Ross's Game Dungeon: The Cave World Saga

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I love the sort of "seeing something that should never be seen by anyone" -type of feel that Ross' Game Dungeon gives. The only other show that gives the same kind feeling is Best of the Worst by Red Letter Media.

👍︎︎ 60 👤︎︎ u/Lairdom 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies
👍︎︎ 35 👤︎︎ u/Coypop 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

Yes! Love Ross's videos, he's goes into such detail about these random, generally unknown games of interest. I'm happy he's still making these.

👍︎︎ 52 👤︎︎ u/Straint 📅︎︎ Jun 30 2019 🗫︎ replies

OK, aside from the continued excellence of Ross's Game Dungeon, I have to point out that the real-time OCR and translation is a super neat concept.

👍︎︎ 60 👤︎︎ u/RoboticWater 📅︎︎ Jun 30 2019 🗫︎ replies

Seems like a neat game. I never really played any of these point and click adventure games but they are interesting from an outsider's perspective.

I like the art though. Definitely getting some Roger Dean vibes from the pterodactyls/dragons and the giant stone mesas and arches.

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/DeusDeceptor 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

WELCOME TO THE GAME DUNGEON

I love it when he posts a new video I watch em all the way through. I sometimes marathon em too

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/cbsa82 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

Oooh glorious day, a new video from Ross. I love the deep dives he takes. This will be a treat when I get back home, can't wait.

👍︎︎ 12 👤︎︎ u/Negaflux 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

Man I played the shareware version of Solar winds so much

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Grokta 📅︎︎ Jul 01 2019 🗫︎ replies

I get in trouble with the boss for hour-long shits... anyone have a summary?

