[Josh Devlin]

Josh couldn't help but laugh as his magic meter extended all the way off the right edge of the screen. Well then, that would certainly make the end-game bosses easy if the Magic Cape would ever turn up. That, or anything that he could actually use this extended magic meter with! He made a note about the game awarding him multiple magic meter extensions, which would be a good feature for an easier difficulty - just not for tournament settings.

He had more pressing matters right now, though - available locations were quickly running out, and difficult decisions had to be made. Going into the Ice Tower without the Hammer would be an enormous time sink if he did not find anything, as almost all of the treasure was several floors up. The option he decided on was the graveyard - all the way across the top of the map. "I'm getting tired of walking all the way across the world," he said aloud, starting to become mentally tired from all of the dead ends he had managed to find.

What made the graveyard an even more difficult decision is it was not one of the dungeons containing the seven imprisoned maidens - he would never have to visit it unless there was an item required for completion inside. Passing through the village of thieves long enough to have several of his arrows stolen, he headed north into the foggy resting place of the dead. Complicating matters further was the dungeon beneath the graveyard having multiple entrances. Depending on where the door keys were placed, it was possible for him to get locked out of the dungeon without the Burning Staff, an item required to complete it. That was an item he did not have.

In the graveyard's first treasure room, four mummies ambushed him from beyond the walls. With the Fire Sword in hand, though, reducing them to cinders was very easy. "Huh, the Sword of Light," he remarked after kicking open the first chest and moving on to the second. "That's going to make combat for the rest of the game very easy, but it's still not prog--never mind." On the opposite side of the treasure room was the Magic Mirror - that would open up travel between the Upper and Lower Worlds. "Now the seed is starting to make sense. But that's still not the hammer!" He immediately gazed into the mirror, finding himself at the start of the dungeon. "At least I have plenty of things to do now." He exited the graveyard to the east, his sights on a small cave atop a ledge that could only be accessed by warping between worlds...

UBWmKRkcp_

{WC: 443}
{PC: 11}

[Elayne]

A random event has occurred!

What will you do?

Josh Devlin

There's a glitch in the screen and it looks like you're in an invisible maze. The only thing still visible is the portal you came in from. Woops, maybe this area was unfinished?

[Josh Devlin]

The small cave was unlit, but it was supposed to be pretty straightforward - all Josh had to do was toss a bomb at the cracked wall in the back, let it explode, and head into a secret area. The bomb exploded in front of his face after bouncing off an invisible wall and sending him through his portal back to the Upper World. "Looks like that entrance was not properly mapped when the game code was patched," Josh remarked aloud, taking down a note on the issue after playing his Flute and letting the giant eagle carry him back to the ledge in the corner of the Rama Desert.

In the base game, entry to the Rama Palace required the Tome of Sands. With the Golden Glove and creative use of the Magic Mirror, though, he could reach the ledge to the Palace's back door. The palace had three entrances - the front door, which required the Tome to use, the back door, which was intended to be an exit, and the upper entrance, which led to the dungeon's boss. Because Rama Palace did not hold one of the maidens, defeating the boss there might not be necessary.

The palace's ground level was where all of the treasure was, unless one of them got shuffled to be at the boss. Antlion-like enemies appeared underneath Josh from time to time, trying to drag him into quicksand. As long as he dashed with the Speed Shoes and with his Light Sword out, nothing could catch him. With that sword in hand, almost every enemy that was not a boss would die to a single slash.

He dashed his way through a crypt and back, handily outrunning a rolling sphere trap with the dungeon's Big Key in hand. With that, he made his way back to the dungeon's northwest corner. In the large, locked chest there was the Frost Staff, a potent ranged weapon capable of freezing enemies in their tracks. "Ah, that's one of the the things I need to complete the game," Josh smiled. "How rude for it to be so far out of the way." He gazed into the Magic Mirror to quickly leave the dungeon, then summoned the great eagle for a flight to the top of the mountain on the other side of the world map. It was a lengthy flight - enough to hold the direction down with one hand and down a lot of his energy drink with the other.

The graceful eagle could only take Josh to a ledge close to the mountaintop Tower of the Gods - a six-story monument dedicated to the goddesses of Power, Wisdom, and Courage. It took a brief jaunt to the Lower World and back to actually make it to the tower's entrance. Had the jaunt between worlds not been necessary to reach, he would have come here a long time ago. He did have another reason to be in the tower - one of the imprisoned maidens would be at its highest turret...

