Alternate Reality - by Phillip Price

[child of Thor]

and here is a quick look at my loot status after my treasure finding spree. You can cycle through various item menus by pressing F3 on the keyboard.

TIP: Be careful though - its best to do it while inside a shop as you can over ride the combat menus you get in an encounter. Combat is real-time, so your enemy can get in some free hits while your trying to get back to the combat menu!

[child of Thor]

Some hours later and i'm tired again. Compare my stats now to the previous shots. Tiredness can kill!! time to find an inn and get some sleep.

TIP: My treasure finding is still active but running out of power. You have different potencies of potion - i think this one treasure finding potion i used is probably the most potent i've ever drank! Still at this point i'm only finding silver and copper on my defeated foes. The effects of this type of potion slowly degrades over its life span.

[child of Thor]

So i'm healthy again, and time to go see what i can spend my money on

The Blacksmith is one of my favourite places to visit, he sings a pretty good song - and i enjoy telling him to 'Forget it!' when he tries to charge me the earth for a new weapon or item of armour

I think he gets a big 'Forget it!' for that item!

[child of Thor]

A few starting tips, then i'm off to my alternate reality untill tuesday

1. In the stats selection screen, with all the spinning numbers; keep an eye on your HP and next to that your Skill. 21 is the maximum starting stat. When you have got as high to that for both stats as possible quickly glance across the other stats.

If you see single figures on any of them, wait till next time and try again. I try to pick out a high STR+STA score also(+15), but as you will see its quite tricky and you can get crossed eyed if you spend too long looking at the numbers

2. Once you have arrived at the floating gate, turn right and go straight into the bank there. examine your coppers. If your have more than 200, put 100 in a medium account for safe keeping. The rest you'll need for food and somewhere to sleep. If your very poor, try to put atleast some in a bank account - it could save your life later!(if the bank doesn't loose your money - high interest accounts are risky).

3. The best place to find food and drink and cheap accomodation is in the north west part of town.

4. Be careful when you go out at night or if its raining. Untill you have a decent weapon and some armour and a character around level4 or upwards you may fall prey to some nasty things that lurk in the dark and rain.

5. A sword will do little damage to a 'mold' or 'spore', try blunt weapons or run away.

[child of Thor]

There have been a few problems with the links to get the relevant files since i posted them.

Below is a zip file(330kb) containing the 'Alternate reality-The City' disk image files as the old link doesn't work and they are small enough to put here

The instructions for useing them in the emulator remain the same.

At a later date i'll post the 'Alternate Reality- The Dungeon' file images. Once you've got a decent level character in the city, you will be able to take that character into the second(and more epic) part of the games series

Alternate Reality 'The City' disk images:

[child of Thor]

I think i was just incredibly lucky with that character - i got rich much quicker than i remember ever having done before. So things started to become pretty easy, too easy for my likeing. So now i've started over with a new Character.

Still one thing to keep in mind is this first part of the series was meant to be like a training run. So build a decent character then head into the Dungeon.

It does boil down to zipping around between 'safe havens'(banks/pubs/Inns) trying not to die. But i find it strangely engrossing, even now where i'm playing a few hours of KOTOR, then a few of Alternate Reality(with 'Supremacy' inbetween).

So i'm hoping this new game will be more of the challange i remember from 1986,and i cant wait to get to around level 9 and enter the Dungeon - i have unfinished business in its slime covered corridoors

[child of Thor]

Darn it

Ive started over with a new char and things have not been so easy(And i deleted my first character). Maybe i'm less lucky this time around? whatever this is more how i remember it

So i'm at level 3, and had been just about surviving for quite a while. I even got enough money to buy a stilleto(cheapest knife). Then i did something dumb.

For whatever reason i kinda accidently 'Charmed' a noble(an evil act) and found 18 gold(1800 coppers!) plus a couple of potions.

Then i fought a mold and after thumping it to death with my fists found amongst its slimey remains a Longsword(how does it carry that about i wonder?).

