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=                            GANDALF THE SORCERER                             =
*                                COMMODORE 64                                 *
=                            FAQ / STRATEGY GUIDE                             =
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Author: Sashanan
Date: 26 September 2005
Version: 2.0

DISCLAIMER
This document is a copyright of Peter "Sashanan" Butter, 2000-2005. All
rights reserved.

You are granted permission to make copies of this FAQ (electronical or
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to Sashanan.

You are not authorized to upload this FAQ on a commercial website and/or
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This FAQ is protected by international copyright laws and failure to
comply with the terms in this disclaimer will result in legal prosecution.


===============================================================================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
===============================================================================

[1] Introduction
[2] Overview
[3] Controls
[4] Basics
[5] Strategies
[6] Revision history
[7] Final words

===============================================================================
[1] INTRODUCTION
===============================================================================

The older Commodore 64 action games are usually not known for their
complexity. Plenty don't go beyond "left and right to move, fire button to
shoot approaching aliens" or similarly simple concepts. Such games rarely
require any strategy guides to help you play them either; there's little more
to it than to work on your reflexes and get used to the quirks of the
particular game to get your scores up.

Gandalf the Sorcerer is a different beast, though. It takes some time to make
sense of the game, then more time to learn how to play it, and plenty more to
master it. This guide should be of help in all three of these phases. In order,
I will give an overview of the game and your goal, the controls, everything you
need to know about how the game works, and finally, the strategies to learn and
master as you become an experienced player.

It takes courage and patience to get into a game this old, and perhaps without
the power of nostalgia there is not much incentive to do so. To the brave
gamer that attempts it, though - and to the Commodore veteran who is revisiting
an old friend - I hope my FAQ will be of some use to you.


===============================================================================
[2] OVERVIEW
===============================================================================

The bottom of the screen is taken up by a castle inhabited by one wizard named
Gandalf (three guesses where that name came from) and three princesses; or,
depending on your version of the game, they may be referred to as apprentices
as well. I'll go with princesses. In front of the castle is an open field and
beyond it a forest, and from this forest come hordes of trolls to storm the
gate. Their goal: to make their way inside, kidnap the princess, and drag her
back into the forest for whatever nefarious purpose they have in mind. You
control Gandalf, and your goal is to stop these incursions.

From the relatively safety of your castle, you can fire bolts of lightning at
your enemies. Your powers are not unlimited, though. Every shot fired costs you
a point of power, and when you run out, you won't be able to shoot anymore. You
will periodically have to head to one of the side towers to recharge your wand
by aiming it at a bright star burning in the night sky, but this takes time
and the castle will be unguarded for the duration. As trolls slip past your
guard, they will eventually manage to force open the gate and kidnap the
princess. At this point, you will have to venture outside, kill the princess'
captors and escort her back inside before the trolls can retaliate. This is
a dangerous move, however, because the previously defenseless trolls can now
retaliate with their deadly fire breath.

As if all this isn't enough, poisonous spiders frequently slip from the forest
into the castle to chase Gandalf down and weaken or kill him, and lightning can
strike from the sky without warning, sapping some of your power and paralyzing
you for a few seconds; sometimes enough for the trolls to get the upper hand.

If a horde of trolls is wiped out entirely, Gandalf wins - for now.
A more vicious horde is already underway, featuring faster, stronger
and smarter trolls. Your goal is to fight off the trolls as long as
you can, before you are ultimately overwhelmed.


===============================================================================
[3] CONTROLS
===============================================================================

The Commodore 64 has a joystick with only a single fire button, which somewhat
limits the possible combinations. You use the joystick to either move Gandalf
around, or fire his lightning spell.

To aim your spell, simply move the joystick in the desired direction to move
your targeting cursor. When you're at the top floor of the castle, you can aim
either at targets on that top floor (which can only be the spider) or at the
fields outside. On the bottom floor, you can only aim at targets which are also
on the bottom floor, and not at anything outside. If you are outside yourself,
you can aim anywhere.

To fire your spell, simply tap the fire button. A bolt of lightning is fired
and impacts at the location of your targeting cursor. Your targeting is then
reset, and you will have to acquire a new target. You cannot fire more than one
spell at a time.

