Session 3

I'm free to wander around the house for a while before I go to see this big-chief, so I took a stroll and found the kitchens. This was where Krina the former huntress and her bezzy mate Gridri (the master cook) hang out.

It turns out that these space cat people eat exceedingly spicy food (Tom makes an allusion to having a "bucket" with him all the time during his time in bed after the crash as a result of the spiciness. But I wasn't sure what that was meant to imply...) ALSO - I'm pretty sure the aliens are called the Isaki

I had a word with Krina about her job:

"Well, I was this awesome hunting type of lady. But then I got pregged up and now I have to stay home with the kids. So I thought I'd help Gridri out in the kitchens."

"Tell me about your kids?"

"How about instead of that I tell you about how Isaki ladies are only fertile for 3 months in a year. We call these three months Fadhim and have a big festival of procreation when it happens. During the festival it's taboo to sleep with your partner's siblings."

"Um..."

"oh yeah, it's totally fine on this planet to sleep with your husband or wife's brothers and sisters. EXCEPT when it's Fadhim."

"So... um... errr... I've got to go..."

Gridri the cook had nothing useful to say for himself - although he did give me some food supplies - so I headed off to look around some more. I found the loos (which look sort of like a large raised platform with a few holes in it for pooping into) and a faintly phallic fountain that was described as squirting out water with a "strong, pulsating motion".

The fountain is the only thing I've found so far that looks like the sprite is made up of baked out images of a 3D model. As such, it's pretty rubbish looking compared to everything else.

Actually, before we carry on, one of the things I love about this game is that you have make sure you've got food for your team. I love RPG's with micro-management elements. So things like your team getting hungry, or complaining that they're tired, is great as far as I'm concerned. One day I'd love to make an RPG where you have to constantly balance and micro manage your characters - they'd probably not get much done (you couldn't concentrate on keeping their shoes properly maintained AND deal with a complicated intrigue) but it'd be quite fun.

Anyway, so there's this pulsating fountain and in the next room I meet Sebai-li Wrinn! The ancient leader of the clan!

Only get this, looks like Mandy was lying - this guy's clearly a child

"Er - I thought you were well old?" I say

"Well I am. Despite appearances, I am 57 years old - IMPOSSIBLY old for someone of our species. Only, see, the thing is - we have this awesome trick there if you put your trii on a baby's trii you can take over its body and have another life"

"Hold on. What's a trii?"

"Well it's this special organ that we all have on our faces. It allows you to steal the body of a child. But really, despite the fact that anyone can do it, you're only supposed to if the council gives you the ok."

"What happens to the baby?"

"What do you mean?"

"well... like... does the baby live on as part of you?"

"No. Babies don't have souls until they've had a few months out of the womb..."

"errrr"

At this point Sebai-Li Wrinn (which translates this: "Sebai" = person who has been through the body-snatching process, "Li" once, "Wrinn" that's just a proper noun.) explained that mostly they only saved our lives because the space-ship we landed in is made of precious precious metal. And since other people would want to claim the metal, they needed us alive so that we could sign it over to them. He also mentioned that the Jirinaaris (which is the government of all Nakiridaani) wanted to see us and that our belongings were in the basement.

Nakiridaani is the country I have landed in.

Before setting off, I have another explore and bum into Krinn, the Stri (leader) of the hunt.

"Hello, tell me about your job" ("tell me about your job" is one of 4 basic conversation options you get with all characters. The others are "What can you tell me about [SUBJECT OFF A LIST OF TOPICS THEY'VE ALREADY MENTIONED]" "What do you think of [THIS ITEM]" and "bye").

"I am the leader of the hunt. Only I'm 32 now so I'm too old to go out on the hunt. The council offered to let me steal a baby's body but I didn't do it because I'm a maniac who thinks babies have souls of their own."

"Phew! Someone sensible at last!"

"Would you like me to tell you about the sorts of things we hunt here?"

"Go on then..."

"Krondirs have two-legged predators who are totally inedible. HOWEVER we like to hunt them because they have things on their horns that are basically the same as our Triis - the organs that allow us to steal bodies. People like to have these Krondir semi-triis as ornaments! Additionally we hunt things called Warniaks - they're flying monsters that have poisonous attacks. BUT they contain a supply of spherical minerals"

"Spherical minerals?"

