Topic: Heroine's Quest - The Herald Of Ragnarok - Now available on Steam!

[Snarky]

All right, finished as Sorceress! Stats (although I did look at hints, so I can't really take credit) and some comments/questions about the endgame and ending:

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x1 x2 x4 x8

The final bit, from the battles with Thrivaldi and Fenrir to the time-travel puzzles and the magic duel with Egther, were particularly excellent! It really felt like a proper climax to the game, exercising every aspect of the gameplay and offering a proper "boss battle" challenge. I got stuck at a couple of points in the duel (didn't realize there was another option than Shield to stop his ice bolt, and didn't think of Bless taking care of the arm), but the solutions were definitely fair if you gave them some thought. But man! By the time I get to the point where I know the potion-making recipes and have all the needed ingredients, the game is basically over, and then I don't even get to use them against Fenrir? 

The time travel aspect, although great fun in its own right, seemed to come a little out of nowhere. Why does Egther just happen to have a time portal in his keep, when his plans have nothing to do with time travel? I don't think there's a source for this in Norse mythology either. (But isn't there something like it in one of the Kyrandia games? Was that the inspiration?) I think maybe it would feel more like a natural part of the story if it was more explicitly linked to the Norns somehow (since they represent past, present and future). I'm not sure this is the sort of detail you would consider changing after release, but what if the portal was in the form of a loom, for example? Or, simpler, just put some runes on it for Urth+Verthandi+Skuld, and maybe have the respective ones flash when the heroine goes through. Ah, just a thought...

Anyways...

Love the Conquest of the Longbow-esque ending where people step up to thank you! (Though I notice that the heroine broke the promise I gave, to give credit to Andvari's armor in situations like this. Bad form, heroine! ) I think I got everyone there to say something nice about me, even Ratatosk, with Snorri as the only exception (well, and Hervor, but she couldn't speak). I guess beating him in archery wasn't enough. Was I supposed to give him "his" gem after all? (I sold it to Regin instead.) There's no way to get praise from any of the Svartalfar, or the huldra, is there?

Looking at the early art in the bonus section, it's amazing how far it has come. Well done Corby!
So, thanks for a great game!

Hmm I just have to comment on the money thing, although while playing the game it did feel like it was getting easier to get more money towards the end, I think this is mostly contributed to the fact that by the time the numbers in my coin purse got to the tripple digits, I had already bought most of the items that I wanted/needed (and I rarely bought potions... I rarely used potions heck

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 by the time Skrymir gave me his potion of poetry I had pretty much already maxed out most of my skills and never used it

).

On a replay, I found the money much less problematic. I think it might just be that it's easy to buy stuff in the wrong order, and then be stuck until you can scrape together enough for what you really need. As for...

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... the skaldic potion from Skrymir, there is another use for it, for an optional quest. (Hint: It grants knowledge, perhaps knowledge that has been forgotten...)

[Fizzii]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it overall

Regarding end game and people:

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No, Snorri doesn't speak up for you because shooting arrows isn't really important to speak about when praising someone. And the gem quest isn't really all that important. Definitely no way to get praise from the Svartalf as they can't go out during the day (plus I am sure that Andvari still holds grudges), and there's no reason the huldra would ever vouch for you (you took the jarl away from her after all!). I wonder if she'd have tried to enchant all the men at the celebration if she had been invited though

[Snarky]

So in the ending cut-scene:

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There's no way to get a good word from Snorri? That ungrateful SOB! Even after I paid him a 100-silver bribe!

Then is this the full list of people you can get praised by (this from memory, so not necessarily the right order)?

Jarl Ylfing (saved from huldra)
Heimi (saved from Svartalfheim, etc.)
Volund (same)
Aurvandel (defeated haugbui)
Arngrim (healed)
Kraka (better life prospects)
Lithrasir (reunited couple)
Liff (same)
Ratatosk (rehabilitated)
Sigrun (at peace with husband)
Librarian (saved cat)
Sigurd (saved town, reunited with lover)
Brynhild (general thanks, in an obviously repurposed line of dialogue)

I think the only other character from Fornsigtuna or Munarvagir missing is Regin, and I suppose that's because he can't be out by day. (You know, I played the whole game and didn't realize that's why he was never around in the daytime!)

[Fizzii]

Yep, that's the full list.

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Why would Snorri want to confess in front of the jarl that he accepted bribes? You don't need to resort to bribery by the way.

[Snarky]

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He could just say something general about my generous nature. Bottom line: I want that praise, dammit! Everyone going up there and thanking me, and that bastard just keeps his mouth shut? It ain't right!

The other option is to have Kraka pardoned by the Jarl, yes? Yeah, I knew that, but I was sick of freezing all the time, so I went for the cloak instead. (And I assume I could have got a higher honor score if I'd declined the award in favor of the widows and orphans instead.)

I should say that I really like how the game underplays some of these beats, like Snorri being corrupt (I always suspected him of somehow poisoning Arngrim), or the ambiguity of whether Fafnir or Regin (or, most likely, neither, if I remember the Nibelungen story correctly) is in the right in their feud.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Good point about the German keyboard. Come to think of it, it gets even wonkier on a French one...

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=32953.msg426839#msg426839

[Creamy]

My first minutes in the game :
She's hungry > I go looking for food.
I try to kill a boar with snowballs > she can't throw them properly.
Now, she's cold > back to the adventurer's guild
Let's train to throw snowballs > now, she's dead from exhaustion.

What a wimp !