To move Gandalf around, press and hold the fire button, then move the joystick.
In the castle, you can only move left and right. When you go through one of the
doors at the sides of the castle, you can switch floors by moving the joystick
up or down. You can also exit the castle through the main gate by standing in
front of it, pushing the fire button and moving the joystick up. This is only
possible if the gate has been forced open by the trolls; you cannot open it
yourself, nor would you really want to.

Outside, you can move Gandalf in four diagonal directions (horizontal and
vertical movement is not possible). You can only exit this screen by entering
the castle through the main gate again.

Note that Gandalf cannot move if he is currently targeting a spell. You must
either fire or return his pending spell to his hand before he can move again.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your spell automatically returns to you
if you stop targeting. This makes pinpointing a target (particularly a quick
moving one) tricky. Fortunately, your spells have limited homing capabilities -
once you align your sights on a target, your cursor will automatically track
the target for a short time.

If Gandalf has run out of power, he cannot fire any spells until he has
recharged his magic. You can still target, but pressing the fire button will do
nothing.


===============================================================================
[4] BASICS
===============================================================================

Gandalf starts each game with 50 power points. One point is spent for every
spell he fires, 8 points are lost for being struck by random bolts of lightning
(only occurs while you're on the top floor), and his power is set to 0 if he's
bitten by the poisonous spider. Gandalf's power is shown at the top of the
screen, and as a quick visual aid, he will also change colour as it's drained:

POWER   COLOUR
41-50   white
31-40   yellow
21-30   green
11-20   light blue
0-10    dark blue

Gandalf can die in two different ways. First, if he is bitten by the
spider when he has no power at all, he dies. (This happens most often
when the spider manages to bite you twice in a row. The first bite
reduces you to 0 power, the second kills you.)

Gandalf is also killed if a troll hits him with his fiery breath when
he ventures outside, regardless of remaining power. For this reason,
it's important to be careful outside.

Trolls appear from the top, left and right sides of the screen in the fields
outside and will head for the gate. Any troll you fail to shoot down before he
disappears from your sight will contribute to forcing the gate; the number of
trolls necessary to do it decreases in higher levels. Once the trolls manage
to open the gate, one will rush in to capture the princess and run back
outside, leaving the gate open. Trolls will continue to march on the castle
after this but no longer enter it; all they want is the princess.  If you kill
a troll from the top floor of the castle, he'll leave gold behind.

The princess remains stationary at her cooking pot near the gate at the
bottom level of the castle until the trolls manage to come in through the gate
and she is kidnapped. At that point you will have to go outside to rescue her.
If you do not, the gate will close and the next princess will enter to resume
her cooking. The first princess is yellow, the second red, and the final one
white.  If all three princesses are captured and you fail to rescue the last
one, the game is over.

If a princess is dragged outside and you kill the troll dragging her away
(which can only be done if you go outside as well, you won't see her and her
captor from inside), she will stand in place, waiting for you to take her hand
and escort her back to the gate. Another troll can move in to capture her at
this point, or you can jump in, grab her hand and lead her back to the castle.
Personally, I'd go for the latter. Once you bring her back inside, the gate
will slam shut and the whole cycle of trolls trying to force it open will
begin again.

While the trolls are only after the princess and will not be a threat to you
unless you venture outside to rescue her, there is also the slight matter of
the poisonous spider. It will first appear halfway the first stage, coming from
the forest just like the trolls and heading for the gate. You can stop it, but
you'll have to be quick. If the spider reaches the gate, it will be able to
slip inside as soon as the trolls manage to lift it just a bit. Once inside,
it will run to one of the towers on the side, then periodically sweep across
either the top or the bottom floor to the tower on the other side.

If the spider touches you, you lose all your power instantly, and need
to recharge in one of the towers. If the spider touches you and you
had no power to begin with, you die.

It's tough to kill the spider when he's already inside, because he's small,
fast and hard to target. Even if you do kill him, a new one will appear almost
immediately. You'll have to resign yourself to the fact that, especially in the
later stages, there will almost always be a spider running loose in your
castle.

In later stages, the spider becomes quicker and quicker, and also
spends less time lurking in the darkness of your towers. He'll come
out more often.

The spider cannot harm you while you're in a tower, but he can attack
you both on the first and the second floor. If you're stationary or
moving towards him while he bites you, you suffer only one hit. Be
very careful when you run away from him, because if you're moving away
from the spider as he touches you, he'll touch you twice in a row,
which means instant death.