I4jhJzRhp_

{WC: 501}
{PC: 12}

[Jenesis]

A random event has occurred!

What will you do?

Josh Devlin

You fight through the tower and rescue the maiden. Wait, haven't you already rescued this one? Same dialogue and everything too.

[Josh Devlin]

"Huh, strange - this maiden was the same one as in the Thieves' Hideout," Josh noticed the repeat text. After being warped out of the tower, he flashed his menu to make sure he was awarded the crystal for completion - at least that worked properly. Probably another text pointer issue. He was impressed that the gameplay was solid in such an early state - so far, not one game breaking bug that made the seed unbeatable. He was wondering, though, if he would run into one soon. He was running out of spots for the hammer to be - both overworlds had been completely cleared.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was go as deep into every dungeon as he possibly could. With only 40 total health capacity and no armor upgrades yet, the Ice Tower would be quite the challenge, and there would be no guarantee he could even complete it. Playing the eagle-summoning flute once more, he was able to land on the southeast side of the lake, when he turned around after realizing something. "Wait. I can get to one item in the Sunken Ship. If it's there..." He didn't want to finish that sentence for fear of his boss observing.

Instead, Josh just bravely headed in, first traveling between worlds to raise the nearby dam. Events that occurred in one world were often reflected into the other, and entry into the Sunken Ship past the main deck was not possible with the water raised. He headed for the lower level, the only accessible treasure chest behind a gate that would only open after defeating all of the aquatic enemies in the room. With the Light Sword, it was more a formality. He kicked the chest open, his facial expression immediately turning sour. "Wait, Earthshaker magic, here? If the hammer is in the Bog of Evil, which isn't even a required dungeon..."

Josh couldn't help but grumble, gazing into his mirror twice - once to leave the dungeon, and once to go back to the Upper World. "What a pain in the ass." That alabaster eagle was sure getting a workout this time around, taking him from one corner of the world to the other. A quick trip to the desert ledge later, he lifted the stone hiding the portal to the Lower World. With the Earthshaker spell in hand, he could now open the door to the maze underneath the swamp. He rolled his eyes when he heard the Upper World dungeon theme, reminding him that there would not be a maiden to rescue. The enemies in the dungeon also hurt a lot - with his current health and defense, three hits meant death.

The subterranean swamp's main level was a sprawling maze, full of living fire snakes that tracked his movement, fireball-spitting statues, and jellyfish that would electrify themselves seemingly at random. There were a lot of treasure chests, but most of them contained small keys. He found all of them plus the Boss Key on the main level's east side. The left side had two torch-lighting puzzles each leading to a treasure, and both of them were on very tight timers without the Staff of Fire. It took three tries for him to get the more difficult one in time. Falling to the lower level, he kicked open the chest containing his reward: a bundle of silver-tipped arrows. "That's really nice, but it's not what I'm looking for! If it's on the boss..." he muttered, using the Magic Mirror to warp to the start of the dungeon - it was faster than backtracking all the way across the entire dungeon to reach the bottom level.

The Bog's boss was a creature consisting entirely of nine lightning-shooting eyeballs. It was one of the most difficult bosses in the game due to its highly random movement and ability to shoot highly lightning at the player with little to no warning. With a bow and silver arrows, though, each of its parts went down in a single shot. Upon seeing the prize that the boss had, he chucked his controller at the base of the TV he was sitting in front of.

"Are you KIDDING ME?!" he shouted. He even expressed his interest in-game, stabbing and slashing across the hammer after he picked his controller up again. "That's absurd...like...that shouldn't be allowed to be there." With the Magic Hammer in his possession, most of the game was opened up now. "The only thing I need to beat the game now was the Staff of Flame. Back to the Sunken Ship?"

eLPwRwdl

---

Who rolled this dumpster fire of a seed, anyway?

{WC: 763}
{PC: 13}

[Elayne]

A random event has occurred!

What will you do?

Josh Devlin

Woops, it seemed the game glitched out again. You can see nothing except for a bunch of pixels on the screen. Apparently that last boss activated a 'glitch mode'?