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/scurvybill 📅︎︎ Jun 30 2019 🗫︎ replies
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Hey! Welcome to the Game Dungeon! Today we have a special episode. Now in making this series, I admit there's a certain allure to finding a game the Internet's never seen before. I've only pulled that off once and that was just luck. But the thing is, while I'm sure there are some more games people have never seen before, they're probably not that great. If anything, "Bip Bop" is a perfect example of what to expect when you're talking about an unheard-of game, because, y'know...it's kind of understandable that this almost got lost to time. There's not too many of the old frontiers left in gaming. We have to find new ones. So today, I'm NOT bringing you an undiscovered game, but I'm bringing the next best thing. But first, let's rewind a little bit. When I covered "Nyet III", I couldn't...or rather, I didn't WANT to beat it, so I let you guys tackle it instead. Well some of you tore into that in a matter of hours and unveiled the ending, which I showed on the follow-up episode. In that, they gave us a clue--in German--about their next game. Since that was developed by Proline Software, I deduced they referring to "Die Höhlenwelt-Saga: Der leuchtende Kristall" or something. But lo and behold, that game is German only, and I still don't speak German. It seems that's becoming an increasing liability on this show. Anyway, viewer Barry Rowe does, and he took this to heart. Not only did he crack open access to some of the game files, but then he went on to create his own software to translate THE ENTIRE GAME into English! Yeah, that's right! I'm not bringing you an undiscovered game. I'm bringing you an undiscovered game to everyone except Germans. I mean, this is really all Barry; I'm just a loudspeaker. But man, we've got some causality going on here. Since I showed Nyet III, you guys beat it, then I showed the ending, which led us to Barry unlocking it for us. I guess this all works because nobody had the time travel to do this. Whatever. Gaming history's getting made now. I'm excited. This is like uncovering a lost temple in the jungle that only Germans have been to. And even then, it's not a LOT of Germans. So buckle up! We're going to be the first non-Germans to go inside and find out what this game's about. And this is no Bip Bop. We have professional art, a full story, German voice acting... This is a real production on par with some of the best 1994 had to offer. As I say this, I have not played this game. And YOU haven't played this game...unless you're German. This is as good as game discoveries get...for non-Germans. Let's go! [Subtitles by danielsangeo] Before we begin, I want to emphasize I know nothing about this game except some screenshots. All I know is we have a space trucker and dinosaurs. So, you know what that means. That means this game has promise. Is this going to be like a cross between "Space Truckers" and "Jurassic Park"? That could be a real shot in the arm for games in general. Because while there's no shortage of dinosaur games, space trucker games are few and far between. Now granted, there ARE a lot of space games that have you move cargo from Point A to Point B, but that's not what I mean. Those don't give us any culture. I want to see you stop as Space Waffle House for breakfast, come across a fight at a Space Road House, on long hauls, wonder if your wife is cheating on you back planetside. You don't get that from most space games. We'll see what we get here. There's a chance we might hit pay dirt. Okay, let's begin. [music] [music] Oh, and you hear that? [music] Yeah! 44 kilohertz CD audio music! That means no compromises in the music for games from this time. Hell yes. So we start off and we're space trucking. This is exactly what I want to see. ["Eric 'Speedy' MacDoughan ist Raumpilot. ["Mit kleinen kurier und fracht aufträgern verdient--"] Okay, pause, pause. We have to make a quick pit stop. I'm as eager to get going as you are, but I need to explain what you're about to witness. Barry's software "ZTranslate" works by scanning the screen and trying to identify text when it recognizes a pattern. So the German isn't changed in-game; it's his software intercepting and translating it. What's more is, this is kind of a fussy program. At first I ran it off the hard drive. That was a mistake. It hammered it and led to the whole system stalling every now and then. That was solved by moving it to my SSD, but the program still runs at 100% single-thread CPU usage. So it's huffing and puffing. Oh, speaking of which, I've always wondered about this. Modern CPUs have multiple cores, so in theory-- IN THEORY! --if I'm running a program that's designed to use just one core with a program like ZTranslate, and I still have available memory, then if I run another program on the remaining cores, everything else should still be buttery-smooth, right, as long as I'm not exceeding my CPU capacity? Well, in the real world...uh...sometimes. Other times, no. That one program finds a way to slow everything else down. I've never understood why that does or does not happen. From my perspective, I may as well be angering the computer gods because of an insufficient offering. Anyway, what this means is we need to run ZTranslate, the game itself, AND screen-recording software all at the same time. Yeah, this episode is going to be fun to edit. Long story short, this is what it looks like in real time. So yeah, while this may as well be magic, it's slow magic. So I'm just going to have to make judgment calls when to give you the silky-smooth German footage, OR the choppy and stuttering English. This is going to be a little janky, but hey, you open up a lost temple, you have to cut through the cobwebs. Plus, I don't know why, but I have a certain respect for software that is really inefficient and finicky, but is also performing small miracles that nothing else does. Okay! Truck stop's over! Onto the game now, for real! Back to space trucking, we get an eleven minute intro, and it goes over a lot. So here's the abridged version. We play Eric "Speedy" MacDoughan, and I'm sorry, but I'm not going to call him "Speedy". That name is claimed in my brain by Speedy Gonzales. He was there first. Anyway, he's a down-on-his-luck space trucker. Of course he is. But the one thing going for him is he met the woman of his dreams: Maomi. They were hitting things off great, but then on vacation, she just disappeared. Since then, he's been looking for her for over a year, until finally he got some info that she was seen hanging around a strange being, and got into a ship with him and took off. Yeah, okay. This is a good space trucker story. Your woman goes missing, then she's last seen cruising around with some alien. What the hell? Well, we're going to have to sort THAT out one way or another. So now we're heading towards the mystery ship's destination. The game doesn't say how we got any of this information or knew where it was going, but whatever, that's not important. Hey, look! Part of the game is in English! This isn't a translation; this is the original game! So we find the ship, then we find the guy who took Maomi. Wow, this might be a short game. His name's Cal. Well, what's he got that I don't? Okay, the game says he did NOT kidnap her. Well... That's a start, but I think most women