Daemonsgate: Behind Enemy Lines

 

Your overconfidence is your weakness.

       

In our first session with Daemonsgate, we learned that an army of demons was besieging the city of Tormis. The only hope for the city was for a small team, led by captain-of-the-guard Gustavus, to get past the siege, make their way to the nearby city-state of Attiea, and get more information about the demons from an Elsopean refuge. We learned that the thieves' guild might have a secret way out of the city, and that a woman named Moll was associated with the guild. Moll told us to meet her in the Harvester of Sorrow after midnight.

      

Impatient, and anticipating some nighttime activity, we rest until the deadline. When we return to Moll, she tells us to "leave all our weapons," which she means quite literally. We have to drop them all on the floor. 

    

The game's inventory system is a little annoying, but it also has some positive features. You click on each body part to see what the character is carrying in that location. The options are head, backpack (barely visible; you have to click on the corner), quiver, arms, chest, belt, right hand, left hand, and legs. In all of those locations except the backpack, you can only carry one thing, so the panels that list a bunch of stuff are mostly wasted.

     

Dropping my bastard sword.

      

Anything you "Wear" goes into the appropriate slot, moving anything already there to the backpack. Anything that you "Get" automatically goes to the right hand. Then you can "Swap" one item for another in two different locations. But there's no command to simply "Move" an item from one location to another. For instance, if you have Thieves' Tools in your backpack and want to hold them in your left hand, you have to "Wear" a shield first, then "Swap" it with the tools. Meanwhile, to trade an item with another character, you have to choose "Give" and then right-click on the portrait in the center of the screen until that character appears, then click on it. It's very easy to get that center portrait confused with the character with the active inventory, whose name is in the upper-right. The whole system needed some Might and Magic style shortcuts, such as being able to highlight an item and then just hit the number of the character to transfer it, or simply the ability to drag items from one place to another. To make me use the mouse but then not enable such obvious mouse functionality is a bit maddening.

     

Even each bit of food has a description.

      

On the positive side, we have the item descriptions. Anything may be "Examined" for more information. The author took time to write paragraphs for the most mundane objects. I love it.

     

Once we have all the weapons out of our hands, belts, and backpacks, Moll agrees to lead us to the guild. We go around the tavern and north for a few buildings before entering one with a sign that says "Acquisition." Moll introduces us to Hanri the Knife.

     

Just a jack-knife has old Hanri, babe . . .

       

Hanri, who wears a suit, sunglasses, and a top hat, confirms that the thieves' guild has a secret exit from the city. but "the exit is locked and Travis Sewerbreath has the key." Travis has been arrested and is awaiting execution in the prison. Hanri says that if we can bust him out, he'll help us get out of the city. He further says that there's a passage from the sewers to the basement of the jail.

    

Hanri says that we can have access to "the guild and its resources," but that doesn't seem to mean anything. The game often shows areas full of chests, barrels, and sacks, but the only time you can ever pick something up is if there are smaller items shown on the same screen. Then, you can grab them one at a time from the "Objects" menu.

   

The thieves' guild has a stairway down to the sewers. Near the entrance is a locked door—presumably, it leads to the tunnel outside the city. A very long corridor (like, 60 seconds of straight walking) goes east to the prison, but when we get there, we find another locked door. If we're going to spring Travis, we'll need some lockpicks.

      

Well, hell.

       

I head back to the surface and start exploring buildings, looking for a shop that sells thieves' tools. I find one rather quickly—a pawn between the thieves' guild and the Harvester of Sorrow. I pick up some thieves' tools, fletcher's tools, and armorer's tools, as well as a couple of first-aid kits. I wonder about some of the other items for sale (e.g., Air Amulet, Bloodstone Amulet, Diamond Dust, Black Cloth), but I can't examine them unless I buy them.

     

With the tools in hand, we return to the sewers beneath the prison and unlock the door. Right on the other side, we have our first battle with a couple of guards named Karl and Bill. Yes, the game tells you the personal names of your enemies; there's no pretending that they're just generic guards.

       

Well, now I feel bad.