[Josh Devlin]

"...Again?" Josh asked aloud, though he wouldn't get a reply from the game, of course. This time, he couldn't even move his character - the entire screen was pixel vomit. Looking more closely after the music stopped entirely, it appeared the game had the dungeon tileset imposed atop the overworld set. The game had crashed - he had no choice but to reset the console. Thankfully the game innately auto-saved after completing a dungeon! While waiting to regain control, he took down notes about when the crash occurred. It was all he had, with no idea why the crash occurred. A lot of the bugs he had encountered before could very well be features in disguise, but this one was game-breaking and unacceptable to have in a public release.

Once he got the game up and running again, there was quite a bit for Josh to do with the Magic Hammer now in his possession. "Since all we're missing is the Staff of Flame," he started thinking aloud again, "that means it can't be at the graveyard, or by proxy, in the Sacred Grove. At least this isn't turning into 'Oops, All Dungeons' like I originally thought it would. Palace of Pleasure can be full cleared now, as can Sunken Ship and the Ice Tower. That accounts for the rest of the maidens other than the one in the Black Omen. Let's get those done first."

Josh had already been deep into those dungeons before - it was just a matter of cleaning up mostly on-the-way treasure and getting the bosses taken care of. Other than a close call with the Octo-Mammoth at the bottom of the Sunken Ship, the trips to the dungeons were uneventful, only lasting a few minutes apiece. All of the treasure was junk - mostly more cash he did not need. A lot of safety items he wished he had were not accounted for yet, including both armor upgrades.

One noteworthy exception he found was the Barrier spell, which was located at the very top of the Ice Tower. Near the entrance to the Black Omen, a dark, super-heated volcanic cavern that held the final maiden, was a spiral-shaped cave full of spikes with a lone treasure chest at its end. The only ways to get it were to have either the Magic Cape or the Barrier spell and the magic capacity upgrade, or have enough health to walk all the way across the spikes. His magic meter was still bugged out, extending all the way across the screen and giving him roughly five times the usual magic capacity. The trip over the field of spikes would be made much easier. He kicked open the treasure chest, and found...

The Staff of Flame.

Josh broke out into laughter, staring at his now mostly-filled inventory. "I cannot believe how ridiculous this item chain is," he continued on for some time before leaving the small cavern the same way he came. "Whatever, we're in go mode." The trip there and trip back almost completely drained his magic meter - he had forgotten to deactivate Barrier while laughing at the situation. In fact, he had just enough magic to enter the Black Omen - its doors would not yield to anything except a casting of the Inferno spell. The end was in sight - he was two dungeons and one final battle away from completing the game.


aPjY|OE5
{WC: 563}
{PC: 14}

[Jenesis]

A random event has occurred!

What will you do?

Josh Devlin

The Inferno spell empties the last of your absurdly large mana meter. Once you're inside the Black Omen, you quickly realize the usual methods aren't refilling it. Awkward.

[Josh Devlin]

Inside the Black Omen's entry hall was a pit about a screen long. The intended way to cross was with use of the Shapers' Cane, something he had found at the very start of the game. It was a red cane that could be used to create blocks and platforms, and was required to get beyond the first room. It did, however, require magic to use.

Thankfully, the Black Omen had many pots containing full magic pickups. Smashing said pot open, he picked up the tall, green jar, yet his magic meter was not refilling. Looking to the southwest corner of the room, he immediately realized why. The enemy randomization had changed the fireball-spitting statue in the corner into one emitting an anti-magic field like the ones in the mini-boss rooms of Horkus' Tower. It prevented the use of magic in any room they were present.

There was, however, one exploit that he could use to cross the gap. With the Speed Shoes, it was theoretically possible, though almost humanly impossible, to hover over gaps. Actually executing the glitch was so difficult that the only people even capable of somewhat reliably doing it were top-tier speedrunners. The exploit involved the code that detected when the player was above a pit: after walking above a pit, the game did not check whether the player was above a pit until the next frame. By charging up a dash with the Speed Shoes and only moving with their high speed for a single frame at a time before charging up another dash, it was possible to pass over the pit...by doing this 48 times in a row.

DDM9EDSTp_
{Gaming check to successfully perform the hover - 61 + 12 = 73 vs. DC 100 - FAIL}

Josh had started the hover successfully, a laser-focused look on his face as he swiped two fingers rapidly back and forth across the "dash" button, attempting to release the input for exactly one frame at a time. A little after halfway across the gap, his hand tired out, and his character fell into the pit, respawning him at the entrance with a little less health. He was completely stuck - as is, without this exploit, the seed was unbeatable.

