Tyranicus

From TM on the CSR:

Finally, we have a scenario from Zxquez with a plot that is good, things that happen, and decent fighting. Is this a sign of the coming apocalypse?

Xerch'de is small. No, let me ammend that- It's tiny. It's smaller than Chapman's, it's smaller than RoR, and it's smaller than Babysitting. The whole scenario takes place in the span of two towns and has no outdoors whatsoever.

The plot is decent. There is a small if not meaningless choice, and the implications of the plot can be seen all around. None of the personalities are outstanding- but heck, the scenario is only two towns big! How can they be? Everything fits together solidly. Some ends are left open- for instance, what did the bad guys do before that they don't stand a chance of doing now? Nevertheless, the scenario is so short and understandable that the player is never bothered to ask these questions.

Combat ranges. In one room, you'll find a group of level 7 soldiers, and in the room after that, you'll find level 7 soldiers mixed in with level 15 witches. (Of course, the scenario recommends a fairly advanced level party, meaning that none of the combat is too difficult for the party.)

Custom graphics are used, but to little effect. Town design is sketchy at points, and the main city could have used some more guards. Still, nothing was overtly nonsensical.

Overall, worth playing. There isn't much in the way of headbashing, and unlike Chapman's or Za-Khazi, it's better than doing nothing at all.

[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]

From TM on the CSR:

"Best scenarios in no time?" A bit presumptuous. I was still not particularly amused. Perhaps I'm biased against "mystery" scenarios, but there's little mystery, mostly head-bashing. Maybe that's the nature of the beast; maybe BoA sucks at making this kind of scenario; I didn't enjoy MM in either case.

[rating]SUBSTANDARD[/rating]

From Nioca on the CSR:

You know, if Slack keeps up this constant rate of improvement, he'll be turning out best scenarios in no time. As for this scenario, I enjoyed it. Despite one sticky part (in one puzzle, there's a 90% chance of insta-death) and a bit of aimless wandering in the beginning, the scenario was fairly well made, and even included a nibble of combat.

[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]

From Smoo on the CSR:

Hey now! I'm giving Mystery Manor the best score I've ever given to Mike Slack. It works the same way Amnesia does except MM takes place in a more marked off area which makes it more compact and interesting with the random wandering cut way back. In general, Mystery Manor is solid enough to enjoy.

The plot revolves around the player trying to discover what made a scientist/wizard and his family disappear in their manor. Excluding the ending, I liked the plot. The puzzle-solving was never bothersome although I did get stuck at one point. There are no NPCs to talk to and I can only say that this is a good thing. The manor itself is adequately designed, though I didn't much care for the rooms you couldn't enter or the ugly empty attic, however, I understand why they were made that way.

[rating]AVERAGE[/rating]

From Jewels on SV:

A very well put together scenario, bonus for being a first try. Enjoyable throughout.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Nioca on the CSR:

Dilecia was a fun and interesting scenario. It had challenging, yet not extraordinarily difficult. The plot was fairly sturdy, and it looked both nice and realistic at the same time. The insanity of the villain was well done, though the ending sequence before the final fight confused me very thoroughly. There puzzles were well executed as well. Overall, well done.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Smoo on the CSR:

For the record, I played with a four-man level thirty party with no magic or priest spells. Well they can cast light. But anyways...

General: Town design is of average quality. None of the towns are that awe-inspiring but they get the job done. Some of the final dungeon's levels seem a bit empty. Dilecia has a refreshing variety of puzzles: You get to push boulders, sneak between cover and then there's a laser puzzle, which is fortunately not that annoying. The outdoors are a bit empty but otherwise nicely designed.

What I liked especially was Glup, the NPC that joins the party. For one thing he is a swamp folk and I like having other species than human, slith or nephil follow me around. Another thing about Glup is that he actually levels up. This was a bit buggy though since sometimes he gained a level although nobody was killed. Still, me likes it very much.

Plot/Characters: Besides Glup and the other swamp folk, none of the characters really stood out for me. I have to admit though that they are nicely written with little humane touches. One exception here is Janok the villain. He was refreshingly insane in stead of the average evilly insane.

As for the plot in general, it's not that inspiring: stop a monster plague. For one fleeting moment I pondered in horror if the vahnatai did it. They didn't. I have to say, though, that the insanity cut-scene featuring Janok rises to the top of my favorite cut-scene list. It successfully clears out all the nonsensical stuff about a previous cut scene because of which I was going to deduct points since I found it lackluster.

Combat: The fights aren't that tough although I stayed clear of some of the outdoor fights. Still I died enough to keep myself on my toes. I liked the side-quest cave with the slugs because... well slugs are cute. + 0.1 points for that dungeon. One thing bugs me with the combat. Why is it that the spell casting golems can take more punishment than the golems that are designed to take a punch and throw a punch? Whenever I came to a fight where I had

to fight the ethereal golems I stopped playing for several days.

