Cinder Inc.

A few rumblings of things going on in life.

- Coffee shops in Tacoma - I’ve got a number that I need to visit and write up and I plan on getting another one up here in December soon. Either the excellent Blackwater, one of the many many Forza Coffee Companies or possibly one of those new odd places like Cafe Muse on 6th a try.

- Blogging Quest - I know I need to continue. I’ve been distracted, and frankly lazy when it comes to continuing my quest to save the queen. I’ll work on it.

- Cave Story for the Wii! - It’s coming soon! I’m very excited for this one. The people behind the port to WiiWare are working with Pixel, the original author, to design a graphical update, along with a bit of remixed music. They are keeping a blog with updates on what’s going on, as well as comparison’s of the updates! Like the update below to the enemy Balrog.

I don’t tend to do link log type of things, but I found this fascinating, in that it’s an amazing interview with one of the software engineers behind the Mars Phoenix Lander. It recently landed atop the North Pole of Mars on a search for water. The developer talks about the limitations of the hardware, the design process and the safe guards they have in place to make sure it keeps working. It’s a fascinating read. Check it out here.

So the story this time around is that Graham has been the prosperous ruler of Daventry for a year, but he’s getting lonely. He knows it’s time to find a wife, and create an heir for his kingdom, so it doesn’t end up like it was before he took over for the last guy. He holds tryouts, but none of the women/girls in his kingdom are good enough for him, and so he talks to his magic mirror. The mirror shows him the beautiful Princess Valanice, from the kingdom of Kolyma, imprisoned by the evil witch, blah blah blah. Graham tosses on his adventuring cap, instead of the crown and shows up on the beach ready to find her and make her his. How romantic.

Getting a tan on the beach is always a good place to start, soI took a stroll down the beach. A lot of nice new touches this time around. The little waves crash up against the rocks, to add a nice sense of immersion. As usual, wandering down the beach nets me a nice bracelet that looks expensive, and a sweet trident. Who’s the king of the sea now?!

Read more »

Coffee in Tacoma has finally found it’s champion!

It’s been a bit since I posted about coffee here in Tacoma. In the meantime, Kickstand Coffee closed down, and was replaced by One Heart Cafe who I’ve yet to try, but the certianly have an interesting decor. Forza Coffee Company seems determined to take over the south sound area, with franchises popping up everywhere (I’ve yet to try them, but Jess says they have decent coffee). And Firehouse Coffee changes their name to Origin 23° Coffee Roasters, but looks to be still serving the Firehouse roasts. And last but not least, that I’ve noticed in my small sphere here, is Black Water Cafe, who serve up coffee from The Mandolin Cafe’s Valhalla Coffee. I’ve been once and enjoyed a drink, but I like to make multiple trips before I finish any judgments about a cafe.

So after all of this, so enters my new favorite spot to get a drink in Tacoma, Satellite Coffee Co..

Exclusively serving Stumptown Coffee, we now have incredible coffee being served up here in Tacoma. Apparently rising from the ashes of a place I never got to try, called Temple of the Bean, Satellite has fit itself up into a tiny little spot just off the corner of Wright Park. Great easy location to walk to, minutes from my place.

Using a beautiful 3 group La Marzocco, the owners and baristas are dedicated to bringing you a quality drink. It’s refreshing to watch the barista re-pull your shot a few times to make sure he/she is brining you the best they can. The owners have made sure that they and their employees take seriously this espresso thing, and you can see their training put to good use. The store is littered with evidence of their dedication - David Schomer’s espresso book (the one that I started my learning process with), SCAA and Barista trade magazines, and just many small tools of the trade that show they are going beyond the simple grind, pour, foam and serve routine.

Their milk steaming so far has been impeccable, creating beautiful lattes and kid’s hot chocolates, with the right amount of velvety foam that just begs to be sipped.