look for more than that in a guy. Next he says there's a fabulous planet beneath the surface. I guess that's why this game is called "The Cave World". But then aggressive lizard people came and conquered it 1,000 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's Maomi? Next, he says he's the ultimate weapon against the lizard people, and is an android, I guess? Maomi left me for an android?! Jesus... His creator got betrayed and Cal had to flee before he was finished. Then Maomi found them and now she's joined the rebels. What? MacDoughan says he's going to rescue her, and Cal here says I "know nothing of the caveworld". I guess he's got me there. Now his creator is working on making a special drug that's a small crystal. Yeah, we have those on my planet, too. Then Cal asks me to go get the drugs, and meet up with the rebels, and tells me I'll be a hero. Oh yeah! That all sounds like it's on the up-and-up. Isn't that kind of what we did during the Contras? I don't know, MacDoughan. This has trouble written all over it. It sounds Maomi has some serious baggage. She did you a favor by disappearing. But he's in love so what are you going to do? Then Cal says he needs to recharge, and now I'm on my own. So what we have here is a fish out of water trucker stumbling into some mystical underworld, huh? Okay. Not a bad influence to be working with. And the game starts. It's your standard graphic adventure. Just look at and interact with everything and hope something will make sense. We'll see how far I get on my own. Now as I play this, I don't know if this is more LucasArts-style, where you can indeed beat the game, or Sierra-style, where you can screw yourself and not realize it until hours later. I guess we'll find out! Now this may be a little frustrating to watch because there's a delay as I'm waiting for the translation to kick in as I look at things. So it's kind of like talking to people on the moon. I'm used to this sort of thing. It doesn't help though that MacDoughan takes his time to walk everywhere. Newer adventure games will let you double- click to hurry up, but this is old school. Well, if you're going to be a space trucker, the one thing you need to have is patience. And I should mention that there's a bug with ZTranslate where it will chop off the bottom of the screen. This means some text I don't get a translation of. Let's hope nothing crucial appears down there. See, this is what I mean. I feel like I'm getting the full game explorer experience here. We are going where no non-German has gone before. Anyway, while no one can ever really be good at 90s adventure games, I'm making progress, and we have one point so far for LucasArts-style. I try to press a red button and MacDoughan says, "Hmm... I think that would up being fatal if I pressed it right now." Ah. So that's the airlock. A Sierra game would NEVER stop you from spacing yourself by pressing the wrong button. Well, it turns out, it's not space; it's just a toxic atmosphere, so all I need is an air mask. And speaking of which, I know I can't be the first person to think this, but this has bothered me ever since I was a kid. You know, in the "Empire Strikes Back", where Han Solo lands in the asteroid tunnel that ends up being a giant worm? Well, in that, they just walk out with air masks. But wait a minute. They flew in. The worm's mouth was open. Shouldn't they be walking into a pure vacuum? It's still just an asteroid in space. An air mask isn't going to cut it. Yeah, yeah, it's science-fantasy, but it's like they're not even trying there. What's the point in setting things in space if it's not space? Anyway, I got stuck here at first, but then I remembered I hit the green button that I didn't know what it did twice. So how could hitting it a third time not be the answer? Tada! The cargo bay. Let's go inside! ...uh... ...yeah... Inside, we have a workshop, and I'm assuming I'll need this moon buggy. Oh, and if I go and LOOK at the generator here... OH! Moment of truth! Yeah, get a good look, MacDoughan. And he gets back up! So this is most-definitely NOT a Sierra-style game. They would NEVER let something like that slide. Now we still don't know if we can screw ourselves game-wise, but I'm leaning towards LucasArts-style if the game doesn't even have the guts to kill MacDoughan in the first five minutes. Regardless, here we run into problems. I look at and interact with everything I possibly can. I hit this lever multiple times, still don't know what it does... I remove a wheel-block keeping the buggy in place... I find a battery, figure out how to charge it... I keep trying to use the cockpit. I can't... Then it hits me! I left the key back on the ship! Let's go get it. ...ehhh... Yeah, I'll skip ahead for you... Got the key, walk back out... ...ugh, yeah... Hey! The cargo bay's closed! I need to keep the key in the slot in order to access the cargo bay! How the hell am I supposed to move the buggy then? I tried pushing it multiple times. It keeps telling me I don't have something. I'm pretty sure it's the battery, but how do I put that in the car? I may as well be a caveman banging the battery against the side! In fact, there's an option here which I think means to blow up the battery, but I don't know for sure since the translation clips. MacDoughan gets excited about the wheels. Okay...? I try the battery on the buggy, the cockpit, the WHEELS, the workbench... Okay, I'm calling it. This is as far as I can get without hints. I just can't figure it out. So I made it three screens. That's about average for me for games from this time. People will talk about the "good old days of gaming", and there's something to be said for that, but I do not miss this. This is the other half. Okay, so it's walkthrough time, except no walkthrough exists for this in English. This is going to be interesting. I'll start with the basics. "Walkthrough". Okay, let's see how that goes. "Push of a button (in the cockpit) the bonnet." What? What button? I must've checked the cockpit ten times! OH MY GOD! There IS a button! I somehow missed that the entire time I was racking my brain in the cargo hold. Yeah, of COURSE I can figure this out now! And look at this. Even once the hood is open, it still doesn't work when I insert the battery. There is a tiny sliver which you barely notice as the slot INSIDE the hood. Now that is nothing unusual whatsoever for games from this time, but man... It doesn't cease to amaze me. Even if this is German, it speaks the universal language of Go Buy the Hint Guide. Well, that was the ticket, I shove the buggy out, NOW I get the key, and we're off. MacDoughan reaches our destination, we get a nice little transition screen, and--Oh no... We have a maze... Oh, and it's not JUST a maze. Look, there's a book there. Of COURSE we're going to need those items. All right. This is going to take us a while. No, excuse me. This is going to take ME a while. This is the price you pay for going in first. YOU get the easy version. vvvvrrrrIIIIIIIP! We make it WITH the items. What a great time to save my game. Ja, I would like to save my game. Ahh... So now we go through an airlock, because the game understands that just because we're deep in the caves, the air isn't any more breathable than on the surface. I mean, if it was an atmosphere density thing, then that might be the case, but this was a vacuum. Just saying. And here is the cave world! Okay, I