In the original La-Mulana if you spoke to the elder without the save ROM equipped, you would receive a simple hint. However, that hint wasn’t used sufficiently enough–to the point that most people didn’t even know it was there.
La-Mulana was praised by many players, but on the other hand, there was voice that it was quite vicious. One of the reasons, I believe ,is that there weren’t enough explanations. That’s when we thought about developing this elder’s hint system.
This time, in the newly implemented laptop software menu, if part of the software is loaded a 
special application can be executed. In there is a thing called “xelpud mailer“.
It’s a piece of software, created by the elder, which is a one way mail from him–you can receive, but not send. When loaded, you will receive mail from the elder which include specific sight or puzzle solutions, info about items and hints directly from the elder. You can think of it as similar to the wireless call in Metal Gear.
New players will be able to read the mail and learn about new operations while advanced players can ignore these altogether. I don’t like the implementation of the game progress stopping in an action game to display an explanation, so I decided to do this method.
Of course, we’re talking about that elder, so there may be some junk mail, but try to be nice and appeal to the elderly.
The main role of the elder’s mail is to provide hints by explaining about items or game functions, such as one-way doors and the function of grabbing onto walls. Since La-Mulana’s settings and puzzle solutions are vast, I thought it would be good to have a character knowledgeable of the ruins that can help.
This is a new character. Duplex-san said, “we need to add more female characters” so that’s her role. This person sleeps in the field with the purpose of helping the chosen one take on the puzzles in the ruins.The name’s Mulbruk.
Fans of the original version may figure out the identity of this person from the name.
Don’t think that NIGORO has lost it’s touch to add a pretty and young female character just to level up in appeal. This person’s dialogue is almost done, but the personality isn’t a success yet. Don’t worry, that’s just the usual NIGORO.
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Reversing “Mulbruk” results in “Kurblum”, which doesn’t sound very familiar…
I’m really liking the Xelpud Mailer idea. One of the things I noticed with Xelpud’s advice in the original is that players would forget about him from time to time and then return to him only to find his advice helpful for a puzzle they already solved. This new system sounds more like you can obtain the help when you need it. I’m also really loving the junk mail idea as well, it should provide some amusing messages and give a little diversion for when the player might want to take a bit of a break, not to mention help build Xelpud’s character.
My first reaction is “Marduk!” but I think that might just be a coincidence. I think we can all tell that she’s a sage, though! She sounds like a nice character…I always imagined La-Mulana as being “the Treasure Island of games” and not having any girls in it, but considering some of the enemies (Tiamat, Mother), some positive female figures would actually be a great idea.
Xelpud mailer sounds fun too! Looking forward to it.
For the life of me I can’t figure out who ‘Mulbruk’ is supposed to be… 🙁
the xelpud emails sound like a neat idea, though… I’ve seen games use a similar faux-message service hint system, so it makes sense.
Happy holidays and happy new year! (especially after this game is done :D)