Welcome to Esmerel, Home of the Waldings

(And of Unicorn Quest, the kids' typing tutor game for one or two hands)

Welcome to Esmerel, home of the Waldings. Grab yourself a candy apple and some hot cider, and come enjoy the site!

Announcing Esmerel in Motion!

We're making films! A film we were involved in, An Irish Goodbye, won the 2023 best live action short film Oscar! And they sang Happy Birthday to James onstage! So amazing! This is the only film we've been involved in that we weren't executive producers on - but our names are there under Special Thanks in the cast and crew section.

In 2018, we funded a film, Royal Blood, that won the Best Short Film Award at the Milton Film Festival in 2018, and in 2019 we made another short film, Transfer, this time writing it ourselves as well as funding it. We enjoyed being on set while the filming was done and it's so cool to have IMDB credits! Come join us on our journey!

• Ann's IMDB credits
• Rob's IMDB credits

Ann's fantasy novels

Ann Ewan's second book, Brondings' Honour, has lots of Waldings in it! Read all about Ann's exciting fantasy adventure books, Brondings' Honour and Firedrake.

Waldings love to get mail, but we're having a lot of trouble with spam. Please put our secret code (it's "fox" - shh) in the subject line when you write to us.

Paths to Take through Esmerel

• Is this your first visit? Grab some candy, join the dancers as they weave in and out of the wagons, and find out about Esmerel and the Waldings.
• The Mathemagician is back in camp complaining again, this time about a radio ad. Apparently it claims that a monkey who types for 3 million years will end up typing Shakespeare, and the Mathemagician doesn't believe it. Does anyone have any personal experience with monkeys typing Shakespeare? At least it has stopped him complaining about Jodie Foster's math in the movie "Contact."
• Read some mixed metaphors on the wordlore page.
• Visit the theatre district to hear stories of Conaria.
• Are you curious about how the Internet works? The programmer's soapbox explains IP and Internet routing.
• Head out on the open road with other long-suffering commuters on their way to work.
• Discover the future on fortune-tellers' row, or try to win some ribbons on gamers' aisle.
• And if you came to visit our camp because you saw the article in the Washington Post, the information is posted on that old notice board over there.

We have the following customized versions of Unicorn Quest available:

• Missing little fingers
• Missing little and ring fingers
• Missing little finger, right hand
• Missing index fingers
• Missing index finger, right hand
• Missing index finger, left hand
• Missing ring finger, right hand
• Missing ring finger, left hand
• Missing little finger and ring finger, right hand
• Missing little finger and ring finger, both hands
• Missing ring and middle finger on left hand, index and middle finger on right hand
• Left hand thumb only, full right hand
• Ring fingers only

If you are interested in any of these versions or would like a different one, contact us and let us know.

Thelion's Toolshop is open for business, and you can pick up his DOS utilities. Or, if you want some awk scripts, Rob finally got them all unpacked.

Download a copy of version 3.1 of Unicorn Quest! (zipped file 170K, expands to 648K including the zip file). Works for right hand, left hand, or both hands. Visit Thelion's shop for more information about it.

Alternatively, you can get Unicorn Quest by ftp from Garbo, or from Simtel. The file is called uquest31.zip.

Unicorn Quest is a DOS program, which means it doesn't work under the new 64-bit Windows. One of our readers might have found a solution and you can read about it in Thelion's shop.

Unicorn Quest works on DOS, 16-bit Windows, and 32-bit Windows. It can be unzipped with WinZip, JustZIPit, or pkunzip. If you are running Windows and have WinZip installed, then after Unicorn Quest has been downloaded to your machine:

1. Right-click the file (called uquest31.zip or unicorn.zip) and select WinZip > Extract to folder > C:\uquest31 (or whatever name ends with uquest31).
2. Go to the new uquest31 directory and double-click the unicorn (or unicorn.exe) file to play the game.
3. Type your name and press Enter. (Since Unicorn Quest is a typing tutor, it does not recognize the mouse.) Use the arrow keys to select the hand you want (Both is the default) and then press Enter to start the game.

You can have Unicorn Quest take up the whole screen by pressing Alt-Enter. (Press Alt-Enter again to get the other icons back.)

If you don't have WinZip, you can get it from:
http://www.winzip.com

JustZIPit (a simple, powerful, and free ZIP program) is available from:
http://free-backup.info

And if you have more questions, contact us and ask. Please put our secret code (it's "fox" - don't tell anyone) in the subject line.

This site made possible by Sufficiently Advanced Technology.

Esmerel last updated 23 May 2022, a warm summer's day. This site is maintained by Stewart.