I got into an oldschool RPG kick recently, finishing phantasy star 1 again, Bard's Tale 1 again, and Ultima 4 for the first time.

I think I'm going to finally try to climb the Might and Magic 1 mountain. I have a saved game on the Mac around level 18, but I don't remember what I was doing -- I was taking notes on paper at the time, and that's long gone.

I tried getting the c64 version going, but after a few crashes, gave up and am playing the GOG version (slightly worse colors and music.. but that's OK).

The stumbling block for me in this game ends up being a sort of "WOT" factor. Like I fail to put the puzzles together and then lose interest. Hopefully you folks will be around to ask question of.

The mapping is turning out to be surprisingly engaging. I'm doing it in Inkscape and learning that tool better. I'll post some (probably as pdfs) later.

There are some puzzles and quests you can fail and still complete the game.
The Og quest in particular is very unclear, but it just a side quest.

Playing the DOS version is the best choice if you plan on playing MM2 some time, since you can trasfer your MM1 characters.

I only played the game a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed it. But I played MM2 on the Amiga when I was younger, which helped.

I worked out how to transfer my characters on the mac, and on the c64, but emulation of both seems kind of spotty, the c64 probably because my settings are wrong, and who knows the quality of the version I downloaded, while the mac is problematic because Basilisk II is unmaintained and crashy. The black and white art on the mac has a certain charm, but I prefer the awful dos/8bit UI to the differently awful mac mousey UI.

I played MM1 for the first time a few years ago and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The mapping was actually one of the main draws for me, since the environments are often your toughest adversary. Nasty traps, teleporters, and all sorts of other navigational hazards that I simply haven't found in more recent games.

Just remember to take notes too. The statues in Sorpigal give a lot of hints for sidequests and other ways to earn a lot of experience, but you have to write them down yourself because the game will not remember them for you. Also, sometimes the game can feel a little grindy, but I found that there was always somewhere else to try exploring, and that's a lot more fun than just grinding for experience points. Except right at the start, when you kind of need to do some grinding before you'll be ready to leave Sorpigal. But it gets better after that.

Enjoy!

Yeah, i've been mulling those quotes over (for the second time!). I just worry I might be too obtuse, as I'm not that good at puzzles.

The most fun part of Ultima 4 for me was all the note-taking, but that game is a pushover for figuring stuff ou t.

Don't worry, they'll make sense once you explore some more and find the things they're referring to. That's why you have to write them down at the beginning, so you can look back at them later to help make sense of some of the stuff you find.

I've found that taking lots of screenshots with DosBox helps keep a record of what you've done.