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Now this is a bit off-topic but I'm sure many of us
here
are interested in adventures in general (in addition to games) and we've read some collecting adventures here too so why not give it a chance. (And this one's still collecting related at the end, if you won't bother to read all the blabber.) Do you have any adventures of your own to
share?
F.ex. the stories/columns of C.E. Forman inspired
me to write mine,
like many of us read and like those; f.ex. Joe's (Origin Museum) recent post where he too expressed enjoying them and
printing them.
(Might even start a column at web like C.E. if I get any positive feedback. Feel free to throw tommatos too if you thought so :). I have this little real-life story from couple
months ago for starters
which I hope you'll enjoy reading (yes, it's a bit dramatized ;). Being a Sierra-fan I could call this "The Forest Quest" ;). I'm a "forester" and I like to wander and hike in
the nature a lot.
It's often nice to explore new places where you've never been before though the regular beautiful places are cool too. It was late winter, early spring day and spring was
starting to show its markings;
it wasn't too cold anymore, snow was starting to melt, and so on. I was hiking. Got thru a sandy forest where I found this wooden climbable tower where you could see the vast forest. To add the drama for the upcoming I might say the sun was shining brightly and merrily but it wasn't ;). Everything was ok though (had made some good collecting deals, etc). At this point I still quite knew my location where
I was.
Now I should have returned the same way I got there but I thought the other way was as good since it seemed to led to the south, where the ocean (and my starting point) was. *Beep, wrong*. After a while I got lost there in the endless
labyrinth of trees.
I didn't mean to; it just slipped there little by little. It was cloudy so the sun wasn't shining and I
couldn't
make difference between north and south anymore. I tried to keep walking on the same direction, what
I thought to be south
(later it turned out I had been walking in circle, regardless of the given effort). I was starting to get a little anxious though I had some water with me and was saving it all the time. Had eaten what little I had with me at the very beginning. I wandered through the woods and small streams for
some time.
Got to a "root" of a rock surrounded by trees. Reminded a bit like the entrance to Moria but without the pond (or the entrance :P). I thought of hearing car noises.. I climbed the rock up and was enthusiasted because I thought there was a road after it; because the place seemed familiar too. But no. Just more pines, spruces, birches...
And then some. I wandered across fields, wet swamps.
I was soking wet; especially socks and boots (and ironically I had picked the wrong ones; the other boots would have kept me more dry). After the swamp, I found a stony road, which was
nice after all the extreme lands.
I had the option to turn left or right. I chose right. In more than one meaning. At last I had some luck and I found a woodchuckers
type of open cabin
(f.ex. reminds a bit the one in King's Quest but this one didn't have a door). There was no-one around... But there in the south wall, was hanging a MAP of the area!! What a relief. That was like *pheeeeeeeeeew*... Though I knew it wasn't over yet and it was a long way from where I started. I took from the wall the map which had a wooden
back,
interpreted it for a while, found my triangle-type crossroad location and estimated what route was the best and shortest to take. At first I memorized the turnings because not being a thief by nature I pondered whether to take the map with me. But because I don't have a good memory I didn't want to take chances anymore, so the sense won and I took it with me. There were still some senses of doubt while walking
the road
to my salvation ;) even with the map. F.ex. when there were crossroads that didn't seem to appear on the map. But they did after all and I was on the right route. The last leg seemed to go by in an
instance.
Before I knew it I saw a village fire station and a village road. That got me smiling. Walked the road to my car; tired but happy drove
home and went to hot sauna.
And had a beer. I returned the map to the cabin next day; it was
warm and shining.
After thoughts: This is a map of my route; it's just very very
approximate to give an idea:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/psychic/pics/temp/hanko.jpg I wasn't that constant and not even quite sure
about the paths walked
and how I ended up walking in circle. The whole map area seen is about 200 km^2. Red is start, purple finish part. So what made me think about even during the ordeal
that the almost total
object-orientation of classic adventure games doesn't seem so far fetched from the real world. That probably isn't the moral of this story but for a hardcore SW-collector it might be ;). I.e. I might have not died ;) but would have spent some (a lots of) more time in the forest without finding the map. And even though I didn't have encounter with any
bears, deer or moose (this time),
which would have been "interesting", afterwards it felt like a real cool real-life adventure game :D. Plus now I always carry a compass in the pocket
wherever I go :).
- Jukka
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