Session 26

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between games design you don't like and games design that's just bad. Properly bad. Objectively bad.

But I'm pretty sure that actually this puzzle is PROPERLY bad design.

What you have to do to get the amulet is go down the stairs (that I passed before, remember?) pull a seemingly un-related lever then go back up and fetch it. As you head towards it Tom will say "Oh, without having any experience of such things and with no obvious evidence to suggest it to me, I realise this wall is totally illusionary!"

He's right, you can walk through the wall and get to the amulet without using the passage where the floor turns to lava. All you have to do is grab the amulet then come back through the magic wall and you're away scot free!

My argument for why this is bad design is this: Either you HAVE to die to work it out (like I did) or you do it without realising you've done it (i.e. you happen to go down stairs, pull a lever, then come back up without knowing there was a lava trap to avoid). Why couldn't they have made it so that if you put the amulet back in the box, the lava goes away? That way you could get the amulet, discover that you can't keep it, but not have to die or re-load in order to find the solution.

Blah.

Still, I DID pull the lever, go back upstairs and grab the amulet through the secret wall and now Siobhan's strength is super powered up! This should help her survive more fights!

While I was downstairs pulling that lever, however, I noticed an extra corridor to explore. Setting off back I find a veritable maze of passages and doors - tantalisingly leading me on into Kontos's domain...

"Let's go east shall we?" suggests Sira.

"After you m'lady!" pipes up Hoff, indicating the way onwards with his cape (which I just made up).

"Why thank you kind sir" giggles Sira blushing and tapping Hoff with her lace fan (which I also made up)

Melthas, brooding, scowls at Hoff - suspecting him of lusting after his betrothed. Adjusting his top hat (again, totally fictional) he is just about to step up to Hoff and strike him in the face with an imaginary white glove, challenging him to a duel when--

"OOOOooooOOooooH!" Sira cries!

Having skipped merrily down the corridor on her tip toes, her totally fictitious crinoline bouncing and showing off her bustle, she is suddenly twirled! Twiiirrrrrrrrled! An invisible force spins her round and round before she drops onto her, sat with her legs out infront of her and her bonnet all a squiff!

"Lawks-a-lady ma'am! Woteva's come over ye?" pipes up Tom, looking up from the cow!

"Sira! How positivly abserd of you!" cooes Dutches Dirr, tapping her cane on the dungeon floor and stepping forwards.

She and Mell get a couple of inches from Sira, each about to help her up when they too cry out

"Oh cruuuuuuumbs!"

"Good heavens!" (this isn't actually cried, but scrawled hastily on a card)

Then they too spin round, shedding sequins and monogrammed handkerchiefs as their toes tip-tip-tippy-tap in circles just a little faster than their bodies can keep up with - before tumbling unceremoniously to the ground.

Mell's monacle pops out in a amazement and Old Lady Dirr's umbrella pops spontaniously open with a "SPROIIIING"

"Crumbs m'ladies! 'Ere, let me help you up" Peasant Tom mumbles, knocking over the milking stool as he hurries to help the fallen damsels.

"Tut tut! Come come now!" Chides Siobhan the corseted school mistress. "We've no time for this nonsense! Why 'twill be luncheon in a quarter hour and we haven't even polished the cucumber yet!" Her heavy boots click-clack on the ground as she too steps forward to drag the others to their feet

"I'll help too..." says Hoff who couldn't think of another period drama sterio-type to be, but felt he needed to be involved.

"Bless my soul and stick my finger in my eye! 'Tis devilry! 'Tis devilry" cries Tom

"splutter splutter fume and agast!" emotes Siobhan

"Oh god! My hip! My hip!" exclaims Hoff

Round and round they all three go, dancing in tight circles round and round until they each trip and tumble into each other - collapsing in a dazed and bedraggled heap on the floor.

Well ok. So the above might be a little fictionalised.

What actually happens is there are areas in this part of the dungeon where, if you step into them, the whole party spins round and round and round and ends up pointing in a random direction.

It's a trick you see in a lot of First Person dungeon crawlers from this era - your ability to map the dungeon and move around it using your compass and charts is tested by your view-port being spun round disorientingly.

But in the actual game world there's no actual thing on the floor that causes this. No disc that, when you stand on it, spins round and round. It's just that in that particular spot your characters are all compelled to spin and spin and spin for no reason other than it makes for a natty puzzle.