To recharge your power as it depletes from shooting at trolls, being hit by
lightning or being bitten by the spider, you can enter either of the towers to
draw new power from the bright star at the top of the screen. However, you
cannot do so while the thunder cloud moving across the screen is in front of
it. Worse still, if the princess gets captured, the cloud will move in front of
the star and stay there, forcing you to go outside (whether or not you try to
rescue the princess) before you can recharge again. This is particularly
annoying if you've been reduced to 0 power by the spider and cannot do a rescue
to begin with.

Scoring in Gandalf the Sorcerer is measured by the amount of gold you collect.
Gold is left behind by any trolls you kill from the second floor, and is
collected either automatically at the end of each stage, or by you when you
venture outside to rescue the princess. Collecting the gold manually will yield
more, but is obviously more risky as well. If you don't do it, however, a
yellow critter will occasionally dash across the field outside, too fast for
you to hit it, and it will steal any gold it touches.


===============================================================================
[5] STRATEGIES
===============================================================================

Any game of Gandalf the Sorcerer tends to go from calm and controlled to
hectic. Once you've played your first few games, the basics are easy enough;
destroy trolls as they arrive, hop into the tower if your power runs low, stop
the spider when possible and if he does slip in, spend a little time chasing
him down and destroying him.

As the game moves faster, though, it gets much harder to keep things under
control. Trolls will come in much faster than you can stop them, that damn
spider becomes harder and harder to stop, and it seems that whenever you go
outside to rescue yet another princess, odds are you'll be scorched by a troll
almost immediately. So what to do?

The following approach should help you survive long enough to clear at least
a couple of hordes and set a decent score.

- Remain at the top floor whenever possible, shooting trolls as they come.
Prioritize the spider when it appears, it's better to let a few trolls through
than him if you can help it.

- You do not need to recharge until your power is almost out. No need to run
to the tower just because your power is now 20. Don't go until you're out of
power. The exception is when the spider is in the castle and waiting until your
power is 0 could kill you. In that case, go to recharge when your power hits 9;
this ensures that even if the game chooses this moment to zap you with
lightning, you'll still have 1 power left and can survive the spider's bite.

- Lightning is random. There's no real way to avoid it apart from not being
on the second floor, and you need to be. You'll simply have to accept getting
zapped from time to time.

- If the trolls are getting close to entering the gate, you can still prevent
the kidnapping. Quickly head down, stand in front of the gate and hold down the
fire button. As soon as the gate opens and a troll steps in, he'll run right
into you and your spell and die; and the gate slams shut again!

- If the princess gets caught anyway, get outside to help her; if you don't,
the thunder cloud moves in front of the star and prevents you from recharging,
which can be very dangerous if the spider is inside. Once outside, aim very
carefully, because missing a shot outside means you have to walk and collect
your wand before you can fire again (it won't return automatically like it
would inside).

- When outside, focus on destroying the troll that captured the princess. This
will also cause your wand to lie in place, but that works to your advantage
now; any troll that moves in to capture the princess will likely die in turn.
Move in quickly to grab the princess (don't get close to any troll) and bring
her back inside. Until you're confident with how the trolls move outside, don't
collect gold and don't be out there a second longer than you need to. Any
kills you score while outside are useless: they don't yield gold, don't
contribute toward finishing the level, and the trolls get replaced immediately.

- Whenever you are outside, clear any monsters near the entrance before you
reenter the castle. They will still be in the same positions when you come
out the next time, so if you left anybody near the entrance, you could be
killed almost instantly. On the higher levels, when the trolls move that much
faster, this becomes more and more important.

- If the princess has already been carried so far away that you can't get to
her safely, and she's not the last one, let her go. You have three princesses,
but only one Gandalf. Defend only the last one with your life.

- The spider will inevitably get into your castle especially on higher levels.
To beat him, move close to the opposite tower from where he is and wait for
him to come out, then quickly target and destroy him. If he comes out on the
other floor than you expected, quickly get away from that tower. When shooting
at the spider, don't rest your targeting cursor on the tower he's going to
come out of; as soon as he does, your cursor will reset and you will not
actually hit the spider this way.

- When hunting the spider, don't bother to recharge to power 50 every time. If
he bites you, you're back at 0 anyway. Rather, recharge to 6-10 or so and try
to beat him. If you manage it, you can recharge then (but be quick about it,
new spiders come quickly!)

