Daemonsgate: Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

I would think that should be C.D.R. or W.J.D.

        

It was really tough getting back into Daemonsgate after (unintentionally) not playing it for a couple of weeks. The disorientation started as soon as I loaded the game. I had ended the last entry saying that I couldn't get past some guards and couldn't find the Laughing Heretic. When I loaded it up this time, I was standing in the Laughing Heretic. I don't remember how I worked it out.

    

So, to remind us all of the plot: An army of demons has come boiling out of the southern nation of Elsopea and has surrounded the free city of Tormis. The captain of the guard of Tormis (my lead character, Gustavus) was charged with sneaking out of the city and finding his way to the city of Atteia, where it is rumored that an Elsopean refugee has arrived. The thinking is apparently that this refugee might know something about the source of the demon horde and how to stop them.

   

Upon arriving in the city, we learned that the refugee, Alathon, is a "guest" of the city's dictator, Hellast. Searching for allies, we learned of a faction called the Warriors of Light. To find his group, we were instructed to go to the Laughing Heretic and say "Incontinence" to the owner, because that's a word that every innkeeper wants to hear.

          

BONK! "Ha! That never gets old!"

         

The innkeeper, a hooded man named Erina, told us to walk through an illusory wall in the inn's northwest corner. There was a guy standing on the other side, and he confirmed that Alathon was being held captive in "Hellast's private quarters." But before I could enter the dialogue screen, a guard, identifying himself as a member of the sacrepolitz, arrived to arrest us. He knocked us out with smoke (this was narrated in text form, along with the screen at the top of this entry), and we woke up in jail with most of our inventory items, including weapons, missing.

      

That's an interesting mix of languages.

           

Fortunately, there were some thieves' tools on one of the beds in the cell, so we were soon out of the cell and creeping through the complex. This was the first of many situations this session in which I was trying to avoid getting into a fight. It's not too hard. Combat is triggered by some combination of the enemy's proximity and his facing direction, so as long as the party moves far enough away, or behind him, we're usually all set. Walls and furniture can conceal enemies, though, so there's no perfect method.

           

But who left the tools?

       

There were dozens of other cells in the prison, mostly empty, and the ones that weren't had generic NPCs. I will now go into one of several diatribes that I imagine will occupy most of the text in this entry. There's nothing wrong with generic NPCs if they're in generic places. Whether I'm playing Ultima IV or Skyrim, when a guy standing by a town's gate with a pike turns out to be a generic guard, I have nothing to complain about. I don't expect everyone milling around the town square to be unique. When a guy is in a prison cell, on the other hand, there should be a reason for it. Otherwise, what's the point of NPCs? Ultima established the rules here: If you find a druid hanging out in the middle of a dark forest, or a mage at the bottom of a dungeon, or a bard locked behind six consecutive doors, they all turn out to be interesting (sometimes vital) NPCs with something to explain their presence.

            

Then you have games like Morrowind, which I otherwise love, where you encounter an orc in the middle of a Daedric ruin, and he has nothing to say except generic orc stuff. When you're exploring a remote or unusual place and you realize, "By Grabthar's hammer! There's someone else here!," he ought to have a story. I'm not saying he has to spill it; he can be secretive, or cagey, or even hostile. But he shouldn't be generic. This is not a mistake that the Infinity Engine games ever made—nor, for that matter, Oblivion or Skyrim, but that nonsense is all over the place in Starfield, so Bethesda clearly hasn't learned its lesson.

        

Just a reminder of what combat looks like.

         

We found our items in an office in the northwest corner and had to maddeningly pick them up one by one (the game offers no other option) and redistribute them among party members. I had to fight two battles on the way out. I got past the first one but had to flee from the second (which fortunately removes the enemy from the screen). When I got back to the Laughing Heretic, the leader of the Warriors of Light was gone, and I never heard another word about the organization.

        

I don't know who that guy was, but he just watched us pick up our things.