The campness of this makes me chuckle heartily. I love the idea of someone making a film of this game (*coughcoughAvatar'snotfaroffcoughcough*) and at this point the cast all going "Oh no!!!" and spinning round on the spot, waving their arms and throwing sheaves of paper in the air - miming being picked up by a twister or something.

I also love that there is no in-game explanation of this phenomenon at all! It was presumably taken so much for granted at the time as a standard mechanic that the developers didn't even consider it needed explaining! The places where it happens are marked on your map (so that you can avoid them) but only as little exclamation points (which makes it even more camp I reckon. I can just imagine the characters pretending to be spun round with bemused and befuddled expressions on their faces and these little orange "!" marks over their head.

Anyway, as I work my way around the spinny-fallover arena I find several heaps of rubbish that my team pick up loose teeth from!

None of them mention the teeth and I can't find them in my inventory afterwards, but I suspect that they must be some kind of quest item that perhaps will be explained further into the dungeon...

Off through another door and OH NO! MONSTERS!!!! Heaps of monsters!

It's sort of bad news - but at the same time quite cool news! This is ANOTHER new kind of monster I've found! They're called "Kizz" monsters and they look sort of like the Alien from Alien, but with scissors for hands!

Admiring Kontos's collection of new enemy types (and wondering why the developers felt that they should hold back on new monsters for so long, only to splurge 2 away in an aparently optional dungeon) the gang kills them all, but not without taking losses. Only Dirr and Hoff survive to get and XP - so much for Siobhan's bloomin' amulet of strength then!

We retreat and rest - then explore a different path only to be assaulted by even more Kizzes. This time it's only Hoff and Siobhan who survive! These things are really gloomy news!

Before they rest, Hoff and Siobhan creep onwards into a darkened room to grab a map from a cobwebbed treasure chest!

Scuttling away back up the stairs - the two decide to pass the time (until they're sleepy enough to bother resting) looking at the map.

Fantastically, it's a map of coloured pressure plates - exactly like the ones in the test lab I passed previously on this floor! And since they're in the vicinity already, the intrepid two glance at each other

"The team will be so pleased if they wake up from their blood-loss induced unconsciousness to find we've opened the lab cages!" Enthuses Siobhan.

"Not just that, but how exciting to be the ones to claim the treasure out of them!"

"Wheeeee! How exciting!"

Scampering like children on cristmas morning, the two jump on the pressure plates until the colours match the ones on the map and *POOF* the test-chamber doors vanish!

"hee hee hee! They'll be so pleased with us" squirms Hoff - bouncing from foot to foot

"Let's look at what's inside -- oh god!!!"

As she steps into the chamber Siobhan finds that whatever test subject was once held in this energy prison has since wasted away into a pile of "trash" (the game's word, not mine).

"Still... You should search it..." Hoff mutters from behind - peering over her shoulder and the horrible mess.

Reaching amongst the fragments of whatever this thing used to be, Siobhan pulls out... another tooth!

"gag, balk, almost-spew" she says.

This process is repeated for the other 5 cells and in each one they pull a tooth out of what used to be something trapped in a test chamber. Quivering and a little bit sickened, they go back downstairs and rest - but don't bother telling the gang what they missed when they are revived...

Some more exploring of the catacombs throws up some more surprises - most surprising of all is a THIRD unique monster type! This time it's a "Brogg". Some kind of (really cool looking) lizard dog that throws clouds (can that be right?) at you with its tail in the fights.

They're cool, but they're not that tough, and on killing them I find that the clouds they've been hurling at us have turned into stones.

"Hmm... just a bunch of pebbles now..." Tom mutters. "Still - Hoff! You've got nothing better to do in a fight now that we're out of magical items. Perhaps you could throw these stones at enemies?"

Hoff "Oh, but... I thought maybe we could get some new magic items for me... y'know, make me useful again? I quite liked being useful!"

"Useful is a very strong word Hoff. Now carry these stones"

Actually, Hoff throwing stones at monsters does almost as little as Hoff standing around with nothing to do. But you never know, he might one day score a critical hit (especially if I can save up to train him in how to do it) and do some damage to something. And since stones don't feel valuable (even if they DO turn into killer clouds when Broggs hurl them) having him fart them away trying to hit a monster with them doesn't feel too gauling (unlike when I have to use a magical item which makes me a little sick to the stomach because they're so blooming rare and valuable!)

