Castle of Doom: Evil Swords and Unresponsive Parsers

So, it turns out I needed to TAKE DIRT three times in a row, which first revealed a hole, then got me bitten by something, making my finger swell up, but finally revealed a key! Unfortunately, the parser already feels inconsistent: While, for example, TAKE KEY worked fine, TAKE DIRT only produced a “Huh?” I had to first type TAKE, making the parser ask for an object, then type DIRT.

Proceeding north, I can now use the key to unlock the gate. For some reason, the game now wants me to GO UP not just NORTH (I see no stairs or second story, just the open castle gate). Anyway, I find myself in a Great Hall and in the EAST I find a suspicious bolt protruding from the wall. After trying a few verbs, when I finally try PULL BOLT, I get captures by a guard and throw into the Dungeon. To be honest, I have no idea if there was any causal connection or if this was some kind of timed event. Aaaand, well that looks like a dead end. The Dungeon contains no exits, no objects to examine, and for some weird reason, each couple of turns, the game tells me I’ve just been captured by a guard and thrown back into the Dungeon. While I was already in the Dungeon. Umm. I guess the game hits the same endless bug loop of death as it did last time when I got killed by the crocodile. Time to reload a save state and try something else.

Come on game, you could at least try to mention the clearly visible door, chains and whatever that weird orange puddle on the floor is.

This time I’m checking out the WEST part of the Great Hall, which immediately looks much more promising: I see some stairs leading up, but I also note a message and some scroll on the floor. I pick up both... but no matter what I try, I can’t either of those damn things; the obvious READ produces nothing, nor does EXAMINE, LOOK AT, nor CHECK, sigh. So are these just objects I need later, and I’m not supposed to read them? A hint from parser would be nice, but whatever. I also tried dropping both objects again, but that didn't help either. I guess I’ll just have to move on for now. Oh and of course after poking the parser too long, I’m getting captured by the guard again and thrown into the Dungeon. So it’s some kind of timed puzzle after all, great.

So, back at the West part of the Great Hall, I this time get the message and the scroll and quickly move up into the Knight’s Room where I find some Bones and then move north to the Armory, where I find an evil-looking Sword. Let’s see what this does at some point... Moving further North, I come to the Picture Gallery, where I find a painting of King Arthur, which I can’t do anything with.

There must be something going on with that painting.

Skipping a bit ahead now, I explored more adjacent rooms, like the Attic, Storage Room, and a few rooms that first seemed promising but turned out to be uninteresting, like the Court Room with its Throne and the Royal Money Chambers, as well as a Red and a Black Tower, both empty dead ends. On my way, I picked up some skeletons (not sure how that works logistically, but carrying a couple of complete skeletons around is a funny image), as well as a rope. In the Royal Money Chambers, I also found a carton that I can’t do anything with, even if the picture shows it as opened. That parser is just so damn stingy with its responses; it’s really annoying. Some kind of feedback other than just “huh?” would be so much more helpful. With all rooms explored, I feel a bit lost, so for next session, I’ll probably find my way back to Seth and see if I can give him the Message or the Old Scroll. One thing that seems to have made my life easier was the Sword I picked up earlier—instead of getting captured, I’m now just getting regular messages that I was nearly captured by the guard. I mean, it’s an evil sword, so I guess it’s protecting me. But why was it openly lying around in the Armory then? And why could I just pick it up without any trouble? Guess I’m just that fearless (well, or just evil myself, but let’s not go there).

Maybe my English is not adequate, but isn’t “carton” a weird word for that thing? What about “coffer” or just “chest” or “box”?

Time so far: 2 hours