But i also became 'diseased' in that encounter. So i had to rush to a healers. Diseases have an incubation period in the game and have difering severity of effects(usualy decreasing your stats - sometimes permantly!).

Anyway i stumped up the 800 coppers to get healed(thank you poor noble). The worring thing was that my 'Diseased' status didnt change straight away, so i kinda hoped the healer had done his job properly. After a nights sleep i was pleased to see i was no longer sick

So all in all not a bad trade off in general i thought.

Then bad stuff happend.

A courier turned up that morning and in the encounter i pressed 'D' to disengage(when you dont want to fight) - and i got the message 'The courier has confiscated some of your items and possesions'. hmm well ok. then when i checked ALL my money had gone, and my Longsword too

Maybe the noble had sent him to get back what i had taken earlier(and a bit extra!). Scumbag! So i'm back to being peniless as i'd spent all my money i had in the bank from the game start. I never got around to putting any of the nobles away in safe keeping

To top it all off i get a much more hostile reception from neutral beings in the game - fighters, warriors, Knights all seem to want to take chunks out my hide!

I guess thats what can happen when you cross the rich? Still if i manage to survive, then it can be said i'm having fun

All this in 48K - they were clever programmers back then.

[Tuberski]

This brings back memories..... a lot of them bad. I never found the Dungeon anywhere, so I only played the city.



ACK!

[Tuberski]

Oh, and you would probably get more people seeing this if it was in Other games where it really belongs.

ACK!

[child of Thor]

Wow! a reply

To get the Dungeon files(very worth while doing as it added alot to the AR series) go to the top of this thread and click the link for the XL-it! emulator - at that site when you download the XL-it! emulator, you also get all the 'ar-the city' and the 'ar-the dungeon' disk images. I just pasted those files over into the Atariwin800 emulator(the better emulator) file on my computer

I will start adding stuff relevant to the dungeon when i get to it. At the momment the City is proving more than a handfull

And i agree i would probably get more response in the Other Games forum proper - but i do feel this is actually one of the 'Classic' games of our time(1980's), along with Civ/MoM etc. So it should stay here, even if it suffers less coverage. In future people will always be able to find it easily here.

[Tuberski]

Well, it's as tough as I remember.

ACK!

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Well, it's as tough as I remember.

ACK!

True! until you get a weapon you are basicaly a dead man walking. So you have to pick your fights very carefully. Escapeing/running away/leaving is not a shamefull action in this game.

Once i've got any kind of weapon(stileto/dagger are the cheapest to buy - Occums Razor weapon shop in the north west part of town is the cheapest blacksmith), then i find with carefull choice of encounters i can start to make progress. Also visiting the guilds to improve your stats is very important at the game start.

Untill that point its always a challange(a very very tough one!) to survive. I like that in games. The second game 'The Dungeon' is slightly easier for a new/low level character. So you could jump straight to that one if 'The City' is proving too frustrating.

Just as a historic point of interest, but I think 'The City' was the first game in history to use a bitmapped 3D engine?

[Tuberski]

I bought a compass, but didn't see how it was telling me which direction I was going.

ACK!

[child of Thor]

ah - yes waste of money really, i never buy one in the city(although in the dungeon they are very useful), as they get stolen in encounters! Use the sun to give you your East(rises in) and West(sets in). If you look south of the city, beyond the city walls you can see a waterfall in the background - thats south. So with these references you can navigate ok.
It was these skills i developed in this game that made me a very good orienterer in real life. I use the sun to navigate when hiking for example And another side effect has been that i've never got lost in any City i've ever visited, i remember all the twists and turns!

[Tuberski]

Been working days this week, so haven't had a chance to play anything.

I did find, however, that if you click on file while the stats are rolling, you can pause them and take a look at the rest without going cross-eyed.

You still have to be quick to get those exact numbers however.

ACK!

ACK!