Software:Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance

From HandWiki
Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance
Cover art by Craig Nelson
Developer(s)Legend Entertainment
Publisher(s)Legend Entertainment
Producer(s)
  • Michael Lindner
  • Steve Meretzky
Designer(s)Steve Meretzky
Composer(s)Arfing Dog
Platform(s)MS-DOS
Release1991
Genre(s)Interactive fiction
Mode(s)Single-player

The text adventure game Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance is the second instalment of the Spellcasting series created by Steve Meretzky during his time at Legend Entertainment. All the three games in the series tell the story of young Ernie Eaglebeak, a student at the prestigious Sorcerer University, as he progresses through his studies, learning the arcanes of magic, taking part in student life, occasionally saving the world as he knows it, and having his way with any beautiful women he can get his hands on.

Story

Following the events of Spellcasting 101, we find young Ernie Eaglebeak as a sorcerer's apprentice - which however quickly turns out to be a training simulation which our protagonist was taking part in during his first sophomore days at the Sorcerer University. Things have changed at the university since last year: the campus is being extended, Ernie's advisor Otto Tickingclock is now the university's president and Ernie himself has decided to pledge fraternity. Having settled on Hu Delta Phart, he begins participating in hazing rituals that are to prove him worthy of becoming a member, and quickly finds out that Chris Cowpatty, the Pledgemaster, dislikes him a lot and the tasks he gets assigned are much more difficult than those of other candidates.

Luckily, Ernie has got another extracurricular activity this year, assigned to him by Professor Tickingclock himself: unveiling the secrets of the very same Sorcerer's Appliance he helped recover the previous year. In order for the Appliance to unleash its full potential, Ernie must locate a set of attachments, which have been lost on or near the campus. Armed with exclusive access to the laboratory holding the Appliance and his trusty exploration skills, Ernie begins the hunt.

It quickly turns out that the two missions are strongly intertwined: the capabilities of the Appliance enabled by subsequent attachments allow Ernie to gain the upper hand on the tests, be it putting a moustache on a statue which got strangely slippery all of a sudden, kidnapping the mascot of another frat or spiking the punch at a heavily guarded party of the nearby Barmaid U, which in turn grants him access to more attachments. Of course Ernie would not be Ernie if he did not find time for some bliss in the arms of attractive females, including the always-willing Hillary Tickingclock, the luscious young Queen Libido of Balmoral mooning whom was one of Ernie's tasks and, above all, Eve, the perfect woman created by the powers of the Sorcerer's Appliance. He also once again meets his long-time love Lola Tigerbelly and, having accidentally come across some serious wealth which immediately drew the girl's attention, finally gets a chance to get closer to her - a chance which gets wrecked by a complete coincidence just a few hours later. Oh well...

Losing Lola before their relationship has even seriously started is only one of many unexpected consequences of Ernie's hijinks. First of all, having caught his wife cheating on him with an elephant brought to the house by Ernie as one of his tasks, Otto Tickingclock dies of shock leaving the university president's post vacant. Several candidates apply, but a series of freak accidents causes most of them to forfeit—all but two, one of the two being the alchemy professor Bruce Hiddenmolar whom Ernie finds disturbingly familiar-looking and who seems to dislike our hero as much as Chris Cowpatty. The alliance formed by the two allows the professor to learn about the "identity assumption" power of the Sorcerer's Appliance, which he decides to use to make his last remaining opponent step down. Right after Ernie has brought in the Appliance's final attachment, which apparently is to enable the device's "necromancy" mode, Hiddenmolar confronts him at the laboratory, revealing in the obligatory scheme-revealing sequence that he is in fact Joey Rottenwood, Ernie's stepfather and a sworn enemy of the SU, planning to become the president to have the university disbanded.

Fortunately for our hero, Rottenwood and Cowpatty leave him alone at the locked laboratory. In a series of daring and cunning actions Ernie escapes, recovers the necromancy attachment from Rottenwood, brings the corpse of Otto Tickingclock to the appliance and resurrects him. At the last moment Joey's plan to become the president gets foiled, with the archvillain himself ending up at the centre of a sewage explosion.

All in all, his sophomore year ends quite well for Ernie Eaglebeak. Although once again he did not get the girl (then again he did get a girl or make it several girls and several times too, possibly), he has once again almost single-handedly saved the Sorcerer University—and made it into the fraternity of his choice, along with advancing another year, into Spellcasting 301.

Reception

Reception
Review score
PublicationScore
Zero90/100[1]

The game received a positive review from Zero, whose Mike Gerrard called it "pure gold" and "the best adventure released since Spellcasting 101."[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gerrard, Mike (January 1992). "Adventures Fit for a King; Spellcasting 201". Zero (27): 41. 
  • MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.[18]

See also

  • IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/. 
  2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/. 
  3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1. 
  4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
  6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521. 
  8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media. 
  9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned. 
  10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner. 
  11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames. 
  12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games. 
  13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/. 
  14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/. 
  15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/. 
  16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/. 
  17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames. 
  18. ↑ "An update on MobyGames leadership". 2025-02-13. https://www.mobygames.com/forum/3/thread/269628/an-update-on-mobygames-leadership/#post-269628. 
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