Mazer II: Somehow Still Not Dead

Futilely trying to find information of some sort online, I had a brief moment of hope. Someone had a map...

This is at least helpful that somewhere along the line, someone won this game.

 ...and I don't understand it at all. I guess 1 is the place with the dark robed men, but that's where my understanding ends. It's a very bad map. Because if that is the place with the dark robed men, it only vaguely shows how it's designed. It's useless for navigation. If it isn't the place with the dark robed men...then it's 3? But that doesn't make any sense either...oh, things are worse than they were before!

Doing this isn't a case of screwing up, it's the game instakilling you.

My easiest idea to test out is to simply see if I can attack the blue one guarding the passage. That's not happening, he's invulernable. Let's try the next option, making a map. This is kind of tricky because I can't see the grid here. So I have to guess. Yippee. Reminder, this is the most action-packed game I've ever had to map out. Either the game was slow enough that I didn't need to worry about it or the game had an in-game pause or out of game pause I could use while the action was on-going to map. This has a pause, but it stops the game dead. I wonder if I should try taking videos for these in the future.

Remember, there's no in-game grid, so I have to guess the length of corridors, it's a bit longer on the left.

Eventually, I make most of the map, but the important is that yes, the area with the starfish is where I need to go. That's the only way in. I didn't fill in the path right then down and up, but that's not important. I don't need to go there. So, I need to figure out how to get past the starfish. Galactic Empire taught me that I need to get enemies to deal with the problem for me...except that there's not a way to get enemies past this because they follow me.

Maybe it has something to do with energy. I know what I would do if I had a four energies and a null energy mode, use the null energy mode. That doesn't work, nor does using up most of my energy either. I double check that it isn't a specific kind of energy I need to shoot, then go back to the floor with the roaming dark figures.

Last time I ignored these orbs because I assumed they were used to distract the robed figures. That may still be true. I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. Shooting the orb doesn't work, but there are a ton of lava lamps I'm shoot until something good happens. I do this for a moment until...
 

...I find another way out. Aha! I need to find a distraction or a way to eliminate these guys. The level itself is quite simple, I think there's only one guy roaming around, or the area is large enough that only one is ever a threat at one point in time. So long as I keep my distance from him, I can slowly but surely light up the lava lamps. I do a good job...until two things happen. First, because one of the robed ones is constantly wandering around, I can't stop him from unlighting the ones I light up. Second, one is camping out near one set of lights. There's not much point in getting him away, alas.

By pure accident, I find out that you can move around the glowing balls. You just have to move without touching the walls. I discover this just outside the Oracle that didn't seem very helpful earlier. With the ball near, it shoots at a robed one stuck on a nearby set of lava lamps that actually stopped it. Probably because there's something important there. Okay...what if this is what I have to do, but without the robed one there? I can in fact, guide the bolt. I just need to get the robed ones away from the front side. Which I don't even need all the balls for, I just need enough to get the bolt near the ones guarding the second portal, which causes them to leave and allows me to go around them and in.

This must be the Dark Realm. Now I'm alone...in the dark. I just need to shoot these lights, and then walk out. I tread very cautiously and...

It's a square with a crossroad in the middle, and robed ones are blocking the portal now. At first I think I've screwed myself until I spot a hole in the wall. Aha, this must be the Dark Realm, I'm in the place the crack was made.

It's a long tunnel with green mist in it. I am genuinely worried at this. What is this game doing and where is it going? There are paths without the green mist, but the first led nowhere, so I gambled that I had to stay on the path. I ended up at a red door, meeting the Dark King, accidentally walked out, returned and he said I returned. So I reloaded, found a light hole and found myself next to two robed figures. Ah, where I came from. I know exactly what kind of trickery is going on here, but it's very effective.

He's so tough that if you shoot him, he doesn't even try to shoot back.

