Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Orthanc: Delving Deeper

I feel like I'm in the hone stretch with this game now.  I'm currently about half-way through mapping level 8, and I feel like I have the game beat.  As with all the games of this vintage that I've played so far, it comes down to two things: knowing the right spell to use in a given situation, and knowing when to get the hell out of the dungeon.

There is, of course, a third factor, and that's luck.  Just a few nights ago I was trucking along nicely with a 9th level character, only to be surprised by an Evil High Priest and killed before I could even react.  It happens; sometimes the random chance goes against you.  But I've gotten to a point where I feel like I've minimised that random chance as much as I can.  I'm starting to encounter 10th-level monsters now: Dragons, Balrogs, and even the dreaded Programmers.  With smart spell usage and a bit of luck I find that I can take them out without to much trouble, and if I do find myself overwhelmed I can always escape with a Teleport.  Hopefully next week I'll be able to make my final post on the game, and move on to something else.

Before I finish this post, I did want to point out how awesome the Arrows of Slaying are now that I've found some.  I found a bunch of ten and a bunch of eight, and they're indispensable on the lower levels of the dungeon.  If you have any of these arrows, you get the option of firing one whenever you encounter a creature of the Mythical class, and it will kill the monster outright.  There are some nasty monsters in that class: Balrogs, Dragons, Griffins, Lammasu, Purple Worms, Umber Hulks and Wyverns make up a sizable portion of the level 9 and 10 monsters.  Having that instant kill in the arsenal is a life-saver.

This was a short post, so here: have some more maps.

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7

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