      

I then set about trying to find the entrance to Hellast's palace, which took a while. The city is realistically large, but realism isn't a virtue when you're exploring a top-down city with a limited view window and no map. It's worse than Disciples of Steel, which had a similar problem. There are multiple nested sets of walls, lots of generic buildings that you can't even enter, narrow alleyways, and places where it's easy to trap yourself without realizing there's only one entrance or exit. More important, and related to the issue I discussed above, you run into all kinds of interesting-sounding locations—embassies, moneylenders, banks, guilds, a city council chambers, a courthouse, city archives—and yet none of the have anything interesting happening or anyone interesting to talk with. The author worked awfully hard to create a large world and then populate it with mostly nothing, excepting the few NPCs and locations that propel you to the next quest.

     

You wouldn't know it to look inside.

        

I got attacked frequently as I walked around and almost always lost a party member in the subsequent battle. I suppose I could roll with that, but I've been reloading instead, since the game doesn't seem to offer copious NPC replacements nor any method of resurrection. ("If the character is dead," the manual helpfully explains, "it is assumed that the rest of the group dump his or her body in a ditch.") Eventually, I was fed up.

   

I returned to the Laughing Heretic and spent about two months there. I had the party spend 18 hours a day practicing their skills and 6 hours resting. Most of them started with specialties in one-handed edged weapons, but a couple of them didn't have that, so as soon as Gustavus reached "Master" rank, I had him train the others. This is because so far, the only weapons I found that can be enchanted are one-handed edged weapons. Eventually, I got everyone to "Master" in that plus some ancillary skills like Cyless's "Scouting" and "Survival," although I don't know how important either are. I had some characters reach "Master" level in skills like "Throwing" and "Brawling" just because I needed something for them to do while other characters caught up. 

     

 I just want to know how Gustavus managed to practice "Leadership" in a hotel room.

         

I got Arion to "Master" in both "Herb Lore" and "Elemental Lore" and then began to explore the magic system. The game offers three forms of magic: herbalism, elementalism, and daemonology. None of them allow you to cast traditional spells in battle. Herbalism is about making potions, and I only explored it long enough to realize I didn't have enough reagents. Elementalism allows the mage to enchant weapons with various effects. Daemonology, which none of my characters have, also allows for enchanting weapons, but also amulets, which can be broken in combat to release the demon.

    

If you spend 6 hours on elementalism, you get to choose the elemental bound to the weapon. First, you choose the type: light, darkness, air, earth, fire, or water. Then you choose the level: minor, small, weak, average, powerful, and gargantuan. The manual doesn't bother to tell the player what earth enchantments do. Water increases the chance of corroding the opponent's armor. Air weapons "reduce the chance that [the] weapon has of being fumbled," which has not been a problem so far. Darkness weapons inflict both regular damage and fatigue damage. Light weapons are effective against undead, which I have yet to face. Fire weapons simply increase damage. 

     

The elementalism screen.

      

The only mechanic that I actually trusted to be implemented was fire, so I had Arion enchant the two Adamantine Swords with gargantuan fire elementals. I tried to enchant the "Enchanting Sword," but the game just said that Arion didn't possess anything that could be enchanted. Once enchanted, the Adamantine Swords became "Elemental Blades"; you have to examine them to see the specific type of enchantment. 

      

I feel bad for the fire elemental.

      

In terms of skill development, it's possible that I'm done for the game. "Master" is the highest level you can get, and you can only get it by doing stuff in camp (reading, practicing, or learning from a master). It doesn't increase during combat. It was very artificial for me to do it all at once like this, but it was going to be artificial no matter what. In a game with no time limit, why not do it all at once at the beginning? Still, this is about the dozenth British game that fundamentally misunderstands how character development is supposed to work in an RPG. Frankly, only Anthony Crowther (Captive) and Anthony Taglione (Bloodwych, Legend) have gotten it correct.

       

After all of this skill-building, combat did become noticeably easier, although I still had to be careful to remove characters from the fracas once their hit points got too low.

   

I finally found the entrance to Hellast's palace and had to fight several parties of guards on the way in. Hellast was in a chamber in the southwest. "May I ask what you interlopers are doing?" he demanded before calling his guards. The resulting battle was relatively easy.

