Messages

* A game adaptation of Les Miserables? Could work.

* Mazes are usually a bad idea. Setting your demo in a maze is a hugely bad idea.

* The interface is almost willfully obtuse. Having the player control a camera that can swoop between scenes, independent of any given character, is nice. The idea of not privileging any viewpoint character in the interface, and instead letting the player choose who acts, is nice. Executing this by making the left-mouse button control the camera, and the right-mouse button control all actions, is not nice at all.

A better move would have been to have the right-mouse button switch active characters and move the camera, and to include a display showing which character is currently active. The left could then be used normally. Also, a visible button that moves the camera back to the active character's current location is vital, especially in a maze.

Is there anything like an "AGS Best Practices" document for coding novices that suggests ways to avoid shooting oneself in the foot? I've just run into an issue.

When I edit the interactions for a region in AGS 2.72, and I want a response to an attempt to use an inventory item on an object, I can either use "Conditional - If Inventory Item Was Used" and pick an Inventory ID number, or manually script in something like this:

Code: ags

String nameofused = player.ActiveInventory.Name;
if ((nameofused == "Flint") || (nameofused == "Torch")) {
	Display("Sliding down a flaming railing would be a neat trick, but the thing just won't light.");

(.. etc...)

The problem is, neither solution seems ideal. The use of ID numbers means that any renumbering of the inventory will turn my code into a huge mess, but using a script means that I have do dive into the scripts to edit messages. Is there a smarter solution that I'm missing?

Yes, The Riddle of Master Lu was BRILLIANT. Some superb puzzles there.

An extremely solid game, with a few very sharp puzzles. I liked the character writing and acting more in this one, but the puzzles slightly less - although the

Spoiler

"phoning" Joey

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bit was clever. My only real complaint would be that examining

Spoiler

the music sheet as Joey with a right-click gives a very misleading 'nothing important' message, even though it's game-critical. Cluing that puzzle more might have been nice, possibly with responses from Lauren.

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Well worth the money, in my opinion.

I loved SQ4, and solved it without a hint book. That said, the "write down the code" thing was one of the nastiest walking deaths ever.

The typos remain, the plot is still rushed and unclear, and the puzzles and intense bits are still clever and fun to play.

Maybe it's just my distaste for the

Spoiler

army of soulless clones trope

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that's biasing me towards the negative. Given that 99 out of 100 adventure game puzzles are dull or terrible, I should probably be a bit more appreciative of the fact that whenever Sektor comes out with a game, I can be pretty sure that the puzzles will be fair, well-clued, and interesting. Almost no commercial adventure designers earned that level of trust from players; if I buy an adventure game, I always suspect that either a walkthrough will be necessary at some point, or no thought will be necessary at all.

One difficulty is that the definitions of atheist and agnostic are debated. Generally speaking, people treat agnosticism like a state of indecision. However, a more precise definition of the terms would be that atheism/theism refers to whether or not you believe in God, and agnosticism/gnosticism refers to whether or not you believe that knowledge of the truth of this matter is possible. An agnostic theist could VERY strongly believe in God, but also believe that no evidence one way or the other can be found - in other words, that it's strictly a faith-based position.

I'm a gnostic atheist when it comes to at least some versions of God - I think absolute power, wisdom, and goodness are simply incompatible with eternal damnation. Many theologists have said otherwise, but many theologists would argue that a dog is really a young cow if their religion demanded it.

As far as I can tell, the only universally acceptable way of defending one's beliefs is to live honestly and compassionately. One of the advantages of being an atheist, is that there needn't be any moral weight placed upon spreading the non-Gospel, or declaring atheism's superiority. Christians, in contrast, are placed in the unpleasant position of believing that they MUST spread their beliefs, or people will suffer forever. For us, no afterlife is at stake, so there is no need to convert anyone. The only time when one needs to express one's atheism is when atheism is being misunderstood or abused - and defenses should never be petulant.

It's too easy to damage the public perception of agnosticism and atheism by looking too dogmatic. Here's one trap.

A) If you are an atheist for rational reasons, then you must believe that it is rational to be an atheist.
B) Therefore, you must consider all religious people irrational.

This seems sane enough, but it's completely off-base. First, a person may be rational in evaluating some pieces of evidence, and completely biased in other respects. Second, a religious upbringing can give a person a strong, consistent perception that a benevolent God is hovering somewhere just out of sight. The rest of us might well say that this is just indoctrination, but to tell another person, without strong positive evidence, to disregard a consistent sense - even if it's a hallucinatory one - seems to be unreasonable. Better to say that this sort of feeling can't be evidence for anybody but the believer.

Summary: Don't express atheism by knocking religion. Express it by celebrating and perpetuating critical thought.

