Since I'm too lazy to make a Let's Play (making screencaps, posting them and making links seems like a major chore), I'll instead make a thread where I jot down my impressions of this rather obscure Wizardry clone.
It's an Apple only game from 1988, same year as Wizardry 5, but was not released until 1999, so you will find very little discussion about it on the internet. The major discussions, from a BBS, are collected in a PDF file name Tome of Arcane, which can be downloaded, along with the manual and the game itself from the Silvern Castle home page.
Getting it to run can be a problem, but fortunately a busy Bee has done the hard work for us:
So get AppleWin and follow the above instructions. Only problem I've encountered was to get the "Closed Apple"/Options key to work; I had to switch from Norwegian to English (US) keyboard.
The graphics is just as lovely as those of Wiz 1-5. Here's my party heading back to town after their latest foray into the Maze:
The gameplay is pretty similar too, but with some additional rules/annoyances, like Encumbrance.
According to the manual stats can go both up or down at level ups, but so far the worst thing that's happened was that one character got no stat increases at all.
In Wiz 1-5 you only got bonuses if having stats of 16-18. In Silvern it's my impression that they are more evenly distributed.
It still pays to max out stats, though, since the game has a facility called the Proving Grounds, where you can "buy" and "sell" stat points. So if you start with 18 Luck and 6 Str, you can sell 1 point of Luck and buy 3-4 points of STR, while at character creation all points have the same "price".
When you get enough stats and character levels you can promote characters to prestige classes, like Ranger, Druid, Assassin, Wizard, Monk and Mystic. One interesting thing is that the game even features the change classes back and forth scheme of Wiz 6-7, even though written before those games. Doing so may in fact be a way to oppose the main decline compared to the Wizardry games: Level Scaling.
The level scaling is blatantly obvious. My lvl 1 party encountered only single parties with 1-4 enemies. At lvl 2 they encountered single parties with 1-6 enemies. At lvl 3 they can meet up to two parties with 1-8 enemies each.
At lvl 3, while still exploring lvl 1 of the Maze, some monsters start fleeing from combat.
I have explored nearly all of lvl 1, and I can't say I'm directly impressed.
It's not bad, just a bit bland.
The maps are 27x27 in size, but there's very few squares of interest. On lvl 1 there's no fixed encounters and only a handful of messages. The author seems to have been a world class Apple fanboi, since nearly every message mentions Apple.
Other things I've noticed:
There's no monsters in the rooms, they are most usually found just outside the room, and less frequently in the hallways.
There's a more limited menagerie than on the first level of Wiz 1, but each enemy seems to have a wider variery of equipment, and many will use items. If the program takes several second to generate the encounter, you know it will be a big one...
Using the currency from D&D with copper coins weighing down your party was not a good decision, methinks.
The game is much more configurable than other blobbers, so you can make the party ignore everything less valuable than gold coins, for example.
The game has also adopted D&D's rule of making demihumans very powerful in the beginning, but useless at the highest levels.
So a major decision in the game will wether to use demihumans or not, or use them only in the beginning.
Personally I went with a Dwarf Fighter, a Hobbit Thief, a Gnome Cleric and an Elf Mage. Of these only the Fighter and Cleric has made a difference so far. The Dwarf since he's a killing machine and the Gnome because she's got lots of spell points to cast healing spells. I have't seen single chest so far for the Hobbit to meddle with, and there's little need for casting mage spells on lvl 1 of the Maze.
The game is supposed to be harder than Wiz 1, but so far I've had only one character death - the Elf Mage. Resurrection cost is far lower than in Wizardry, but I decided to replace him with a Human Mage instead.
In combat a character does not die immediately if going below 0 HP. Instead he's dying, so if you heal him before taking another blow, you can save him. This combined with low Resurrect cost makes the game easier than Wiz 1 so far.
Stay tuned, as my party prepared to descend to lvl 2 of the Maze.
It's an Apple only game from 1988, same year as Wizardry 5, but was not released until 1999, so you will find very little discussion about it on the internet. The major discussions, from a BBS, are collected in a PDF file name Tome of Arcane, which can be downloaded, along with the manual and the game itself from the Silvern Castle home page.
Getting it to run can be a problem, but fortunately a busy Bee has done the hard work for us:
So get AppleWin and follow the above instructions. Only problem I've encountered was to get the "Closed Apple"/Options key to work; I had to switch from Norwegian to English (US) keyboard.
The graphics is just as lovely as those of Wiz 1-5. Here's my party heading back to town after their latest foray into the Maze:
The gameplay is pretty similar too, but with some additional rules/annoyances, like Encumbrance.
According to the manual stats can go both up or down at level ups, but so far the worst thing that's happened was that one character got no stat increases at all.
In Wiz 1-5 you only got bonuses if having stats of 16-18. In Silvern it's my impression that they are more evenly distributed.
It still pays to max out stats, though, since the game has a facility called the Proving Grounds, where you can "buy" and "sell" stat points. So if you start with 18 Luck and 6 Str, you can sell 1 point of Luck and buy 3-4 points of STR, while at character creation all points have the same "price".
When you get enough stats and character levels you can promote characters to prestige classes, like Ranger, Druid, Assassin, Wizard, Monk and Mystic. One interesting thing is that the game even features the change classes back and forth scheme of Wiz 6-7, even though written before those games. Doing so may in fact be a way to oppose the main decline compared to the Wizardry games: Level Scaling.
The level scaling is blatantly obvious. My lvl 1 party encountered only single parties with 1-4 enemies. At lvl 2 they encountered single parties with 1-6 enemies. At lvl 3 they can meet up to two parties with 1-8 enemies each.
At lvl 3, while still exploring lvl 1 of the Maze, some monsters start fleeing from combat.
I have explored nearly all of lvl 1, and I can't say I'm directly impressed.
It's not bad, just a bit bland.
The maps are 27x27 in size, but there's very few squares of interest. On lvl 1 there's no fixed encounters and only a handful of messages. The author seems to have been a world class Apple fanboi, since nearly every message mentions Apple.
Other things I've noticed:
There's no monsters in the rooms, they are most usually found just outside the room, and less frequently in the hallways.
There's a more limited menagerie than on the first level of Wiz 1, but each enemy seems to have a wider variery of equipment, and many will use items. If the program takes several second to generate the encounter, you know it will be a big one...
Using the currency from D&D with copper coins weighing down your party was not a good decision, methinks.
The game is much more configurable than other blobbers, so you can make the party ignore everything less valuable than gold coins, for example.
The game has also adopted D&D's rule of making demihumans very powerful in the beginning, but useless at the highest levels.
So a major decision in the game will wether to use demihumans or not, or use them only in the beginning.
Personally I went with a Dwarf Fighter, a Hobbit Thief, a Gnome Cleric and an Elf Mage. Of these only the Fighter and Cleric has made a difference so far. The Dwarf since he's a killing machine and the Gnome because she's got lots of spell points to cast healing spells. I have't seen single chest so far for the Hobbit to meddle with, and there's little need for casting mage spells on lvl 1 of the Maze.
The game is supposed to be harder than Wiz 1, but so far I've had only one character death - the Elf Mage. Resurrection cost is far lower than in Wizardry, but I decided to replace him with a Human Mage instead.
In combat a character does not die immediately if going below 0 HP. Instead he's dying, so if you heal him before taking another blow, you can save him. This combined with low Resurrect cost makes the game easier than Wiz 1 so far.
Stay tuned, as my party prepared to descend to lvl 2 of the Maze.
So not really a challenge
