Lessons from Luxor 2: Enter Amentet

You might have read my blog about Laser Lords from a few hours ago called "Lessons from Luxor", of which this blog is the continuation. After all, while one verse of the Sooth Song has been learned, we're nowhere near awakening Seb or finding Petra.

As with the previous blog, I'll mostly be referring to this video. With that said, let's dive right in!

Do I look like the kind of guy who'd cheat you?

Going to the right after finishing talking with Baahka, there's another screen with a wandering NPC and a house. Once more let's assume the house is entered first, which occurs at 6:12. There we find another NPC, what looks like an old man with a cane. Surely a friendly face worth talking to.

MY ACCENT IS THAT I HAVE NO INDOOR VOICE

Quite an accusatory man, and with a lovely pair of lips and cheeks. If asked for his Name he explains he's Sinuhe and he's a goldsmith. Right away he seems much less friendly than Rahman or Baahka, but he is quick to explain why.

There are some keyword paths that can be taken, but most of them end up being about Usert stealing Sinuhe's Gold Necklace. Sinuhe asks the player to steal the Necklace from Usert and give it back to him, offering he'll pay to get it back. What's rather interesting is that asking for the payment prompts Sinuhe to say this:

DO I SOUND LIKE THE SORT OF GUY WHO'D CHEAT YOU?

This is a crucial moment. When you prompt Rahman to explain what he can give he says he'll richly reward you, while Sinuhe here simply asks the player whether he seems trustworthy. Baahka and Rahman certainly seemed trustworthy, but does the same go for Sinuhe? It's also interesting to note that Gold is a conversation topic for both Baahka and Rahman who both consider it a greedy pursuit, while Sinuhe seems to be taken by gold and money given his craft.

Either way, Sinuhe does clue the player in on where and how they can get a Gold Necklace, which might be useful to have. Another path of keywords also makes Sinuhe mention that to enter the city Amentet, you need a password and he tells the player it's 'Seb Sleeps'.

Never talk to strangers because there could be dangers.

Coming out of the house at 7:15, there's still one more NPC wandering around, what looks to be a little girl. If you try to talk to her...

You'll never get some jiva with that attitude!

That's all she has to say. Hailing her, asking for her Name, saying a Word, none of these prompt any response. Of course, she gives an obvious clue that you should kneel down to speak to her. This both teaches the player some NPCs will only speak to them if certain conditions are met and of course how to kneel and crawl. 

Once the player kneels, either Hailing or asking for a Name makes Nebka introduce herself. As far as I know she's the only NPC in the game with the same reply to Hail and Name, so that makes her rather unique. She's also one of two NPCs to have the 'player must kneel' requirement to be spoken to, and one of few NPCs who is a child.

Nebka mostly speaks in little rhymes and about her mother. The former give some more worldbuilding and gives the player an alternative way of learning the Amentet password 'Seb Sleeps'. This is rather important since it clues the player in on the fact that there can be multiple ways to learn the same piece of information, should they hear it from both Sinuhe and Nebka.

One interesting rhyme Nebka has is that Amentet is full of monsters, such as the Remren, the Hakar and the Priests. While it has already been implied there would be combat with the Hakar if you ask Baahka the right questions, Nebka also implies that the Priests of Koptos are monsters, foreshadowing the player might have to fight them too.

Should have told Sahti that Baahka sent you.

She also gives the player a sidequest to get her mother Lixir, a restorative Potion, but unlike other sidequests Nebka can only tell that Lixir can only be received on another planet. This makes it clear to the player that not every quest has clear intrusctions of where to go and what to do, in this case the Lixir quest is probably one of the final ones the player will be able to accomplish before the end of the game, I assume this was done on purpose to make it clear for the player that not every quest can be solved right off the bat.

Halt, alien!

Continuing on at 8:30, there is another empty screen. Well, mostly empty. There is a lizard dashing around but as far as I know it's not possible to interact with, so not much to say about it really. Not sure why this filler screen exists, perhaps to put some distance between the houses we've seen so far and Amentet.

Speaking of Amentet, the next screen over has a solid gate guarded by an armed guard. This is the first NPC so far to walk around carrying a weapon, so that should immediately clue the player in that not every NPC is unarmed. So far if you tried to attack any of the NPCs they'd just flee, but certain NPCs can fight back. Still, no reason to attack NPCs randomly. 

There's a variety of accents on Luxor.

Hailing Mahkent just prompts him to ask for the password into Amentet. This is an important gating moment since it forces the player to use the Word function to both remember the password from Sinuhe or Nebka and then say it to Mahkent.

If the player has not used the word function so far this might also prompt them to go back to previous NPCs and look for any words to remember from them. They could also try to use the Name function if they've not already since Hail leads to a dead end, but the keywords there mostly lead to some more worldbuilding, this time from the point of view of a Koptoan.

A bit overconfident, perhaps.

Though this information is interesting, it's not actually useful for finishing the game. Much of the dialogue you can have with NPCs is flavorful, but only some of it is actually useful in your quest. It's up to the player to figure out what information is useful and what's not.

Once the player does say the password, Mahkent opens the gate and gives a new line of dialogue. This is another important moment since it shows the player saying words is a way to get past gates and how to prompt NPCs to tell them more. 

If the player at any time experiments enough with words they can figure out that saying a word is the same as selecting a highlighted keyword, so selecting the keyword people or remembering and saying the keyword people leads to the same results. This is important since not every keyword an NPC replies to is one they bring up themselves. Usually when these keywords exist the NPC prompts the player to say a password or asks the player a question, but sometimes these keywords need to be intuited based on what you need from the NPC in question.

Mahkent also tells the player they can enter and warns them not to speak to women or try to enter the Temple of Koptos, but this is a rather confusing lesson since speaking to the women in Amentet doesn't actually lead to any punishment, though the Temple of Koptos will be somewhat of a puzzle to enter.

Lessons Learned

From Sinuhe it became a question whether every NPC can be trusted, while we've also learned more about Amentet and the Koptoans from Nekba and Mahkent. There were also some more gameplay lessons:

-There can be multiple sources for the same piece of information.

-Some NPCs have special requirements before they talk to you.

-NPCs react to said keywords just like selected keywords.

-Some NPCs require you to remember and say keywords to progress, not all keywords can be found by regular dialogue.

-Some NPCs are armed and capable of fighting back.

Now that Amentet has been reached, a lot of paths suddenly open up. There's still verses to be learned and people to meet.