know it's getting old of me applying science to fantasy, but this is another pet peeve of mine. We're inside the planet now. Cool. That's a nice blue sky. Where's the light coming from? Yeah, we're just going to ignore that. "Torin's Passage" did the same thing. See, it's not that I'm expecting realism from fantasy, it's that if you're going to break the laws of physics in a really obvious way, give me something to go on. Like, okay, there's light down here because it's magic. That's all I need. This isn't something only a specialist would know about. Most people understand that if you go underground and block the sun, things get dark, and there's goblins and...ah, well, I'm just being nitpicky. Let's see what's here. Uh oh! Lizard people! I'll sort this out. Ah, he doesn't want me talking to the prisoner. Y'know, if we're really operating on LucasArts rules, I can't lose. So how about we DON'T play this smart? I'm going to keep insulting this officer. I'm not too impressed by these insults, MacDoughan. I would expect better from a trucker. Whatever. Let's just keep pushing. Yes, I DO have a death wish, actually. Let's see you do something about it, tough guy. Ah hah! We did it! You CAN die in this game. Whoa, I didn't have time to read that. Maybe that's an emulation bug. Thankfully we got it on video. Okay, well I guess I won't do that again. Time to load. I'll try the guard this time. He doesn't say much, just keeps stressing out that "the dragon is coming". Whatever. Unfortunately, I can't go down to the platform, so I guess it's back to the hut. Hi! Me again. Well, I tried some more dialog options. Nothing really pans out, except this time, I DON'T insult him when he says he's giving me one more chance to live. This is how wisdom works, kids. Unfortunately, I'm at a dead end, which... Oh, great. Something's happening just from me wasting time. Perfect. Okay, the giant pterodactyl shows up. That's obviously where the action is. Let's check it out. And here are. Before I get a chance to talk to anyone, the pilot asks me if I want to go to Wahringen or Südmeerfleck. Uhhh... Südmeerfleck it is! Well it doesn't matter. He wants money and I don't have any. That makes me a criminal now, so he throws me into the brig. Oh hey! Remember me? She's all doom and gloom, says we're going to jail, and then later, she's going to be sold as a slavegirl to a collie. Wait, what? I though the lizard-people were in charge. Do I need to dust off the Dog Monarchy award? Too early to tell. I'll hold off for now. Anyway, she won't shut up about dragons. "Every child knows that the Dragon Masters once had the best dragon breeds. "The Drakken want to forbid our dragon flying. "When the dragon masters all disappeared, then the Dragon Islands--" All right, all right. I get it. Dragons. She's pretty somber, but she lightens up and calls me cute when I say I'll bust her out of prison. Works every time, guys. ["Nicht jedoch so, wie es sich der hoffnungsfrohe..."] Ah! Voice acting. It's just telling us what we already know. We arrive at the warden's office, I try to bluff him, it doesn't go well. So as a Hail Mary, the translator breaks down so naturally I choose that response. "And now off with you to the slammer!" Man... So here we are in jail. Well, this wouldn't be the first game jail I've broken out of, and it probably won't be the last. "I don't think yelling 'Tear down this wall!' is going to work." Ah, we have some 80s humor there. Alright. Oh, look at that. A dirt floor. Yeah, we've got this. Well, there's no real talent to what I'm doing here. It's just the usual try-literally-everything methodology. I managed to smash my cot, throw food against the wall, use a stick with rice mush to get the key... This is standard adventure game fare. Even though it...uh... took me a little while. But even after all of that, I am stuck! I stole the key to my cell from the sleeping guard, but of course, when I click it on the door, it doesn't work. I try opening the door, thinking, hey, even though that didn't work earlier, maybe now it does because I have the key. No... I start going around in circles again, slowly losing my mind. I cannot figure it out. Okay, I really tried. Let's see what the hints say. "Without losing a lot of time, he opens the cell door and sneaks out into the hallway. "Incidentally, the key can also be used open the back, small door." ...what the hell does that mean? HOW DO I OPEN THE DOOR?! WHY DO I NEED A HINT GUIDE TO OPEN THE DOOR?! See look! I use the key on... What?! I DID THAT! I DID THAT ALREADY! I HAVE PROOF! See?! Here's the footage of the key not working! Dyeh...! Whatever. I'll take it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm still not sure what happened, but I am someone who can take 'yes' for an answer. This whole incident reminds me of another game: "Press X to Not Die". ["C'mon! I can do this!"] After breaking out, we still need to get passed the guard. Now, after SAVING MY GAME in case the key gods stop smiling upon me, I decide to cause more trouble. Well, the guard takes your key and moves you to a different cell. And guess what? You're screwed. You can walk around but since there is no way to win the game at this point, the game ends once you try the same things you did last time. So this WOULD be another point for Sierra-style, except I'm only giving half a point since the game warns me not to do that, plus the time between doing something dumb versus getting screwed by it is maybe thirty seconds, not FOUR HOURS. So this doesn't really count. The vibe I'm starting to get from The Cave World is that it's like a Sierra game if Sierra games were designed by sane people. Anyway, I find another way around the guard. Getting some "King's Quest V" flashbacks here. I inspect more cells and, hey-hey! Look who it is! It's Sullen Lady. I'll save you from the collies. "Ah... I'm from the gas works and wanted to know if I could check the meter. "Gotta file a report here." She's surprised and less reserved about attacking the guard than MacDoughan. So she smuggles us out of here pretending to be one, with me as the prisoner. We get another nice transition, then we're riding on a military transport pterodactyl this time, not a civilian one. Here the game gets weird. I can't talk to the soldiers. If I look at the lizard man, the text says, "I would rather not irritate him." So naturally your only option is to irritate him. You can even try to blow your cover on purpose, which I find fascinating. 