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The Seventh Link (Radio Shack Color Computer 3) : Part 1
Welcome to my play through of The Seventh Link, this is the first part of many.
"A few hundred years hence, humanity's first space probes to neighboring stellar systems start returning data. One system in particular looks promising, and a ship containing a few hundred colonists is dispatched on a one-way trip. When the crew awaken from cryosleep, they discover a proto-system: just a spinning disk of gas and dust, and not the verdant planetary jewel they had expected.
The crew despairs: they cannot survive without a habitable planet. They attempt to extend their cryo-sleep technology, but the half-life of elements within the fluid they use to control ice crystallization limits their sleep to a billion years.
Computer models indicate 4 billion years would be needed in order for a habitable planet to coalesce from the proto-disk, if at all. Now, the ship's drive engineer has a good idea: the ship is powered by a quantum black hole.
The black hole is charged, and kept in place by titanic electromagnetic fields generated by currents in seven bands of superconducting wire. The engineer runs some simulations and figures that they should dump the black hole and its containment cage overboard- the ferocious gravity of the hole will accelerate the accretion process, and bring about a habitable planet in a mere .5 billion years! The crew execute this plan and indeed wake up to a habitable planet. 500 million years has been tough on their ship, and they crash-land, but mostly survive.
Of course, over just a few centuries and generations, the crew's descendents lose their grip on technology and devolve into a medieval society, constantly at war with the semi-intelligent indigenous creatures. Time has not been kind to the superconducting cage at the center of the planet, and the currents are running dangerously low.
If the black hole escapes, it will devour the planet in a few short years. Fortunately, the crew of the ship planned ahead, and buried seven re-charge stations around the planet. All you have to do, as player of the game, is find the missing seven energy packs and recharge all seven superconducting bands."
This is a classic CRPG for the Tandy COCO3 computer.
7L : Title Screen
It is freely available from its original author Jeff Noyle, see here http://www.distantsystems.com/personal/jeff/coco.htm
Seventh Link does not come with manuals, so we must puzzle things out for ourselves.
Lucky for us Jeff provides some information on the keyboard commands and we can find a synopsis online.
Key assignments:
A Attack
B Board (a ship or other vehicle)
C Cast (magic spell)
E Enter (town, castle or dungeon)
F Fire Cannon (when on board a ship)
G Get
I Inventory. Very useful. Use this screen to equip your characters.
K Climb (up/down ladders in dungeons towns or castles)
L Look
M Modify party order
N Non-key command. After 'N' you can type a string. DRINK and JOIN (to invite another to join your party) are two useful ones.
O Open door
Q Quit/reload. Use this command when your back's against the wall.
It will load the situation from the last time you entered a town, castle or dungeon, or the last time you hit 'R'.
R Record current game (i.e. save game).
S Steal. Use this in shops. If you get caught, you're buggered.
T Transact with shopkeeper.
U Unlock door.
V Volume on/off.
X Exit a ship or other conveyance.
Z Set palettes (toggle between RGB and composite).
ESC/BRK Escape from combat. You'll probably lose something in your hurry to run away.
You can see from the command listing that its very Ultima ish.
This is probably the ultimate RPG for COCO3 enthusiasts, and it is obviously an Ultima clone in its parentage.. It has a classic 'demo' reel like Ultima III and Gates of Delirium
7L : Demo Reel
You will notice right away, this game is using the power of the COCO 3, we have more colours on screen
Let us begin the game...
7L : Start
Grimjak the male ranger opon conquering the Gates of Delirium sojourned forth opon the land of Elira. Just north, I see my first destination a castle. Checking my provisions, 100 hitpoints and 350 food I start me trek to the castle.
7L : Castle
Thinking this game would have a lot of Ultima-isms, I scouted the edge of the castle, and sure enough around the back I find a lonely little man, who gave me a good clue, "The magic user's guild is below us."
7L : Hidden People
Talking to the guards gives me the typical "Move Along" wheres as everyone else that wanders around gives me nothing in response.
I meet a man in the middle of a river, and no way to get to him. Checking out the castle I find the usual stuff, armour, weapon shop, bakery and a temple.
I find a sign next to some salty water, 'DRINK at pools of earth-sprung water'.
7L : Free Gold
In the north east of the castle there is an unprotected room and within were several chests for the taking. I immediatly grabbed them, took some acid trap damage but made out like a bandit! Lots of elir for me.
With this extra money, my first priority was to get a weapon and armour.
7L : Shopping
Underneath the south-western corner, is a healer who can heal, cure or resurrect.. Which is great but there is a free healing + curing pool juuuust around the corner! North of the healer I came across a locked cell, but me with no keys to open it. That is just one of many locked doors I'll have to come back and try.
Climbing down the ladder in the north-east, and going through a lot of round-about maze like passages, I came across a shop, which I guess is the mage guild only its more like a thieves guild since they are selling keys and torches.
Since I had found a few chests and got more Elir I bought a few keys
Unlocking some doors aroound the castle, I found a another way to the outside ring and found a man who gave me another clue, "Seek you the wise knight in the hidden islands of the far southwest."