Okay, now that the euphoric glow of the justifiably high initial reviews has faded, I'm going to put up my suggestion list. I do not do this out of the old delusion of fan-entitlement, but out of the hope that if another version comes out, they might be considered.

Major spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

Potential issue: Hole with lost comb is hard to find and quest-critical.
Possible solution: Make it slightly more visible.

Potential issue: Use of iron rune can shut player out of changeling quest without warning.
Possible solution: Make it harder to lose the rune. New problem: Player may use iron rune as a catch-all solution to many puzzles, rather than think of novel solution. New solution: Using the rune on the princess drains some of its magic, but not all of it. It takes multiple uses to destroy it.

Potential issue: Getting the rope early in the game is critical for major sidequests, but is possibly out-of-character and is certainly counterintuitive.
Possible solution: Justify getting the rope - not sure how. The idea of having Branwyn bet Maeldun that he can't steal it seems... out-of-character. Alternatively, set up another way of getting a rope.

Potential issue: Mystery plot lacks enough clues.
Possible solution: Add clues. Possibility: Give clear hints that the blacksmith forged a fake dagger, or something along those lines. Stress the physical strength of the assassin.

Potential issue: Not enough motivation to begin absolutely critical stable-boy quest.
Possible solution: The game already hints that you should show the note to Taliesin - perhaps Taliesin could drop a clearer hint that it would be wise to show the note to the Sidhe. In addition, it might be wise to make the note stick out of the haystack visibly.

Potential issue: Island is hard to find.
Possible solution: Map can also appear in monastery library? This should give the player a chance to see that critical clue later in the game. Wait, does the map appear in the monastery library? I've forgotten.

Potential issue: Ice orb's use is ambiguous. Description suggests that it might be able to freeze random objects.
Possible solution: Emphasize that its use is tied to a specific location.

Potential issue: Not enough payoff on the apprentice-befriending quest, and the girdle thing seems a little unclued.
Possible solution: If Maeldun lingers too long in the tower after helping the apprentice, she will appear instead of the wizard and warn him to get out if he values his life.

Potential issue: Stealing the blacksmith's shield seems poorly motivated during the brief time-window that it is possible.
Possible solution: Blacksmith visits the docks multiple times during the game, making this quest more forgiving without robbing it of its essential challenge. New problem: Player has less opportunity to get sword sharpened. Solution: The additional trips all come after Maeldun gets his sword sharpened. New problem: More dialogue needed. Solution: Blacksmith meets with

Potential issue: Black cloth clue is extremely odd; tailor gives little info, save that assassin is a local, and the blacksmith denies everything.
Possible solution: Tailor states that he has sold several cloaks made with that material to various local gentlemen. Still an ambiguous clue, because the cloak could have been stolen by a woman.

Potential issue: Message clue is somewhat misleading.
Possible solution: Uncertain.

Potential issue: Introduction text too long and vague.
Possible solution: Edit down introduction text; consider padding intro graphics by using image from book in library - if it wasn't originally intended for the intro.

Potential issue: Villain leaps onstage in a sudden and strange way.
Possible solution: The apprentice speaks of him in more specific terms, and has more screen time.

Potential issue: Branwyn lacks much of interest to say.
Possible solution: More conversation options for Branwyn. Clearer idea of character.

Potential issue: During assassination scene, doing stuff like "looking at the ajar door" doesn't really give atmospheric responses, and the draconian "the assassin jumps out of nowhere and kills you for lingering" stuff probably should be used to punish things like trying the alarm rope a few times, then walking over to the door and looking in, and so on.
Possible solution: Loosen the assassin's trigger a bit, and implement cautious behavior.

Potential issue: Throwing the dagger at the assassin requires a pixel hunt.
Possible solution: Refine this - although, given the speed of the animation, it's probably a major pain.

Potential issue: Why on earth would Maeldun look at a doorway during an assassination?
Possible solution: Find a better way of getting the hair to the player.

Potential issue: It is unclear, at first, why Maeldun lacks his girdle during the assassination scene, causing time to be wasted searching his room.
Note: Mention the loss of the girdle explicitly as soon as Maeldun wakes.

Potential issue: In the final battle, the order of events is highly finicky; why should an attack on the sorcerer by Maeldun distract him just as well as an attack by the guardsman? (Answer: Because then he'd have nothing to do.)

Possible (not entirely satisfactory) solution: If Maeldun attempts to attack the sorcerer, the guardsman will step forward as well, and will get to the sorcerer first. He might even shout something along the lines of "Stay back - you're no fighter."

Possible extra-awesome thing to do: Find a way to work Taliesin, the changeling, or the apprentice into the battle as a distraction that appears if the guard captain manages to get himself transformed. This keeps the battle going and gives us another chance to throw a dagger at the charm. While the teleport animation for the apprentice makes her a viable option, she doesn't seem like the noble sacrifice type...