'This officer is not an officer!' "This man is not a man!" You can laugh manically... If you insult him, then yep, back to jail, forever. The conversations frequently loop back on themselves endlessly, but it's really just a trial-and-error process. Maybe something is being lost in the translation, but it all feels kind of insane. "It's a matter of TASTE!" Get it? Uhh... "Why does this guy say so much nonsense?" "I do not know, officer." Anyway, the whole thing was just a stall tactic so we can jump off. Sure, let's go. Taste the ground! We make it! ...then we immediately follow-up with ANOTHER semi-insane infinite looping conversation where I try to tell Sullen Lady I'm looking for the rebels so I can find Maomi, but the game won't let me do that. I hope we don't have more of these. Anyway, she says she has to return to her people and I can't come with her. I'm not sure I blame her. So, time to wander. I have to say, this part of the game is gorgeous. What a nice day for being underground! Alright, that's it. I'm going out on a limb here and saying the game is never going to explain this. Prove me wrong, game! So we head into a town, which takes...a while. ...Eric "Speedy" MacDoughan, everyone... ..."Speedy" MacDoughan... I, of course, proceed to look at and interact with everything. In a nearby bar, I have the option of ordering drinks, but you know what? I've gone to jail multiple times now, I really don't want to go back, so I'm not going to drink here for free. Lucky for me some guy at the bar offers to pay me to deliver a package. Fine. I'm not even going to ask any questions. I find the recipients: three brothers hanging out at the airfield who are apparently burgeoning Marxists. Whatever. Here's your mail. Looks like it's sneezing powder. They offer to pay me for revenge. Sure, let them pay me first, though. But after going back to get the money, I think we may have crossed a line, guys. You see, once I have the money, I'm pretty sure I need to spend it on some of these pies to throw in the guy's face to get revenge for the brothers. If I buy the pies, though, I can't actually use them and the dialog goes nowhere. But here's the thing: I could ALSO spend my money on some other items at the store, OR just spend it at the bar and drink it all away. I'm not 100% here, but I think this is the turning point where you screw yourself. If you spend your money at the bar, I think this means you can't complete the game AND the game won't tell you. You're screwed. So the votes are in: This is a PURE Sierra-style game. Not a drop of LucasArts DNA in this. Now granted, this isn't nearly as egregious as some of the crap Sierra games have pulled, and this is relatively avoidable, but that doesn't matter--a line has been crossed. If the game is willing to do this to me, all bets are off with how fair it's going to be. I HAVE to consult the walkthrough now. Um... I'll just say...I figured it out, but it slowed me down. Oh, and look at this. I missed the glove while talking to the brothers. Yeah, the glove. How could I have missed that? Oh, and while I checked this out earlier, I didn't look under THIS rock. Yeah, I only looked at some of the other rocks. Look under the rock, dummy. Yeah, look under the rock to find the police badge. Yeah, okay. That's what I thought. This game's showing its true colors. And on top of that, we may be breaking records here. I'm not sure. While the scenery is wonderful, this might be the slowest mandatory walk I've ever seen in a graphic adventure game. I clocked it. If I want to get from the mountains to the airfield, it takes me over a minute and a half. There might be slower ones; I do not underestimate this genre. In fact, I even have a piece of a map I found in a cave. Gee, who would ever want to use that to fast travel? Not us! It doesn't do anything! No shortcuts! But back to the mountains, since we can afford climbing gear now, we scale them. Huh, looks more like a giant mesa. And despite the riveting view as I scramble from bush to bush along the cliff, I wasn't able to figure out how to kill myself here, so, no death sequence. Sorry, guys. Towards the top, we find a cave, and look! It's a dragon! Yeah, I mean, that's a dragon. I was calling this one a pterodactyl, but I'm wrong. The skull's the wrong shape, but it's some kind of pterosaur. The game calls these dragons, but give me a break. This is a dinosaur. But yeah, THIS is a dragon. It's got that horned skull thing going on. I'm glad we cleared that up. I have a long conversation with the dragon with branching paths. It just shrieks. [shriek] Now I checked the walkthrough for this next part. Apparently the correct move here is to knock it out with a rock, so you can dislodge a thorn in its tooth. Yeah, throw a rock at it. Adventure game-logic, guys. Now the dragon is hungry, but I spotted some nuts earlier so we need to get those. Back down the mountain... ...this takes forever... ...seriously... ...then off to get the nuts. Ah hah! Now we're acting like a Sierra game! But after that, I got stuck here because the walkthrough said I need to pick up the 'dragon fire'. What, this stuff I almost missed? The dragon flakes? It doesn't work. Oh, turns out I didn't attend the dragon conference. Yeah, the dragon conference. I forgot to mention, the entire damned town was talking about that. A policeman promoting it, a poster, a scalper at the airfield selling tickets... This is apparently a big deal that only happens once every four years, where dragon trainers talk about raising dragons to the public, even though the people think it's about as boring as it sounds to me. What's more is, after buying my ticket, nobody even checks it at the door. Anyway, it's not exciting. It just fills us in on a couple details we needed to know. Oh, and I had to go ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN from the cave to get to the town. I clocked it again. At first, I went to the scalper. Yeah, that only took me 2 minutes and 55 seconds of unskippable walking to reach him. I'm serious. This might be a record, guys. Let me know if you've seen a longer sequence of unskippable walking required in an adventure game where nothing else happens. No action, no dialog, all you do is sit and watch him walk. This gets an award. Oh, and speaking of the local culture, remember Cal? Well he has near holy status here. He is such an iconic figure here that it's a common phrase to say "Cal be with you." Everyone knows who he is. I can't help but think MacDoughan was a little hasty coming here on his own. If he had waited for Cal to recharge, things might've gone down a lot differently. To put this in perspective, say your girlfriend went missing in Rio de Janeiro, and you didn't know anyone or anything about the culture there. Would you rather look for her completely on your own, or have Jesus Christ Himself come along with you to give you a hand? That's the amount of pull Cal seems to have down here. But back to the game... Of course, from the tavern, I have to head ALL THE WAY BACK UP to the dragon... ...gah... NOW I can pick up the dragon flakes. Then I head HEAD BACK DOWN the cliff again, throw it at the monster to get it to look away, grab the nuts, SCALE THE CLIFF AGAIN, then we feed the dragon, become best friends, and off we go. So we make it...uh...somewhere... Wherever the dragon wanted to go, I guess. Works for me. And we have a lost isolated temple by the jungle! Wow, that metaphor from the beginning is paying off! This is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. Remember, you guys are the first non-Germans to see this. Inside is a dragon statue. That's about it. Ah well. "I hope that people like me are tolerated here." I doubt it. Upon leaving, we meet some sort of hermit who's upset that we're trespassing. Typical hermit. Turns out, he's the guy Sullen Lady told us to meet, and he knows where Maomi might be. Right on. He gives me another chunk of my map, too, and warns me that these are very precious as the Drakken have banned maps! Wow, what kind of monsters are these? And NOW we can fast travel because we have a dragon! All right. I get it now. So off we go to Berg-Wolkenheim. We park our dragon, get some info, and learn that Maomi is being held captive by the barkeep. That means we're red-hot close now. I trick him into letting me see her by