I've played approximately seven and a half Etrian Odyssey games - I'm going to try Eye of the Beholder again, surely it's got to start making some sort of sense by now

I've mapped the first level! That wasn't too bad - the few enemies dotted around could be dodged and hit with a combination of physical attacks and offensive magic, and resting took care of the few wounds I had. The hit rate from physical attacks remains infuriatingly low.

The game does assume knowledge of the AD&D rules, which I... just don't have. In fact, despite my extremely long list of nerd credentials, I've never played it and I don't think I know how - there are character sheets and graph paper? Twenty-sided dice are involved somehow?

So I've taken the advice of a guide (thanks Lance: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/564791-eye-of-the-beholder/faqs/38541 ) and have an alleged "standard" party of human cleric (attack + magic), elven mage (magic), dwarven warrior (attack) and halfling thief (useless thus far). I have no idea what alignments do.

Sewer 2 is going all right so far. It introduces keys, doors, togglable pits and fake walls (mostly marked with what the game calls a "travel symbol", as well as a tile that swivels you silently. The level has three routes from the start - I've now found 4 silver keys and used 3.

If you're interested you can follow along with my Google Sheets emoji map here! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12e7A6EIfk5-9iDq9SfrQuAw1D3WtsOeK98pI7TbfL2k/edit?usp=sharing

Well into the second level now - after the keys it's mostly been a disappointingly featureless maze with occasional skeletons and zombies. Plenty of vaguely useful items but precious few things that will help me to progress - I still can't find a key for the lock on the NE side

Discovered a switch that toggled a ton of walls on and off, but again, revealed very little in the way of actual paths forward. I now have a red lock I don't have the key for, a pair of teleporters marked R.A.T.S., and a switch marked "Entry level" that I can't fathom out.

I peeked at a guide to discover that if you press the "entry level" button twice, it transports you to a prison area with a lot of skeletons and a secret door back to below the pit area. But once again, absolutely nothing in terms of getting anywhere else

Took the lift again. Ohh dear.

The "death section" was a complete letdown in terms of danger, yielding a couple of lost zombies and the gold key I needed. Now I'm on the third level and am losing hope that I'm going to be doing anything other than plodding through stagnant black water for the rest of the game.

The third level introduces these zapfrogs. They're a bit more sturdy than anything I've faced before, have the first enemy ranged attack, and I therefore don't like them.

After some business with gems and keys, finally reached a change of scenery on the fouraAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAA

Continuing through the fourth level, and the spiders are a bad time all round. There are a ton of them, they regenerate, and they sometimes inflict poison - and I've only found two potions that cure it. I have access to a Slow Poison spell but nothing that can otherwise remove it

I've also found a load of floor plates next to doors that don't seem to react, and two (so far) rings and a stone sceptre that look important. Important where, I don't know, but I'll accept anywhere as long as it gets me out of here.

A dwarven key got me out of the spider area and back into the main route. Found a dwarf called Taghor who is tagging along unused because only two people can be up at the front. Pulled a chain and it awarded me a special bonus. Not sure what for - just fiddling with everything?

Actually I worked out what the chain did, it stopped a weird revolving door arrangement in the circular area next to it on the map. Still no sign of a path down the way, though.

I'd been worried about the diminishing FOOD meter on all my characters, occasionally topping it up by using rations (iron or regular type). But now the cleric can learn a Create Food spell, rendering them all useless (which is good because I can't find any more)

Aeeeeerrrghhh (in Blue Tunnels, either floor 2B or 3, I haven't decided yet)

This is actually something I've noticed - despite Etrian Odyssey giving you tools to map, it expects very little from you compared to this! Here, you're having to map out all sorts of unique situations and relationships between switches and doors - EO uses few icons by comparison

I thought this was funny. "Once you've finished being murderized by our magic pit death traps, please use the reset switch to help us surprise the next batch of adventurers". In the middle, the teleport marked 19 whisked me off to nowhere and I've only just found my way back.

Currently experiencing a bit of a slog with these unfriendly birdies that appear in huge gangs, take ages to go down and endlessly respawn. Prayer + magic missiles and throwing darts plus melee weapons eventually does it. At least they're worth 1000 EXP each

In Etrian Odyssey, the area on the left would absolutely definitely have been a boss room. But instead, the first boss-like enemy I've seen was in the relatively nondescript blue area on the right. I dispatched the blue-robed red-eyed shadow so quickly I didn't get a screenshot.

Unfortunately, my hard-fought-for downward staircase (to Rock level 4) immediately dead-ends. When scooting through the game somewhere further up because I had got lost, I swear I found a colony of dwarves that I somehow didn't encounter again when I reloaded - will have to check

Conundrum solved by simply dropping down the pits, which led to the other side of the doors and both had dwarven keys I could use elsewhere. Now decidedly in the third stratum and faced with yet more problems.

I spent a while cleaning up areas I'd missed before, including finding the dwarf camp (no secret, just a door I walked right past). This gives a mostly useless lv3 character, but I've put him in the back shooting arrows. Also a cleric who can resurrect, that has potential!

The other big discovery is finally getting these portals to work - you have to offer them each the stone artefact that's missing from the frame (which isn't consumed afterwards). Currently leads to a hub in 3rd stratum, but I don't know where that is relative to anywhere else

I had the eggs to bribe them with but decided to slaughter the Drow at the start of level 7 anyway. They had some possibly good equipment, but this again highlights one of my major hangups with the game - it never tells you any stats for any equipment, not even in the manual!