      

This session is just full of 1989 references.

       

From his corpse, we looted a letter that suggested a larger conspiracy, with Hellast promised a reward by the minions of someone named "Alkat." The note was signed by "Warmaster Edric."

    

Alathon was imprisoned in a pentagram in the next cell. "We cannot stay here and talk," he said. "Meet me in Joruli Point, and I will explain all." Then he disappeared. I should note that the game called him "Alathon" on one screen and then "Dorovan" on the next. This is notable because the back of the box gives the subtitle of the game as Dorovan's Key.

      

Could I just meet you at the bar down the street?

      

We fought our way out of the palace, rested for the night at the Laughing Heretic, and then left the city. The game map shows Joruli Point on an island quite far to the north. The city of Trade Town was just across a channel, and I figured there would be some kind of transport there. But before heading up the coast, I returned to Tormis to sell looted equipment and buy more Adamantine Swords so that all of the characters could have Elemental Blades. I ended up having to buy several more than I needed, because apparently there's about a 20% chance, even at "Master" level, that the mage screws up and breaks the sword while trying to imprison a gargantuan fire elemental in it. This left me without much money. I bought some food and a little bit of armor, but I had to save most armor upgrades, as well as reagents for potions, for later.

 

A couple of miles to the north or south would have been less effort.

             

We left Tormis and headed north. I had to go pretty far east to ford a river, and I mis-guessed the distance to the coast on the other side, resulting in my running into the far northern Wall before reaching the coast. I had to return to the southwest to find Trade Town. There, I learned from an innkeeper named Ari that there are three towns near the Wall, collectively called the Campps: Hajak, Rowche, and Slime. Hajak is the unofficial capital of the area, ruled by an unofficial king named Svien McDoogal, who keeps a fragile peace between the Clans. The game is best when it's building lore like this, but so far it's done a poor job integrating that lore into meaningful gameplay.

      

Again, the comparison to A Song of Ice and Fire is uncanny.

      

I also learned that there's no transport to Joruli Point from Trade Town; instead, I have to go to Dryleaf to the south.  

   

I poked around Trade Town a little. As usual, it was far larger than it needed to be and had intriguing-sounding buildings (the headquarters for the Northern Rangers, the gaol) turned out to have nothing interesting but a few things to loot.  

       

Miscellaneous notes:

     

• Among things that don't seem to have actually been implemented is equipment damage. If you look at any piece of armor, for instance, it tells you that it's in "good condition." You can buy an armorer's kit, ostensibly to repair armor. But there's no mechanism (unless I'm missing something) to do so.

• And while we're on that subject, a "fletcher's kit" is also something that you can find or buy, but there is again no way to invoke it.

        

Aron's current skill levels.

        

• There are two skills that Arion has, "Meditation" and "Magic Sense," that the manual doesn't even mention. 

• I trained everyone in "Missile Weapons" and gave everyone a bow, but arrows cost so much money (1 gold piece each) that it might be a while before I avail myself of the skill. It's also a pain to swap melee and missile weapons in combat. 

• When you pay for lodgings at an inn, an inventory item called "Lodgings" appears in your backpack. It disappears when you camp at an inn. It's kind of an awkward way to do things, but I suppose you can regard the physical item as the room key or something. 

• The game crashes frequently when exiting dialogue screens. 

• If I place the characters under computer control in combat, Anvil flees every time.

• It took me a while to realize that when you want to buy something in a shop, you're not interacting with the NPC at the counter; you're interacting with the shop itself. Thus, you can access the "Buy/Sell" menu even when no NPC is visible.

• The combat icons are primitive and pixelated, but the author did take the time to program blood spurting from the little icons when they die. I'll try to capture it next time.

    

The resting and practicing turned this session into a lot of gameplay hours but without a lot of plot progress. Hopefully, now that I've made the investment, things will happen faster.

    

Time so far: 14 hours 

Ishar 2: Silver Bells Hanging on a String

My current obstacle.