They pull out the French presses for their “drip” coffee, and will pretty much make your cup fresh when you order it. A small little selection of pastries, but the little rocket ship shortbread cookies are a great little treat. It’s a small space, but they make do with the space they have, with the atmosphere being very friendly and nice to sit for a bit, but if I had to do any work, I’d probably have to find another place where I could blend in a bit more.

So far it’s been an incredibly welcoming place, anytime of the day, patrons and employees alike. I’ve brought Ash, my toddler, in there with me many times over the weekends and they have been very playful with him and smile at the exuberance only a 2 1/2 year old can show. Big pluses there.

So basically, anyone else here in Tacoma is going to have a tough time topping Satellite coffee for the moment. I’ve still got a lot of places to visit and write about, but right now, it’s the top. Find your way there and once you do, having coffee anywhere else in Tacoma just means that you were to lazy to get what you really wanted - an cup of coffee, espresso or more that you will enjoy, without caveats.

(Picture credit goes to Tacoma Mama)

So I’ve taken the plunge, and upgraded my Word Press installation to the new Version 2.5.

Supposedly some great new features to help keep Cinder Inc. running strong. Already I like the new dashboard improvements in the content managing side of it. Hopefully it’ll make updating even easier so I can keep Blogging Quest actually updated.

If you find anything that’s broken just let me know.

So I think I’ve realized why I haven’t continued with the end of King’s Quest 1 after all this time. I just didn’t want to go back and take on the same stuff over again. I will someday, but for now, I’m moving on with Blogging Quest. Welcome to King’s Quest II - Romancing the Throne. This time it’s for love.

Released in 1985, it was Sierra’s second game to take advantage of their new AGI system they created for King’s Quest I. It grew the size of the game by 15% over the original, with 92 different rooms to walk to now, and a theoretically easier puzzle system, that left you a little less room to get lost. We’ll see about that.

My experience coming to this one is going to be a lot less than the first. I played the heck out of the first one, but my experience with KQII has all come from my play through of it on a Mac in black and white. Thank you Grandma. I know I’ve completed the quest for love and a wife once long, long ago, but my memories really only recall the fact that there is a trident on a beach, a basket of goodies in a mailbox, the batmobile, and I get to dress up like a vampire! This one could take a bit longer with its play through, as I will be making up my own solution on the fly. Sounds great!

Take a look here for the box art.
Here’s the original manual.
Here’s the Wikipedia acticle on it.
Finally Game Tap has a great retrospective by Joe Rybicki

Cleaning up a few things, I was taking a look at what links bring people to Cinder Inc. from time to time. Two of the biggest are people looking for solutions to capturing Puzzle Quest monsters. The other is a map for Lyle In Cube Sector, a great platform game. So without further delay.

Puzzle Quest Capture Solutions via GameFAQ’s.

The Lyle in Cube Sector Map, click for a larger version. Via Speed Demos Archive Forums by LLCoodDave

Rolling Stone has a new interview up with William Gibson. It covers many of the topics that Gibson’s writings have influenced or the way he interprets where we are headed. Check it out here, and check out a quote from it below.

People worry about the loss of individual privacy, but that comes with a new kind of unavoidable transparency. Eventually we’re going to know everything that every twenty-first-century politician has ever done. It will be very hard for politicians and governments to keep secrets. The whole thing is porous. We just haven’t really figured out quite how porous it is.

I’ve changed the look around on the page temporarily, and I don’t know how long I’ll stick with this template, but it was brought to my attention that Cinder Inc. was broken in IE, which I never knew as I have always accessed my own site through Firefox, Opera, or even Safari, but hadn’t visited with IE since before my upgrade to Word Press 2.2. Everything should work, but let me know if you find something that doesn’t.

Another new thing I’m glad to have around, and have been wanting, it the Now Reading plugin for Word Press, and you’ll find it off to the right.

