Game 415: Abandoned Places 2 (1993)

 

I always think it's weird when a game has a subtitle but its sequel doesn't. How hard could it have been. "Another Time for Different Heroes."

        

Abandoned Places 2

Hungary

ArtGame (developer); International Computer Entertainment (publisher)

Released 1993 for Amiga

Date Started: 22 May 2021

    

It's been about a year to the day since I started Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes, a Hungarian Dungeon Master clone that I recall as pleasant but also a bit too easy. Right now, though, I find myself looking for exactly such a game. A Dungeon Master-style game is a nice contrast to Darkside of Xeen; while they may superficially look similar, the nature of gameplay is very different. More important, the "too easy" part would be a nice contrast with Mission: Thunderbolt, which I am still playing, one very slow level at a time.

    

Like its predecessor, Abandoned Places 2 is set in the world of Kalynithia. In the first game, four heroes prevented a demonic sorcerer named Bronakh (given as "Bronagh" in the second game's manual) from rising to power by scouring the land's dungeons for a collection of artifacts, then confronting Bronakh in his fortress. Now, four hundred years later, Bronakh's "creator," an extra-planar being named Pendugmahle, has crossed over to Kalynithia to take revenge. Once again, the Ancient Order of Arbitrion has decided to resurrect four heroes from carbon freezing, or what the game calls their "diamonised state."

    

The opening cinematic shows some kind of creature emerging from the ground and being teleported to the well of a castle. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

    

As with the predecessor (and Dungeon Master), you don't create the party so much as choose from a roster of 34 existing characters. But you can change most of the defaults, including the five attributes (strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution) and name. You can allocate attributes from a pool of points, though in a way that makes little sense. It takes 1 point for each increment from 1 to 7, then 2 from 7 to 8, then 1 again from 8 to 9, then 2 from 9 through 13. Going from 13 to 14 takes 7 points, and 14 to 15 (the maximum) takes 9. You could give everyone 13s across the board (with two 14s) or sacrifice a lot of points for more 14s and maybe a 15.

 

There are only two character classes: fighter and mage. The original had clerics, but in this game, clerics are just mages who specialize in a particular magical sphere. For mages, you cannot change their starting magical abilities. There are three magical spheres: cosmos, elemental, and necromancy. The manual says that necromancers are best at healing spells, which is a bit nontraditional. "Conjurers" (who use the elemental sphere; keep up) are good at attacking spells, and "voiders" (cosmos) are balanced. The original game forced you to play two fighters, a mage, and a priest, but this game makes no restrictions. I chose one fighter and three mages, one each of the three specialties. I gave them names that help me remember who they are, because that's becoming more of an issue.

         

Creating a new "cosmos" mage.

       

The characters begin with no equipment in a small room. The square leading out of the room has a text encounter in which we're told that the "master" who awakened us suffered some sort of injury or weakness from the ritual and needs a healing elixir, to be found somewhere in the same dungeon. Right away, we see something that the first game didn't offer--messages or mini-encounters triggered by specific dungeon squares. This was a feature of Eye of the Beholder, but I don't know if the Abandoned Places authors took from Eye directly. 

      

We get our first quest.

      

The game window has been redesigned since Abandoned Places. The first one arguably tried to cram too much on one screen. This one is simpler. The view window is about twice the size of the original, and the character portraits (including combat actions) are now below the window. A pane to the right is used for inventory and spell selection (alternating between the two with a right-click), with a compass and a GTFO panel to the lower right. If you need to see the full character sheet, you can toggle it on and off (it replaces the view window) with the SPACE bar. My assessment is that graphics have been improved since the original; this one offers such interesting visuals like grates and artwork that I assumed at first they must be interactive.

      

This grate and this relief are so intricately designed that it feels like you ought to be able to do something with them.

      

It took me about three hours to map the first level--a large 31 x 31, using the "worm tunnel" approach, with space between all adjacent walls. These are the moments I cherish in RPGs, setting out with no equipment and a blank piece of graph paper, slowly learning the game's conventions, taking what the game throws at you, one square at a time. It occurs to me again how integral mapping is to my enjoyment of this type of game. There are times I don't feel like doing it, or am not in a good place to do it (my process really requires two monitors), and at those times, I should probably just play something else. 

  

There were only two enemy types on the first level--skeletons and skeletons wearing some kind of armor. As with any Dungeon Master-derived game, combat is in real-time, and is largely about right-clicking on your weapons and then waiting through the "cool down" period before you can do it again. The one oddity here is the way the game handles spells. The right-hand panel allows you to browse through your available spells and cast them, but to make things quicker, you can set an "active" spell that gets cast automatically when you right-click on a spellcaster's empty hand. Right-clicking on a fighter's empty hand just makes him punch with that hand. 