Whew!

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[This does not mean that all religious thought is pure guesswork.]

To the original poster:

Two problems:

1) You suggest that the meaning you've found is not only unscientific, based on stories rather than direct evidence, but also is somehow better for being unscientific, since science is "guesswork."

2) You seem to also believe that because you want something to be true, that means that it must be. This isn't just a religious error, as everybody does this, religious or not. Trained scientists sometimes prefer an elegant theory over a correct one, until reality gives them a quick kick in the shins.

Addressing point 1)

The claim that all science and mathematics is guesswork is dubious. Mathematics isn't guesswork - it could be meaningless symbol-shuffling, but guesswork it is not. If the premises of a proof are accepted, the conclusion follows. If the premises are not accepted, no conclusion can be drawn.

As for science being guesswork, I think a better term for it would be "argument from imperfect knowledge," which should never be mere guesswork. The claim that a suspect is guilty beyond reasonable doubt shouldn't be guesswork, either, unless the jury is truly incompetent. Even if a smart jury is deceived, they will make a false conclusion from false evidence, not a guess. The same holds for scientific claims. I could say that the moon only weighs twelve grams, but I wouldn't get published in a solid journal unless I gave evidence, and I wouldn't be widely accepted until people had found other evidence on their own. That people sometimes get wrong answers says less about science than it does about human prejudices, errors, and limitations.

Guesswork would be randomizing the constants we stick in physics textbooks. Guesswork would be convicting criminals based on a throw of the dice. We try not to do this. Even pre-scientific societies reason from observations and experience. For example, executing people for minor crimes encourages petty criminals to kill during the getaway - what have they got to lose? People observed this, and refined their legal codes appropriately. This wasn't really scientific, but it wasn't guesswork.

On to claim 2)

What IS guesswork?

Guesswork is saying, "While most major religions claim to be true, I'm going to believe in religion X, and pick and choose the parts of Religion X I like, because I want the world to be that way."

This does not mean that all religious thought is pure guesswork. It wouldn't be guesswork to say "I believe in God because I have a persistent sense that God exists, and I believe in Christianity because this sense is strongest when I read the New Testament, and very weak when I look at the Koran." Nor would it be guesswork to defend Islam in the same way. This is argument from personal experience. However, it would not be a good argument to convince somebody else to believe. Personal evidence is personal.

Sometimes people tell me that I should seek perfect, infallible truth in religion because science sometimes gets things wrong, and they have strong, personal evidence of the Spirit of God. These very same people take offense when somebody who has found a perfect, infallible, personal religious truth tries to make them explode.

Okay, heavy spoilers ahead. REALLY HEAVY spoilers.

Every so often, I ran into something in AToTK that made me grin. Usually it was because the developers got something right in an unusual way. Sometimes it was because there was a moment of humor. There were too many of these to list, but I'll name a few.

Spoiler

1) Using a lantern on a candle in the monastery gave a sane response; I mentioned this in the review as the canonical Good Thing To Do in an adventure game. There were many other cases like this.

2) Digging at the end of a rainbow and finding a pot of gold there was fun. Admittedly, there may be a culture gap here for some people.

3) The multiple uses of the bag of sand. The real puzzle is realizing that one can fill a bag with sand and make a useful item out of it; after that, the places where it's used are fairly clear - not that I didn't bang my head against the "let's see if we can turn objects to ice and crush them" avenue of thought. The clever thing about this, I think, was that solving the second giant challenge required figuring this out, and reading the book in the monastery and using that gimmick to beat the goblin required figuring this out - but solving either puzzle effectively gave a clue to the other. It's extremely elegant - a multi-use item built by the player.

4) Realizing that the seemingly pointless ladder puzzle was really a way of cluing the player in to Branwyn's dagger-throwing ability. A-ha. A lesser game would have just had her mention, offhand, that she was good at that kind of thing.

5) The variety of wishes available at the well - and the fact that I could win even if I, perversely, chose "Health for Branwyn" for the sake of an honor point.

6) The whole rigamarole with the statue and the flute in the endgame was dubious, but the hidden room? Brilliant, though I needed a hint. Perhaps another clue to emphasize the change in the background would be nice?

7) Discovering the island, then piercing the illusions. A stronger emphasis on the map clue might have been good, as might more dialogue hints, but it was a good moment.

8) On the island, all of the special descriptions generated by the snake statuette. Perhaps a stronger indication that it no longer had much in the way of special power off of the island would have been good.

9) "Oh, so that's why she wants a pumpkin!"

10) The escape from the goblin camp - one of those situations where the first logical thing you think of works nicely, but still manages to be fun. I maintain that the most fun bits are the ones where a clue snaps together in the player's mind, and the whole sequence is solved without dying. Here, the river escape was cued by the earlier ocean escape, making it nicely intuitive.

