The food mechanic was one thing I’ve never liked about the Ultima games. In the first two you actually instantly died when your food ran out, which was truly unfortunate in the second game: there’s a bug where numerical values greater than 9999 are rolled over to zero, so if you bought too much food you’d instantly die. That could happen with HP, too. That’s actually plausible because you buy HP in that game. You lose food going over the rapids in the Avernum 2 remake, too, but all that means is that you can’t use the campgrounds. I weep for the dude who only used one save only to find he didn’t buy enough food back on the surface for the journey.

But it’s just another shit exercise in micromanagement IMO. In later Ultima games you would lose one HP with every step you took when your food ran out. In all these games there were gremlins in the dungeons that would steal your food when they attacked which could get deadly very fast. BTW there are gremlins who steal your food in the underground river part, too. I believe this is an homage to Ultima, because as far as I know the trope isn’t otherwise associated with gremlins.

I’m now at a place where I need to pull a lever and/or push a button and/or tutn a wheel in the right order to proceed. Is there a hint for this anywhere? It seems like a puzzle that exists for the sake of existing.

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