That spellmaking part wasn't even a puzzle, it was copy protection. Even as a legitimate buyer you had to type up a short story's worth of characters and if you made ONE fucking typo, then GAME OVER HOPE YOU SAVED YOUR GAME YOU LOSER HAHA

Well the alien also appears near the end of the game but indeed it was a total dick move.

Oh yeah loved those except for the Last Crusade. That one was a bit of self-parody in my opinion - it had really lazy writing and puzzle design at points - but it also had extended, sometimes brutally difficult arcade sequences which I really don't like in adventure games. The Castle Grünwald was where I gave up the…

Well at least it did give you an ominous message along the lines of "YOU FUCKED UP BOZO" if memory serves. But didn't the thing grow back the next day, anyway?

That would be Space Quest 4, which was an arduous, terrible game with most of its puzzles centred around copy protection information and the remaining ones were basically arcade sequences. The worst part I recall was that you had to buy an electric charger for some scifi doodad and you didn't find out whether you…