11) The clue for the mirror lake puzzle - that is, that walking into the lake showed Whiteblade's reflection.

12) Leading the barghest back to the camp and letting my allies unleash the fury. Or hitting it with holy water. Either way was pretty great.

13) Rabbit dialogue box.

14) Throwing a dagger at the fleeing assassin, and seeing that reflected in the line about the dagger being on the floor. (I think there's a minor bug here, in that the game still acts as if you kept the dagger and had it confiscated in a message box that appears shortly after. But it's exceedingly minor. Also, it's really hard to click the dagger on the assassin consistently.)

15) The alarm rope red herring was clever.

16) Giving back keys to people for honor points was well-implemented, and while a warning would have been nice, taking back coins from the tailor was a nice touch.

17) Finally, my favorite scene. For the entire game, we've been told that Taliesin is uncanny. We've been told all about the connected-to-the-fae thing, and he's got musical talent. We've been told a lot. Anyway, wandering around, the player might encounter him sitting on the ground, thrumming a lute, while the Pooka dances. It's not even all that thoroughly implemented.

That's it; there's no obvious narrative purpose for this scene. However, there's a subtle one. First, it shows us Taliesin hanging out with the Fair Folk before he drops his deus ex machina secret passage solution in the endgame, making it more plausible. More importantly, though, like the scene where the magician's apprentice teleports away from the scornful townsperson, this segment tells us more than any straight dialogue possibly could.

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If there's any interest, I'd like to post a more spoilery commentary, too. I feel as if the above review doesn't quite give AToTK enough credit in specific terms.

[A Tale of Two Kingdoms]

A game like this DEMANDS a full review, but I don't know where to post it.

So I'll write it now, and post it here. I'll try to keep it spoiler-light. That said, if you want absolutely everything about the game to be a surprise, don't read on. There is also a spoiler for Full Throttle in there, because some things are too glorious to hide behind spoiler tags.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms (v. 1.1)
Publisher: Crystal Shard (Independent)
Release: 2007

SUMMARY: I expected this game to be as spectacularly bad as its introduction, and it continually disappointing me by being very, very good.

AToTK vs. Grim Fandango, Round One, FIGHT!

A Tale of Two Kingdoms is more fun than it has any right to be. Between a clumsy introduction, flat characters, constant and annoying death, one major side-plot that fails catastrophically, and another major side-plot that fails more subtly, it ought to have been an ordeal.

But it's more fun than large swaths of Grim Fandango, which is both upsetting and gratifying.  Grim Fandango is more gorgeous, more funny, more challenging, more memorable, and more quotable, full of clever moments and shining wit and ingenious set-pieces, the kind of game that theoretically converts non-adventure gamers into adventure gamers with its brilliance. So it's shocking to see A Tale of Two Kingdoms succeed in places where Grim Fandango fails. It's like seeing a puppy crush a Sherman tank. This is also why it is gratifying.

How is this possible? Since this is a spoiler-free review, I'll explain with reference to a hypothetical example.

KQVI-Lite:

In Hypothetical Quest (or, if you prefer, Strange Flamenco) you meet a young boy whose dog has been captured by a giant aphid.

LucasArts version: You improvise a Giant Aphid Costume from a yellow robe, wooden legs, etc.

KQVI version: Killing the aphid requires fixing a broken flyswatter. Alternatively, you can call on the Ladybug Queen to truss up the aphid, but only if you saved her life earlier. Saving the Ladybug Queen is impossible if you traded the Ladybug Pendant for the key to the Flyswatter Shop, and you can't fix the swatter if you sacrificed it to enter the Ladybug Queen's realm. Thus, partially solving each puzzle renders both impossible, and the game unwinnable.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms version: If you won a pen in a game of quoits OR stole one, THEN used it to forge a letter and save the Friendly Local Urchin from hanging (OR broke him out of jail), AND found the Potion of Spider Transformation, you can turn the urchin into a Spider Warrior, who eats the aphid. Alternatively, if you reforged the Flyswatter of the Tuatha, you can swat the aphid and save the dog. Otherwise, the dog dies.

But! The death of the dog does not prevent you from finishing the game; you have a world to save, after all. The ending will change, possibly by the addition of a downer-scene in which you see the little boy crying for his dog, and you may be locked out of some other puzzles. But you can ALWAYS win, and there are a lot of dogs to rescue, and each one gives you a little score boost and more dog-rescuing tools.

Yes, I intend to abuse this metaphor as far as it will go.