[Daniel Eakins]

My first minutes in the game :
She's hungry > I go looking for food.
I try to kill a boar with snowballs > she can't throw them properly.
Now, she's cold > back to the adventurer's guild
Let's train to throw snowballs > now, she's dead from exhaustion.

What a wimp !

You want to kill a boar with a snowball?

[Ghost]

You want to kill a boar with a snowball?

Sensible idea. Might take a *lot* of snowballs though and with some bad luck the beast will just build an igloo out of them, having tea while you run out of snow. But at least you won't be cold anyboar.

[Fizzii]

My first minutes in the game :
She's hungry > I go looking for food.
I try to kill a boar with snowballs > she can't throw them properly.
Now, she's cold > back to the adventurer's guild
Let's train to throw snowballs > now, she's dead from exhaustion.

What a wimp !

We're going to tweak that a bit in v1.1. However, if you're a warrior, you probably don't have throwing skill anyway, so you will never become good at throwing. Also, snowballs usually aren't very effective at killing any animal

[Snarky]

Do you have any idea about when we might expect v1.1? I'm wondering whether I should wait before trying as Rogue or Warrior.

[Fizzii]

I think Radiant is aiming for some time this month, so it depends on how much time he has.

[dactylopus]

What a game!

I finally got a chance to play it over the last few days, and it was amazing.  I completed the game as a Rogue, which was quite a bit of fun.  After looking at some hints, it seems I missed a few things here and there, and I'll be trying to get closer to 500 points next time (I got 426 this time).

The story was great, and kept me interested throughout the game.  The art and animation were fantastic.  The scenery is just beautiful, I really enjoyed wandering around the landscape.  I loved the characters and dialogue, and most of the voice work was wonderful and drew me in.  I loved the music, it was always appropriate and it stayed in my head over the days I was playing.  The enemies were all great.  I didn't change the difficulty level at all, so combat wasn't too hard, but some enemies were still somewhat challenging.  Also, I'm glad you chose to replicate this combat system, as it was the most fun version of combat from the Quest for Glory series.  Leveling up was a lot of fun, and I spent a few days of gameplay working on increasing my skills and stats.  I ended up with every skill I had maxed out.  I'd also like to point out how good the programming was in this game.

There were a lot of great references in this game.  The ending reminded me of the final scene of Trial By Fire, which I thought was a great touch.  Although, reading through earlier posts here, I don't think I was able to help enough people!  I'll definitely be trying a little harder next time, and this is certainly a game that can be played through multiple times.

Overall, this was a tremendously satisfying gaming experience.  It feels like a love letter to the Coles, definitely comparable to the Quest for Glory games.  Great job to everyone involved, and thank you all so much for sharing this wonderful gift with us!

A few comments / issues:

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After a while, I found money easy to come by.  One reason for this is that, as a Rogue, I was able to steal the letter back from Liff to get the reward many consecutive times.  Not sure if this was intended, but I enjoyed it.
In the room with the dragon skeleton, I'm not sure if I was supposed to fight that many Brigands.  It looked as though they were supposed to be other enemies that glitched into Brigands, but I may be wrong.
In Eitri's house, the mirror reflection of a Troll was visible outside of the mirror if I went too deep into the room.
I had trouble in Sigurd's room, and was never actually able to get into his bedroom.  Nothing would prevent the sword from falling, but a glitch allowed me to break into the chest from the other side of the door.

I loved seeing Uhura, Arne the Aardvark, Keapon Laffin, and Cedric the Owl.  Also, the carved Leopard and other various items scattered about.  These made for great Easter Eggs.

I was a little sad to see the ending.  It makes the prospect of a sequel look unlikely, and to be honest I was really hoping for a series here.  That said, I understand why it was done, and it works with the story.  I'll definitely be keeping my eye on Crystal Shard's future endeavors into Adventure RPG hybrid games.

[Cogliostro]

As sorceress, in Nidvallir, used blink/teleport to go from the top of the cavern to the bottom and got this error:  Module2.asc line 1412, from room102.asc, line 164,  DynamicSpriteResize: width and height must be greater than zero.

 - Cogliostro

[shaun9991]

Wow... this game is incredible. It really is on par with the Quest for Glory games, if not better. The best AGS game I have ever played. Thanks so much to the developers for working so hard on this - what a gift!

[SarahLiz]

Has anyone had this error?  I'm in the thieves guild and as soon as I make my move, the game crashes:

"Scripting error"
ACI version 3.3.0.1148
in "room 41", line 557
Error: Animate Object:  object has not been assigned a view


--I am having a BLAST with this game and it'd kill me not to be able to advance!  Anyone seen this??

[Fizzii]

Is this near the start of the game (in Ch1), and are you playing a pure class or a hybrid?

We have had a report of a crash for hybrid if you are a rogue with magic skill:

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If you are a rogue with magic skill, try using the non-magical solution

.

[Construed]

I just want to say I'm very proud of all of you, Coders, artists and writers.
It's nearly impossible for most teams, especially the smaller ones to produce a game of this quality!
I really hope you guys start a new quest and launch a Kick Starter, I'll surely support you!

[HammerBlade]

Haven't been around in what may be years, and this is by far the best Christmas present I've gotten in over half a decade!

Where do I send my Dogecoins in gratitude? 

I'm suddenly reminded of the Hero 6 project, and the sad feeling when I checked their site one day to find they had given up indefinitely. 

[Construed]

Hammerblade, let not your depression win, H6 has been restarted at http://www.hero6.org