- On higher levels - say stage 4 and up - the spider becomes too quick to
realistically hit and he will frequently dash across the other level within
a second, then appear behind you immediately. You also can't outrun him
anymore at this point. Hunting him will only get you killed and/or give the
trolls free reign. Give up on it and destroy trolls as best as you can, while
evading the spider rather than killing him. Stay away from the side of the
castle he's on, and if you can't get away from it in time, quickly enter the
tower he's in and stay there until he moves. He cannot harm you when you're
off screen.

- If the spider is in the castle while you go outside, remember what tower he
is in just before you do. He'll still be there when you return, and you never
want to lose sight of his position.

- If you cannot avoid the spider, don't run away from him, or you might
suffer a double hit (which equals death). Stand still or move towards him.
Best of all, stand still and try to pick him off with a spell close by. The
chances are slim, but it's better than nothing.

- This should go without saying, but you should always recharge fully
between levels, while the computer is automatically collecting your
gold.

- As you get better at the game, you should take the opportunity to snatch gold
when you're outside. But stay away from the edges of the screen where new
trolls may appear, and stick with what you can safely snatch. In the earlier
stages, you may even wish to allow the trolls to capture the princess, just to
have an opportunity to go outside and snatch gold. This gets too dangerous in
the later stages - although at that point, you probably won't be able to
prevent the trolls from getting the princess anyway.

- Realistically, you can finish the first three stages of the game if you stick
to shooting trolls and grabbing the princess immediately once you need to. From
stage four on, luck plays a bigger part. Trolls and spider alike move so fast
that it's all you can do to get some quick shots in, head for the kidnapped
princess again (expect them to get her every 30 seconds), and dodge the spider
as best as you can. Once you get to the point where you can comfortably clear
the first three stages, it's better to focus on grabbing more gold outside than
on trying to clear even more stages. It all becomes a gamble here. Remember
when you get this far that the lives of the first two princesses have no
importance; only you and the third one matter. Save the first two only if it's
easy to do so.


===============================================================================
[6] REVISION HISTORY
===============================================================================

v1.0: (2 Nov '00) First version of the FAQ.

v1.01: (28 Dec '00) A few minor grammar corrections.

v2.0: (26 Sep '05) Full rewrite.

Barring any spontaneous insights, acts of God or interesting reader input, this
will likely be the final version.


===============================================================================
[7] FINAL WORDS
===============================================================================

ABOUT THIS FAQ
My FAQ writing dates back to 1996, when inspired by documents that came off
"the internet" (something I myself had no access to at the time) inspired me to
try some of my own. The addicted gamer that I was, I felt this was something I
would want to do someday as well. This dream came true in late 2000 when I
started submitting my first humble work to GameFAQs. My initial guide for
Gandalf the Sorcerer (or is it Sorceror? Ah well, semantics) was the second one
I ever wrote, and the first full one - my first tentative experiment was a boss
guide only.

Now, almost five years later, I decided it was time for a rewrite. The initial
FAQ was well-meant but not very good. The info was there, but incomplete,
spread out, and generally hard to read. With the experience I have in FAQ
writing now, not to mention a better grasp of the English language, I was able
to put together a much higher quality document. The kicker? It will probably
still never be read. :)

For questions, comments, suggestions, praise and criticism, please contact the
author, Sashanan, at [email protected]. This e-mail address is for FAQ
feedback only. Whatever you wish to share about this document or Gandalf the
Sorcerer, chances are I'll want to hear it. Any serious mail will be answered.

If you wish to do anything with this FAQ except for just reading it, check the
Disclaimer section at the top of the FAQ to find out what you can and can't do.
When in doubt, you can always mail me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sashanan is a gamer and freelance programmer who ends each of his FAQs with a
little section written in third person. This creates the illusion that it is
actually somebody else writing it about him, which in turn implies that he is
famous enough for people to bother doing so, and that strokes his ego. He is
convinced this is the very reason why book authors do this as well. When he is
not writing FAQs, Sashanan is usually found in the direct vicinity of his PC,
playing twenty years' worth of games, or helping maintain the vast and
sometimes unruly forums of GameFAQs. Sashanan lives in a quiet village in the
Netherlands which has no facilities for gamers whatsoever.

This document is a copyright of Peter "Sashanan" Butter, 2000-2005. All
rights reserved. Disclaimer at top of document.

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