On Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:06:36 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:31:27 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

* Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse
<ROT13>
X5QER771P6498R4QP3
</ROT13>

Thank you Spalls, I took this one. I never played this one back in the
day but I wanted to. I am not expecting it to be great.

You may enjoy it. It wasn't really a bad game; it just didn't fit into
what people excepted from a CRPG those days... especially a CRPG
developed by SSI. For instance, if I recall correctly, it didn't
really even have a proper inventory system; your gear got upgraded automatically as the story progressed (basically, at certain story
points you found better weapons). Also, it was pretty much a
single-character adventure, versus the CRPG party-system that was
common in that era. It was in many ways as much adventure as RPG, and
the merging of the two genres just wasn't very welcome in the early
90s. We didn't like mixing our peanut butter and chocolate yet ;-)

These days, the design of the game is less offensive, but the game
suffers from its age. A lot of the streamlining and quality-of-life we
take for granted just aren't there yet. You have to work to enjoy the
game, and its arguable whether that effort is really rewarded. From
what I recall, it isn't actually that bad a journey... but for most
people, I'd say there are better ways to spend your time.

But give it a try. You'll pretty much feel out how the game plays
within an hour or so, and if you aren't liking it by then, you
probably should move on. But if you start to get the feel for the
game, you might enjoy it.



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