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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 28, 2016 13:08:48 GMT
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 24, 2016 16:37:38 GMT
A little while ago I remembered that I'd messed around with the 12 days of Christmas on this thread in 2014. (Actually I'd thought it was 2015, which is alarming, but never mind.) It took a bit of effort but the result seemed just about worth it. So I thought I'd have a go at a carol I had an idea for. Even though this needed a truck load of knowledge that was beyond me and needed looking up on Titannica (and Champskees's solutions) and it wasn't at all clear how it would work. Not sure the effort was justified by the results this time round, but what the hell? Here it is: We three wizards demonic are Zagor, Balthus, Zharradan Marr Field and fountain, moor and mountain Soon to be in our power
O... Marr of wonder, Za of night Dire with royal beauty bright Horrors leading, nomads bleeding Allansia shall fear our might
Born to rule, is Balthus my name Golden fleece my hydra will tame Dire forever, peasants never Knives on Darkstorm to rain
Chorus
Fangs of dragons to defeat my Last defence - or cyclops' eye Mountain mazing, demon raising Warlock Zagor most high
Chorus
Marr am I, my creature of doom Breathes a life of havoc and gloom Wbkj ngiv bpp vrs,ubr fbk jngig btf wbys Seals me in nether-tomb
Chorus ...if anyone fancies doing the alleluia bit, knock yourself out. Anyway, Merry Christmas forum regulars and returners: deadshadowrunner, tammy, sylas, kieran, hyreck, greenspine, champskees, Alex, paltogue, offm, Pete Byrdie, Phil Sadler, John Brawn, lordomnibok, Steven Doig, nathanh, vastariner, Blackheart, bloodbeasthandler and the rest.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 23, 2016 20:49:52 GMT
Hi Adam.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 23, 2016 20:49:13 GMT
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 23, 2016 3:55:10 GMT
Well I can't remember the reference number, but it was the first time Jim Carrey spots her across the room... Cameron Diaz She reacted angrily and unleashed a golem at him, I think.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 22, 2016 2:34:58 GMT
We may choose four of these. That's all right with me. Any objections, greenspine, thealmightymudworm? Fine by me. And since you and Phil chose the books, is it okay if mudworm and I set the bonus challenges? If so, I have challenges in mind for Master of Chaos and Spectral Stalkers. Though I could probably come up with something for either of the others if mudworm prefers one or both of these. Well that depends... although I haven't played any of them very recently I used to know MoC very well and SS fairly well. The other two I'm much less familiar with ( Masks of Mayhem in particular isn't ringing any bells at all - except that I recall Cameron Diaz was pretty hot in it). So I don't think I could set bonus challenges for those two. That said, I don't mind not setting any. If you have a couple ready to go, perhaps we should go with those and Messrs Heart and Sadler could come up with one each?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 20, 2016 23:01:25 GMT
Welcome.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 19, 2016 0:41:03 GMT
I've never tried taking part in these before, but could probably give one a go. I'm not expecting to be especially busy after Christmas.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 16, 2016 20:23:27 GMT
I wrote this up ages ago but it seems I never posted it. Some spoilers, natch. _________________________________________________ I basically dislike this book, which I simply hit a brick wall with in my teenage years – and yet I have quite mixed feelings because in some ways it’s impressive. It's obviously a clever idea to have a sort of hidden spiritual quest running through the thing, and the idea of starting as a developing child is very promising. If I wanted to make the argument that gamebooks could be sophisticated things and carry high concepts, TCT would be a better example than most. But I can't think it's a good thing if only a small minority of people who buy a book (aimed at children/teenagers) ever finish it. I recall anson mentioned on TUFFF that FF got him over his 'reluctant reader' phase. He might be illiterate now if his first book had been TCT. People on forums like this one are maybe more likely to be the sort of obsessive masochists required. Perhaps I'm just bitter about it because I failed and had to Google my way to sunil060902's walkthrough on TUFFF. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be here. At one point, noticing references to the author's previous book BVP, I actually started wondering if you had to have read that book too to '...know of another option.' Having read Moonrunner shortly before and being familiar with being asked to recall odd looking codewords (mostly ordinary words spelt backwards) there's no way it would have occurred to me to write down the words and worry about the order (far less the answer to the scholar's riddle, even if I'd got it right). In any case, I think I usually tried to learn from Flying Turtle in the monastery, so at best I'd have ended up with "When king offers wood, turn" which is a disturbing message. Or more likely, on my muddled adventure sheet, "When king offers wood, never turn" or "When king offers wood, turn green". Those should be impossible, but I believe the