          

I already knew Ishar 2 was going to be a longer game than its predecessor, but that didn't really hit home until this session, in which I spent about four hours trying to get anywhere with Akeer's Island. It's been a long time since I lost so much progress so consistently.

    

I did a few things before leaving Zach's Island:

   

• I reloaded and returned to the scene of the sacrifice. The purpose of the scene was not to save the girl but to snag the keys from the robe of a priest whose back was turned. I suppose the screen really did put them front-and-center, but I wasn't used to these screens being interactive.

• Bought every animal in the pet shop. I gave them all to Karorn. I enjoy thinking about him having to find a way to take care of a baboon, a mouse, a man-eating plant, and three birds.

        

Karorn's job just got a lot harder.

        

• Bought everyone a Helmet of Chaos. I didn't have enough money for the more expensive armor, but at least I could do this.

• Followed an anonymous commenter's directions to Four Towers Alley and met a shadowed figure there between 02:00 and 04:00. He said, "Have you got the money?" I tried giving him escalating amounts of gold, only to have him say, "Are you joking?!" after each attempt. Finally, when I got to about 23,000, he gave me a skeletal hand in a jar. I assume that it somehow goes with the skeletal head in a jar back on Irvan's Island.

     

Just like the first time I tried to buy marijuana.

       

Having no more leads on the various quests on Zach's Island, I hopped the boat again for Akeer's Island.

          

Down came the storm, and smote amain . . .

        

Akeer's Island appears to be a large dungeon with no outside areas. It also has no inns, nor any other places to rest, so we had to repeatedly go back to Zach's Island to restore our health, magic, and strength.

       

Almost immediately, we got attacked by parties of skeletons. They were not too hard for us, but they do a lot of damage and thus require a lot of resources in spell points (from healing) and physical energy to kill. There are about half a dozen parties near the beginning of the dungeon. Most importantly, they respawn, so you have to deal with them on the way back. Three times this session, I fought past them and then over-extended myself on the other side, not saving enough resources to get past them again on the way back. I lost a ton of experience and a couple of hours' playing time. Fortunately, I kept a saved game back on Zach's Island; if not, I also would have been in a "walking dead" situation.

       

These are not simple D&D skeletons.

           

As the dungeon of Akeer's Island snaked along, there were a number of encounters and puzzles:

      

• Throwing daggers and skulls on the floor everywhere. I dutifully picked them all up.

• Levers on the walls that opened certain locked doors. Until I found the levers, I thought the doors were just locked, but they didn't respond to my "Unlock" spell. It occurred to me that although "Lock-Picking" is a character skill, I have no idea how to invoke it. 

     

The top requirement of any Dungeon Master clone.

      

• Traps that caused spears to shoot out of walls. They didn't hurt so badly. 

• A few secret doors clued with a message about a "draught." At least one place had the message, but I couldn't find a secret door.

     

I'm more of a bottle guy.

       

A doorway led to a deeper part of the dungeon. It was flooded, and weird aquatic creatures lurked behind sewer grates on the walls. When I left the area and returned, these creatures were in the watery dungeon corridors, and they attacked me.

     

Well, that's unsettling.

          

Navigating through this area involved finding various pipes that led to new sections of the dungeon. One of these pipes was under water. To drain the water, there was a curious puzzle involving three scales in three adjacent alcoves. One of the scales had 3,550 gold coins in it when I clicked on it.

   

None of the scales would budge until I put at least that many coins in them. I'm not sure whether it was necessary to put exactly that many coins in the scales or not. All I know is, I fiddled with them for a while, and when I returned to the sewers, the water was gone and a new passage was opened. I was able to reclaim the gold.

   

This new area led to some much harder encounters, including groups of mummies and some kind of floating spirit that absolutely destroyed me. The enemies in this dungeon don't even have the decency to drop gold, by the way, so any grinding has to be done back on Zach's Island.

      

Jazz hands!