One more equipment update: Finally discarded a ton of stuff I'd been hauling around at level 7 entrance. Unlike many other games, there's no currency in this dungeon so carrying anything you're not going to use is just dead weight. (No weight either, but... dead inventory space)

Oh my jesusing christ

Boobspiders aside, I've sort of settled into the game's combat. It's annoying you can only have two fighters, but now the others are equipped with arrows/darts. Unfortunately you have to scramble around picking up all your projectiles after each fight and it's rather undignified

My main problem just now is that levels 7, 8 and/or 9 (I'm not sure yet) are exceptionally difficult to map. They're a maze of interconnected staircases, and it's never clear where a staircase takes you - if it's down to the next true level, or a sublevel in between.

The only real way to find out is to map every fragment separately - then, if you recognize that one fragment leads into somewhere you've already mapped (not an easy feat as all corridors look the same), or if something fits neatly in a gap in a different map, you can combine them

I'm glad I'm not doing this on physical graph paper.

One more thing about maps tonight - I'm not sure if it's somehow rude of me to be impressed by this, like I was expecting less, but I was amazed when I realized the floors lined up with each other! Stairs/pits aren't teleports, they're spatially consistent between floors.

I don't know what this thing is but I want it to go away.

Still slashing my way through the Drow levels. The game's thinking up new tricks - a passage with a sign "Thief's Corridor" outside that hoovers most of your items out of your inventory into its alcoves. Then it has the sauce to put another sign at the end saying "Thank you"

Got fed up of the Drow levels when I hit a "combination lock" room that seemed to hit me in the face with a fireball no matter what I did. Strategically fell down a hole into the fourth stratum and have been fighting me way through that instead - just discovered another NPC

A new mechanic is introduced - a "WELCOME" sign that burns your face off when you read it

And it's full of these mantis things that have about twelve blades each. It's a lot of fun down here

How rude

The enemies get more fearsome and sharp-looking as you move down, with the exception of these hilarious monstrosities that look like they've been sewn together from spare parts at the Build-A-Bear. I will call them Snorkaborks

Another annoyance - really, more like another example of this game's habit of being deliberately unhelpful - is that you can't identify what key a lock requires until you try one that works. Even if a lock looks the same as another, it can require a completely different key.

Also on this floor - these octopus-faces with the potential to, as they say in america, absolutely wreck your shit. Unlike other enemy ranged attacks the psychic mind blast is an instant hitscan and will paralyze multiple party members. You need to make sure these don't face you

That reminds me of another oddity with these games - the debate over "waltzing", or leading an enemy around in a weird dance of combat where you keep them moving around chasing after you to make them unable to attack.

The game's cluebook mentions moving while fighting explicitly. It feels somehow wrong because it's not an option in other RPGs, but I really can't imagine playing the game without it. Especially for these octobeards, where if you allow them to turn towards you you're almost dead

I think I'm almost there now. Remaining mysteries: A few locks here and there I haven't opened, the "combination lock", and one stone item that looks like a gem. (Plus some sort of "oracle" room much earlier in the game? Not sure what that's about)

Cleverly, you have to find the stone ankh in the second cave floor before it'll let you out, as there's no way back up except through the portal. This clues players in to the purpose of these mysterious stone doors even if they somehow haven't worked it out by now.

The final stone portal was behind that last door in the cave I couldn't open (I must have overlooked the Drow Key I had). This leads you to final area of the game by using the Stone Orb on it, also on level 11. There's a stone gem slot which I never found the item or door for.

I went back with the aid of a guide and found the real route out of the lowest Drow level, which is much harder than just falling down a hole - you need to... throw an item at a nondescript wall, notice that's opened a wall across the room, then throw an item at the floor plate?!

Elsewhere you can find an Orb of Power, and if you take it back to the Oracle slot in the wall from ages ago, you finally get your inventory identified... a bit. It changes the descriptions to things like Ring +2 and Sword +4 but it's unclear what the pluses actually add to.

I gave up mapping the purple tower because it made so little sense, but after just wandering around for a short while... here he is! At least you're given the option?

"Surrender" just makes you throw all your items down and then he attacks anyway. I had prepared for a difficult struggle - and indeed, he's like the Mind Flayers in that he casts a Death spell if he ever gets to face you - but really, he was about as tough as a standard monster.

There's no animation of him dying or anything, the screen just flicks to this text scroll as soon as you land the last hit. Heroes of Waterdeep? That sounds all right. Thanks.

And then it boots you back to DOS. That's it, you've had your fun - now go and do some spreadsheets or something.

Footnote! There is a sort-of-reward animation but only if you kill Xanathar with the environment! The Wand of Silvias you get from the dwarves does nothing impressive for most of the game, but can push him backwards - you have to push him into his spike trap.

My final maps are here! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12e7A6EIfk5-9iDq9SfrQuAw1D3WtsOeK98pI7TbfL2k/edit#gid=0 I'm not sure who they're for - even if I wanted to play this game again I'd want to remap things, as the exploration and making sense of the dungeon is so much a part of the experience.

In fact, as I'm not such a great fan of the combat, equipment, or most of the other gameplay in general, I would say it was the main thing I got from this game - the satisfaction of bringing order to the unknown. Sounds almost like I enjoyed it as a puzzle game when I say it.

@threadreaderapp unroll