have this happen suddenly when I am competing in the competition. Any advice you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted November 10, 2006 Author Share Posted November 10, 2006 (edited) Some character info is saved to disk 2 during bootup and when entering establishments. If you use a different disk 2 or use save states in an emulator this can happen. If you want to minimize the risk of your character being corrupted, load and save your character normally and always use the same disk 2 your character was created with and last used to load with. Some report success with backing up disk 2 when making a save state, but for my best characters I still don't risk it, I do full boots and saves. You would think that doing a save state would save everything, but what happens is the character info stored on disk 2 gets out of sync with your save state character when you go back and use a save state over again. I believe you are fine as long as you only use your save states once, to resume where you left off, and not revisit them again. Edited November 10, 2006 by Xebec's Demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted November 21, 2006 Author Share Posted November 21, 2006 (edited) My earliest memory is of some sort of floating portal in the mid-day sun. It's all a daze, but it seems I was standing there, staring for a lifetime… Walking the streets, I immediately encountered a small man in short-ish pants and undersized vest. I greeted him. For a short pause only the wind whistled down the street as we sized each other up. He grinned back, jumping at me with a switchblade! I did my best to defend myself, feeling I would prevail over this small bully… …I was wrong, nearly dead wrong! He did not slash me often, or deep, but it was enough. With all my effort, he swiftly swatted away each and every one of my swings as if they were flies. He was invulnerable to my attacks. Realizing it was my last chance to escape, I threw a single copper coin down the street. The fool fell for it, chasing after the coin as it bounced down the cobblestone street! It was well spent; I bought my life for a copper. Wrapping my wounds as best I could with scraps from my loincloth, I journeyed onward. Things were crystal clear now, forget the odd floating portal, I knew for certain that I must arm myself or face certain death. And then the rain came pouring down… Edited November 21, 2006 by Xebec's Demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted November 21, 2006 Author Share Posted November 21, 2006 (edited) Fortunately it was not long after, that I heard the chinking of a smithy hammer against the cold metal of an anvil, a beacon in the dark storm… Driving a hard bargain I was able to barter a dagger to 74 coppers, leaving plenty for some much needed medical attention…Ah, a brief moment of sanctuary! The wise healer is as welcoming as his abode.For 10 coppers my wounds were completely treated and bandaged. I graciously thanked the healer and stepped outside, this time armed with steel and more cautious…Lo and behold! Who should be waiting outside the healer's home for me? None other than the cowardly and quite foolish dingy little man that had chased my coin down the street and left me for dead. Still, I cautiously waited to see how he would receive me…Cackling, he attacked me within seconds. However, this time, with a blade in my hand, I found it quite simple to parry his slashes! Stabbing with the sharp blade of my shiny knife, I penetrated his leathery callous skin. His eyes filled with fear as my dagger continued to find it's mark – this time his intended victim was not so helplessly unarmed! As the would-be-mugger turned to run, I dealt the final blow, he fell to the street and cried out for help. My copper was gone, but I did not mind, he paid me interest with silver! What ye sow, ye shall reap. Several hours later his guild mates began tracking me down…… and paid me more silver! As darkness shrouded the town, the guild of muggers must have felt safer sending one of their lieutenants after me. His experience was apparent as he landed several blows… … however, in the end, his contribution to my cause, was just the same! Seeing me wounded, a helpful stranger in a magically sparkling cloak gave me directions to his guild house, promising help if fate found me worthy of finding my way. The directions were daunting, but exact, and I soon found myself in the shelter and company of many wise mysterious sorcerers. One of them spoke ancient words that touched my soul and filled me with unknown strength and life. I decided to stay for a while, listening to the invitingly hypnotic music and conversation filling the halls of the house... Star Wizard's Guild video Edited November 21, 2006 by Xebec's Demise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclecticmonk Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 EclecticMonk... Played this game to death in the mid 80s... Back then had a pretty good chr. After finally getting one to survive I ended up with Magic Crystal Plate and Flamesword... Was always bummed I could never get into the Arena or the Palace... In the end it seems I had discovered just about evrything... Still... great game... Anyways heres my new stab at a chr. screenshot included. -D- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xebec's Demise Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 Sorry, I was unable to update the high scores with your character because there was a cut off date for editing posts, which was only recently removed. But, now there is a limit on the number of images per post, so when I try to add your character in I get an error message that says I have already posted more images than I am allowed. So, for now I put a link to your character screenshot in the rankings. Hopefully you have not given up. If you have more screenshots of your progress, post them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.