The Dark King. Nope, he's supposed to ask why I returned to his domain...only when he realizes who I am, he isn't afraid. I'm guessing I'm going to find out that either Mordaine or the Adversary met with this guy, and I need to get him to take this guy out. Because I can't do it, in fact, he doesn't even care, he allows me to leave, but his minion, the Eashire Cat, is going to take me out in ten seconds. Was Cheshire Cat taken? Blah. Now I have to find my way back in the darkness. This is easier than I think, but it turns out that because I activated the lights, I have put myself in an unwinnable situation. Even partially activating the lights puts me there, and my save before this is quite a ways back.

And...it happens again, but slightly differently. It gives me a little hope...but nothing else happens. I can't get by, and I can't wait. It looks like this might just be the end. I go back to that map I got at the start, since I have nothing else to go on. One of the areas I've been to has to have another exit, because that's what the map says. While the map may be too crude to use as a real one, it does tell me how many exits there are. None of them are the same as any map I've been though. Outside of 1 being like the area I enter the Dark World from...hang on. It might not be totally accurate, but 2 could be the maze I go through. I haven't tried to explore the Dark King's domain yet. It's total darkness!

What I think I might have to do is set up the lava lamps around the orb so that they aren't surrounded by the Dark Ones, because I'm guessing when all three are under attack, they enter and deactivate it, then go back to the portal and block me in. I also know that I can partially seal off the hole to the Dark World by using negative energy. None of these things actually help me right now, I need to do something else first.

2 and 5 could be the level I start on, therefore let's assume it's 2 to start with. It seems like a safe bet. That means that 3 is the level I'm stuck on. There are four other exits that aren't in the middle section, but that doesn't mean the middle section isn't useful. Hang on, I'm trying to destroy a control sphere, which is behind Midnight Blue/The Blue One and in front of the starfish on the ground. What if I try to shoot past them? Nothing happens and getting back feels more dangerous than coming here to begin with.

And then I try in vain to get past the Starfish again. At first I think they chase after affirmative energy, but it's just a trick of its behaviors. It just tended to move when I shot, and I perhaps hallucinated some kind of bending going on. I triple check that it isn't just my mind and with every kind of energy. So...to recap, I've tried every single option I can short of cheating and I still can't get anywhere, as this area has nothing beyond this small area I need to enter right now and a maze I'm 99% sure doesn't have anything else I can do in it. That leaves me one option, what if I'm wrong and I need to get an enemy behind the bars?

No. They stop a distance away from it, and obviously nothing's following me in. Going slowly does nothing, and that's all I got. I prepare myself for one final futile attempt at the Dark World before giving up. As I reload my save once again, just before the Dark Lord, I notice that the energy stream is green. Green, like affirmative energy. Yet there's none whenever I have to flee. So I try sealing the hole after walking into the Dark Lord? Well, I'm sure I'll have to figure out a way to get rid of his servants later, but we'll try that first.

It works, better than I expected. They just disappear. I can return to the Oracle, who just tells me to find the ghost of Mordaine, my first indication that there's any difference between Mordaine and the Adversary. I'm sure I would have found that out anyway, but it is helpful to have some idea of what I'm about to do. Speaking of things I don't know how to do, can you figure out that this has helped me zero with the starfish? I did cheat myself inifnite health in Game Conqueror, but that didn't help with getting past anything, instakills work past health.

So now I'm basically in a position where there is nothing else I can do but continue to try here. The maze here seems to have nothing, but I haven't been closely examining it, because there's been no reason to. Basically, play around with energy shooting at things that aren't shooting at me hoping that something happens. If somebody knows something about this game or can uncover something about it. That would be nice, but I suspect this one is going to go on the backburner for a few months, then unceremoniously get an entry bemoaning the difficulty of the game. I'm really not sure how to solve this one at this point, and I don't think I will be able to. I genuinely can't think of anything I haven't tried on level 3, and the Dark World is as solved as it can be.

Side note, I'm now on Bluesky, which will be more or less exactly what you expect from me, plus occasional musings on games that I'm not covering here or on TAG.

This Session: 3 hours 40 minutes

Total Time: 6 hours 40 minutes