COMPLETE: Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes

[kjorteo]

When I posted my closer look at Adventure of Sam, xaq_the_aereon and I got to talking about the now-lost-touch-with third member of the ZZTeam, Atomos, and whatever happened to him. Hopefully he's doing well, wherever he is.

I noted that, while that game's depiction of Xaq and of ChocoboKick (me at the time) definitely isn't something I'm proud of, it's at least informative. It's a sort of time capsule-esque window into my edgy teen phase, and the kind of personality I had back then. By contrast, Atomos in Adventure of Sam had the least personality of the three. He was just sort of the third person there after Xaq and I had our shouting matches with Sam. That made him the most likeable of the three by virtue of being the least hateable, yeah, but... who was Atomos, anyway? The lack of clues in Adventure of Sam paired with his, well, not exactly being here to ask now made me curious. Thus, because I'm a literal packrat and of course I still have them, I set off to go through some of his games. Maybe there'd be some answers in there, I thought.

Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes is a QBasic game made by Atomos way back when, well, when we were all hanging out. It was briefly available on my personal website in the GeoCities/Xoom era, and I still to this day have all the files from it mirrored locally because of course I do. I'm guessing the people directly in his friend circle were the only ones who ever played this, so this is the most exciting archaeological dig since davidn posted MasterSpy. (Edit: Or the most exciting davidn-related archaeological dig since, like, four days ago.)

QF5R is a modified clone of my Colosseum game, expanded, advanced, and basically better. (One thing I definitely learned--or at least remembered after having forgotten--was that Atomos was disgustingly good at QBasic compared to me.) It's a menu-based RPG grindfest, wherein the player picks a class, goes out to have a boss battle, then comes back to a very simple menu system to shop/rest/save before going right back out. Those are the only two modes the Colosseum games had, really. It's grindy as hell, there are some design and "some attacks are useless compared to others" balance issues, and one severe bug that actually worked in my favor, so that last one I don't mind. (The only way to get the good ending is to replay the entire game as the unlockable secret class... except that in my run, I got the "oops you died try again" downer ending, then it went on to play the final battle and true ending anyway. ... Okay!)

Did I learn anything about Atomos from this? Yes and no. I mean, there are some clues here, for sure, but I really can't call them indicative of anything in the same breath with which I bemoan how horrible ChocoboKick was in Adventure of Sam. I'm sure Atomos grew up, too.

I did learn that there's an entire separate Colosseum called the Astral Plane that's home to all the author's friend cameos, each of whom rewards you for beating them by giving you a cheat code to play as their special unique custom class. ChocoboKick's class is the Warkior, whose special skill is Wark Speed (all-or-nothing attack that either does high damage+stun or misses.) His Limit Break is a more straightforward move that's just one single attack that does an absurd amount of damage. It's called Limit Beak.

This game is amazing.

Comments

[chalcedony_starlings]

… Limit Beak.

Limit Beak.

Limit Beak.

OvOvOvOvOvOvOvO

[kjorteo]

Limit Beak.

[xyzzysqrl]

I think we ALL need some time to just sit and bask in that pun's ambient GLOW.

[xaq_the_aereon]

I can't remember much about him either, but I can certainly see why we got along with him so well if he was making puns of that caliber. XD

[kjorteo]

I could be wrong, but I want to say he solicited input for how everyone wanted their custom class/battle/dialogue/etc. to go, and that *I* came up with those. I think. Memory is very hazy.

You're a Tek Knight, by the way, but I haven't played around with a Xaq run to see what that actually does or what moves you have.

[xaq_the_aereon]

*sighs* Yeah, that sounds like high-school me alright. One thing I recall trying to incorporate into the story Xaq (the half-dragon, not the fluffdragon...it's so confusing having 2 OCs with the same jumble-of-Scrabble-tiles name sometimes) came from was technological weapons like what you'd see in RWBY, despite it being a high fantasy setting.

Or maybe that was before I shifted it over to a high fantasy setting? Xaq was originally supposed to be fully human with a suit of dragon-styled armor where the wings and claws and such were part of it rather than him.

[xaq_the_aereon]

Of course, this was also back when his primary weapon was a direct FF7 ripoff at a smaller scale before it eventually evolved into the earliest version of this literal monstrosity, so between that and some of the character name issues I brought up in a previous entry, I think it's safe to say my creativity back in those days was a smidge lacking.

Y'know, in case "Xaqchoania" was too subtle.

[kjorteo]

I always kind of wondered how one was meant to hold that without lacerations.

... With an armored glove, probably. I sort of forgot about the tech aspect, but I do remember always seeing you as the straightforward, heavily-armed-and-armored fighter/berserker of the group (contrasted to Atomos being more of a mage type and me being... uh... a chocobo.) My Colosseum game has a statue room with textual descriptions of statues of all three of us, and yours is described as:

"You see a large Statue in the middle of the room ahead. The figure would be a considerable nomination for the title of 'Most Heavily-Equipped Person in the Universe'. You wonder how it's POSSIBLE to have all that equipment and not double over from the weight. Above the statue, a mural of a Blue Sun gives a cold glow."

(The blue/red/yellow suns over our statues were references to our ZZT avatars, of course.)

... I'd kind of forgotten about the half-dragon aspect, but hazy bits and pieces are starting to come back to me now that you mention it. That basically meant, just, how I described him but with taloned dragon feet, right? (I am okay with this tweak.)

[xaq_the_aereon]

Given its habit of devouring anyone trying to hold it who can't tame it, lacerations are a ways down on the list of concerns. But yeah, that's a pretty accurate description otherwise.

[xyzzysqrl]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Squawkin' at the walls of heartache, kweh kweh.
I am the warkior.

[xaq_the_aereon]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

And you guys complain about my jokes. :p

[xyzzysqrl]

I like your jokes!
But I'm new around here.

[xaq_the_aereon]

Well, let's just say there was a very good reason I was chosen as the voice of Sans when we did our playthrough of Undertale.

Case in point.

[xyzzysqrl]

Eventually I'm going to actually play Hatoful and Undertale and a whole new world will open up for me.

And then I will close that world because I'm kinda not much for voiced videos but IT WILL OPEN.

[kjorteo]

You two teaming up might just physically murder me.

[chalcedony_starlings]

. o O ( Ho ho ho. )

[davidn]

How amazing to look back at this :) Can you put the files online anywhere? I'm interested to see this relic!

Masterspy, what a memory :) It's one of those things that's really special to our family because we (and now you) seem to be the only ones who remember it at all, despite it being almost unbelievably clever for its tiny size. I don't remember ever completing it for myself, but this says I have.

My mum particularly loved its version of the London underground with the station names twisted slightly from real life - Turnham Red (Turnham Green) and Henfosters (Cockfosters). I only recently noticed that (of all things) Grand Theft Auto did the same thing, when I was playing it for the DOS game club - San Francisco's Telegraph Hill becomes Telephone Hill, Hackensack becomes Hackenslash.

[kjorteo]

I don't know whatever happened to Atomos, but if he's still out there somewhere and if he's anything like I am now, I somehow doubt he'd appreciate me digging up his angsty teenage QBasic writing and posting it for the entire Internet to see!

PM me sometime. :)