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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 8, 2016 14:31:15 GMT
It's not that difficult. In fact it's probably the easiest Sid puzzle so far (not that any of them are easy-easy). Certainly not as difficult as my first one. I should perhaps say – in case people are inclined to take things too literally - that Sid may occasionally compromise on the accuracy of his FF references for reasons for expense or convenience. (Especially if it suits the sense of humour of the puzzle-setter. ) I'm quite happy coming up with puzzles to keep things moving, but it worries me that people are seizing up. I wonder if starting with a relatively complex/long-winded puzzle has made everyone reluctant to post anything which isn't like that. I was intending a much more 'anything goes' thread with a wide variety of puzzle types and levels of difficulty. The 'name two weapons named after celestial bodies' puzzle is just as valid as anything else. Almost anything is better than grinding to a halt.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Oct 7, 2016 14:32:26 GMT
OK I'll chuck another one in (this is my fourth and I haven't actually solved any yet!) Sticking with Sid...
You make your way through the turnstile and find yourself at the bottom of a dark staircase apparently below street level, with such light as there is being natural light seeping down from the floor above. You have no option but to ascend the stairs. Wait... what's that?
As you watch through the gloom, a small, clockwork T-Rex makes its way down the last few steps, tumbling over each drop but picking itself up and finally inching past you and disappearing into a hole in the wall. This takes several minutes, but you are so bewildered that you watch it all the way.
At the top of the stairs is... oh God it's a corpse! No, wait, maybe it's just a mannequin lying down. (Maybe it's the shop dummy that you'd read in the local paper someone had run off with...?) You can't make out much of the thing – only part of it's head and arm – but it looks like it might have something clasped in its hand.
It seems that the stairs are the only way for you to go, but you can't believe you'll make it to the top without something weird happening. Perhaps you'll get a face-full of bats or the mannequin will explode, dousing you with fake blood or something. What's the best way to proceed?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 29, 2016 14:05:26 GMT
Hi Mudworm, here are my thoughts as promised. Your writing style has a lovely flow, and this infuses the whole experience with an immersive quality. Your pages also seemed the perfect length to me; good, tight editing has allowed you to say more with less, and the descriptions are great. The plot was both creative and uniquely funny - it had something of Dougherty’s Krampus about it – and though it is fair to say that one man’s meat is another man’s gravy, the humour was perfect for my taste. The replay value was also good; you had just sixty two pages, yet on the fourth read I was still stumbling into new areas. I also found the difficulty well balanced; I am an unlucky roller with the dice - a poor trait for a gamebook fan - but certain artefacts helped me negate this tendency towards bad luck. To conclude, I think you’ve done an excellent job. At sixty odd refs, a time-poor gamer can still get into it, and it was a great mini adventure. I would definitely recommend that others give it a go. I’d probably have even bought it and put it on my shelf, were it in the shops. I did find a couple of SUPER TINY errors, missing words and the like. If you want to polish your diamond, let me know and I’ll message you what I found. I won’t be able to do it immediately though, as I have a heap of stuff to do in the coming week. Thanks again for posting up this story. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much for this – it's so generous that I almost didn't know what to say. Obviously I'm delighted at pretty much all of that. I tried to put a bit of effort into the descriptions and design (the jokes are more of a compulsion...) but you never know whether these things have come off. Not forgetting the biggest compliment of all for an amateur writer: the suggestion that someone might actually part with money for their work! I'd never heard of Krampus before, but I'm quite intrigued now having looked it up on Wikipedia. ...and yes any errors you've found, let me know. I usually pride myself on my proofreading skills* but have found a number of niggling errors in this and my other minis after posting them. It's just too easy to read what you know it's supposed to say. I forgot to ask. I'm curious as to how long this took you to write and edit. I'm not sure exactly. I know I'd started to write it by early in November, and might have started a bit earlier than that, but probably wasn't chucking many hours per week at it until late on. The trigger was probably that I've always found the idea of Rudolph having a nose which can actually project light a bit weird and in need of explanation. The idea that he might be part dragon and be able to blast fire out of it sort of set the tone for the whole thing. *That said, I did once apply for a job, (admittedly not one I wanted a great deal) only to discover afterwards that I'd referred to my having 'excellent profreading skills' in the covering email. I might have got away with it if it was an academic job.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 25, 2016 19:58:22 GMT
Hey just a few months later, no troubles...