Leaving his game on the inventory menu, he faced the computer next to the console and composed an email to the project's Lead Tester:

"Testing on the Last Link Randomizer goes well. It's been a lot of fun so far, and when it is completed, will add infinite replayability to a timeless game. I've noticed several minor bugs so far, and will send a log once I finish. However, I have run into a logic knot that is preventing me from completing the game at all. The enemy at the start of the Black Omen has been randomized into an Anti-Magic Statue, preventing me from using the Shapers' Cane to create the platform necessary for passing through the entry hall. Surely there is a debug menu somewhere. Would you please reply to me with the button combination for activating the debug mode so I can pass this obstacle?

Thank you."

While waiting for the reply, Josh left the dungeon entirely, using a combination of the Mirror and the Flute to quickly reach the Witch's Hut, where he would be able to fill both of his bottles with blue potion. The boss at the bottom of the Black Omen required a lot of magic to kill, and running out meant starting the entire dungeon over.



{WC: 582}
{PC: 15}·

[Jenesis]

Nothing happened!

All rolls were passed.

Josh Devlin

You haven't received a reply email.

The statue is as normal when you return to the Black Omen, allowing you to pass.

[Josh Devlin]

Strange - when Josh had returned from the potion shop, the statue was now a standard fireball turret, as was in the original game. With a shrug, he pulled out the Shapers' Cane and used it to create platforms across the Black Omen's enormous pits. Some of the game's most devious traps were in this dungeon, and every treasure chest had to be searched to ensure no keys were skipped.

The first devious trap of the Black Omen was an innocuous room holding a single treasure chest, this time containing the Boss Key he would need at the end of the dungeon. Great! The moment Josh faced the door, though, it closed. As long as he faced the door, it would remain closed? The solution? Walk backwards out of the room.

On the other side of the main hall, the second trap was much more lethal, given the items not accounted for yet. There was a giant, spiked rolling pin the length of the room, with two treasures on the other side. The only way across the room was to intentionally take damage and phase through it during recoil invulnerability. He would have to do it twice--once on the way to the vault, and again on the way back. There was a required small key there, which was collected at the expense of half his health.

Unlocking the north door led to another trap - a block-pushing puzzle that needed to be solved while animated ball-and-chain constructs charged at him from time to time. They each made a barking sound when they charged - a throwback to another of the same developer's series. After picking the key up from the chest at the end of the hall, one of the charging iron spheres slammed him from behind, sending him tumbling down the stairs.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

It wasn't an old-school video game without a low health alarm that Would. Not. Stop. until the health situation was remedied. Standing up from the bottom of the stairs, Josh quaffed one of his two blue potions, fully replenishing his health and magic. The beeping promptly stopped - much better.

Maneuvering his way around more giant rolling pins and other nasty enemies, he made his way to the next floor, which required use of both his lantern and the Shapers' Cane to navigate a maze. Having played the original game many times before, he had the most efficient way through memorized.

The final obstacle before the boss was a narrow bridge filled with laser-shooting statues. There was a way to dodge each one, but it involved a pixel-perfect setup that was different for each of the four statues. Thankfully, he could just raise his Mirror Shield and deflect the beams back at them! Toppling all the statues this way gave him access to the dungeon's final treasure hoard, which included the last small key he needed to get to the boss, as well as the Magic Cape. "...That would have been useful a while ago," he muttered, shaking his head as he headed down the final elevator to the boss chamber.

The boss guarding the last imprisoned maiden was a three-headed dragon - one of fire, one of ice, and one of lightning, all three of which were vulnerable to different weapons. The ice and fire heads were impervious to weapons other than the Staves of the opposite element. As Josh mashed the attack button to take down the fire head as quickly as possible, the ice head breathed a cone of cold all over him, knocking him back and freezing a section of the floor.

Having to quaff his second blue potion to regain enough magic to do the same to the ice head, all that remained was the lightning one. Now that it was the only head left, it was vulnerable to any elemental sword. The Light Sword would do, making very quick work of it. The crystal containing the last maiden appeared before him, the girl instructing him to assemble all seven of their crystals in front of Horthos' Tower, where the King of Evil awaited at its highest turret.

