INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The key was to use a glowing gem as a light source, which my brother and I had long understood
The problem was the text parser, which demanded that we "put gem in mouth" to use the gem's light in the tunnels
There was no other place to put the gem, no other way to hold or attach it
(We tried them all.) No other attempt to use the light of this shining crystal, no matter how clear, well-intentioned, or succinctly
You put the gem in your mouth, or you died in the darkness.Returning from my reveries to the conversation at hand, I caught Ars Senior
seemed rather shocking, almost offensive
How could one say such a thing about the games that colored my memories of childhood?So I decided to replay Space Quest II for the first
time in 35 years in an attempt to defend my own past.Big mistake.
We're not on Endor anymore, Dorothy.
In my memory, the
Space Quest series was filled with sharply written humor, clever puzzles, and enchanting art
But when I fired up the original version of the game, I found that only one of these was true
The art, despite its blockiness and limited colors, remained charming.As for the gameplay, the puzzles were not so much "clever" as
"infuriating," "obvious," or (more often) "rather obscure."Finding the glowing gem discussed above requires you to swim into one small spot
of a multi-screen river, with no indication in advance that anything of importance is in that exact location
And the less said about trying to throw a puzzle at a Labian Terror Beast, typing out various word permutations while death bears down upon