To be fair (?), I've tackle this little game story quite a while ago, but then end of summer vacation, and a month of preparations until my (very soon) wedding has transformed me into a busy man with no time to spare. Well... one thing replaces another, right? In any case, here I am. It won't be much of a review I'm afraid, but here goes nothing:
Basically I had fun with it and I assume it does what you wanted it to do; entertain without much pretention. I had a go at it three times: first time I aborted my attempt not because I failed but because I got too swamped with work to go real far, and enough time passed that I went "let's just start over". Second time is that start over that finally allowed me to finish (and win), and third time is, well, technically it is more or less a third time since I was just not satisfied with my end result on that second try and wished to improve my confort/joy score, so I went for specific parts of the story where I knew I had failed at guessing properly which way to go (more specifically the ending, as is usual for me, a wrong turn taking me straight to the villain, too soon (I mean I'd probably be an incredible blood hound, but as a FF-like adventurer, such direct approach sucks)).
I must admit I cheated on battles, because with as much time as I've got, I would still be at it right now if it wasn't the case. I was still able, overall, to judge the fairness of the presented confrontations, and it seems to me fair enough. Last confrontation seemed overly tricky, perhaps a bit difficult, but hard to tell if it will suck the joy and confort out of anybody. I have less patience today for such things but perhaps I'm in the minority.
Other than that, it was pretty fun to go through that story of yours. As I've said before you have a nice flowing prose, easygoing, and your humour is very... fitting? I guess I'm not very good at criticising humour. But you've put a smile on my face, and since I'm rarely the type of laugh-at-loud guy, that's an accomplishment alright. Aha - it never occurred to me that you were still looking at this. First of all: Many congratulations on your upcoming wedding! May your love be more durable than Shanzikuul, Cheater of Death, prove more pure than the noble Ki-Rin and shine brighter than the lethal force-beam of Globus. (Feel free to incorporate these into your speech - no need to thank me.) Pleased you had fun with it in the end. Indeed a blood hound's instincts are probably not what you need - I think you charged straight at Horace in HotV as well, didn't you? Mind you, it's better to be a blood hound than a stench hound. I think once it gets down to it the mechanics of the final encounter don't require much more in the way of dice-rolling or tallying than a normal fight, though a bit more careful reading is required. It is true in general that I've gone heavy on tweaking the mechanics of encounters in this - I don't think there's a single one which is an absolutely plain "You draw your sword. Fight General Generic Skill X Stamina Y. If you win..." The FF system for combat is simple, which is generally a good thing, but if there are too many bog standard combats it gets a bit bland. There's always a temptation to ginger them up a bit and I usually succumb... As for the sheer difficulty/probability of getting through it, a small spoiler... There is an item it's possible to pick up which helps you nudge things in the right direction. If you need a hint on where you might find the missing C&J points, here's a small one: When you enter the first house, inhabited by Esmerelda, consider which is likely to be the most time-sensitive option and go for that one. I think it's worth a look – it makes the 'cover art' make rather more sense for a start. This is a little mysterious – are you often infuriated by cake? I had Dr Seuss's Grinch in mind, but I deliberately left it vague so that it could be taken as a more generic evil lizardman if preferred. Thanks again. Hi Mudworm. I've just completed my second play through of this. I got my dice out and tackled it as per the rules, with no cheating. By the skin of my teeth, I just about made it through on my second go, but my Comfort & Joy points came out pretty low. Hopefully I'll have time to write a short review in the future, to share my thoughts, but I want to better my score first. I found the initial run throughs really enjoyable. Thank you for sharing this, its a great little adventure. Excellent. Whilst I know not everyone has the time or inclination to play with dice, it is good to get it tested in that department. I think once you've worked out most of the optimal choices the chances of your dying through dice-luck alone are not too bad. But you tell me!