      

My first combat.

    

I thought this would be confusing, but I got used to it quite quickly. It turns out that the game--or, at least, the first level--is well-suited to a mage-heavy party, as spell points regenerate fast. If you run out in a particular combat, you just need to retreat for half a dozen squares to regroup. My voider started with "Magic Missile" and my conjurer started with "Meteor Swarm" (which sounds like a much higher-level spell), both of which performed well against the skeletons. My necromancer didn't have an offensive spell to start (except "Sleep," which I assume didn't work on skeletons), leaving him to clean up with "Cure Light Wounds." My only complaint is that when you fast-cast the spell by right-clicking on the hand, it assumes you want to cast it on the necromancer himself. Only by casting it from the book do you get the option to target a specific character.

   

All four characters can attack enemies--none of this Dungeon Master nonsense where it's limited to the first two (or, worse, the Captive nonsense where if you attack with the two rear characters, they actually hit the first two characters). It seems that if you're making a melee attack, it doesn't matter if the enemy is on the left or right side of the view window. But if you're casting a spell or using a missile weapon, it does matter, so it's important to have one offensive mage on each side of the screen.

    

A "Meteor Swarm" dissolves a skeleton to the left as another approaches on the right.

       

I can't give the game an A+ in its use of the keyboard, but it's not bad. The movement panel is mapped to the numberpad, and you can select characters with the 1-4 keys. SPACE toggles the character sheet. Beyond that, however, there isn't much keyboard redundancy. I would have liked a key (TAB, maybe) to switch between the inventory and spell panes, and of course I'd always prefer keys to execute attacks in combat.

   

As with its predecessor, characters earn individual experience, but based on all successful actions rather than just killing enemies. They get experience for each successful hit and each spell cast, including non-combat spells. That said, killing enemies does seem to deliver the most experience, and by the end of the level, there was a significant imbalance. Oddly, the imbalance didn't favor my fighter (7,511 experience), but my voider (23,538), who always seemed to nail enemies with his spells. My conjurer ended with 9,548, and my necromancer with a paltry 4,534. This translated to Level 4 for the voider, Level 3 for the fighter and conjurer, and Level 2 for the necromancer.

   

One of my criticisms of Abandoned Places was that it didn't trot out any puzzles until quite late in the game, when it not only introduced them suddenly but made them incredibly difficult. This level suggests a greater use of easy to moderate navigation puzzles. Among the things that I mapped include:

   

• "Dark" squares for which you need a torch or "Light" spell.

• Magic missiles that speed along corridors and hit you unless you time them carefully. I haven't yet determined if these damage enemies.

• Button doors. You can't smash enemies in them, alas.

      

The doors have a pretty funky design.

         

• Squares with fire. I assume some spell allows you to walk in them, but I don't believe I have it yet.

      

Why would these even exist?

         

• Water squares. You need "Levitate" to cross them. My conjurer got the spell at Level 2. I don't know what you do if you don't have someone capable of casting "Levitate," but then again, I don't think anything absolutely necessary was on the other side of those squares.

      

Getting ready to cross some water.

      

• Pressure plates that lower walls.

• Illusory walls that you just walk into.

• Manual buttons that lower walls or pillars. I had to make a couple of loops through the level before I even spotted one button type; it strikes me as a bit unfair.

      

That tiny thing above my cursor is a button. At least now I know to look for it.

      

• Magic-draining squares.

• "Slick" squares that slide you to a destination square. "Levitate" doesn't do anything to counter them.
  

• Spinners. The first level had one, and it keeps you spinning constantly until you step off.
  

          

It took me a few tries, but now that I know what to watch for, I think I'll be able to map further levels a bit faster.

   

There were maybe half a dozen treasure chests, and between them and items found on the floor, my inventory has grown rapidly. I need to experiment more with inventory items. So far, I've found:

   

• Weapons: long sword, axe, dagger, two maces, two clubs, three short swords. Only the fighter can use the axe or long sword. The game gives you no information about damage, so you have to guess. Even in combat, your only feedback is visual.

• Darts. The problem is, if I equip them, I can't cast spells from the same hands until the darts are gone. I think I'm going to make this one Dungeon Master clone where I don't waste half the game running around picking up missile weapons. I'll use my spells and melee weapons and that's it.

• Piles of coins. You "use" these (put them in a hand and right-click) to convert them to your "money" statistic.

     

Opening a treasure chest. Only the items in the six "holes" are interactive. The skull, sword, potion, book, and chalice are all just decorative.

