Sword of Hrakel... HELP!!!

[DanSolo]

OK, so I'm probably the only person in about 20 years who's bothered to play this game. Anyone got a solution or hints for this?
And more specifically if anyone knows this game, (how) do I feed the duck to the wolf?
Thanks!

[DanSolo]

The answer was no. You search a part of the forest and you get an axe to chop his head off. Nice.
Now, how to sail the boat somewhere or get rid of the gargoyles...

[Jeff-20]

I've got to try this game now.

[carlsson]

Out of curiosity, do you chop the head off the duck, wolf, gargoyle or all of them? It could evolve into quite a splatterfest!

Maybe it is a thought for an upcoming VIC-20 crap game compo, to write true hack-and-slash adventure games where the only way to advance is to kill off everything in your sight. Throw problem solving out of the window!

[DanSolo]

I couldn't find any way past the wolf without the chopper, and it doesn't work on the gargoyles. You can kill the duck later in the game, although I didn't notice if it was as a result of the axe or not.
I cut the man down (was that with the axe too? er...) but I can't get anything out of him. Also I can sail the boat, but I get stuck on the lake.
So I'm only stuck in 3 places really.

PS: Is anybody writing down what they're doing for a walkthrough?

[carlsson]

Try to hit the axe through the hull of the boat. It might make a difference, you could find an underwater tunnel to the other side of the lake.

[DanSolo]

I think I'll try the "chop adventure" command next.

[lance.ewing]

I realise that this is a very old thread, but being a big Sword of Hrakel fan myself, I can't resist responding to this. Dan Solo may never see it, but perhaps he will, and maybe there are others like us out there somewhere.

Here is a complete walkthrough, written by myself:

https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/walkthrough

Went to quite a bit of trouble reversing engineering the game data to work that out. You can follow that process here if you like:

https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/locations
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/map
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/items
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhr ... -locations
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/messages
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/commands
https://sites.google.com/site/swordofhrakel/scripts

Reverse engineering from the data was actually my second approach to this. Back around 1999, I did it by disassembling the 6502 code, fully commenting it, and thereby working out how the data was being interpreted. I lost all of that investigative work, and so when I revisited this a few years ago, I took what ended up being the quicker approach of spotting patterns in the data to work it all out.

Anyway, this may or may not be useful to someone else in the future. I, like Dan, suspect that the fans of this game are very few. I gave up on trying to solve the game the traditional way of actually playing the game. I finished most other text adventures I had, but not this one. In the end I beat it with brute force.

[Ola H]

Amazing!

I rember being very intrigued by Sword of Hrakel when I read the rather long description in the catalog of Swedish importer Tial Trading in 1983. But it wasn't until the early 90s that I actually got hold of the game when I asked an electronic store about their old Vic games. They had some in the cellar and were kind enough to give them to me for free. I don't think I ever got around to play the game, though.

Now, the adventure game that has haunted me since 1985 is Curse of The Werewolf from Terminal software. That one I actually bought from the same store when they were still selling Vic games. I had lusted for it for some months - the cover illustration was just irresistible. (Someone else apparently likes it too http://obscurevideogames.tumblr.com/pos ... are-vic-20)

I played it exhaustively but never managed to solve it. I just couldn't kill the werewolf though it seemed like I had all the objects needed for the task. But I didn't give up - throughout the years I wrote to magazines and adventure gaming societies. Nobody was ever able to offer any help though. And, of course, since 1996 I have routinely searched the internet for hints and solution. But in vain. It looks like I'm the only one who has ever played it. A shame since it's a pretty unusual text adventures. Objects and monsters appear att random places, and there are some RPG-elements like health and hitpoints.

But just yesterday I happened to have a look at my old map and notes again. I don't know ... I guess I will have to give it another go ... but maybe I'll start afresh this time

[lance.ewing]

Curse of the Werewolf? Yes, I remember it, in fact I think I still have the original tape in storage somewhere. And no, I didn't finish it. Argghhh! Sounds like I need to give that one another go as well.

I have a vague recollection that that one might be written in BASIC. Sword of Hrakel was written in machine code as a generic interpreter, similar to how Scott Adams wrote his games. I suspect that some of Romik's other text adventures may have used the same generic interpreter as Sword of Hrakel.

[Ola H]

Terminal's other Vic adventures, Magic Mirror and Nosferatu by Mick Taylor, were written in Basic. Curse of the Werewolf was written by C. Robinson but I guess it's very likely that it was written in Basic too - many (most?) adventures for the Vic-20 were.

Anyway, that's good news! Even I might have the skill to reverse-engineer it then