Playing an old game, "Last Half of Darkness"

I found this old CD in my bookcase, and loaded it to replay. It was fun to find myself back in this creepy story again after almost a decade! The game is quite involved and requires a LOT of painstaking pixel-searching of every location, to find tiny Coins and other necessities. I had forgotten that, but I'm OK with it because everything is logical.

What I am struggling with is a must-play "mini-game" in one of the locations ~ some snake heads against my playing pieces. It is very slow going. You have to earn a slew of points on each round, only to have half of them eroded away by the opponent's play. (Kinda like that old story about the snail caught in the well who crawls up four feet and slides back three every night. ha ha)

Twice, I have been halfway there when my points got stripped back down again to almost none. I looked up a WT, but it offers no hints nor mentions any way around this except flailing at it until I win. I can't find any way to skip it.

Does anyone remember this game? Thx!

I moved your post over to Adventure Game Hints. Hopefully someone here will be able to help you out with this. The only thing I can think of to suggest is to look at a WT (which you did) and a YouTube video, so let's see if another player can give you some advice.

I replayed these games 3 years ago but cannot picture the mini game you are talking about. Which Last Half of Darkness game is it and whereabouts in the game are you? Maybe I can refresh my memory of it.

Old Broad, it is a "game board" sort of puzzle. I have six characters and the opponent has six. I am supposed to try to capture his pieces by approaching in a diagonal way while he is trying to capture my pieces by approaching orthogonally. Sort of Chess-like, except all characters move the same way. Unfortunately, the computer is much smarter than I am. :-( I don't even have time to catch on the the basic game dynamics, much less the strategy, before I am dead.

Reenie, there are several Last Half of Darkness games including:

Tomb of Zojir
Shadows of the Servants
Beyond the Spirit's Eye
Society of the Serpent Moon

Which one of these are you playing?

As Marian said...it would help if we knew which LHOD you are playing. I've played all of them but i dont remember the puzzle/mini game you are referring to?

I am pretty sure its Serpent Moon. The game if I recall involves killing snakes while keeping your birds safe.
There is a book of rules with the puzzle that explains how the pieces move. I can't remember exactly but the birdscould attack from a distance and from any direction, while the snakes were more limited.
I will have to check out a walkthrough to be of any further use

I'm thinking Serpent Moon is the game also since I'm pretty sure Reenie is playing in Windows 10 but i still can't place the mini game. However, the walkthrough here on GB by Traveler states this at the top:

"There are several puzzles in this game that will auto-solve if you leave the computer for 45 minutes and don't move the cursor."

Maybe this is one of the puzzle that will auto solve?

Thanks for trying to help us out in this thread, flotsam.

If this is the puzzle, I am wondering if there's a YouTube video for it. It is amazing what you can find on YouTube.

Hi
The link below is to a portion of a walkthrough that contains someone playing the mini-game. It starts about the 3.00 minute mark
The rules say Ravens can move across mutiple squares and attack from any direction. In watching the video, the player can even move a Raven like a knight in chess, so it does not appear you are limited to straight lines.
Snakes can only move one square at a time, and can only strike NSEW, but they don't have to move to strike, whereas a Raven does.
There are hitpoints in the corners of each tile.
I would need to play it again to work out a strategy but simplistically, given from how far away you can attack and the way the birds seem to be able to move, keeping some distance between your pieces and the snakes seems sound. Attacking those with lower hit points too, as its one less snake to avoid.
I will also watch the full video and see what I can glean.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJIaoc4HwfU

Ah, now I sort of remember that puzzle game. Good video. I sure don't have anything to add to that.