      

• Scrolls. Any spellcaster can use any scroll, even if they don't have the related spell. Still, it's hard to think of a situation in which they'll be really necessary. Maybe if there's an entire area where regular magic doesn't work.

• Staff of Water. Casts the "Globe of Water" spell, a missile spell. 

• Food. More on that in a bit.

• Burning oil. Casts like a spell and causes a fire square to erupt in front of the party. I haven't tried it in combat yet, but it seems cool.

• Torches. There were only a couple of squares on this level that required them.

• Gems and rings. I assume these are to sell later.

• Rope. No use yet, but I'm sure some later puzzle will require it.

     

I've found only one item to go in the character's "fixed inventory," found on the character sheet. This is where you put wearable items that aren't going to change very much. I found one suit of leather armor, which I gave to my voider.

    

The character sheet shows the more permanent wearable items.

        

You supposedly have an encumbrance statistic to go with all this inventory, with over-encumbrance causing slower attacks, but it seems to be invisible.

       

I'll close this first entry with a couple of major annoyances. The first is the food system. Your characters have a "food" statistic, and if it runs out, they start going hungry and taking damage every couple of seconds. This started about 10 minutes into the game. Fortunately, I discovered that spell points regenerate fast enough for the necromancer to keep up with the hit point loss by casting "Cure Light Wounds." I just had to listen to all my characters yell "Hrugh!" with hunger pains every few seconds. The only items of food I found in the dungeon were "badberries," which seem to poison you instead of replenishing your statistic. Eventually, my conjurer leveled up and got "Create Food," and by the end of the level, all three of my mages had it. Each casting creates one food item that you can right-click to eat, restoring your nutrition. Thus, the need for food is easily solved, making the entire system just an annoyance, requiring us to stop exploration every 10-15 minutes for a round of fish and cheese. I don't mind a food system when it adds to a game's strategy, but it's silly to include it and then trivialize it.

       

This is just an image of a pillar that I thought looked cool.

       

Incidentally, I twice had to take a break while gaming, forgot to put it in "pause" mode, and came back to find all the characters dead from starvation. I don't mind real-time combat in tile-based games, but nothing else should be real-time. It punishes players who map.

    

The second problem is the game's sound. Technically, it's quite good. When enemies are near, you can hear them walking, and you can also hear sounds like the roar of fire squares. The sound designer managed to include echoes and the creative use of stereo to indicate the direction of the enemy. The major problem is that when the game begins, there are so many enemies around everywhere that you're constantly listening to what sounds like a herd of horses in the next corridor. I wouldn't have minded a bit more subtlety.

   

One thing that doesn't annoy me much but probably annoyed some era players is the speed of saving and reloading. Saving takes 1 minute and 25 seconds. Reloading requires you to first quit to the main menu, which requires a disk swap, and then hit "Continue an Old Game," which requires another disk swap. At that point, loading takes about as long as saving. All told, you're looking at about 2 minutes to reload, which you have to do after each character death in the early game. Fortunately, the game isn't that hard, and I rather like that there are some consequences to death. I'm always saying that modern games should artificially increase their reloading times so that the player is more incentivized not to die. (And yes, I know there are ways around the speed issue with the emulator; I try to avoid these unless the game is unbearable otherwise.)

    

My map of Level 1 so far.

    

As you can see from my Level 1 map, there's a blank area that I couldn't access. The game seems to be eager to take up all its available space (within the confines of worm tunnel design), so I suspect that either I missed a button, or that area is going to be accessed from another level.  

    

I spent a little time exploring Level 2. "Put your weapons here and receive a bonus fireball," a message offered soon after we arrived. There was a pressure plate nearby, but it wasn't clear at first that we were to put our weapons on the pressure plate, not on the square where we got the message. It turned out that once three weapons were loaded on the pressure plate, it lowered a secret wall nearby. I never got a "bonus fireball."

      

Weighing down a pressure plate.

      

A corridor offered a devious spinner (the type that makes it look like nothing has happened) and ended in a room that, according to a message, was called the "sauna." It cleverly had a fire square next to a water square, and a "slick square" trap forced us to traverse both before dumping us on the other side. At the end of the area, we stepped in a teleporter. I started to map the subsequent area, but it looked familiar, and I realized that we were simply back in the northeast corner of Level 1. The only other way to go on Level 2 leads to a down stairway, so either Level 2 is really small (15 x 12) or once again, we're going to find alternate stairways.

    

I'm curious to find if the sequel has the same approach to its overworld, towns, shops, and so forth as the first game. I guess I won't know until I find that elixir and get out of the starting dungeon. On we go.

    

Time so far: 4 hours