MAIN MENU     FRONT PAGE MISSION STATEMENT SINCLAIR'S FOUNDRY MINECRAFT IN THE ARCTIC REJECTLAND THE FUNGUSLANDS & OTHER WORLDS RESOURCE PACKS & WORLD DOWNLOADS OTHER LINKS       ASSOCIATED WEB PAGES     THE HAMMER OF RETRIBUTION OGG-CAST HAMMER OF RETRIBUTION PRODUCTIONS PERSONAL PAGES FROM DAYS OF YORE ZX SPECTRUM SECTION: PROGRAMS & VIDEOS COMP.SYS.SINCLAIR CRAP GAMES COMPETITION 2021 RICK DANGEROUS RESURRECTED PROJECT 10: CHASING THE DRAGON     End portal coordinates: X +695 : Y +16 : Z +47 Return portal coordinates: EX +24 : EY +65 : EZ +12 Screenshots: 7 (+ 1 Sinclair) Date completed: 26 February 2015 Version: 1.8.3 Minecraft day completed: 2649 Having neatly disposed of the Ender Dragon in Rejectland sometime after putting the world out to pasture, I found myself having to do the same in Sinclair's Foundry... rather sooner. For the End is full of one unique resource... well, not exactly full as such, but it's there. And I needed it. This project was conducted right in the middle of doing something... rather larger. Merely slaughtering the latest version of the Ender Dragon isn't all I'll be doing in the End, so I thought I'd build a railway to the nearest portal that I'd found earlier for quick access in case the worst happened. This isn't the first tunnel - there was one with a birch floor with glowstone shoved in it and no railway, but when I laid the tracks I thought I'd scoop out some of the lava that had caused a few construction problems and use it to light the tunnel. So here's the portal, with all 12 eyes implanted so I can jump straight through it and get stuck in.. ...whereupon, on appearing on the spawn platform in the End, the dragon appeared and flung me off it, into the void, barely three seconds after I'd entered. I hadn't even had a chance to build a bridge across to the main island! There were many, many naughty words as some highly enchanted iron armour (I wasn't going to waste 24 diamonds in case this happened) and a Power V bow were hurled into oblivion. Not once... twice. But I did eventually make it to the island, and I was angry. Here comes revenge, you horrible purple reptile with unnaturally chunky back legs. Most of the crystals were disposed of slowly - one by one - using a method I'd first thought of in the Rejectland days. Climb up the obsidian columns with a ladder, whack the crystal so it explodes, get knocked off the ladder, fall, die. Or, just get knocked off the ladder without hitting the crystal as the dragon swoops by, fall, die. Some of the crystals I could reach with a bow - including one on a bizarrely-sited low column right on the edge of the island, buried amongst a crevice into the never-ending darkness below. But the last crystal fell, and when the dragon swooped again, I was ready. And, having died again just before, I'd been back to the base and knocked together another Power V bow. You're going down, just like the Sockburn Worm before you... In honour of another Sinclair reference, I named the bow Dragon's Bane after the rescue-the-princess fantasy maze adventure from 1983. And it's working well here! ZX Spectrum screenshot: Dragonsbane (1983) Watch this game completed by ME! Yes, ME! via the RZX Archive. Dragonsbane is classified by World Of Spectrum as a text adventure, but not as we knew it - it was more menu-based, and one key each would be assigned to pick up items and weapons, bash the monsters, kill the dragon, find the keys, free the princess (who had one of those medieval pointy hats to really ram it home). The maze, as I'd find out later, was always the same layout, but the monsters and items would be randomised every time. Some of the monsters were friendly, such as the sphinx that could be traded with; beware that the salesman is not, and will try to beat you to a pulp, in much the same way as the zombie in this screenshot. Every monster had a palette-swapped version, sometimes with a different name; a ghoul was this zombie drawn in green, and was just as unfriendly. Interestingly, this game was the first time I'd seen the technique of cramming the Spectrum's text into a narrower space, allowing 42 characters per line instead of the standard 32. I AM JOHN CONYERS! (again). AND YOU ARE DEAD! (again). And, having parked a bed outside the portal, I am safely returned to the land of the living - right where I went in. And I have an egg as a souvenir. What should I do with it? That's a story for another day...