So although AToTK seems KQVI-inspired, it never makes aphid food of the player. It might tantalize with a now-unrescueable dog, and the dog-rescuing puzzle may be genuinely unfair, but it's still optional. The weakest endings may be dreary, but they are also victories on one level or another, and they point to places where improvement is possible. And when an aphid costume absolutely must be made, multiple sets of pieces are available, and if you've lost some of them, somebody will find a way to supply you with another. The more you of them you find unaided, the higher your score goes. This system, in which one's degree of success can be read in one's score and ending, allows the nastiest frustrations to be avoided.

This sounds like a cop-out, a game that lets the player refuse to play it. But it isn't, because the player always has something to aim for, and a convenient NPC is always ready to suggest exactly what that is.  Yes, there are a few situations in which one can walk into danger without a needed item, but the game disables saving in these potentially nasty cases, and often autosaves immediately before. And even when the best endings are locked out, the story still has some impetus. Not only is the game always completable, it is impossible, as far as I can tell, for the player to be locked out of an ending in which good triumphs on some level.

AToTK allows multiple paths to victory, and always keeps side-quests open so that there's something to do, and this is why AToTK, played casually, with no regard for solving ALL of the puzzles, is just more fun than several sections of Grim Fandango.

Don't get me wrong - Grim Fandango has a lot of fun parts. But frustrating sections drain adventure games of their fun quickly. The early segments of Grim Fandango, as well as a few puzzles at mid-game, are particularly bad for this. Grim Fandango, tied as it was to an extremely linear story, couldn't afford too many optional puzzles or situations. It thus became a sort of specialized torture machine whenever the player hit a stumbling block. In many ways, an adventure game is judged on its failures. What I remember most vividly about King's Quest V are the places where it was grotesquely unfair.

Being as broad and player-friendly as AToTK is hard. The side-quests effectively double the playable size of the game without doubling its frustration factor, but make things very hard on the designers and testers. If the player can end up holding certain items late in the game on some playthroughs, but not others, meticulous planning is required. One could have each object solve one puzzle and one puzzle only, but that's boring and predictable, and AToTK eschews that sort of cheap trick, instead electing to increase its design burden by giving some optional objects up to three uses. I suspect that Adventure Game Player Heaven is filled with multiple-use, optional items- as is Adventure Game Designer Hell.

In spite of this complicatedness- and it was sometimes possible to see the gears whirring, in the forms of shifting event triggers - I ran into very few bugs, and generally, when I wanted to try something reasonable but game-breaking, the game explained why I couldn't. Why can't I light a lantern with a candle up on the wall? It's too high, or it's at a lousy angle, or whatever - the game explained. There were exceptions, of course; ordering other people to look at themselves or other people gave strangely uninformative messages, but in general, everything worked. In a game of this scope, this is magnificent. The designers of AToTK really understand the importance of attention to implementation detail. And spell-checking.

So, no matter how many arbitrary deaths AToTK throws at you, it makes it very clear that it does not hate you, and wants you to win. And so, if you're playing to win, this is an intensely fun game. If you don't mind a bit of a downer in the ending, and aren't too picky about writing, that's all that should matter. Just play it.

Summary of Pros:

* Forgiving gameplay.
* Lots of fun things to do.
* Polished execution, at least along the main branch.

On the Other Hand...

But while AToTK dramatically outdoes the commercial classics in many ways, it fails to measure up to them in others. Yes, it's much better than the weaker sections of Grim Fandango, but it isn't as good as the whole game. This may have something to do with the lack of a massive budget and long experience, but there are other reasons why AToTK sometimes fails to meet that bar.

First, the story is only engaging about half of the time. In theory, it should work better than that, since it's a stronger story than most games get. A gentle opening is interrupted by a series of tense scenes that give the hero a problem to deal with. Complications occur, little set-pieces ratchet the tension up, there's a wide-open midgame, and the whole deal is tied up neatly in the end. There are no subplots that involve searching for Six Spirit Gems to reforge the Dagger of Plottiness. There are few fetch-quests, and they're usually disguised or complicated subtly. When the hero wants to help people, it's because they have real problems to deal with, not because they've lost Random Object No. 152.

So, what's the problem?

Engaging stories demand engaging characters. Not well-written characters - a flat character can drive a decent story, if the player's given control over that character's destiny. But the ones that the player spends the most time with should be interesting. This does not happen.

In AToTK, the player has two sidekicks. Consider the more interesting one. He's pretty likeable, offering useful advice and quirky asides. One optional, totally incidental scene that does not involve the player, or, for that matter, any real action by this NPC, managed, somehow, to perfectly solidify his character for me. Yet his role in the story is minimal. He dispenses exposition, magic, and a secret that moves the story forward, and that's about it. But if he were threatened in the endgame, rather than a character I cared absolutely nothing for, it would have been two, maybe three times better (+- 5% error). This may be purely subjective; the developers clearly tried to make the threatened character interesting, with side plots and so on. But it didn't work for me.