tantalising acid-trip promise of "When king offers spider-monk..." is possible. Anyway, some comments on a few random things: 1) It's been suggested by the author that some YAEH paragraphs shouldn't be seen as failures. Becoming a basket-weaver or a monk is not a bad result. (Champskees even wrote walkthroughs for them.) It's tempting to be facetious and wonder if the book was drafted not for 'Fighting Fantasy' but the less popular 'Accepting Banality' series, but I sort of get it up to a point. Clearing your mind of your blind hatred for your father's killer and doing something more constructive is a sort of win. However, leaving aside the fact that mercenaries are still laying the country to waste, (that's maybe not your responsibility after all) you're also giving up on your mum being rescued from slavery. That really does seem like a failure of character, whether cowardice or coldness. I mean I've had my ups and down with my mum, but I've always decided not to sell her into slavery. And this would be much worse because you don't even get the cash for her. 2) I've seen here and elsewhere that many people don't really understand the task with the bowl. (Quite possibly this was discussed in the missing posts, but they're gone.) My best understanding is... You are told that the artefact is something highly valued. Heading into the mini-quest, you discover that you are actually inside your own mind. Taking the bowl with care and reverence results in it consuming you with its great heat. You must simply grab it. If you are on a quest for Dry Jade (ie the right path), he smashes it (which is pretty rude), whereas Clown Face 'places it reverentially on a plinth'. So the whole thing is simply a microcosm of your path through the book: the bowl is your goal of slaying your father's killer. Treat it as beyond question and its heat will destroy you. Remember that it's your choice and it is no longer a threat. The abbots represent those choices once more. It's also worth noting that if you injure the white-faced dude with your wood-stamping prowess (as taught to you by Flying Turtle - who was presumably named after an extremely controversial Hale & Pace sketch), his stats increase, representing the fact that your apparent little victory is actually making your path to true success harder (or in fact impossible). (Of course I am just assuming that these stats were deliberate rather than mistakenly written in the wrong way round, which is what I assumed as a teenager. I 'corrected' them in pencil. But that would never happen in an FF book, right?) I can't say I'm entirely sure why taking the sword still sheathed means that you deserve to be crushed by an enormous hand. Because the scabbard has jewels on it? Not for the first time, that seems harsh. Or perhaps the idea is that failing to draw the sword represents a reluctance to take action. You must be bold, even if you're also prepared to change the purpose of your quest. Obviously the handing an item to your father is a reminder that the strength of your hatred is drawing on the strength of the more positive emotion of your love (and grief) for him. 3) Attacking non-aggressive elderly men with a sorcerous air has always been a mistake in FF and far beyond. Master Yao is, however, the only one who casually napalms your face. 4) I'm with fallingmast on the development of teenage stats: a good idea but imperfectly done. You naturally want to enjoy the process of converting your dumb kid into a warrior, but that's not really what happens on the winning path. Your guy is still pretty weedy and clumsy by the end. Of course the point may again be that you shouldn't be concentrating on that as the only stat which matters is your Ferocity (which you don't realise at the beginning is a 'bad' stat). But if so, I want a better fun/moralising ratio from a book with an angry dagger logo and two inexplicable sharkdudes on the front. This is maybe a matter of taste. 5) WRT the infamous mudworm. Paul Mason notes the implausibility of having worms regularly popping up in the paddies with the fighting prowess of a T-Rex, dragon or demon. But what's worse is that your character is quite specifically mentioned as having killed one in the Background, and that this was the moment the other kids started taking you seriously. I bet they did! A mudworm in action Clearly a kid that may have Skill 1 (in which case they would automatically fail a normal Test of Skill) armed with a twig would not beat one of these creatures. Perhaps they might manage a mudworm with bad flu or suicidal tendencies. More likely YOU managed to kick yourself in the face whilst attempting to climb a tree, and simply fell on it.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 5, 2016 3:35:03 GMT
Sword of the Samurai - Hero with two swords goes to fetch another sword
He must: a) Learn a commonly known word b) Not be afraid of shadows c) Avoid stabbing himself
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Dec 2, 2016 16:37:24 GMT
Don´t quite follow your response hynreck , but since we are off-topic does anyone know why Tammy deleted her account? I think hynreck was noting other likely consequences of a passing hurricane. No I don't. I would like to know. She appeared to chuck it in immediately after the US election – not that I'd suggesting that was the reason.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 13, 2016 15:27:14 GMT
I've fixed the link, but it's just to a tweet so there's not much info available.