pretending money is no object for his outrageously-priced rooms, and tada! It's Maomi! She is surprised, but not that happy to see us; she's just sort of mildly pleased. She doesn't even give him a hug. The whole thing feels kind of cold. I'm pretty underwhelmed for everything I've gone through to rescue her. Oh, I learned that the barkeep is a collie. Doesn't look like one to me. Must be some slang I don't know about. So, no Dog Monarchy, guys. False alarm. We go through a looping dialog hell again. Nothing interesting is being said; it's just half-madness from the translation. But Maomi is able to sneak out while we distract the owner. Outside, we have a long chat. She gets really upset at the idea of my rescuing her as we fly away on my dragon and get out of here. See, that was the big hang-up: Even if she had been able to escape, she was still stuck on this cliff, and she wouldn't be able to get away without a dragon. Well, now I have a dragon, but that's not good enough for her. Then she gets all defensive saying she can take care of herself. Yeah, that's why you were locked up as a slave for months, to which you yourself said you were never going to get out of there. Then she says she has to free her people, even though she wasn't born here, and has literally never been here before last year, and how she has to help Cal...blah, blah... Dammit, Cal's an android! He's just running his software! She doesn't--Then she talks about how Ginbart can help her. Who the hell is Ginbart? "Ginbart is fine, and he knows more than you!" Okaaay? Finally, she says she's not coming back with me because we'd be easily tracked so we should split up, even though that still leaves her stuck on Clifftown where people are going to be looking for her. I don't know, guys. This doesn't strike me as a stable relationship. MacDoughan can do better. Have you ever dated someone where they have really strong ties to some sort of exclusive clique they're with, to the point where they're always going to treat YOU as a perpetual outsider? With Cal, this Ginbart guy, her talking about her people, that's really the vibe I'm getting here. MacDoughan is not the love of her life; he's the third wheel. So, since she clearly has her own agenda, I talk to the stablemaster-- who can't believe I have a wild dragon-- and after a long chat, says I need to seek out the Dragon Masters. Fine. Whatever. I'm out of here. Now I haven't played the rest of the game yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Maomi is never going to be happy. Even if she liberates all of Cave World, which is a pretty tall order in itself, she's going to find some new cause to become obsessed with. MacDoughan is always going to be second-fiddle to whatever group Maomi's fallen in with at the time. He should just get out of here and go back to space trucking. He has all he needs now to write his own country song. Girl of his dreams left him for an android, he gets arrested trying to save her, busts out of jail, tames a dragon, and she doesn't even care. As far as I'm concerned, we've already beaten the game. The plot was to rescue Maomi. Done! We're just free-styling now. I don't think MacDoughan has any real goals at this point; he's just doing what other people tell him to. So with that, we enter Wahringen as directed by the stablemaster. In case you lost track, this is the same city where we broke out of jail. I'm sure returning here is a great idea. Oh, and since this is obviously a European-themed city, naturally the music sounds like it's for a Caribbean parade. [lively steel drum music] So far, most of the music in this game is enjoyable, but then it does something slightly weird, but it still works overall. I'm wondering how much benefit the CD audio adds, though, especially when you hear the distortion guitar. [guitar music] Anyway, in town, I'm not certain, but I think I found a way to screw ourselves again. At first, I just tried talking to these guys about the Dragon Master. I apparently picked a bad choice, and then they clam up and won't talk to me again. Ever, it seems like. This is new. Every other conversation had guardrails against screwing yourself, and let you start over on a loop. But now, I'm pretty sure the game is unwinnable again. This is pure Sierra, guys. Thankfully, I saved my game as soon as I landed, but damn, this is getting aggressive. So THIS time I used the walkthrough to get a name of a new contact from them. Following the dragon trail. Also, I needed the walkthrough again since I didn't realize THIS was an exit. Yeah, there. Adventure games, man. Here, things get interesting. If I go inside to this outpost, the walkthrough tells me to rat out the rebels I was just talking to, and I get a sizable reward. That's impressive. MacDoughan is playing both sides. He's winning the confidence of the rebels to help them the same time he's selling them out to the lizard police. I wouldn't have thought the game would let me do that, let alone REQUIRE it. I thought him trying to blow the cover of your partner-in-crime earlier was just a one-time fluke. See, I assumed you were going to rescue Maomi, stop the oppressors, live happily ever after... Y'know, a typical hero's tale. That may still happen, but this is kind of a big detour. This would be like if, in "The Lord of the Rings", Frodo sold out info on Farmer Maggot to the Black Riders, so they could go and kill him, then just continued on his quest like nothing happened. It's...weird, but I'm not complaining. And it's a good thing I get the money, too, because I get charged for stable fees for my dragon upon leaving. Dammit, I already paid these at the cliff city. Is this just a one time thing for each location? I have to check. Okay, let's get out of here, come back, and take off again. No! He charges you every time! That means if you don't know exactly where you're going next in this game, you're going to get penalized, and may screw yourself THAT way if you need to buy something essential later. Oh and I forgot to mention: You can waste more money at the bar in Cliff City. I don't think even Sierra games penalize you for traveling back and forth! Wow... So back to Cliff City, which thankfully is free IF I don't leave this screen, the old man who knows everything sends me back to the first town. And here I have to buy an ADDITIONAL dragon conference ticket, which costs a lot more. The first dragon conference ticket was only for the general public. But now since I OWN a dragon, I have to pay for ANOTHER ticket. Christ... Oh, and yes, there is a stable fee here too on top of that. At the second dragon conference, I sort of provoke the speaker into revealing information about some ancient site of importance? I'm not sure anymore. I asked a lot of questions, so a spy heads out to report me to the fraud police. They come to apprehend me, but I throw a pie in their face and tell them to leave. They're stunned, but end up doing it, because deep down, they're really frogs. Back to Cliff Town, I ask about what the dragon master told me, and I discover Maomi was HOLDING OUT ON ME WITH A MAP PIECE?