And I don't think this is entirely a fancy on my part, because it seems that most of the more interesting characters in the game have bit parts, while the key parts are given to boring characters. The villain is, in particular, an astounding case. The writers of AToTK manage to do almost everything right. It is as if they assiduously followed a checklist of things to do to make an interesting villain:

A) Make sure the villain has a specific motivation.
B) Have him or her create horrible predicaments for the hero.
C) Indirectly deliver info on the villain via another character.
D) Don't let the villain fight fair. The hero should win in spite of the odds.
E) Make it possible for the player to see where the villain lives, and explore that space. This fleshes out the villain more than a speech ever could.

The writers do all of these things, and yet, incredibly, AToTK has one of the most boring villains ever to mar a good game - and there's a LOT of competition. He/she makes Mordack look like Iago. It is as if, somewhere along the line, their villain had been transmuted from gold into lead.

There are a number of possible reasons for the weakness of the villain. The connection between the villain and the mystery plot is never fully solidified during the main, mandatory plotline, so, in many playthroughs, the villain seems to rise out of nowhere. I suspect that fiddling more with the mystery plot would address this, but I'm reluctant to do this - more on that below. And even when the villain appears, he/she has absolutely nothing of interest to say. So, scratch one villain.

But what about the Loyal Sidekick, the one who can fight and helps you solve puzzles at key points and so on? Surely that character is even cooler than the one who delivers exposition and clues? Surely the character who is closely connected with the hero through past exploits, who swaps banter with him in the opening, who is set up to be important, who acts as a surrogate PC in at least one scene, and (SPOILER)

Spoiler

does critical things in the endgame

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is interesting, right?

No, for that would defy the First Law of AToTK Writing: "The more important a piece of writing is, the less likely it is to be good." Until the endgame, your Loyal Sidekick is a glorified treasure chest. During the endgame, there is a slight improvement, but given all the things this character could say or do to respond to what happens, said character seems like a poseable mannequin.

But the side characters? Some of them are wonderful. They have little flashes of wit and character and good writing, and though the dialogue often ranges from bland to blander, there's just enough spice there to keep interest up. They aren't fighting the First Law, after all, so they can be cool.

If you are skeptical of the First Law, consider the introduction. The opening chapters neatly and effectively drop the hero into the intrigue, but the damage has already been done. The intro text is horrendous. It wants badly to be Epic, Dark, and Mythic, which is unfortunate in a game whose TITLE is Grand and Epic, but whose content is not. Everything that's cool in this game works on the level of individuals, not opposing armies, and everything that's fun works on the level of a fairy tale - personal, whimsical, silly, and a little spooky. Apparently, like scripting contextually-defined conversation topics for a major sidekick, writing a good intro is harder than it looks.

Another case of the First Law in action: the mystery plot. Mysteries are hard to get right, and AToTK doesn't. To the credit of the designers, the Exposition NPC mentioned above never claims that solving the mystery is a critical priority, and one can get a highly satisfactory ending without ever figuring it out. But the framing of the plot makes figuring out this mystery crucial on the level of the story, if not the actual gameplay, so everybody will want to solve it, I think. Alas, only astounding luck and dogged, even pointless, persistence can make that possible. After trying repeatedly and eventually reading a spoiler, I gave up and just got on with the main plot.

I do not think that this means I can't meaningfully review the game; a player who failed to solve a King's Quest V puzzle due to lack of dead fish would have something very meaningful to say about it.

The physical clues offered are horribly weak and semirelevant, or even misleading, and a few must be gathered under circumstances where a sane protagonist would be better off concentrating on other things. They are all red herrings. (If the developers wish to correct me on this, I hope they will. I found maybe three physical objects that could be construed as clues, which seems low for a game of this scope, but I solved quite a few little side-quests.) These clues are not obtained by actually investigating the mystery. The conversational clues are apparently better, as the culprit says something revealing, but these are easy to miss. I cannot say any more for fear of spoilers, but the way in which the player is asked to demonstrate knowledge of the solution unsatisfactory; the player is hit with a menu like a freight train.

The Dagger of Amon Ra used a similar mechanism to resolve its mystery, and relied on the acquisition of tiny, often nearly-unnoticeable clues for its resolution - but its solution was reasonable once the right clues were acquired. Perhaps I'm hopelessly dense, but, judging by the response on the Hints Thread for AToTK, this is not true. As far as I can tell, the mystery plot is just broken. Furthermore (and this is a mild spoiler),

Spoiler

even if there were real evidential justification for the identity of the culprit, there would be no narrative reason for it. Yes, in real life, sometimes the Master Criminal is somebody you hardly know, but that's not at all satisfying in a game.