"Oh yes. And people pay good money for Warniak spheres."

"Fair enough..."

Other things I learned from various people include:

SIBLING LAWS - apparently, if you've got younger siblings who aren't old enough to be adults yet, you're considered to be more responsible for them than their parents are.

MAGIC USER GUILDS - there's two groups of magic users: Dji-Kas - who are sort of magic scientists, and Dji Fadh - who are basically builders who use magic.

Apparently the builders on this planet use their minds to grow regular plants into awesome buildings. This is a system that works fine until you get someone going off the rails - like Agrim.

Agrim was the leader of the Dji Fadh who, 150 years ago, was so peeved that he wasn't given permission to body-snatch a baby that he went bonkers and set the Dji Fadh HQ to grow like mad - which it has continued to do ever since.

I'm sure that much of this information will never be of any use to me at all. But since it's all mentioned I feel I ought to record it in case any of it comes in handy. It's very hard to know what things will or won't be referred to again - so sibling laws might just be a nice bit of scene setting OR it might be a crucial plot point down the line.

I was in a book shop in Warwick yesterday and found a strategy guide for "Stonekeep" the ill-fated dungeon crawl game released in the same year as Albion. The makers of that had apparently put together a huge almanac of back story about the Stonekeep world to help them build up a consistent feeling context for the game.

I never played Stonekeep, but own a copy somewhere and would love to go through it - since it's obviously heavily inspired by one of my favourite ever games: "Dungeon Master". And I'd DEFINATLY love to get hold of their almanac to see what it was like. But more importantly, I'd love to get hold of the equivalent document for Albion.

The kind of nonsense points of interest (like the season of Fadhim and the fact that some people think babies have souls after all) is something I find fascinating - especially since I now work as a games developer. I know how behind the scenes games are churned out and built in a very un-romantic way - but the way that things a developer has made up while sweating over a slice of pizza in an office translate into fascinating and absorbing details about a fictional world when they get to the player at home is almost magical!

It was about this point where I'd got up to go get my lunch. But when I came back to the game there was a message on screen telling me EVERYONE in my party was tired and I should rest.

Entertainingly, when you rest the game shows Tom and two human female strangers sat round a camp fire - Hofstedt is no-where to be seen!

When we were all rested I went to look for the basement. It's easy enough to find - you head through a door to a signpost that reads

"SUPPLY CHAMBERS. CHILDREN: THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES!"

Crickey! Consequences? What consequences...? Well I was about to find out!

Yomping down the steps the game goes first-person again. The basements are exceedingly dark, and the game now introduces another micro-management element that I love - torches! I have to light a torch and dedicate one of my characters to carrying it around. I know it's inconvenient, but I love it when a detailed game world is supported by detailed interactions with it.

I wander around a pokey but extensive cellar filled with scraps from my own space ship and jars of dried meat. There's nothing obviously very useful down here, but just as I'm starting to think I can't be bothered with the clunky first-person interface any more the roof collapses behind me and monsters appear!!!

Monsters? In the storage chambers!!!??? No wonder the children have to consider the consequences!

Combat starts immediately and I am presented with a little grid. Hofstedt and Tom are stood on squares close to the bottom, and three monsters (that I assume are Krondirs) are stood looking at me.

I'm basically unarmed at this point - Hofstedt has got a kitchen knife that he can stab with, but Tom is just holding a torch and can't fight.

This combat system is a bit strange and I can see it'll take some getting used to. Characters can move and attack, and presumably some other actions (although none were available to me).

It seems, however, that your team can't move forwards past the first 2 rows of the grid. This means that if, like Hofstedt, you only have a kitchen knife that doesn't have enough reach to get a baddy at any distance at all, you just have to skip your go and hope you survive long enough to have a stab at the enemy when they've walked up to you.

The fight was a brutal one - Tom ran around on the back row hoping to escape the claws of the monsters while old-man Hofstedt sliced ineffectually at the first monster.

If only I'd managed to keep hold of that gun!

Alas - the onslaught was too much! Tom and Hofstedt, having survived a space crash, spent a couple of months learning an alien language and signing over the debris of their space ship, were slain by (basically) rats in a basement!

GAME OVER!