After a quick jaunt across the mountain to the glowing tower, the seven crystals circled the outside, each one disabling one color of the multicolored barrier. Once all seven had been breached, a staircase to its second floor crashed toward Josh and embedded itself in the ground. Breathing a deep sigh, he entered the game's final dungeon. There were twenty-two possible locations for the final Boss Key needed to climb the tower. He would need to find that and two small keys to make it all the way to the top. How much of the tower's diabolical basement would need to be explored to find them?

448Nmkbap_

{WC: 791}
{PC: 16}

[Jenesis]

A random event has occurred!

What will you do?

Josh Devlin

You haven't received a reply email.

The dungeon may be final, but it apparently hasn't been finished. Random tiles, walls, and some entire areas appear as solid black squares on your screen. It's anyone's guess as to what they're actually supposed to be.

[Josh Devlin]

Heading into Horthos' tower, Josh immediately noticed the entire right side of the main hall, including the staircase down to the basement, was missing. "Guess we're going left?" he asked himself aloud. Perhaps there was more going into this project than just moving items and enemies around? The dev team did say it was still in an early state, and they wanted to make sure the item placement logic was working, first and foremost. The logic from what he had seen so far was mostly solid. Tricky to reason through at times, but it was working.

He laughed after passing down the stairs - the Big Key he needed to go up the tower was right in front of him, on top of a freestanding torch in the center of the room! Ramming into the stand, he knocked the key loose, picking it up and heading to the west wing of the basement, into a treasure vault guarded by four skeleton knights. They were trickier to kill, requiring explosives to ensure they wouldn't reanimate after being struck down by the Light Sword. Inside the vault was a bunch of cash that was useless to him at this point...and both of the door keys he needed. "Well, that was quick. Up we go!"

The climb up the tower was a gauntlet of some of the trickiest combat rooms in the game, as well as rematches against two randomly-chosen bosses from past dungeons. Each individual room wasn't very difficult, but each hit he took added up quickly. He still had no armor upgrades at all, making each hit matter a lot. Fighting through five floors to the top of the tower, he managed to fill up his health most of the way, but had no potions left - all of his bottles were empty.

At the top of the tower was the blue-skinned, pig-faced warrior, Horthos. Armed with a wicked trident that did massive damage even with both armor upgrades, even a single hit would cripple Josh. Two hits and he was a goner. He laughed when he noticed the boss's monologue had been altered to an amusing, community inside joke.

Taking advantage of his screen-wide magic meter, he was able to stand in the corner and slash at bacon-face without remorse, the trident harmlessly passing through him as long as he donned the Magic Cape. The first two phases were over quickly, but it was not over yet. During the final phase, the battlefield started slowly crumbling away, one tile at a time. The second half of his monologue had been replaced as well: "Did you find the Silver Arrows in the Bog of Evil?"

Josh smiled - that was a good idea for the developers to tell the player where the arrows most players needed to defeat Horthos' final phase were at. It was possible to defeat him without them, through a combination of an exploit and tight execution, but doing so was very difficult and required a lot of practice. With them though, it was simple - dodge a line of flames, slash, fire an arrow. Repeat four times, and the pig would go down.

Once the fourth arrow landed, Josh set the controller down, stood up, and leaned over the back of his chair while the cast reel rolled. There were minor changes to reflect where items had been moved, the one making him smile most being "And the Couch Cash sleeps again...FOREVER!" in place of the Sword of Evil's Bane.

The credits reel had been changed, as well, listing the original game's credits as well as the randomizer credits. "Hey, maybe my name will be in there?" he thought. After the credits, there was a list of gameplay statistics that made Josh smile, even chuckling at some of them. "Number of Bonks." He couldn't help but laugh louder. "They actually keep track of how many times you run into something with the Speed Shoes. Hah!" It even kept track of how much time was spent in the item menu, which was quite a lot, given how often he paused to take notes for the development team. "That was really fun! Can't wait for the release." With that, he shut the console off and took all of his notes to his supervisor.

Job end. Please apply +1 to Gaming and +1 to Dexterity.
{WC: 712}
{PC: 17}

[whimsae]

Congratulations!

Your thread is complete and now locked.

Josh Devlin

Your thread has been locked. You received 100 pen, 3 rare candies, +1 to gaming and +1 to dexterity as requested. Because it was 17 posts, with 10 random events, you receive +3 stamina, 3 rare candies, and 250 Pen.