Going back to the room with the locked door near the healer, I unlock and enter. The man says "My abilities are at your disposal." I ask him to JOIN me. Hagromil the human thief joins my party.
North of Hagromil's cell I find two locked doors... Thats always a sign! Lets check it out.
After a lot of exploring, I've come to learn, well so far, if an NPC is not stationary, they are not worth your time. Only if they are stationary do I follow up on them.
7L : Ship
After much faffing about with locked doors, I find a ship, mine for the taking! Yay
7L : Bug!
Hmm I fired through the wall at the healer.. oops.. the cannon went through the wall and killed them. Lets hope I dont need some resaurection...
I found an NPC that told me "The thieves guild is in the south-west"
Sailing around I find an underground island, in the middle is a sign that reads "In the dungeon surrounded by water, klimb up one square behind the recharger - Peter Howell"
7L : Gates of Delirium
OMG! I'm back in the Gates of Delirium!
Just north of the island is a whole room full of chests. JACKPOT! Lots of elir here.
I think I have found all I can find here, so I'm off to explore another town.
--
So far, I am enjoying it as its been about exploration and I've had no fights yet. I'm unsure if I have found everything I need to find in the start town or not. Time will tell. It is definitely a step up from GOD and its nice to see it using the range of COCO3 abilities.
I've only found one bug so far, that I know is a 'bug', which was the ship firing through the wall. The oddity I think is that some walls are marked as see-through, which is why you can see the healer on the other side to begin with. There are quite a few of these types of wall around, but most block your vision.
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Comments
Tangents
qoj hpmoj o+ 6uo73q 3Jv 3svq jnoh 77V
Not to temper the frivolity, but that comment reminded me of back when I was a teenager, my friends and I sometimes wondered that very thing. One minute we'd be talking about one subject and then it would end up morphing into a discussion of life, the universe and everything. I'm sure there's a very good scientific explanation for this, but I suppose it just comes down to human nature and tangents. Personally, I don't mind them and often love where they lead.
Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
LOL, Matt!
How did we go from "Seventh Link" to learning languages and then to sexing chickens!?!?!
qoj hpmoj o+ 6uo73q 3Jv 3svq jnoh 77V
(No subject)
A chicken farm or a couple
A chicken farm or a couple of chickens in a coop is a different story altogether, although I must say them chickens tend to smell indeed.
Ah well some folk are just more city folk than country folk. I do live in the city but I am very glad I have my French escape to the country ;-)
Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl
Heh, well, I'm from
Heh, well, I'm from Louisiana so of course am familiar with all aspects of farming, fishing, and hunting. I didn't personally get involved except for fishing, which I'd still like to do but haven't made any friends here who also enjoy it.
I can't say I like the smell of farms very much. I visited a chicken farm one time, and it smelled so bad I didn't think I'd ever recover from it. But the smaller farms don't seem quite so stinky, and the little chicks are definitely cute. :)
Nice mosin's, thats what a
Nice mosin's, thats what a m91/30 and a m44 carbine. Yeah the chickens are for eggs (brown eggs the wife was adamant they lay brown eggs).. I live kinda rural? its in town but town is 3000 people on a rive and at the foot of the mountains.. right on the borders of national forest and such. so semi rural...
no scope on my mosin, just iron sights.
-- Stu --
Stu - real life
Stu - wow you live in a rural area? The things you discribe doing are like the things I do when I am in France - in a very rural farming area - doing work on the house & raising farm animals. So you are rearing those chicks so that they can provide some nice eggs for your family? Nothing beats a freshly laid egg in the morning ;-)
Are you doing some hunting as well? In the past (1993-2004) I've been hunting and fishing in the US with some friends a little south of St.Louis MI. Love that area!
I think we used similar weapons to hunt. Do you get a scope with it?
And now as a snobby snotty European I could of course make remarks about the NRA but I won't
:-P
Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl
Well, give me the weekend at
Well, give me the weekend at least :) I've got a chicken coop half built that needs to be finished ASAP with 8 baby chicks ready to go in it (and a wife who'se done with 8 baby chickens in the basement bathroom!), a new mosin nagant 91/30 rifle coming thursday or friday that will be covered in cosmoline and will need a full on steam clean :( and a bathroom to finish up tiling (just need to put the toilet back in and some baseboards)...
mmm ask me again next week :)
-- Stu --
Now back to playing - 7th Link ! Let's have that 2nd episode!
Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl
Incentive & Polish
Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Now Polish and Russian and Slavic languages have an extremely difficult grammar. I work together with a Polish Psychiatrist and we were seeing a young Polish Schizophrenic patient together and I picked up things like:
dwóch piwa = he was drinking only up to two beers a day
wasze tabletki = about wether or not his was taking his medication
Robi nie niezb?dne tabletki = he didn't think he needed to take medication
G?osy = voices inside his head
My?li dziwny = strange thoughts or something like that.
No where near enough to strike a conversation, but my co-worker was translating. I am no Hoshi when it comes to Polish though.
Editor / Pixelator - Armchair Arcade, Inc.
www.markvergeer.nl