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 19, 2016 14:20:13 GMT
I'm struggling a bit here. Probably there's a book involved that I'm not very familiar with. My first thought was that perhaps the sink had an alarming whirlpool in it, which might refer to a few different FF books (though none I can think of offhand). Then I wondered if there was something about the pipes - something like a particularly spectacular set of intricate coloured pipes. I think there's something like that in some book, but again I can't pin it down. Then I thought that perhaps the recalling of Portal mentions in the first bit was significant. Dismissing the idea that the sink could contain something resembling a portal, I wondered whether it was always full of water with just an overflow pipe high up the side, with something resembling gold nuggets submerged there. (Presumably not real gold - pebbles with water-resistant gold paint or something.) Are any of these ideas less wrong than the others? I'm quite pleased with the versatility of these Sid-style puzzles actually. There are so many ways to be stupid and wrong.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 16, 2016 21:19:55 GMT
Sure. So the story behind this was that I shamelessly stole TAM's puzzle made something you could call an "expansion pack" to TAM's original puzzle. Because, you know, I was out of ideas. Hope you don't mind, TAM. Anyway, without further ado, here it is. Opening your mailbox, a torrent of envelopes spill out onto the floor. You gather them all up, but after opening them, you realise all of them are exactly the same. All 44 of them. They are from your friend Sid, who tells you to "ignore all duplicate letters" and something about "under mat" and "apfis nev". But the main message from his letter is to invite you over to his house. Apparently he has something amazing to show you. Strangely, he signs off as "The Big Bad". Still, you have come to understand that strange is the norm with Sid who is utterly obssessed with Fighting Fantasy. Hence, you drive over to his house but accidentally key in the co-ordinates wrongly, causing some unexpected delays.
You visit your friend Sid who is utterly obsessed with Fighting Fantasy. Before you go round to his house he tells you that the key is 'under mat' but it's not – and he won't open the door until you yell 'apfis nev' through the letterbox. Oh entering the house you are startled twice. Firstly because a wall is sculpted in such a way that a skeleton appears to be emerging from it. Secondly because Sid's cat is clad in close-fitting mini jersey which makes it look like it is covered in many extra eyes. Poor kitty. Sid also insisted that you bring a can of Heinz baked beans, and refuses to let you into the kitchen until you tell him that the number on it is '57'. Once inside, you are relieved when he offers you tea (rather than, say, a gloopy red wine, or cheese with white wine) and that it seems to be ordinary tea with ordinary milk (albeit served in antique goblets). But then Sid goes over to a hole in the wall just above the unit top and taps on the wall. You hear a scuffling sound from within the wall cavity. What happens next? Warning: Part ahead contains spoilers to TAM's original puzzle. A mouse with sugar cubes attached to its tail comes running out.Sid plucks them off and drops them into your tea. "Go on! Drink it!" He exclaims enthusiastically. You eye it uncertainly, but go ahead and drink-- and promptly spit it out. There are rat hairs in it! "Sorry, must have overlooked that. Why don't you wash the cup while I clean up the mess?" You mutter angrily to yourself as you head towards the sink. What happens next? I'm quite chuffed to see Sid returning in someone else's puzzle. Not much idea what the answer is though. I suppose it depends on whether the thing that happens is to do with the sink or the cleaning up. Would Sid have a special use for mouse hair? Or is there something to do with Sky Lord taps involved? (I don't own that book but something from someone's playthrough about deciding whether to look at the glass tap or the plastic one, (but then suddenly inexplicably losing interest in both and having to leave) sticks in the mind.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 8, 2016 1:58:24 GMT
I was being a little facetious. Crimson tide was great in many ways, just a bit to hard in my opinion. Greenspine is right though, cypyt would trump it on that basis Yes it made me chuckle. Especially as the reason I found TUFFF and subsequently this place was by googling for a TCT walkthrough, having turned the book up again after a number of years and thought 'Aw, hell no'. One thing you have to say about The Crimson Tide is that it pretty accurately gauges the chances of a 13 year old peasant striding all the way from paddy to palace, meeting the king for a chinwag and shaming him into delivering justice.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 6, 2016 0:55:37 GMT
Hi, I've found a page where you can access some really great fighting fantasy maps. Have a look here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crjfluoxkp They're pretty interesting, especially because the design of each map changes of one to the next. Did you make those maps? Don't worry, there's no shame in making shameless plugs (tautology intended) Given that this is the second time in this thread an unregistered user has plugged that fairly obscure link without posting anything else, and one of them has posted it here too, I think a certain degree of eyebrow-waggling is justified . But I agree, plugging stuff is OK so long as it's not crap.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 3, 2016 0:02:51 GMT
The sun jewel thingy from Sorcery which is acquired from the Mantis Man and is highly useful at the start of The Seven Serpents. The star disc from Caverns Of The Snow Witch. I realise these answers are a bit of a reach.They're good enough for me. Neither were the ones I was thinking of, which were both swords: Nightstar in VotV and less obviously the Moon Sword in MoC. Your turn, John. Something from a book or books with numbered paragraphs, not including Wittgenstein's Tractatus. (This is probably an obvious question, but as I've never actually owned Caverns: What exactly is a star-shaped disc? Shouldn't it be disc-shaped to be a disc?)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 2, 2016 13:29:03 GMT
As DSR doesn't have any enthusiasm for setting a puzzle atm, I'll throw an easy one into the mix to keep things moving (assuming no objections, especially from DSR...?).