Something not too unbalanced would be nice, yes.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 13, 2016 5:09:07 GMT
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Nov 2, 2016 20:05:50 GMT
Where the heck do you come up with this stuff, mudworm. Couldn't eat it anyways, I'll get zits. You mean you'd prefer to eat your clotted blood integrated into a puffed quinoa bar? I'm sure Kat and Rei are working on something to suit.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 29, 2016 13:24:52 GMT
Hmm seems like a better sequel than Revenge of the Vampire! I always wonder how evil Reiner Heydrich actually was. It's Katarina who kidnaps the girl (and presumably had been the kidnapper of the other girls in the village) and tries to get you to murder innocents. While as Reiner seems to allow his family to live in his castle regardless of whether they support his vampirism or not. It only seems to be in the sequel that he becomes a real evil so-and-so. Maybe he was just misunderstood, an Edward needing a Bella to see the good in him Also if you don't like people asking you about the name of your inn, why give it such a confusing name in the first place? I'd always sort of assumed that the two of them were in it together. Katarina presumably makes creams and ointments out of the harvested blood whilst Reiner makes his special chocolate biscuit/jaffa cake things. They're probably like one of those poncey little companies which are always run by a couple or siblings or something where they make 64 different things (food, clothing, cleaning products...) out of kelp and are really smug about it even though all the things they sell are rubbish. Bloody hipsters.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 26, 2016 23:07:01 GMT
Greenspine gets it spot on again. I was worried that not everyone would have heard of mace as a spice. If anyone was struggling to remember the monster, here you go: As John suggested I had in mind that the pot was full of acid and a hydroxide or carbonate was hidden away ready to neutralise it if you solved the puzzle - probably carbonate given the fizzing. (I do a bit of tutoring in Chemistry.) From now on, I've decided to do Sid-style puzzles at most only every other go as I still feel that this thread is in danger of getting too rich for some tastes. (Of course I've only solved one so far, so it might be a while before this happens.) I'd like to think all regular visitors would enjoy contributing here. That said, I've tentatively added another potential strand to Sid puzzles. You have now picked up an item: a coat stolen from Primark Shadow Cloak. Possibly future puzzles might require you to use something from your inventory... It's interesting how they're evolving. Initially I introduced Sid just for a question about how a crazy guy might live his life, but he's gradually become more Sukumvittish.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 26, 2016 22:18:51 GMT
a moderator takes the bottle marked 'Mace' from the rack and sprinkles a little of the contents into the pot. The substance does not look like the spice as you remember it, but more like a white powder. At first the 'water' fizzes angrily, but the more you add the less it bubbles and after a time the powder collects at the bottom. Tentatively you dip your hand into the water. It is very warm, but otherwise seems normal. You try to scoop the skull-thing out of the water, but it resists. The whole thing was coated in clear film to protect it from the liquid, and you find there seems to be a cord attached to the base of the skull which passes down to the base of the pan... and through it, through a valve of some kind. Sid has drilled right through the base of the saucepan and into the cooker, passing the cord through. You pull firmly up on the skull, drawing the cord up, and hear a clunk from within or behind the cooker, and the whole thing swings slowly round towards you as the door it was attached to opens. Hanging in the corner, tucked away until the cooker shifted, is a long black coat complete with a hood. You put it on immediately as cold air blasts through the doorway - and besides perhaps Sid intends you to take it.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 25, 2016 19:04:41 GMT
No - there are no actual sea-creatures involved. The legs are of the sort they are because I thought Sid thought they captured the hard, jointed, scuttley nature of the original. Nor is there an octopus involved - merely tentacles.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 24, 2016 22:15:54 GMT
*Silence* Again, people shouldn't think about the cooking aspect. It may not be clear why Sid has set this up like this until after the solution has been found. Try to picture the thing represented in the pot. It's a crude recreation of something illustrated in a book. The octopus is stuffed in head first so that only the limbs are visible. 'Flesh-free head' might be thought to be a slightly unusual description.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 23, 2016 22:33:02 GMT
The animal species from which the flesh-free head was taken isn't important - I decided that at the last minute.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 22, 2016 18:58:13 GMT
Are you supposed to create a recipe with a spice/herb? Something to turn the water alkali? My 3rd year chemistry probably does not suffice? Well Sid is relying on acids and alkalis for the set up, but don't worry too much about that. 'Recipe' sounds a bit complicated. The solution can be expressed in a sentence, or two short sentences at most. Still, with so many bottles on the rack you'd need even more luck virus than you would to get through greenspine's puzzle. Any thoughts on the contents of the pot?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 22, 2016 14:25:06 GMT
This is probably a more whimsical puzzle than my previous one. Perhaps I should say that the FF-reference is nothing to do with cooking, although some Earthly culinary knowledge may help.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 21, 2016 17:01:58 GMT
You step through the door, but to your disappointment your path is immediately blocked by an old cooker with a saucepan on it. You are not in a true kitchen, clearly, as this is a very small area, like a cupboard or a porch. In fact the cooker does not appear to be plugged into anything.