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! I'm the one globetrotting everywhere solving YOUR conflict! What do you need a map for?! You're standing here out in the open waiting to be captured again! You're not even hiding! Just dump her right now, MacDoughan, don't even think about it. Withholding the map from me like I'm some-- And here we are in Südmeerfleck. THIS stable master wants SEVEN coins to watch my dragon. This game hustles you. Anyway, the prices must reflect the real estate since we have this Mediterranean Bay-looking area with gigantic stone arches. I love stuff like this. If you're going to have a fantasy planet, you really shouldn't hold back with this sort of thing. More arches! MORE! Anyway, there's a LOT of conversation with the locals that's not too interesting, BUT I get the final map piece. Hell yeah. From there, I'm led to tracking down some dinosaur in the desert. There he is. I ride him and--WHOA! That's too fast! Well...I like the pseudo-3D desert ride. Okay, let's check this in editing. Yeah, nothing too important. It just says the dinosaur knows things. Great. Well, it DOES know things, because it takes me to the lost temple everyone was telling me to go to. Right on! Let's keep the discoveries coming. Here we have another dragon statue, except this one hasn't been looted! So take a valuable gem and...the Holy Grail, I guess. I don't have many regrets about grave-robbing. These people are savages; they don't even allow maps. Heading back, I sell the Holy Grail at a pottery stand for 100 coins. She initially tries to lowball me with 80, but she IMMEDIATELY says "yes" when I haggle with her for 100. This is a completely ancient artifact made out of precious jewels and metals from a temple no one has been able to find for centuries. If I had to guess, its value is probably in the millions. But whatever. This should help me pay my stable fees. This all leads to more clues which sends me back to the old man who knows everything. I also check in with Maomi and get a reminder that I need to deliver the drugs to the rebels so I can become a hero. Of course. How did I forget? The old man sends me to his hermit buddy, and BOOM! Static waterfall. Come on... The art's been pretty good up until this point but you're asking too much, game. I need my three-frame animation if you're going to show running water. We can get away with this for a pond, but this is breaking the immersion for me. Grr... Putting that aside, this hermit is friendlier than the last one. Apparently, he was following up trying to find the ancient temple like I am, but just wasn't able to solve the riddle on how to find it, so he retired here instead. He also points out that in the thousand years the lizard people have ruled, no one's attempted a large, organized rebellion. Those are some words of wisdom, people. Acts of defiance get you nowhere. You need large-scale organization for anything to happen. The hermit knows things. But I guess he doesn't know that much since he's been looking for the entrance to the secret temple for the bottom half of his life, it sounds like. I'm guessing we're going to find it without too much hassle. In fact, I remember seeing a comic on this sort of thing. Well, I actually get stuck since the walkthrough mentions needing to cut down a bush, but I can't get over there. MacDoughan refuses to go into the water again. What am I supposed to do? Well after some soul-searching, I figured it out. You have to tell him to go in there AGAIN. Agh, I hate that crap. Everything's a dead end, unless it isn't. So, NOW he can cross the pond, we trigger some sort of sequence... Coming back--Oh! Okay! Apparently MacDoughan can walk on water now. No wonder he didn't try to take Cal with him. He doesn't need Cave World Jesus. He's his own Jesus. Well that's too bad because I need him to get back in the water so he can die. Here's another one of those plant things. And hey, look! He needs to come back up for air. This was NOT common in graphic adventure games back then. And I tried. I couldn't get him to drown, nor could I get him to fight with the plant. He's less eager to kill himself than most adventure game protagonists. Oh well. Goodbye, doppelgänger! Goodbye! Now from here, the walkthrough says I need to talk to the hermit again. I do that and--Uh oh. Uh... ZTranslate? Hello? Okay, I'm relaunching this. No. It's just not working here. Okay, this is going to be an interesting conversation for me. I'm pretty sure "Wasser" is "water"... Uh... This isn't good. So I try some process of elimination... I...think we can disable the plant now. Yeah, we do. Okay. We have to eat a weird bulb on the plant to breathe underwater, push the other pyramids, and the door opens. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the hermit could've figured this out. Behold! The dragon gate! Beyond this point lies dragons! ...I'm assuming. I think this game took a step back, looked at itself, and decided it didn't have enough dragon references. Yeah, there we go. Inside, it's just another temple, though, this is by far the most impressive dragon statue so far. I kind of feel like we're missing out by not having some mystical music here instead of the same tracks we've been getting. In fact, I was getting my hopes up because earlier it was mentioned that this place was in the dark side of the world. Ooooh! I thought for sure THIS was the entrance. No. All we do here is loot another gem, and then head back to the first dragon temple which magically has a new gem, even though there's no reason at all to suspect that would've changed. I mean, that's kind of the whole deal with isolated temples; they're just...there. And with all these gems, we head back to an earlier ancient dragon statue near the town and tada! Cross a bridge. A little underwhelming for requiring priceless gems from around the world. I mean, I could've done that with two logs and some rope. This is Engineering 101. The path past the bridge is absolutely gorgeous, even though these waterfalls should be moving...! And here we are in the lost dragon city, I think. I've honestly lost track of all the dragon lore. Oh! And look who it is! Yeah, NOW she shows up! Anyway, she explains that she was playing me to do her dirty work-- at least, that's my interpretation-- but before we really get into this, there's a new guy that shows up saying he's the ancient guard and we need to leave. From here, we have the longest conversation in the game by far. The short version is, he's part of a secret order, but one of his members has been kidnapped, and he has a key to the temple here which contains the drugs. Oh, and I was confused. The drugs are for Cal, not the rebels. Huh... Yeah, he's pretty hostile towards me, but as soon as I namedrop that I know Cal, his tone changes completely. One thing I think is a little weak here is he talks about what a fantastic secret this place is, cut off from the outside world for centuries. But c'mon, you literally have a path leading straight to the temple. All it takes is a simple bridge and the gig's up. I mean, this is just up the road from town. Somebody like me was bound to find this. If I was living in that town, I would've found this place in a month, tops. Faster if I was looking for it. But now we need to find this key the rebel member was holding onto. Well the walkthrough says we have to head back to the guardpost. But wait, let's pay our stable fees, fly off, then talk to THIS guy to hold our dragon again. God, this is getting old. Here, we run a nutty scheme where we buy a bunch of nuts, tell the guard we're delivering them to the base, so we get our pass to head inside. Oh look. This is where I was arrested. Here we cause some chaos. We