Name two weapons with celestial bodies in their names. (I have two in mind, but anything that clearly matches those criteria will count.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 30, 2016 14:35:25 GMT
It's been a while since I read the book, but I'm pretty sure you are talking about Conrad being invincible thanks to lightning while the Obsidian Creature is killed by lightning. Although I'm not entirely sure if it is the Obsidian Creature or not... I sure hope I'm wrong though! Not sure if I can come up with another puzzle but I'll try. Then I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you're absolutely right. Conrad Zaar gets struck by lightning after you defeat him the first time and becomes the maniac guard. People think the face mask is a tribute to Hallowe'en I believe. The Obisian Predator with its impenetrable metal skin is guarding the Mask of Belthegor. Both are in Moonrunner. It strikes me that 'jump around avoiding your opponent and hope they get struck by lightning' must be one of the most desperate strategies in all of FF.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 29, 2016 18:08:32 GMT
No.
A clue: They have masks in common. One of them wears a mask; the other you encounter when looking for a mask.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 29, 2016 11:16:25 GMT
No, afraid not. It's not in Sorcery.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 28, 2016 1:18:36 GMT
In the interests of keeping things moving, here's a re-post from memory of the first puzzle I posted over on TUFFF:
In one of the FF books a natural phenomenon is bound up with two enemies that are impossible to beat through normal combat. It is the cause of one becoming invincible and the way the other is defeated.
Explain all.
...and John the natural phenomenon is not gravitational waves, I promise.
(When I first posted it, during a bout of insomnia, I thought it was mildly tricky, but Falling Mast had solved it perfectly by the time I got up for breakfast less than 3 hours later.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 23, 2016 13:55:32 GMT
Correct.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 23, 2016 1:39:00 GMT
Apologies for besmirching this thread with a picture meme, but I thought this sort of belonged here:
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 23, 2016 1:06:00 GMT
I was just considering this when you posted (but not getting far). At that point I was thinking that a snake with multiple heads must be a hydra, but maybe if the 'heads' are symbolic that doesn't hold...? I was also wondering whether the boney spider thing might be the skull beast from KotLL. So do I understand that the creature you're inside might be starting 'war' or 'nom' (for a dwarf or gnome with 'missing head and feet')? Is any of this on the right track? I'm liking it anyway – it's reminded me of scenes from the ITV children's TV classic Knightmare:
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 22, 2016 23:17:29 GMT
Oops, sorry for delay.
I'd like a brass charm, styled after a big cat, which gives you Tourette's Syndrome - please.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 21, 2016 14:28:25 GMT
This is somewhat off-topic, but there's just been a prog on BBC R4 about hypnosis. One of the people they had on it was Robin Waterfield as he wrote a book on the topic. Anyone interested in hearing the author of Phantoms of Fear chipping in on the subject of dream-like states could listen below: You Are Feeling Sleepy(BBC link - may not work outside the UK. Might add another if one is available)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 20, 2016 14:02:09 GMT
Portal of Evil, courtesy of Lignia.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 15, 2016 11:43:22 GMT
That's correct. Or to be precise: a mouse emerges from the wall with a string of white sugar cubes attached to its tail. Basic spoilers obviously...In Fangs of Fury you may be asked to examine illustrations to search for white cubes. One of these which Sid and I find memorable is this one: So that's it. My apologies to anyone who has found this baffling or disappointing. I don't entirely rule out using Sid again however...