Next there's quite a natty puzzle - firing fireballs from apertures in the walls moves a pink block of energy around (the fireballs push it then bounce off). By moving the pink block you can line up a shot where you destroy a blue energy wall elsewhere in the room, revealing a passage - to BOOTY!

Through the secret passage there's another chest with another amulet in it! This time it's called "Danu's collar" and can only be used by druids - so naturally I have to give it to Mell.

The precious tresure maxes out his "luck" statistic which sounds like it probably WILL be useful, but I sort of wish it'd been something more like his magic or health or something... Ah well, I'm sure the designers knew what they were doing.

To keep her happy (since they're going out now, I feel like she would be peeved if Mell got something and she didn't) I give Sira a lovely jeweled amulet I also found down here. It doesn't do anything, but I suppose it probably covers up her horrible catboobs a bit...

Some more exploring and we pass a lone Kizz - easily taken down. I wonder if this was meant to be the first kizz we met... If I was building the game, I imagine that having one kizz turn up on it's own first, then all the other large groups of the things come along later would seem like quite a funny trick to play on the audience. But since this area's not very linear, there wasn't a VERY high chance that players would come to this one first, so I suppose the joke was a bit more miss than it was hit.

In another chest we find ANOTHER amulet (was this Kontos guy obsessed with amulets? Maybe that's what he's been collecting teeth for...) This time it's a "protection" amulet - so I give it to Dirr - my key front-liner.

The catacombs goes on. It's a sprawling maze of interconnected rooms with no single path leading you all the way round - each room has several exits so there's a proper sense of exploring here, rather than just going through a dungeon in a long straight line.

This is something that the game does quite well actually. Most of the dungeons I've been in so far have suffered from being randomly sprawling so there's heaps of pointless nooks and crannies, but a side effect of this is that they all feel excitingly open and explorable. You're not just trapsing from A to B, you're constantly aware that there are heaps of other paths you really OUGHT to come back and investigate later... It's a nice effect and if it could be achieved without the environments feeling like loose smeary locations where no room feels like it could've actually been built by someone in the game world for something other than housing cloud lobbing Brogg monsters, it would be something designers today should take note of!

Eventually, the whole place has been explored (including another room with an amulet of speed in it - which I give to Sira. Sorry Kontos! I recon I've just nicked the whole of your amulet collection! AND I didn't have an invite!). The whole place except, that is, for ONE room. Right at the centre of the maze, the map reveals the shape of the room I'll be going into, but the door is still shut and mysterious...

As the team approach, the "monster eye" monster detecting doobery flashes. Clearly there's trouble in there!

A quick rest to get everyone's strength up and GA-DOOSH! We kick the sliding ornate golden door open!

Hundreds (well, ok, not that many. But as many as the game is able to put on one combat grid) descend on us! Broggs and Kizzes! The party have to fight hard and dirty to survive!

Sira puts as many to sleep as she can, but the Kizzes are semi-magic-resistant to she has to concentrate on the Broggs. Plus, it's impossible to tell by looking at them which of the baddies is sleeping or not (no icon, no text, nothing) so I just have to do my best to remember. If you slap a sleeping monster it wakes up and gets involved in the fight again!

Mell is on healing duty - keeping the front line of Tom, Dirr and Siobhan alive while they hack and slash at anything they can reach.

Hoff throws pebbles ineffectually at the monsters at the back, to possibly soften them up by maybe 1 hit point or something.

It's a brutal fight and I'm just lucky to have my magic users since I don't think I'd've made it without that sleep spell!

Although actually - in a very rare occurance, the WHOLE TEAM has survived a fight!!! Bloodied and totally out of mana, but alive all the same!

creeping into the highly guarded chamber, the team behold another chest. Could this be another fantastic amulet? Perhaps it's the string that all these teeth are meant to be strung on? Perhaps it's the evidence linking Kontos to Gard and Riko - the corrupt members of the Beloveno Council? Maybe it's something to prove Kontos's crackpot conspiracies about the Iskai in the nearby shrine-worshipping town...

Tom reaches forwards to open the creaking chest. It must contain answers - it's at the heart of a dungeon. You don't put things in the heart of a dungeon unless it contains answers...

As the lid comes up, Hoff shines the light from his torch into the old box to reveal...

DAN DAN DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA