That trip was damned from the outset; my lady was on edge from the moment we touched down, and that never really went away. Poor thing had 2 panic attacks in the few days we spent there; it's a lovely city, but we didn't get to enjoy it. It wasn't a total loss, since right before the second one, she got this AMAZING picture with Andee Frizzell, looking like some motherly goddess giving her a warm smile, as she stares in wonder up at her. Either way, when it's economical, train is THE way to travel, hands down. We'll be going by train to Chicago in June, and I'm already looking forward to waking up to morning mists rising from the farmlands; it's so romantic. I've theorized that the custom icon needs to be made in 16-color format in order for it to work, but I haven't messed around with that enough to see if I could get that working, despite having icon-making software. But no, you're not alone; EVERYONE I know who's even heard of the game has had that same issue.

I have what I call "fog storage". It's like cloud storage, but it's not online; it's on about 5 different physical devices, most of which are computers, but I have a 1TB external hard drive that I've nicknamed "The Monster"... seems a lot less applicable when the thing I'm using to type this message out to you is equal in size... Anyway, I have things EVERYWHERE, but they're all crazy backed up, especially my music collection. This also prevents me from every having to dig up and resurrect any old computers I might have sitting around. Memories and embarrassment, you say? Sounds like the collection of videos that my sister and I made together when she got her first Mac, including the aptly-titled "My Shitty Movie", which has its own theme song.

The night was basically lost when I passed out on the bathroom floor, but the next day, Man... THAT was a good day! I still really enjoy Castle of the Winds, even though, to this day, I've yet to meet anyone who ever got that custom character icon thing to work; it may be one of gaming's greatest mysteries, that. I do have the floppies backed up on several hard drives, so I could theoretically run the game just fine, but DOSBox is something I've yet to figure out. When we went to Vancouver in September, I was so ready for it - I'd even managed to figure out FDS patching, which requires cracking open the actual rom with a hex editor and adding or removing a header; let me tell you: that's like staring into the eye of the goddamn cosmos and trying to make sense of it, but I did it - aaaaaaand the TSA stole my laptop. Not confiscated; stole. I got it back (you better BELIEVE I did!), but I didn't have it on the trip, when I had the time to work on figuring it out. Played some Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment, though; it was awesome. Some day, though... maybe once I convert all of my PS2 memory cards into a format that emulators can use, so that I have digital backups of all my stuff, because I'm on my third PS2 already. Game Cube and Wii, too, if I can. Oh, and that custom version of NES Final Fantasy I want to make... I think I may have too many projects.

No problem! I wound up dropping it, but maybe you'll get out of it what I didn't.

Mine, too! The first night I played it was a bad night, because I'd rented Doom 64 that weekend. I have synaesthesia, and one of my reactions is that when I see Doom 64, my body heats up ridiculously fast to the point that I throw up, and sometimes even get a migraine for it. I'd always wondered if it was just some weird fluke, but more recently, when Stop Skeletons From Fighting did a video on it, I had to just listen, because even watching it on YouTube was causing... my insides to boil, I guess!? Anyway, I really got into Castle of the Winds after that, but as I haven't figured out DOSBox just yet, I haven't played it in ages. My lady is chomping at the bit for that, or for it to come out on GOG or something, because she's a huge fan, too.

I'm interested in this Mystic Towers thing, now, too. I'm not great at isometric games, but I've always loved the aesthetic, which has driven me to play quite a few more of them than I otherwise would have. There's on on the Famicom Disk System that kinda reminds me of Solstice designed by, of, and for the people... who have severe OCD; it's called Knight Lore: Majou no Ookami Otoko.

Yeah, as neat as it was, Jill Saves the Prince changed up all the sound effects for one reason or another, and it wasn't as entertaining in that regard. I also don't remember the jabs at competing franchises in the original from the Shareware version I used to have. I got the first episode when I bought the second half of Castle of the Winds, and though I liked it and played it to hell and back, it was my younger sister who really liked Jill of the Jungle, and enough to buy the rest of the games, so I actually played them because of her. Don't think I've heard of God of Thunder, Paganitzu, though.

I love your Jillogy progress note! 😁
Of course, my favorite sound clip is the death noise from the first game that sounds like a deeper, extremely forced version of the Fred Flintstone laugh through a 1930s-quality recording. uh-HUH-HUH-HUH

Well if you only played the shareware episode. Then I have some good news.

Jill of the Jungle is Free on GOG.com. So if you want to you can check it out right now.

[Link]

Enjoy!

It's one of those rare breeds, like Golgo 13, where it manages to successfully present multiple genres in one. An absolute pleasure to experience.

I love The Magic of Scheherazade. Interesting game for sure, good music as well. I hope you're enjoying your playthrough.

#CuteToes

Congratulations, and here's to the next 10!