       

Combat is . . . odd. I wouldn't call it "bad." Truly bad combat would take too long, and the battles here are pretty short. I think I'll save a detailed description for later, when I have more experience and options. For now, the grid that you see in these screenshots is just paving tiles, not a tactical grid; characters move continuously across it. The characters start in a formation some distance from their foes, and the weird thing is that the formation seems to assume that the foes are to the north, but every battle I've fought so far has them to the east.

    

Options for each character. Note that we're all facing the wrong way.

       

The overall system is "real time with pause," a little like Darklands. You can click "Start" and "Stop" as necessary to advance the action or pause to issue orders. Orders include attacking enemies, casting spells, and fleeing. When you attack and target an enemy, the character moves dutifully across the screen at the next "Start" and wallops that enemy until he's dead. In most of the battles this session, enemies had missile weapons, so the characters had to make that initial march under a hail of arrows. Once they got into melee range, they deal with the enemies very fast.  

     

After battle, you automatically collect gold and then get your choice of some of the enemy's gear. I loot about half a dozen halberds from the guards in the prison, which I later sell for a decent amount of money.

        

The loot screen.

     

The prison beyond has a number of locked doors, most with signs outside:

 

• "Cell One: Psycho Matt."   
• "Cell Two: Crazy Samm. Feed only raw meat at arm's length." 
• "Cell Three: Travis Sewer Breath. Scheduled for execution."
• "Cell Four: Slitter Emmott."
• "Cell Five: Peeping Jacques the Rake." 
• "Cell Six: Carter Sixfingers. Scheduled for execution." 

     

Lots of good potential user IDs for you anonymous commenters here.

       

• "Cell Seven: Leetch Slimetoad. Feed only bread and water."
• "Cell Eight: Nathaniel Blackthorn. Scheduled for execution."
• "Cell Ten: Empty."

    

Despite all the names, most of the cells are empty. Fortunately, Travis is in his cell. He takes off on his own but says he'll be at the Harvester of Sorrows.

     

Before I head back to the tavern, I decide to cross the river and return to the university. It had a lot of locked doors, and I want to see what I find now that I can open them. Also, a few NPCs have told me that there are magicians at the university, and no one in my party has any spell skills.

   

I'm slightly disappointed on both grounds. The best I do on loot is a bunch of reagents in the "spell preparation" room. The manual briefly covers making potions, but I don't want to deal with that right now.

           

Don't mince words, now.

      

In terms of joining, I ask everyone. Most of the students and faculty give me lame excuses. Only one accepts, a guy named Arion Edmunson. Problems: 1) He has the kind of face you just want to pound with a shovel; 2) his only skills are "Magic Sense," "Herb Lore," and "Meditation"; 3) he's not very good at any of them. I mean, it's nice that he can mix potions, but I need someone with "Elemental Lore" or "Daemon Lore" to cast spells.

     

I explore some of the other buildings with my picks. One of the warehouses has enough salted pork to cover our meals for a couple of weeks. I loot a bunch of weapons and armor from the militia headquarters, which is particularly timely because when I get back to the Harvester of Sorrows, I find two thief NPCs—Grim and Grom—who don't have any armor. They join the party, bringing my total to eight. I think that's the maximum; at least, that's all the portraits that are shown on the combat screen.

      

Not the most heroic of moments.

     

Travis, lurking in the back room as promised, claims that Hanri the Knife set him up. "He sent me on a job and grassed me up to the militia." He'll give me the key to get out of town if I kill Hanri and bring back Hienze's Ring from his body.

      

"Gave me up to the coppers" ---> "Grasshoppered" ---> "Grassed"?

   

Hanri saves me from any ethical qualms by attacking the moment I see him. ("You know too much about our organisation.") He only attacks with two henchmen, though. My party of eight makes short work of him. We loot the ring, return it to Travis, and get the key. I decline to add Travis to the party.

          

The chaos of battle.

     

I'm not in any rush to escape the city, though. We're pretty flush after we sell our excess weapons and armor. I spent a few days at the tavern teaching, practicing, and reading. We go to the marketplace and get a few equipment upgrades as well as an Adamantine Sword for Gustavus. I don't know if I'll be able to come back here once I leave.

        

I guess I'll use a dry-erase marker.

