Entry 35 - Er'cana

Er'cana Factory

Er'cana came on line last night and I spent and I got in a good few hours having fun there. I played this Age, along with Ahnonnay, back when Path of the Shell came out for the original solo game, so figure out what to do wasn't too big a deal. There were some things that were different though. First off, the solo game had a series of line patterns that you found here and there. These patterns fit together to for a pattern in a grid. At the end of Path of the Shell, you went back to the original Myst Island's library and entered the pattern into the fire place there. It looks like a return to Myst is not going to be in the cards.

The second difference was that scattered all through the Ages of Path of the Shell were book and verse numbers (like 2:13) that referred to lines in a series of books that, together spelled out how to solve the puzzle to enter the Path of the Shell. The curious thing is that the books are in the Watcher's Pub (they used to be on the right bookshelf in your Relto). Because the books of verse are still present, it would seem these numbers should come up again somewhere.

The Er'cana Express with Techno at the Front

Anyway, after exploring a bit, Techno came on line. He explored around in his own Er'cana for a bit, but soon he came over to join me and we proceeded through the rest of the Age together. The Age is a blast to do as a group. First off, unlike Minkata, there seemed to be no lag issues, but secondly, there is a control room where the objects you control are located somewhere else. Having one person at the controls while another announces what is happening is so much easier, not to mention cooler. The speaks nothing of the train that is located in this Age which is just a blast to pile a group of people on.

At the end of the Age, you need to make pellets that light up the cavern lake water. It used to take about 15 minutes for the pellets to be produced from the ovens once you've entered the correct settings. Well, we waited about half an hour and then I had to call it a night. I'm going to have to return to finish this Age another time.

This reminds me of another difference between this and the solo game. In the solo game there was a designed carved into the rock of a cave that linked you to a Bahro cave for dropping your pellets in. That design has been replaced by a portal that is only fully formed once you've touched each of the journey cloths in the Age. This portal links to a Bahro cave with the familiar well pieces inside. Fair enough, but the difference from the other well piece caves is that this one is almost pitch black. Far to black to find the symbol that brings the well piece to your Relto. It seems obvious that a pellet dropped in the other Bahro cave (the one linked to through the stone at the end of the Age) will light up this cave allowing you to collect your Relto piece. We'll have to see.

The Watcher's Pub Zoo

The night before last, I was on briefly and ended up at The Watcher's Pub to hear an announcement from Cate Alexander. I gotta say, I hate this place. It's a complete zoo. I'm not exactly sure why it attracts so many visitors (maybe just because it is new) but these people just don't seem to know how to behave when there are a lot of people in the room who want to listen to someone speak. Don't run around - it generates lag, and for goodness sake, cut the inane chatter so that we can listen to what is going on. I eventually decided that I could read the log another time and called it a night.

HC