| At the Gallows | |
| by Stareye | |
| Alcritas’ Review | |
BEWARE! SPOILERS LIE BELOW!
Stareye’s first scenario, Spy’s Quest, has unfortunately and unfairly become the punchline to too many jokes. It wasn’t a perfect scenario, to be sure, but it was an incredibly innovative and technically impressive scenario, and the amount of work put into it promised great things from the author. That was quite awhile ago. In fact, to put things in perspective, the first scenario to be released after Spy’s Quest was On A Ship To Algiers.
So, finally, the long anticipated second scenario from Stareye, At the Gallows, was released, and into the scenario folder it went. After finishing, I determined such a work certainly deserved a review, and so I began writing this.
Unfortunately, for a long period of time, I had a great deal of difficulty articulating just what I felt about the scenario, until it hit me! At the Gallows isn’t a scenario! What it was, exactly, was a bit more difficult to determine. At first, I thought At the Gallows might be a movie — a Jerry Bruckheimer movie to be specific. Gallows seemed to be some sort of cross between Armageddon and Die Hard. In fact, I determined that “At the Gallows” was a terrible name for the work, whatever it was. Around this time, I personally renamed the work, Spy Hard.
But then it occurred to me, “No, Spy Hard is too good for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It’s got to be something else, instead.” That’s when I realized what Spy Hard really was — a whole other game. In fact, you wouldn’t go wrong referring to it as “Exile IV.”
To the game itself — Spy Hard is incredibly long. The game is divided into quite a few chapters, most of which are the length of a medium scenario by themselves. It would be impossible to adequately deal with the scenario holistically, instead I shall break down each of the segments of the game as I perceived them.
The Presentation
Spy Hard builds its world a bit differently than any Blades scenario played before. Outdoor sections, rather than keeping towns represented as single (or in the case of castles/forts two or three) squares, radically expand the towns on the outdoor maps. Towns themselves may take up 4x4 or 5x5 blocks, surrounded by walls, in order to restrict the entrance points. It’s an interesting idea, but its repeated throughout the scenario, and just becomes part of the background quickly.
The outdoor world is built into connection 2x2 sections. Each section has a dominant theme — there’s the “Imperial” section, with all of the bureaucracy, the “Mage” section, with all of the magic schools, the “Industrial” section, the “Nephil” section, the “Troglodyte” section, and so forth. It’s a weakness of the scenario that everything is segregated into nicely, convenient packages as such.
World development works well from a sort of tour-guide perspective, in that you get to see (or at least, told that you got to see) a lot of different places. Most of this occurs from the outdoor perspective, however. This was probably inevitable, given the 100 town bug, as plot-necessary towns take up, well, all of the 100.
The Macro-Mechanics
It’s actually a bit surprising, given Spy’s Hard immense length, how linear the scenario is. Essentially, the game proceeds as thus:
Initial Mission
Do whatever you want for awhile
Run into the Trogs and defeat them
Get mission from the Prime Director
Complete mission from Prime Director
Go back to 4
It’s difficult to generalize the missions, but typically each mission will require you to acquire X number of plot coupons before proceeding. Typically, you can acquire the plot coupons for each mission in any order you want, but you’ll need all of them to go forward. After completing the mission, you head back to the Prime Director, who more-or-less tells you (vaguely, of course) what to do next. (Actually, that’s not quite accurate. You never actually manage to talk to the Prime Director. Rather, you’ll develop quite an involved relationship with the Prime Director’s door.)
The Micro-Mechanics
Well, let’s see... Given that there are roughly 80(!!!!) dungeons you have to finish to complete the scenario, it might be a bit difficult to describe them all. It is possible, however, to make a few broad generalizations. First, Stareye clearly has either not read Drizzt’s The Evolving Role of Dungeons, or believes it to be blasphemy. Just about every single dungeon is required, just about every single dungeon is packed full of monsters, tricks, traps, and puzzles.
Individually, the dungeons range from good to excellent. During chapter four (I think, the Wizard chapter), there are quite a few truly exceptional programming sequences, notably the communication device, and the interface with the android.
It’s amazing, and a testament to Stareye, given the sheer scope of the scenario, that redundancy isn’t an overwhelming problem. But to say things never get a tad repetitive wouldn’t be fair either. (Relatively) early on, you’ll run across a very neat “puzzle potion” (hard to describe, you’ll figure it out when you get there). It’s very clever.... the first time you see it. With slight variations, it comes up several more time, each less interesting than the first. The Pentagram puzzle is very similar (although far more interesting, at least the first time.)
Of course, traditional puzzles (or, if not specifically traditional, then puzzles we’ve seen before) appear as well, and in spades. Spy Ha... (alright, alright, I’ll stop that now..) At the Gallows, much to its credit, always avoids the complete absurdity of these obstacles that many scenarios run into, but often the explanations are very strained (more on this below).
The Plot, Summing Up
Strictly speaking, there isn’t a single plot in At the Gallows, but rather two plots, whose connection is tangential at best. Basically, after you complete the first plot (which, by itself, might just have been the longest scenario ever), you’ll run smack dab into another plot, and start anew investigating that one. The second plot is tacked to the end of the first, it would seem, simply to extend the game, and give the party 35 more dungeons to vanquish.
I don’t know that I loved either plot, but then again, I don’t think that really matters. Gallows isn’t about plot. Fundamentally, Gallows is an action/adventure above all else, make no mistake. The dungeons, the quests, the puzzles do not serve to advance the plot. Rather, the plot serves as a justification to get the party to go to one dungeon after another.
To be fair, there are two places, just before the ends of each of the plots not incidentally, where this paradigm shifts, and the dungeons serve to advance the plot. These are exceptions — they are the five minutes of heart to heart between the buddy cops before they burst into the arch villains lair in one final, bloody battle — they do not invalidate the theme of this scenario.
Is there anything wrong with this paradigm? I shall leave that determination to you. What I will say is, that, as an action game, within the BOE framework, Gallows is perfect, or at least as close to perfect as is achievable within Blades.
Will you enjoy this scenario? Imagine a spectrum, from 1 to 10, representing your personal preference in scenarios. Let the higher numbers represent a preference for combat and puzzle solving as ends in themselves, intrinsic goals. Let the lower numbers represent a disdain for combat and puzzle solving as intrinsic goals, and a preference that the aforementioned should serve the extrinsic goal of plot development.
The higher on the scale you place yourself, the more you will love Gallows. If you’re a 10, you will almost certainly find Gallows to be your favorite Blades work of all time.
If you consider yourself to be a “1” on this scale... Okay, maybe you shouldn’t play Gallows. But if you’re even a 2, I strongly urge you to play this work, with the full expectation that you will enjoy it (for a good long while, I might add).
My Score — 9.8
— Alcritas