Whale's Voyage: Forbidden Seas and Barbarous Coasts

 

The game prevents me from returning to my ship, and thus saving.

       

The game begins with the crew of the Whale still on Castra, a little less broke than last time. We returned a missing child, foiled the mugging of a resident, foiled our mugging, and got a mission to bring a heart to a shady-sounding guy named "Jack Nock" on Lapis. But other parties are apparently interested in the heart, and at the end of the last session, they slaughtered us, forcing us to do most of the above a second time. I later ended up doing it a third time because all my money disappeared for reasons I can't explain.

   

The secret to winning the battle is to run away. The attackers' party of four breaks up, with its members wandering off individually, allowing us to engage and kill them one at a time. For some reason, my soldier (Mapple) turns out to be terrible with the shotgun, but either he or Starbuck (bounty hunter) does fine with their bare hands, particularly since we can just wait and heal between battles. Slowly, we kill them all. They don't leave any visible items behind, but fortunately I think to search the area anyway, as each one of them drops a small-bore gun. 

       

Divide and conquer.

    

The combat system shows how bonkers this interface is. As we discussed last time, only one character can fight at a time. If that character isn't the "targeter," you have to enter the bottom interface (SPACE-DOWN ARROW), arrow to the character's name, hit SPACE, arrow to the "Select" icon, and hit SPACE. If there's only one person in front of the party, he'll be automatically selected. Then you have to back out of this menu with the LEFT ARROW to the main screen, then arrow to the little button to the right of the character's name (which shows a symbols specific to his class), then hit SPACE, then arrow to the "Attack" button, then pound away at it with SPACE until the enemy is dead. Woe the character who doesn't already have his preferred weapon equipped, as this is another whole deal. It's hard to believe that anyone designed this purposefully. My two biggest problems are:

 

• Identifying what's "selected" on the interface panel. The only indication you get is a thin border around the button, that kind of "blinks" by changing colors, but I can barely see it.

• Because I can't see the selection border easily, I'm always going to the arrow keys so I can see it moving and thus get a lock on it. But if you accidentally hit the UP ARROW while in the top row of the interface, you end up leaving it (arrow keys now move the party), so you have to get back into it again.

       

Which of these three guns is currently selected? Easy for you, not so much for me.

      

I'm sure the excuse for all of this is wanting the player to be able to use the joystick exclusively, but that doesn't justify a lack of keyboard backups for these commands. And why, in the name of all holy, would you not put a target selection button on the combat screen? I don't advocate or applaud physical violence lightly, but someone honestly deserves to be slapped for this.

     

After we've killed the four assassins, we return to the shop counter. Their guns are worth over $13,000, so I sell one and buy a compass, a toolkit, and a room scanner, just because they all sound useful. We then beam up to the Whale.

      

One gun buys enough fuel to make it to another planet and back. What a weird economy.

      

As I mentioned last, the interface on the ship lets you buy or sell goods, buy equipment and fuel for the ship, plot a destination, and make a phone call. At first, I thought the first options were for personal items for the party because the options include "Light Weapons" and "Ammunition." I see now that these options are trade goods. I note the prices for Castra, but I'm not sure if they change from time to time. Amusingly, one of the trade goods is "computergames," and the icon shows the box cover for Whale's Voyage.

    

It's nice to see that computer games haven't experienced much inflation in 300 years.

        

The star chart shows six planets in this system: Lapis, Arboris, Castra, Sky Boulevard, Nedas, and Inoid. Lapis is closest to the sun and requires 728 fuel units. I buy 5,000.

       

Purchasing fuel.

      

Before I leave, I note the phone panel and decide to try to call George McGil now. Maybe one of the "high tech tools" is something I can use to shrink Greg Morgan, although that still sounds like an unnecessarily complicated way to smuggle someone off-planet. Sure enough, McGil offers to send us a Shrinking Device via "3D fax." He advises us to "use it with care and keep the CD safe!" What CD?

    

I guess the developers anticipated 3D printing.

    

I don't know if that means we have the Shrinking Device or just the means to print it somewhere. I return to the surface and go speak with Greg Morgan, who has nothing new to say. But then I notice a new icon over in the left scroll wheel, the same place that the missing girl stored herself. This seems to be a "quest items" part of the interface.

   

My new option does suggest some kind of shrinking, so I try it. As Morgan disappears, he says, "Take care of this heart and bring it to Jack Nock. Bring me on that CD to Jack Nock. He knows what to do." A CD (compact disk) is barely visible in the corner after he disappears. I pick it up. How does he know Jack Nock? How does he know about the heart? How did McGIl know about the CD? Is everyone just into each others' business on this planet? Looking at the CD tells us that: "This is the compact disc which you used to shrink Greg Morgan. He is still stored on this disc." So I guess it isn't so much a Shrinking Device as one that turns a person into data?