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What's really surprising is that the designers of AToTK manage to slip here in spite of setting up everything needed to make a good mystery plot possible. They have NPCs that wander around and show agency, that chat amongst themselves while the hero listens in, and that have motives. There's suspense, subterfuge, and so on. It's as if a good game had been written and, at the last minute, somebody decided to change the identity of the culprit and erase a few clues. This could be remedied with a few dialogue lines, a few objects, a few more interesting responses for showing certain things to certain people - but if it was not fixed between v 1.0 and v1.1, it probably won't be fixed between v1.1 and v 1.2.

But there's still hope that these, and other, issues of writing will be addressed, and AToTK will be the better for it. On to the other issues.

In a really complete adventure game, when the player was stuck, the detail and dialogue are fun enough to experience that frustration is allayed. AToTK has mixed success in this regard. You can't just wander around and look around at things and expect to be entertained for too long, because the descriptions and scenes are only sometimes interesting. The world is superficially engaging, but is, on closer inspection, hammered out of recycled bits and pieces; a castle looks like a Fantasy Castle is supposed to look, with little clear regard for function. Grim Fandango's Rubacava may have been a frustrating place to spend hours in, but at least it was Rubacava.

The town fares a bit better than most locations, as it's bustling and filled with people you can eavesdrop on, but the effect isn't as good as it could be. Maybe it's the surreal randomness of the wandering of the NPCs that does it. Maybe it's the architectural dullness of the houses, or the distanced viewpoint, or something like that. One tiny village in a corner of the map, with only two enterable dwellings, somehow manages to feel more convincing than the main town. I can't explain this; maybe it's the detailed art inside one of the homes, or something like that.

It should be noted that very few commercial or amateur graphic adventures really nail this, which is a shame, so AToTK probably shouldn't be held to a high standard in that regard - not until we all pony up $50 per download. But it's still sort of unfortunate.

Conclusion (or, It's Good, Honest!):

The difficulty about writing a review like this is that it's easy to explain what DIDN'T work without resorting to spoilers, but it's hard to explain what did. I've given a sort of general design justification for why AToTK is fun, but it ultimately comes down to specifics. It comes down to the concerted efforts the design team made to keep the world well-modeled - yes, a lot of it is generic, but it's still pretty good if you aren't wandering the same few screens in frustration. What really makes it work, I suppose, is that reasonable actions have reasonable responses, that there ARE some characters whom one can care about a little bit, even if they are minor, that the gameworld keeps changing in little, unexpected ways, that things are always happening, that you can get through much of the game without ever feeling like you've seen all of it... these things are hard to get across without spoiler specifics.

I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. Although the writing of A Tale of Two Kingdoms really does merit the hatchet job above, although some puzzles are a bit unfair (but optional), although there are strange and unexpected slipups, all of this is overwhelmed by the creators' consistent design competence, ambition, and dedication to making a fun game. As long as you don't try to do EVERYTHING, there's a good chance you'll like it.

Pros: In many ways, AToTK embodies good adventure game design. If you want to have fun, and can handle a few slightly underclued puzzles, go for it.

Cons: In many ways, AToTK embodies bad adventure game writing. Also, there are unfair and tetchy bits, so if you want to do everything... please, don't.

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Postscript:

Given the effectiveness of the apparent design philosophy of AToTK ("Okay, let's try to make a game that does not hate its player and in fact wants good things to happen to the player"), why isn't this approach used more often? For one thing, it is very hard to pull off. It demands obsessive playtesting and more design effort than might even be possible on a commercial game. It may force sacrifices on the level of storytelling and character development. It means writing scads of puzzles that some players will never see, which requires real self-discipline.

Now, it's been tried. King's Quest VI boasted an Easy Path and a Hard Path, with mixed success. It suffered from some severe game-wrecking situations - see the hypothetical Ladybug Queen case above. But Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis had three paths, none of which were too frustrating, and was also quite possibly the most intensely fun adventure game of all time, so there's hope.

But it's not the design problems that stymied this approach in commercial games. This type of design makes the game faster to complete - and a short play time was a deadly sin in a commercial adventure game. Nobody wants to pay $50 for a game that they finish in two days. One can replay, of course, but replaying is repetitive even in the best case, i.e., A Tale of Two Kingdoms or Quest for Glory.

As a result, in adventure games, a long ordeal is somehow seen as preferable to a short thrill ride. In its day, Full Throttle garnered endless complaints about its cutscenes and its short effective play time, apparently because a game in which, in the final playable sequence, the hero crawls on a speeding truck while said truck is CHASED BY AN AIRPLANE THAT SMASHES INTO IT AND DRAGS UNTIL IT IS HANGING OFF OF A CLIFF, FORCING THE HERO TO SEND THE VILLAIN PLUMMETING TO HIS DOOM AND ESCAPE BEFORE PLANE AND TRUCK FALL OFF THE CLIFF AND EXPLODE could apparently be improved with the addition of a maze, or perhaps a cutesy bit with mailing tubes.