You peer into the saucepan and find some pretty strange contents under the water. The central item is a sheep's head which has had most of the flesh boiled or stripped off. It seems to have the remains of an octopus or squid stuffed into its mouth. Underneath it are some jointed legs, possibly from a crab or a lobster.
Now that you are looking directly down on it, you notice a note behind the saucepan. "Don't burn yourself by reaching into the pot. Add something to improve it instead."
This seems baffling. How can the water burn you if the cooker is not plugged in? But on closer inspection you see that there is a spatula in the pot which has been slightly warped beneath the surface. Clearly this is not just water. Perhaps you could just tip it out? No, silly you, the saucepan is of course welded to the top of the cooker. You consider tipping the whole cooker over but even if you could, Sid will have thought of that too. Probably safer to play the game.
On the wall to your left is an impressive spice rack, with at least a hundred little jars containing all the herbs and spices you can think of – or at least that's what the labels claim.
What will you pick? You suspect there are consequences for picking the wrong one.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 21, 2016 17:01:39 GMT
if that's the right answer, it would be incredibly appropriate considering your avatar, mudworm Yes indeed. Demons of the Deep has always been a favourite of mine. Good puzzle greenspine. Sorry for the delay in picking up the baton.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 17, 2016 21:44:00 GMT
Trying the orange keyhole will indeed get you a dart in the head. The tip has been blunted, so it's merely painful rather than fatal (Sid's not mad enough to want you dead), but it's not the sort of thing you'd want to experience repeatedly. Only 10 more wrong guesses possible, but I hope someone can figure out the clue and get the right answer for the right reason. One element of thealmightymudworm's suggestion was heading in the right general direction, even if not on the correct track. In that case - though shielding my head with the manticore whilst doing this - I'd like to try the grey lock on the basis that there is a wizard in book number 19, Demons of the Deep, named Greylock.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 16, 2016 18:45:57 GMT
I don't have a clue about the answer to the riddle (although I wondered whether 19 wizard was a reference to the 19th book published by Wizard - ie Temple of Terror?) but I am enjoying the descriptions, especially the manticore.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 13, 2016 5:03:15 GMT
a moderator carefully ascends the stairs watching for traps, paying particular attention to the last step. Sure enough there is a hole to the side of this step which might be mistaken for a mousehole, Dropping an empty boot onto the step results in a syringe being fired across the step at calf-level. On closer inspection the syringe appears to contain vodka. An injection of that into your leg could have erased your special skill of being able to walk. On closer inspection the mannequin is clutching a scrap of paper. It also has two small holes bored into its neck which are leaking what appears to be green food colouring. The holes almost obliterate the moulded words 'RETURN TO PRIMARK'. Your turn. (If you or anyone wants to use the scrap of paper or yet-to-be-discovered perfumed envelope as the kick-off for the next puzzle, go ahead.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 12, 2016 3:40:27 GMT
Despite the number of good ideas, no one is really close to solving the puzzle as I've written it.
I'm going to put this T-Rex to bed now: The T-Rex is not representing a dinosaur. Indeed you may mistake the thing it is for a human but it is not a human, rather something more lizard-like/reptilian. Nor is it clockwork - merely something moving of its own accord. Sid might reasonably have used a live trained lizard, except that it would have been unnecessarily difficult to train a lizard to walk on its hind legs like the T-Rex or the thing it's representing.
Btw, the book with the scene in question has been mentioned since I posted the puzzle.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 10, 2016 23:07:43 GMT
All good advice ^^ I am working on an FF thing at the moment (and if hynreck is reading, yes it's the thing I was intending to finish in June, and it's still nowhere near finished) so I'll see if I can make it closer to error-free than this one.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 10, 2016 1:33:40 GMT
I'll just throw out a silly idea. You throw the mannequin at the T-rex. (Pun intended). The idea is that the mannequin is the monkey charm and the T-rex is the Pit Fiend from Deathtrap Dungeon. That's quite ingenious but not the answer. i too am finding this rather difficult. it's only easy when you know the answer. You're right of course. No one should ever declare their own puzzle as the easiest. I do think that it's simpler than you're both making it though. Simple and easy aren't always the same thing admittedly, but it is just a matter of scene recognition. The 'compromising on accuracy' I mentioned is centred on the toy dinosaur, which I think is probably the stumbling block you're both bumping up against. I know there are T-Rexs in Robot Commando, but there are no clockwork ones walking down stairs so something has to give here. (Bear in mind that Sid's best approximation of a bloodbeast is a cat in a pullover.) The mannequin is representing a corpse. So you're at the foot of some stairs. There's a corpse waiting for you at the top. Something passes you before you start climbing the stairs. Does that help? [I haven't the faintest idea how/why Sylas's avatar has duplicated itself in the middle of my post, but it's so random that I'm going to leave it there. Don't want to offend the gods of Chaos now, do I?]
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