   

We beam back to the ship and finally prepare to leave Castra for Lapis. The profile in our computer tells me that the planet is very poor and only exists because of its wealthy titanium mines. 

     

That's one hell of a planetary alignment.

       

No sooner have we left orbit than the game informs me: "Whale under attack and ambushed by avaricious buccaneers!" Given that I have no weapons, I don't like my chances in this battle. Space combat takes place on a large grid, and the manual assures me that if I can reach the edges of the grid, I can flee. Worst case, I can surrender and I'll lose all my cargo, which is empty. I try to flee, since I can't even see the enemy. I choose the "Turn Left" button, and the game responds, "Whale destroyed!"

      

I guess I committed one of the classic blunders: turning left in space combat.

         

On a reload, we don't encounter the pirates this time, and we make it safely to Lapis. Before beaming down, I note the sale prices of their goods. They don't have a lot of overlap with what Castra was selling, but of course they might be willing to buy Castran goods. I need to track buying and selling prices separately, I guess.

  

We beam down to Lapis. The planet is reported to have no oxygen and to have an average temperature of 400 degrees (F). None of this is reflected in the characters' experience in the town. Maybe it's in a dome or something. Overall, the area is 25 x 10, a little smaller than Castra, but with just as many locked doors. I keep annotating them even though I suspect they're just for flavor and there's no way to open them.

 

Lapis.

           
The interiors of the buildings that aren't locked all look like morgues, with compartments in the walls and long tables. Stones are everywhere, indoors and outdoors. I wonder if I can sell them.

      

This probably has some mining explanation, but I can't figure it out.

     

There are a few NPCs wandering the town. John Sac tells us that it's hard working the mines; Baumann says he's collecting taxes; Kruger tells us about a new disease called Hypo-Coco; G.J. Styx just keeps asking us for money (there's no way to give money that I can discover). A guy named Ferdinand runs a shop selling tools and explosives.

  

We find Jack Nock in a building in the north-center part of town. He takes the heart and gives us 100,000 credits. When we give him the disk, he says he can reverse the shrinking. Once he does so, he shouts, "This man is a traitor!" Greg Morgan starts blasting us from behind and has soon killed three party members. I really hate how the game keeps surprising us with combat.

      

"Reshrink" isn't the word I was looking for.

     

It takes a few reloads before I can kill Morgan, and even then, it's with one character dead. I take the party to the healing/resurrection chamber in town, which consumes about a third of the credits that I just earned. I return to Jack Nock, who tells me that Morgan was a spy and I "saved the heart," which is intended for an "important man." We try to ask him other things, but he keeps telling us he's busy and will be back in an hour. We make a couple loops around town. I verify Ferdinand won't buy rocks. I buy a machete. Nock still keeps telling us to come back in an hour. Does he mean real time? Time doesn't actually pass in this game.

       

You can't "be back" if you never leave.

       

I try to beam up to the ship to save, but the game says that I can't because the beam is being disturbed by a "beam-blocker." 

   

Eventually, we return to find Jack Nock not just dead on the floor, but comically positioned with his legs straight up in the air. Krueger is wandering around the building, but I don't know if that means anything. We examine the body and find a piece of paper, which causes my leader to level up. I take the "Disarm Selected Opponent" skill.

     

Or he's got one bastard of a yoga routine.

     

The piece of paper has a number on it, but I still can't beam up to the ship to call it. Eventually, I have to quit the session. I'll have to re-do it all again next time. That seems like the theme for this game.

      

Miscellaneous notes:

    

• I like that you can get a textual description of all your inventory items. I enjoy reading these so much that I made it a point on the GIMLET, but hardly any game ever gets to claim it. Might and Magic VI through VIII remain my favorite games for these descriptions.

      

I wouldn't mind if it had exact damage statistics along with the description, but one thing at a time, I guess.

     

• I have no idea what the image on the right side of the interface is showing me. I think it might just be some generic view of the current planet. I also don't know what the (empty) bars in the upper-right are for.

• NPCs frequently block your passage. It takes them a long time to move out of the way.

• Several times this session, I had to reload because all my money disappeared for no reason. I had to make one of my characters the "merchant" so I can keep an eye on it.

       

The game makes me think of what you would get if you crossed MegaTraveller with the weird cyberpunk aesthetic and combat system of B.A.T. There's an economy of dialogue and storytelling here that borders on the surreal. I honestly don't know whether to regard it as intentional. I'm certainly not going to get very far if I keep experiencing problems like disappearing money and inability to return to the ship.

     

Time so far: 5 hours

Playing out of: Confusion