Serpent Isle Cluebook

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This is another one of those cluebooks that I scanned in 2 1/2 years back and is still stuck in the uploads queue at replacementdocs.com. I’m not entirely surprised looking at some of the early pages as they are badly out of focus around the spine, and generally a bit of a mess. They get better later on and I can still read it all ok though. It’s a hell of a lot better than nothing at all so if you want to download it it’s available here.

I’ll keep this brief again since there isn’t a whole lot to say about all these Ultima cluebooks and you’d be far better off downloading them than reading my ramblings. It’s more about ticking them off the list than anything else. This one was published in 1993 by Origin and is along the lines I’ve come to expect by now. It’s supposedly written by Thoxa as a guide to a foretold hero who will restore balance. It starts out with a history of Serpent Isle, including the current occupants leaving Sosaria, their virtue system and a history of the islands previous occupants.

It then gets onto the stuff that will actually help you through the game with the standard town/dungeon guides. This is presented entirely as a travelogue by Thoxa as she goes to every corner of the realm gathering information and is easily the most entertaining guide that I’ve read in any of these cluebooks so far. It weaves in gentle clues to the story without resorting to lists and you could use all of this without risking of spoiling the game too much.

It then drops the pretense of being a guidebook and goes into the game mechanics. This is a dull but useful section with one table of data after another. Finally, there is a fairly straightforward walkthrough with two sets of answers, the first answers giving reasonably specific clues to what has to be done, whereas the second give very specific clues + details of all the optional tasks. It isn’t the sort of walkthrough you would want to read as a story but it is a format that lends itself to finding a specific answer without having to read the whole thing.

I think the content and structure of these books has in general improved steadily as I’ve worked through them, which makes this the best so far. I prefer the Ultima 3 cluebook as a collectible but this is a better guide to its respective game and more fun to read at the same time. I really wish there were interviews with the developers in all of these but they didn’t start appearing in Origin’s cluebooks until later. I’ll have to make do with the Official Book Of Ultima.

Ultima Underworld 2 Cluebook

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This was published in 1993 by Origin and in available to download from http://www.replacementdocs.com which is where I’ve pinched the above image from, being too lazy to scan it in again right now.

The book is supposedly compiled by Bishop, who was the equivalent of the Avatar in one of the other worlds you travel to during the game. Just like the U7 cluebook, he is only the compiler and other characters give you the background for each world along with all the maps and areas of interest. I don’t know if it’s just the fact that I’m such a massive UW2 fan, but I especially enjoyed this section and it gave the opportunity to learn a little of the history of all these worlds.

After this, Gems Of Enlightenment does something new for an Ultima cluebook and comes completely out of character. It stops pretending to be a guide written by a fictional character and instead is very much information about the game with a swathe of technical details about the mechanics. The included walkthrough is also just a walkthrough without the usual embellishments. It uses a Q & A format like U7 and has a general hint, followed by specific instructions.

If the walkthrough is too much detail, the final page of the book is a list of everything you need to do to complete the game. It’s odd to see a game that will take many hours to complete boiled down to a short list like this but if you are wondering what you need to do next, this would be the place to look.

Ultima 7 Cluebook

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This book was published in 1992 by Origin. I scanned this and the Serpent Isle equivalent back in October 2008 and uploaded them to replacementdocs.com. 2 1/2 years later, they still languish on the uploads queue so I’ll give up waiting and host them myself. The U7 cluebook can be downloaded here. The scans were done on my newer (and much cheaper) scanner so between that and my unwillingness to flatten the books they aren’t always the best quality around the spine but they are good enough to read.

The format of these cluebooks is following a set formula by now and this is little different. The book is presented as a guide prepared in advance for the Avatar to use once he has arrived in Britannia. Each of the places are described by a character from the game who has some association with it giving you a slightly different perspective for each place. After this section concludes with the dungeons, there are tables of data with merchant prices, spells, weapon/armor effectiveness, trainers and healers.