     

I started to question at this point whether I had the optimal party, and in particular whether I should keep Yornh the priest. When I picked him up, I figured he would continue to earn spells, but he's never progressed beyond his original two: "Healing" and "Physic Protection." Karorn the knight has the same two spells and hits hard in melee combat besides. Eliandr the scholar also has those spells, plus more. Granted, you can't have too many "Healing" spells, but I started to wonder if I shouldn't seek someone with more diversity for that slot. But while I was poking around taverns, finding no one compatible, some comments came through that made me think I probably shouldn't get attached to any particular party composition anyway.

      

This is the guy in the upper-right, by the way. "Human."

      

Investing in archery was another possibility. A lot of enemies won't travel past certain squares, so you can shoot them from a distance with impunity—if you don't mind buying tons of arrows. I didn't have any archery-oriented characters and I didn't feel like having to constantly restock on arrows, so I rejected this path. It was probably a stupid decision, but I've been ornery lately for no particular reason.

   

My third thought was making sure I was getting full use of the spells I already had. Leveling up takes place instantly once the experience threshold is crossed, and I often overlook the message. New spells keep showing up in at least two characters' spellbooks, and I don't always investigate them right away, preferring to rely on old favorites. Thus, let's take a quick tour of what I have. Eliandr is the scholar, Khalin is the magician, Yornh is the priest, and Karorn is the knight.

    

• Healing (Eliandr, Yornh, Karorn). Vital, obviously. The only other way to heal (so far) has been resting at inns, which restores less than the spell. Yornh is almost worth it for this spell alone.

• Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin, Yornh, Karorn). Note that this is "physic" (physical), not "psychic." It supposedly helps one character's defense, but I barely see a difference. 

• Global Physic Protection (Eliandr, Khalin). Same as above, but for all party members. I've tried casting it before a few battles, and it helps a little. The game has no indicator for this or other buffing spells, so I don't know how long it lasts, but if it saves one healing spell, it's technically worth it. 

• Psychic Protection (Khalin). I'm not sure I understand what types of attacks it defends against.

• Global Psychic Protection (Khalin). Ditto.

• Metamorphosys (Khalin). Turns the entire party into some kind of creepy image and maybe makes them more effective in combat? Lasts a while.

       

What, by Dwilgelindildong, is happening here?

        

• Restore Vision (Eliandr). Nothing has blinded me yet.

• Anti-Poison (Eliandr). Ditto.

• Paranormal Detection (Eliandr). I'm not sure what it's supposed to do. If I try casting it, it just says, "The air is cool."

• Exorcism (Eliandr). Also not sure what it's supposed to do. When cast, it says, "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• Telepathie Reconnaissance (Eliandr). Tells you the enemy's statistics. I don't find it particularly helpful, since it shows the max statistics, not the current ones. You thus can't use it to tell how much damage a spell does.

• Inversion (Eliandr, Khalin). Kind of a cool damage spell that I guess creates a vortex around a single enemy, and keeps damaging him round after round. Relatively cheap to cast.

• Spiritual Hammer (Eliandr). Creates a magic hammer that the caster then flings at an enemy. Decent early spell, but soon outclassed by better damage spells.

• Blinding (Eliandr). Blinds one enemy, but you get no feedback with it, so I'm never satisfied that it works.

• Paralysis (Eliandr, Khalin). Paralyzes an enemy for a while. Very useful for the occasional boss. Doesn't work on undead.

• Turn Undead (Khalin). I'm so confused why a mage has this spell but not a priest. In any event, it didn't seem to have much effect on any of the undead I tried it on.

• Memo-Telep (Khalin). A "Mark" spell to go with the later "Teleport."

• Teleport (Khalin). Teleports the party to the last "Mark." It's extremely valuable, partly dealing with my problems on Akeer's Island. 

• Change of Timescale (Khalin). I don't quite understand it. When I cast it, the view changes to a stormy sky. Several characters heal, as if they're resting, but spell points do not get restored. 

          

Change of timescale, change of dimension.

      

• Magic Key (Khalin). Unlocks doors. Useful except when the door requires a specific key, which is usually.

• Sleep (Khalin). If it has an effect, it's brief.

• Flaming Hand (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Fireball (Khalin). Okay single-enemy offensive spell.