Basically it’s a virtual bookshelf, where I can keep track of what I’ve read, am reading and what’s on my shelf to read. I can leave mini-reviews, and it’s a fun way to see what’s going on. I’ve always wanted to share more of the books I’ve been reading with readers and now I have a simple way. Problems with it? I now feel more of a need to finish a book so I don’t have a book sitting in my “Now Reading” part for long periods of time. Not a truly bad thing.

I have to re-play through KQ1 again, as the system I was using for Blogging Quest was returned and I was unable to get my saves and such off the system before hand. Not to worry. I’m going to be back up and running here soon, and blogging quest will return.

Yes, it’s been a while, but we’ll not talk about that. Let’s jump into King’s Quest 1 Day 2!
When I last played I had found a ton of little treasures and items lying about, but none of the fabled three magic ones that were causing Daventry to go to ruin. In my quest for them I ended up finding a bridge to somewhere, with a troll guarding it. Figuring that I’d need something or someone to help me with it, since the game wouldn’t let me throw a dagger I had in my inventory at it, I went off looking again.

I ran back into the goat in the pens, which reminded me of the carrot I had in my inventory. Giving it to him? He just eats it and lets you go on your merry way. Not much help. Showing him the carrot lead to him following me where I went. Go goat. I took him back to the bridge with me, after which he made short work of the ugly troll and I was free to cross in peace to the other side. Impressively this seems to be one of the more clear puzzles so far in this game. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Here’s the gnome. He wanted me to guess his name and I only have three guesses. I know as a kid when I first played the game I figured it out, or I cheated, or had a friend tell me, but for the life of me I have no clue what his name could really be. Zelda, Rumplestilskin, Dolly or Joe, none of them worked. Not that it mattered much. He dropped a golden key and that’s good enough for me, because it worked on the door I ended my last play with.

Unfortunately it also meant stairs. A little side rant here. Sierra must have loved to put stairs in their games because it was pure evil to force you walk up them; with how your little person walked it was very easy to just fall off the stairs to your death repeatedly. I still have bad memories of the winding staircases in Kings Quest 4 and the many falls, deaths and restores it required. Luckily, I think I’ve improved and only managed to fall to my death twice (once on the way up and once on the way down).

This giant is what greets me in at the top of the stairs in a nice little patch of forest in the clouds. Must suck to be cut off from everyone, carrying around a nice chest of gold, and of course whenever someone comes to visit you get so excited, run over to greet them and stomp them to death. Or at least that’s the way I figured it. Still I needed that chest and he wasn’t going to give it to me.

So after finding a sling and combining it with my sweet little handful of pebbles, I went biblical on him and found myself standing over the now dead giant and in the possession of one of the legendary treasures of Daventry! One third of my way to being king! Back down the stairs and out to the “real” world again since the clouds ended up being empty of anything else to do. Poor giant.

I found the well again, and pulling from old memories I knew I needed to do something with it but couldn’t remember. Cutting the rope? Sure I got a bucket but then I couldn’t climb down the well and I’d fall to my death. Getting in the bucket and going for a ride? Perfect. I cruised on down, got out, cut the rope and took the bucket with me. After all, if I’m sacking Daventry for the crown, I might as well go all the way.

A short swim down the well later, I ended up meeting an old friend.

I remember being stuck on this guy for ages as a kid. What to do with him. How could I beat him? I wisely stayed back from him this time around, and feeling bad about killing the giant with a rock I didn’t want to kill another beast here. So throwing my dagger was out, but then I had a nice bucket of water and after throwing it at him he ran away with his tail tucked under him and I found myself in possession of treasure number 2 - the Magic Mirror. As good enough time to stop for the day before trying to find the last of the three.

Time Played: 1:55
Deaths: 6 (wolf, stairsx2, giant, drowning, falling in a well)
Score: 88 of 158

Ahh, King’s Quest. Thanks to DOSBOX and a little bit of help from a front end (DFend) and I’m up and running with a beautiful PC speaker representation of Greensleeves. Thanks Sierra!