The last major section is the usual walkthrough although this takes a slightly unusual format in that it is a question and answer session with the wisps and timelord. This is more like the sort of thing you would see in a Sierra hintbook, with a general question then answers which are progressively more revealing. With a game that is so open right from the start, this means you could potentially scan through for an appropriate question rather than reading the whole thing. The problem with this is that many questions refer to the answers already given so you would have to proceed through each town in roughly the order expected for the question to mean anything. It’s a lot less fun to read than the standard narrative walkthrough from the other books but would potentially spoil the game less, if you can stop yourself reading the wrong bits inadvertently.

Reading through all these cluebooks is making me want to play some of these games again, especially Ultima 7. I’m certainly enjoying Knights Of The Old Republic but any of the titles I’ve looked at today are better games in their own right at least from what I’ve seen so far. I expect that I’ve still got most of KOTOR to play through so I’ll see how it develops.

Ultima Underworld Cluebook

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This was the first Origin cluebook I ever bought and it shows. As a teenager, I wouldn’t have worried too much about looking after it and it’s fairly tatty as a result. It amazes me that some of the games I own from back then are in as good shape as they are. Mysteries Of The Abyss was published back in 1992 by Origin and like near enough all the other Ultima cluebooks is available to download from http://www.replacementdocs.com. Origin had established a formula by now of getting a couple of the supporting characters to write the book. This takes a slightly different approach and is compiled by Baron Almrics librarian after the events from several sources.

The first two sections, maps and general advice, are written from the perspective of the villain of the piece, Tyball writing a letter to an apprentice. This adds some dark humour to things as he delights in the suffering of all the inhabitants of the abyss. Rather than having some general text on each level, Tyball just describes the points of interest on each one which are also indicated on the map. Quite how Tyball knows all this stuff I don’t know, and I’m sure he wasn’t as cartoonishly evil in the game but it’s more entertaining than the dry style of Lost Notebooks of Nellie Bly. Tyball takes responsibility for near enough everything that has gone wrong for all these people trying to eke out an existence in the abyss.

The walkthrough is fairly brief but narrates the shortest route through the game. This is then followed by a history of the abyss which gives the story of Garamon and Tyball before the game started. This certainly has more detail than I remember in the game although I’m not convinced it doesn’t contradict to some extent. The book finishes off with a few lists of mantras, spells, and the like.

Martian Dreams Cluebook

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Now that I’ve started, I’ll carry on going through all these Ultima cluebooks and the next in the list is Martian Dreams. This has to be one of the rarest out of all of Origin’s books since the game itself isn’t all that common. This logic doesn’t always follow though. The obvious example here is Leisure Suit Larry which had a very slow start in sales terms but loads of pirate copies ended up being passed around. I gather this was so prevalent that after a year, sales of the hint books outstripped sales of the game. I seriously doubt that happened with Martian Dreams, which is a game that has to this day never seen a budget re-release or been available on any compilation. It seems to be largely forgotten and this is a crying shame for one of my favourite Ultima games. Maybe if EA ever sign up with GOG.com we might see it get the audience it deserves but it’s not looking likely at the moment.

Back to the cluebook anyway. This was published in 1991 by Origin and takes the very familiar format of being a guidebook written by one of the characters in the game, in this case Nellie Bly with additional notes by Spector. The cheap monochrome covers of the last two cluebooks are gone and this one is in full glossy colour which is a huge improvement. Along with all the other Martian Dreams documentation, I scanned this in 5 years back and it’s available for download at http://www.replacementdocs.com.

It’s a much drier read than the Savage Empire guide with two much more serious characters “writing” it and contains little in the way of humour. You have to turn the book sideways to read the early pages which I’m not especially keen on but it’s a standard format for all but the map/guide section. It does contain a large quantity of artwork and plenty of background details including a history of the Martians. There is also a full bestiary with pictures and finally a walkthrough told in journal format by Dr. Spector.