• Lightning (Khalin). Indispensable multi-enemy spell until you get "Firestorm.".  

• Firestorm (Khalin) Next-level indispensable multi-enemy spell.

• Ice Storm (Khalin). Haven't used it much since more enemies seem like the types that would be susceptible to "Firestorm."

      

The only spells I don't have, according to the manual, are "Fireproofing," "Anti-Paralysis," "Spirit of Flame," and "Poisoning." I don't know whether these will appear at higher levels or whether I need one of the other spellcasting classes. The manual is pretty miserable when it comes to explaining the spell system, I should say. It tells you the names of spells but nothing about them, and it gives no indication of what spells belong to what classes.

   

The exercise was mostly useless. "Teleport" solves the problem of getting trapped on the other side of randomly-spawning enemies, but it's a costly spell. It takes all of the mage's remaining points and reduces her to 1 in physical and spirit energy. She has to sleep immediately or the slightest nudge kills her. No spell would allow me to defeat the floating spirit on the other side of the sewers.

   

Instead of moving forward, I moved backwards for a while. I returned to Irvan's Island, the starting island, where I finally defeated those stone golems ("Paralyze" did the trick, but they still took a long time to die) and looted the skull-in-a-jar. 

        

These guys have been on my list for a while.

      

I then went over to the east side of the island to see if I could figure out what the mage gave me for 10,000 gold pieces. This time, he said: "Launch the eagle. It will travel for you." I did as he instructed, and the eagle flew off, which seemed to have no effect. I soon realized, however, that I had a map of a new island, a frozen one to the north of Irvan's. 

        

Well, there goes $12,000.

      

I'll explore that as I get back into the swing of blogging. In the meantime, can anyone think of a reason why one of my other party members gets hit every time Khalin swings a weapon? It seems to happen no matter what weapon she wields and no matter where she is in the party formation, although what character gets hit changes by position in the formation. 

     

Finally, let's try to puzzle through this ding-dong-ding thing. Here's what we know:

 

• In the opening cinematic, when Jon, Alchemist of Arborea, contacts Zubaran, he greets him with: "Warm Tear, and Dwilgelindildong."

• When the woman near the beginning of the game dies, as part of her rant, she says, "Dwilgelindil."

• A man in a tavern on Zach's Island says, "The mayor's daughter has disappeared! Dwigdinl, it's a disgrace!"

• When we explored the library on Zach's Island and found the map of Akeer's Island, someone said: "Come on, Dwigelindong, let's borrow it!" 

• When we were arrested, the guard said: "Dingdong, off to prison."

• During the ritual we observed, with the woman being sacrificed, part of the ritualistic chant was: "Dwidongdingue! Shandar! Dwidongdingue!" 

• When we cast "Exorcism," the message says: "Dwiglongligli, all is purified!" 

• The manual has this page, labeled: "Counting rhyme, for use by the clever but ambitious adventurer."

          

      

The manual page is clearly trying to evoke the "One Ring" poem, but what does "Dwilgelidildog" mean? Except for the poem, the uses seem to be part-curse, part-blessing, the way we would say, "for Christ's sake" or "for the love of God." But the poem makes it sound like they're physical objects. And then either the roots of the word can be modified and recombined in different ways, or the people of Arborea are just really bad at spelling.

       

Time so far: 10 hours 

 

The Dungeon (pedit5): Back on Top

 

The latest winner's board. I don't know what happened to #2.

     

I happened to note the other day that enough people had won The Dungeon (1975) to push me out of the Hall of Fame, so I took some time this week to restore my rightful place. It took about 4 hours and maybe 30-40 characters. As we learned in my previous coverage of the world's first CRPG, winning The Dungeon is more about luck than skill. 

   

I took the opportunity to make a video:

   

 

It's not a great video. If I'm ever going to be good at videos, I know I need to separate video and audio, narrating after I play rather than while I play. Nonetheless, it covers the salient points and checks a longstanding item off my "to do" list. 

    

Back to the regular program soon, but I got really frustrated with Ishar 2 after the last entry. 

 

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