So, here’s the first thing you’ll see when you start your game. That’s you, Sir Graham, in his jaunty traveling hat. You’re in the Kingdom of Daventry. Seems like a nice enough, pleasant sort of place. Nice castle, with a moat, and even alligators to help keep the peace. First things first, I wanted to go and see who was in the castle. I’m assuming it’s the King, who’s going to give me a clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s been long enough since I’ve played this game that I’m going to need all the help I can get.

So crossing the bridge, I end up in the moat, and my first death. Probably one of many dozens that I’ll encounter along the way.

Restarting my game, I navigate across the bridge successfully this time around and I make my way into the castle and talk with the king. It seems Daventry had 3 magic items - a mirror, a shield, and a chest - that helped keep it safe and prosperous. King Edward lost them through shady deals and if I can find them I will be appointed his heir.

Leaving the castle I wander about the countryside. I find a shack, which seems to have the kingdom’s only other human residents so far, and they are dirt poor. Just sitting at the empty table and waving their arms around madly when I talk with them. They are hungry, or so they say.

With a bit more traveling, I run into a ton of great treasure just laying about the kingdom. Graham finds an elf who just gives him a magic ring, a fairy who blesses him for being nice, a dagger, a golden egg, a four leaf clover, a carrot (maybe I should clue the woodcutter into the field of carrots behind the castle…), a bag of diamonds, and my favorite, a never-ending bowl of stew just sitting on the ground in the woods. What’s up with Daventry anyways? Why is this laying about? The king could get back to his prosperity if he just took a walk through his countryside picking up the things that must be garbage in this magical place.

Of course I run into lots of things to kill Graham as well. A witch. A wolf. A wizard. A troll blocks my way on a bridge. Graham also drowned while taking a quick dip in a lake, because I didn’t type swim fast enough. I’ve learned to travel on the edges of the screens just in case something pops up to try and kill me. That and lots and lots of saving.

The graphics are very dated. Sometimes you wonder what you are really looking at. It’s a battle trying to find out exactly what you need to type to actually look, or take anything on a screen. Still it’s impressive when you think this is 20+ years old and state of the art at the time. Take a look at the tree above. I thought they were pine cones at first, but a simple “take nut” rewarded me with a nut. Eating it also yielded me a gold nugget as well. I’m starting to like this place. What else might be lying around once I take over?

I took my magic bowl of stew to the woodcutter as he seemed hungry. If he couldn’t be bothered to pick a few carrots, why not bring the food to him! With some energetic arm waving, he and his wife were hungry no more and Graham was able to take their fiddle in thanks and play them a jig, and I’m also rewarded with more points!

After a bit more exploration of the countryside, I think it’s about time to get down to figuring out how to acquire the 3 magic items. Maybe figuring out how to get into the door in the mountain would be a good first step?

Time played: 1:03 hours
Deaths: 7
Score: 51 of 158 (Sweet, almost 1/3 of the way there!)

Welcome to Blogging Quest. This is going to be my attempt to play through all of the Sierra “Quest” games, one by one, and blogging everything along the way. Where better to start than with King’s Quest I - Quest for the Crown, the very first of the many Quest’s we’ll undertake.

Where to start with Sierra and me? I’ve talked previously about my love of Sierra games, and blogged my memories of playing Kings Quest 4 and Space Quest 3. They were the first games company that I really knew and was a fan of as a kid. I didn’t realize it at first, but my first exposure to Sierra was in the Apple/Commodore lab at my elementary school. Troll’s Tale was what we got to play after finishing up with Oregon Trail, or other educational games. And my next experience was on my grandma’s Apple IIe, with Cranston Manor. These games settled me into an irrational love of adventure games.

My first introduction to King’s Quest must have been around 1985/1986. My nerdy friends and I all played computer games, with only a few of them having a NES, so computer games were the common language of games between us all. A friend, Jeff if I remember right, came to school one day and was going on and on about this game he’d just played. It was great! You could walk around behind things, in front of them. You typed in what you wanted to do. You wanted to open a door? Type “Open Door” and it opened, right there on the screen! It understood you! (You could even type in bad words and it would chastise you.) Sweet!