        

Eventually, we're ready. We unlock the door in the thieves' guild basement with the key, head northwest a long way, and finally emerge into the wilderness from a grate in a small building. Before I go too far, the game asks, "Do you want to leave town?," so I guess I'm still on the town map.

        

I assume it means the hole beneath the grate.

      

We transition to a much smaller-scale map, the party represented by a shield. There's another shield to our northeast, and when I approach, we automatically enter combat with 10 "war-lords." We last no time at all. 

      

The frame is cute, but I'd rather see more of the landscape.

      

On a reload, we're more cautious. Aside from the fact that we cannot cross water, the game does appear to be open world. We can go anywhere. The question then becomes: is there any point? Does the game reward open exploration? 

    

Just for fun, I travel east a bit to Eloran and find a town with the predictable shops and inns. Navigating without a map (as I had with Tormis) is a bit of a pain. People are nervous about the demonic hordes but don't have any quests or insights for me. I decide to see if I can make it all the way to Elsopea. I cross the river east of Tormis and march to the border peaks, but I get slaughtered by some men-at-arms when I try to rest for the night.

     

The party tries to head directly for the endgame.

     

Deciding that maybe I'll play with open exploration later, I reload from the sewer exit and start heading northwest to Attiea (which is how everyone in the game spells it, but on the map it's "Atteia").

     

At first, I try to make it there directly. The party gets fatigued quickly while traveling overland, and once they're tired, they start moving at half-speed. Worse, at that point, they're useless in combat. You want to stop and rest them more often than they technically need. The problem that I encounter is that I get attacked every single time I try to camp outside. It doesn't matter where. It doesn't matter whether I set a guard. It doesn't matter whether I was just attacked the last time I tried to rest. Every time. By enemies I don't have a hope of defeating.

       

Like these guys.

       

The alternative is to city-hop. I concentrate on just making it to Greybrook along the coast west of Tormis and south of Attiea. We're "desperately tired" when we arrive, and it takes me forever to find an inn, but it otherwise works. The next leg is north-northwest to Morgan, and we're not even tired when we arrive there. Again, it takes a while to find the one inn—I wouldn't have minded if these side cities were just menu towns.

    

Arriving at Greybrook. I wonder if it gets worse than "desperately tired."

      

From Morgan, it's virtually no time at all to Attiea. Here, there's an inn right near the town entrance called the Quaffing Pig. And the first person I talk to is an apprentice to the very Elsopean that I'm looking for. 

        

I heard that Theodore McAlestere jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

      

The Elsopean's name is apparently Alathon, and he's gone to see the patriarch of the city, Hellast. Hellast has come up a few times, so I go and check my knowledge bank. Apparently, he came out of nowhere to overthrow the city during the war between Tormis and Attiea, which Attiea was losing badly. Hellast has been xenophobic and isolationist—some people call him a "tyrant"—but his rule has brought unprecedented wealth and power to the city. Those who follow him call other people "skum."

        

I'm leaning towards "tyrant."

       

Theodore, the apprentice, hasn't seen Alathon in so long that he assumes Hellast is holding him captive. In searching for him, Theodore has gotten mixed up with a revolutionary group called the Warriors of Light. Led by someone named Francisco Antonio, their goal is to oust Hellast. He says I should go to a tavern called the Laughing Heretic and say the word "Incontinence" to the owner. 

     

This is a nice feature.

      

The Quaffing Pig Inn is outside the city walls. The gate into the walled city is guarded by two bands of pirate captains, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid them if I want to get in. They kill some of my party members the first two times I try, but it seems the number of pirate captains in the battle is randomized, and after a reload, I'm able to defeat the smaller numbers. 

  

The walled part of the city is huge, but most of the buildings have closed doors that don't respond to my attempts to pick them, which makes me suspect that they aren't even designed to be opened. There are a couple of buildings patrolled by guards, and again it's a crapshoot whether I face one or ten guards when battle begins.

   

I thus leave you here, exploring this enormous city for which I do not have a map, trying to find either the Laughing Heretic or Hellast's palace, getting killed in most battles by large packs of guards. I'm getting the impression I was supposed to spend more time grinding for better equipment somewhere.

    

Time so far: 8 hours