find an intercom, and tell everyone that fuel is leaking on the airfield and it could go up in flames. That sends the whole base into alert looking for the fuel. Look at them. There they are. Yeah, even though commoners move around by pterodactyl, it looks like the lizard people have shuttlecrafts. Typical. With more guards out of the way, we raid the key cupboard, head back INTO jail-- Wow, I wonder if we'll get to say "hi" to that same guard again. I bet he'll be surprised to see me. Well, I don't see him. Instead we go to the jail cell where the rebel guy was held in hopes that he stashed his key here before he was condemned to the mines. And here, no joke, I have to shut the door, then look at the hinge pin to the door NINE TIMES IN A ROW! And of course, the first response is utterly mundane to make you not click more than once. "A door hinge. Completely normal." Yes, it is. Why would anyone keep looking at that? This is an above-average level of player antagonism, even for games like this of the time. Whatever. I find the magic rod. I guess this is the key? I leave and--OH NO! THEY CAUGHT ME! I didn't look at the walkthrough closely enough! I should've exited the back door! That means I have to start over from my save! GAAAAAH! vvvvWWWIIIIIIIP! Okay! Back at the dragon temple. "Oh, I was so worried something might've happened to you!" Oh, really? "Not so much about YOU! More about the success of our mission?" Yeah, just keep it coming, Maomi. Hey, maybe I should break this key in front of you. What do you think about that? Whatever. Take your stupid key. The guardian puts it in a slot and some pedestals rise up. Okay? Now he needs me to go get three mirrors. This is never going to end. Maomi can't come with me because it's too dangerous. Yeah! It probably is! FINE! BYE! So I head back to the tavern I ratted out, and hey! Look who's not in jail! Well, to be fair, I told the guard they meet there at 8, so they probably won't get arrested until this evening. And...they want me to harass the guards? Actually, it's not even clear what they want me to do. We're letting the walkthrough take the wheel now. So, I go and throw a stink bomb at them. Yoink! Then I come back and they tell me to go to Halantoor. I don't know where that is. Bye...! So, you know what that means. Back to the old man who knows everything. He says Halantoor is that first temple I went to. Huh, really? Oh look! Now there are three mirrors just lying there. For an isolated plateau inaccessible by foot, somebody's visiting this temple a lot. Fine. Three mirrors. Let me just park my damned dragon again and let's go. And we return. Uh oh! Translator down! Oh, don't do this to me! Not now! Uh... Uhhhh.... Okay, we're back. Sort of... "That's not important! Here are the mirrors!" "Just calm down." Okay...okay... "Are you still healthy and fit?" I guess? I probably need to eat. All right, enough chit-chat. Here are the mirrors. We give them to the guardian. He places them. Ooh! This is looking impressive. Yeah, I'm not even surprised we have a puzzle that involves RAYS FROM THE SUN! All right, so now we look the statue and, hup! There are the drugs. Hooray. "Now you are a big hero, Eric!" Sure am! "Congratulations. I...ah, have to go now. I'm up to something...with Gusmar." OH! THAT'S THE GUARDIAN! SO THAT'S HOW IT IS! OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW, HUH?! YOU DISAPPEAR ON ME, I SAVE YOU FROM SLAVERY, BUT YOU'RE ALONE WITH HIM FOR HALF AN HOUR AND THAT'S ALL IT TAKES, HUH?! You two-timing... "I'm sure you'll be very heroic again and have your glory. Alone. Farewell." THAT IS SO COLD! DAMN, GUYS! I AM NOT JOKING! I had no idea this was how it was going to turn out! I was just speculating earlier. I figured her being so aloof was just how Germans portray a love story, or else they were trying to have this comic dynamic where MacDoughan's interested in her and she's always busy with something else. Yeah, she's busy with someONE else! I was even more right than I realized! MacDoughan got played! Oh, who is this? Just some guys coming to break my legs just to top this all off? Oh, it's Cal. Yeah, he wants his drugs. Fine. Take 'em. I don't want any part of this. Although, apparently Cal doesn't know what to do with the drugs. I think he just assumed it would solve all his problems. Well, he wouldn't be the first. "You did it, Eric! "From now on, you will be remembered as one of the greatest heroes of our world!" What do YOU care? Didn't you just dump me? Why are you still talking to me? Talk to the hand! ...wait, that's it?! That's the end of the game?! Oh my God! IT'S A CLIFFHANGER GAME! But wait! There's more! A frog soldier shows up. "Surrender or die!" He says he's taking us all to the mines. But Maomi pulls out a smoke bomb and goes classic ninja on us. So it looks like just Cal and friends are going to the mines. AAAAAHHH! "The SECOND adventure"! There IS no second adventure! This is all they made! I did find another game set in the same universe, I think, but it looks like it's just some digital card game. But whatever. That doesn't count. Yeah, no credits or anything. Just dump to the menu. Wow. What to make of this. Now I know how I'll routinely mention how weak endings often are to old PC games, but adventure games are the exception to the rule. When I think of every classic adventure game, they pretty much all have solid endings. This may actually be the worst ending to a graphic adventure game I've seen! I don't want to say it's THE worst, since there's a lot I haven't played. Plus maybe I'm repressing the memories and forgetting some. That can happen with me. Well, this definitely was a game, with effort behind it. I'm glad we got to see it, even though I think the screenshots gave us more hope than the game actually warranted. It was VERY antagonistic, but that was totally normal for adventure games of this time. The walking and money traps made it slightly worse than average, though. We really didn't get much space trucking in, and honestly, it was even a little light on the dinosaurs. So, not what I thought it was going to be, though my relationship counseling was dead on. All-in-all, I'm left kind of unsatisfied, but there was definitely a taste of something in there. But hey, that's exploring. You never know how it's going to turn out. On that note, what might be more notable than the game itself is Barry's software here. I'll say this now: There are dozens of German-only graphic adventure games from the 90s. I've run into them by accident while scouring through abandonware. A fair amount of Czech and Polish ones, too. It's possible this may trigger a virtual land grab, for seeing who can show these games in English first. They're now up for the taking. ...or not. If The Cave World is any indicator of what to expect, we may just see some secrets remained buried also. That's the episode! Stay tuned for another... Well, I guess I'd better do another follow-up episode. I mean, look at what happened when I did the last one. All right, I'm going to Space Waffle House. [music]
Info
Channel: Accursed Farms
Views: 437,003
Rating: 4.9485908 out of 5
Keywords: The Cave World Saga, Die Höhlenwelt Saga, Abandonware, DOS games, Adventure Games, Videogames
Id: CLk64lmMtF0
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 56min 19sec (3379 seconds)
Published: Sun Jun 30 2019
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