Amateur developers are finally changing this, and we are finally getting good adventure games, but it's taken a long time. If somebody could just combine the polish, wit, and style of Grim Fandango with the common sense and player-friendliness of AToTK, we'd have something really incredible.

This was a distinctly charming game, well-polished and generally fair. I look forward to a sequel!

For some reason, the meter of your lines reminded me a little of the William Tell Overture. So, one trick to make the meter consistent would be to try setting it to that tune. You know, ta ta TUM, ta ta TUM, ta ta TUM TUM TUM.

Also, it's good to have a point, or at least some idea linking the verse together. I know it's supposed to be silly, but there's a difference between "Just silly" and "Cleverly silly." Sometimes sticking to an absurd rhyme scheme can earn you a little grudging admiration, even if the product is obviously forced. Internal rhymes are good for this.

So, let's try to do this.

In a place deep in space (long ago and far),
In a core corridor of the First Death Star,
Obi-Wan, dead and gone, shouted "Run, by gar!"
And "Noooooo!" shouted Master Luke.

On a slow lava flow down on Mustafar,
There's a schmoe, fallen low (looks like one big scar),
Now he'll dwell in a shell, due to organ-char -
And "Noooooo!" shouted Anakin.

Lucas said, "Camp is dead! From now on, I feel
Ev'ry part of my art should be Grim and Real!
Make it dark! Make it stark! Make it an ordeal!"
And "Noooooo!" shouted everyone.

(This was quick and dirty; "looks like one big scar" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But if this seems like an improvement, all I did was:

1) Choose a point to parody. In this case, it was the movies' melodrama.
2) Add lots of tetchy internal rhymes that probably weren't worth the effort.
3) Set it to a demanding piece of music to keep myself honest.

If you don't use the internal rhymes, I think you can pull off the William Tell Overture trick if you try singing aloud every line as you write it. In your case, the first verse would become (with the fewest changes possible made to fit the meter):

In a hall of the old Death Star, Darth saw,
OB1, then his saber did he draw.
Swish, bzzzt, and whoosh, and Kenobi fell,
And Luke screamed (in the background) "Naaaw!"

The chorus is pretty good, but I can't make out most of the lyrics; enunciation might help. Also, what lyrics I could decipher were filled with ready-made phrases like "I need to turn a page," "pry myself away from you," "a part of something new." "And when I see her..." and so on.

If you'd like to post the lyrics here, I could try my hand at a meter-matched rewrite. I don't know how closely it would fit the tone you were shooting for, but it's worth a try, I think.

Ooh. You know what would be great?

A remake of Trinity that used The Last Express's savegame system, so you could go back to the "point-of-no-return" if you ended up in a Walking Dead situation. And it would be thematically appropriate! The clock could be a little sundial, and the game is pretty much about trying things over and over to fix a broken past.

There'd still be some issues, but those could be resolved by adding one or two extra clues as to the proper order to enter the mushrooms in.

The Lurking Horror could use photos of the MIT steam tunnels and campus and do well. Beyond Zork pretty much demands RPG/action combat, rather than the random hack-and-slash. And Enchanter's spell-heavy gameplay would port well to graphics, I think; you have to be careful about that. Some puzzles don't translate easily to non-text interfaces.

But I still favor original games over remakes. Unless it's the Quest for Glory II remake.

Great work. The trust mechanic was wonderful, the puzzles were original and entertaining, especially the pipe-scanner, and the plot kept moving steadily.

The only real hiccup, I felt, was the motivation behind one of the optional puzzles needed to get the best ending - you know, the one involving an apparently unmotivated betrayal of trust. Did I miss something? It would be nice to have a little snippet of dialogue cluing that one somehow. Everything else the player did was clearly reasonable.

Finally, I think the writing is technically solid, which is pretty impressive, given that most native speakers get careless. Yes, the dialogue gets a bit bland or slightly stilted now and then, but the point gets across and the tension is always there.

Congratulations on the public demo!

No surprise in the difference in response between the two groups. 7th and 8th graders tend to be stupidly cynical. Trying too hard to make a game would be unbecoming. Younger kids are more interested in having fun than in looking cool.

Both Broken Sword and The Smoking Mirror had pretty disappointing endings; no denouement. You get a scene showing the world being saved, but not a glimpse of the consequences - no "breather" scene, no clever banter, nothing. It's like making a game version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ending EXACTLY when the villains get killed. In spite of their high production values, their generally solid dialogue, and their general flair, Broken Sword and The Smoking Mirror both desperately needed a Warehouse Scene.