Anyway it's good that DeadShadowRunner has got it as he's already posted a puzzle and the ball can keep rolling. Actually wilf should have gotten the credit, because he was the one who said it. I just shamelessly stole his answer. He made the key breakthrough, it's true. I was pretty much waiting for him to come back and give the answer, but he didn't mention the mouse/rat in his post at all. Yours was the first post which could reasonably be interpreted as the correct answer – even though I'm guessing you hadn't brought that illustration to mind – and you were also the first to mention FoF, even if only as part of a list. But I'm mostly justifying this so that Sylas can get on with solving your puzzle – if Wilf is extra keen to post one that's fine by me.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 15, 2016 0:56:57 GMT
If this is the level of difficulty can I request an easier project like trying to explain Critique Of Pure Reason in a single twitter post? I'm liking all these philosophy references John. I noticed you mentioned Hegel and Kierkegaard in the NotN thread and I recall we exchanged posts on Wittgenstein before... Since you mention that unlikely task, I might mention that I used to work for a company which offered to answer any question by text message. At one point I had to find a quote from Descartes in support of the biomechanical theory. I found some relevant quotes from Descartes in under a minute but I then had to find a way to force one into a text message ( including some indication of where the quote came from), even with some of the characters used up by the company blurb. It had (I think) 120 characters to play with – always including a full stop at the end. It took some time to work out how to compress a quote so that the entire thing was at least implied to the bastard who'd asked. Anyway my apologies if the puzzle left you puzzled, though I don't think it can rate as all that difficult in comparison to the task you've set yourself to solve NotN.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 15, 2016 0:20:57 GMT
So is the answer "a rat brings you some sugar cubes"? That's correct. Or to be precise: a mouse emerges from the wall with a string of white sugar cubes attached to its tail. Basic spoilers obviously...In Fangs of Fury you may be asked to examine illustrations to search for white cubes. One of these which Sid and I find memorable is this one: So that's it. My apologies to anyone who has found this baffling or disappointing. I don't entirely rule out using Sid again however...
Anyway it's good that DeadShadowRunner has got it as he's already posted a puzzle and the ball can keep rolling.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 14, 2016 21:29:56 GMT
A pity Fangs of Fury has been ruled out, because I'd be looking around for little white (sugar) cubes to put in my tea... I haven't ruled that out at all! Perhaps this can be wrapped up now...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 14, 2016 15:05:18 GMT
That's actually close enough to deserve the next clue: Sid set this up thinking of a particular illustration in a book in which you might be asked to look closely at the illustrations. (Not a biscuit though) I am going to sound out two possible red herrings. 1 In The Shamutanti Hills you are served the poisoned tea but you have to resist the temptation to swap it. 2 In Khare you have to read the inscription as to how to kiss the statue to find out about Fourga. Are these red herrings or relevant? Neither of those I'm afraid. Is the illustration contained in Fangs of Fury? Siege of Sardath? Or Rebel Planet? All three have parts where you need to look closely at the illustrations, but they don't seem like they would be the right books. I'm hoping not to specify which book it is before someone works something out in that direction, but I wouldn't rule anything out... I mentioned John's guess was not too far off but 'not a biscuit'. What else might you be offered if you've just been given a cup of tea with milk? (not a herring )
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 13, 2016 14:45:06 GMT
A rat serves you a biscuit? Completely baffled. That's actually close enough to deserve the next clue: Sid set this up thinking of a particular illustration in a book in which you might be asked to look closely at the illustrations. (Not a biscuit though)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 13, 2016 2:17:33 GMT
Thanks. I like the thinking but that's not it. You're right to focus on the kitchen. To clarify what I said above, I could pretty much have written the puzzle as "A crazed FF-fan shows you into his kitchen and..." followed by the last paragraph. ________________________ The best way to think about this is probably to imagine what's happening in the kitchen without trying to link it immediately to a particular FF-reference. It's that last bit which people will probably need a bit of a hint for, but I'd rather delay any major clues until people are on the right track. Bear in mind that part of what happens may be quite banal – you've just been given a cup of tea in a real-world kitchen. Perhaps people could speculate aloud rather than assuming it's too difficult?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 10, 2016 14:26:54 GMT
DSR is right. I can't remember it exactly myself, but I think there's a gold one and a silver one which boost your Luck and Stamina, and this can get you suckered into taking the copper one which cramps your Skill 'without you realising it'. I wondered in the Immersion Breakers thread whether it's in the right place for you to 'accidentally' lose the brooch you don't know you want to lose to a thief you don't know is pickpocketing you. Still don't have the book handy to check.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 10, 2016 4:25:37 GMT
A stylish copper scorpion brooch please.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 8, 2016 18:35:48 GMT
...and no, no hulk-like Jamie Thompson. i knew it wasn't the answer. i was just trying a similar tone in response referencing the Maijem Nosoth from Slaves of the Abyss. the Skeleton i thought was of the Mirror Demon picture where a skeleton seems stuck halfway in the wall, and Heinz i thought was Karl Heinz who tells you to look for stuff. Ah OK, I didn't think it was a serious answer but I didn't get the reference. There are all kinds of gaps in my FF knowledge – I may not get many of these puzzles once the thread starts going!
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