Of course during the days of old, everyone traded and copied games for each other, so he quickly gave me the disk, which thanks to his IMB PCjr wouldn’t work on my sweet Amstrad 1512. Nevertheless, we played it at his place, and I learned the simple joys of the never ending Sierra deaths, and found to save early, save often was essential when playing a Sierra game (and even then, you could screw up and have to restart!). I began my love of the Sierra adventure game that would last me for many many years to come.

King’s Quest I was originally created to be a showcase piece for IBM’s new PCjr line of computers. It was to take advantage of the great new graphics and sound that the PCjr was offering over the competition. It was amazing at the time for an adventure game. You could see the protagonist. You could walk through the scenes and interact with them, where before they were just static screens. It wasn’t long before the game was ported to other systems, including a wide PC release, along with the Apple II, Amiga and others.

I’ll be playing the 1987 wide release of the game for DOS, it’s essentially the same as the original 1984 release, but made to run on EGA computers, and not just on the Tandy 1000 or PCjr. For a bit more history on the game and other info check out the Wikipedia page on it.

Coming soon! Day 1 of Blogging Quest - King’s Quest I - Quest for the Crown!

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing my own Gameplay Blog, but realizing I have limited time and such to do so. I think I’ve got a possible way to pull something together and I think that it could work.

The idea is to play through all of the old classic Sierra On-Line adventure games, in chronological order, starting with King’s Quest - Quest for The Crown and working my way though the Space Quests, Police Quests, Quests for Glory (aka Hero’s Quest), Manhunter and a few other side adventures along the way.

I’ve played through most all of the older games, and a number of the newish ones but I’ve got a lot of remembering and typing and searching ahead of me if this actually all works out. Stay tuned!

I’m working on a bit of original content here for the site, but I saw this and had to post and comment on it.

On Insomnia.ac they’ve just put up an excellent commentary on Arcade Culture. To briefly summarize, Japan still has an arcade industry that is thriving, unlike the US, and that industry and culture represent more about what games used to be about and in his mind should also still be about.

The issue comes down in many ways to difficulty. Arcade games are supposed to be difficult to make you loose. This way you have to spend more to play more. The difference between us and Japan - we continue, and loose quickly again, where in Japan, you play with one credit, and when you loose, you don’t continue, you start over at the beginning again.

I love this idea. I played with the pocket full of tokens when I was younger, playing just to keep playing and never really getting better at games because I didn’t think I had to. I always had more tokens in my pocket to play with! But with the one credit, no continue way of playing you actually are forced to get better at the game. To master it.

Think of it this way. When life is cheap, you are not focused on becoming better. Think of the Contra Code. 30 lives! And you needed them! Badly! Contra was hard. My wife and I were replaying through this recently (Merry Christmas Jess!) and after playing through it a few times with the 30 lives, both she and I found that we could make it through all of levels 1 and 2 loosing only 1 or 2 men. Contra isn’t so difficult that it cannot be completed without the plethora of extra men, but like many we rely on them with the later stages, but through practice we’d been able to finish levels based on skill, not 30 extra guys.

Many modern console games hold your had way too much. They make things easier, saves are quick and plentiful and truly there isn’t much use for “lives” anymore when you can always just load your game, or use your unlimited continues. This isn’t to say I don’t like that though. With family and work, you don’t always have the time to spend plodding through level 1 just to get to the point you were stuck at yesterday on level 2 again, but at the same time I want my games to be a bit more difficult.

I’ve never beaten Super Mario Brothers. Not even with continues. This is more to do with my skill level in the game, and my not putting the time in to improve. The game starts you from the beginning each and every time you play, and it’s up to you to have the skill to complete it. I’ve completed Super Mario World though. All I had to do with it, was continue from my saves and keep plugging away on the same level I left off at. There is a big difference.