Also the boss fight really irritated me. He's got four freaking magical pillars! That's so scary! Reminds me of Geneforge for some reason. Ugh...

Overall: Not too short, not too easy, has it's fun parts.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From TM on the CSR:

Dilecia is, well... It has a good plot, and a good presentation, but exists (literally) for no more than five minutes, and it's at the end of the scenario. The rest of the time, it looks like a generic hack-through-a-plague scenario, and plays a lot like BWC, except with less humor and better combat. And that's not a light remark either-- the combat is quite good, thanks to Lazarus' fiddling with default AI and giving some nasty abilities.

Ultimately, it's fairly difficult (and you actually WANT to play it at the recommended level, which is rare in BoA). It's worth the play. Not overly ambitious (no matter what poetic pretense it may be forwarding), but it's still good fun.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Jewels on SV:

Enjoyable, technically sound, didn't make me say wow or anything but it deserves to be played.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Enraged Slith on the CSR:

When I first played this scenario a few years back, I thought it was incredible. Now, going through this scenario again, I'd call it decent. It shows a lot of talent, but it feels more like Stareye was just experimenting with the editor.

Town and outdoor design was simple and bland.

Combat was easy, but not annoyingly so.

This scenario's best qualities were its pace and the feeling of depth of the plot. I never felt rushed, every action and advance in the plotline felt appropriate. I can't quite describe it, but there was a depth behind the plot that I'm constantly failing to achieve whenever I design. Despite the scenario's mediocre outer shell, these two elements are a testament to Stareye's talent, and I'm disappointed that he's only made one scenario for BoA.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Nioca on the CSR:

This was a good scenario. I liked the combat, plot, and character development. There was just a couple things that bugged me. First was that it was incredibly difficult to find Klinger. I honestly thought for a while that the plot was to leave the village, kill a few nephilim, speak with the blue nephil chieftain, and then leave. Second, a spaceship?! I mean, seriously, it had very little connection to the plot whatsoever, and seemed to have no purpose for existing. Admittedly, you don't need to find it, but that seems to further indicate the uselessness of it. I just think that you shouldn't do something that big unless you plan to use it in some important way.

I enjoyed the last fight, though I wish I could have taken a couple last swings at the Perfected Spirit before it disappeared.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Thralni on the CSR:

I won't make it perfect, but it was entertaining and good. It was not outstanding, and I didn't like the machinery bit, because machinery is getting old. However, I do feel the urge to say that that machinery puzzle in the mines was not difficult, rather straightforward and simple. I didn't have any difficulty solving it. Just walk around, find the machine, and later, when you sense the outcries of the ghost about some machinery, it is easy: find mirrors and destroy that machinery you found earlier.

I'll give it a rating of [rating]GOOD[/rating]: it wasn't outstanding, yet not bad, entertaining, yet not something that made me want more.

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

I'll risk being repetitive to say that this scenario was vastly overrated. The beginning was mysterious and cool, but the difficulty fluctuated too much. There also too many absurd parts, such as the alien craft (?) and the laser turrets. Even with all the viewpoints and beliefs flying at you, it was hard not to feel overwhelmed and not care.

My biggest issue with this scenario is that is is pointless. No matter who wins, the outcome is the same. The party makes it back to the empire, mentions nephils, and the empire kills them all. Even if the party doesnt make it out alive, the empire will send more scouts and kill them eventually. I realize that the author can do whatever they want creatively, but it was very hard to become engrossed in the story when the player doesnt care about the fate of the people theyre trying to save (?).

Aside from that, it was alright. The tech-levels were a tad retarded, but I would give it a rating of [rating]AVERAGE[/rating].

From Kelandon on the CSR:

Let me begin by saying that this scenario is about 7-worthy. It has the hallmarks of a 7: clear but somewhat uninspired plot, flashes of greatness held back by significant problems. Problems first.

Am I the only one who couldn't find Klinger in order to make the plot progress? It would've been really nice to have someone mention him somewhere, instead of having to break down random doors until I found someone who could tell me what to do next. That was the first serious blow to the fun of playing this scenario: I was curious about this strange bunch of nephilim on a supposedly uninhabited island, and I was curious about these stories of a rebellion, but I couldn't figure out what to do next in order to make something happen. Excitement = dead.

Then it picked back up again, and I have to say that the next part was well-done. The cut scenes, particularly the battle ones, showed good technique, and they kept the pace quick and exciting. The combat was not too difficult but not too easy, and I found myself progressing through fairly well. Then BOOM, problem number two: the Lost Mine.

This town reminded me rather forcibly that certain things are cool ideas, present interesting challenges in coding, require innovations that are pretty neat and absolutely should not ever be done. Killing the same creature SIX TIMES, getting harder each time, and then rushing around through swarms of ghosts trying to move mirrors... well, I admit it: I cheated. I used the character editor to beef up my party significantly so that I could handle this dungeon, which was in difficulty far out of line with the rest of the scenario. The fast pace was again dead.

And if I hadn't opened up the scripts and the town and looked at them, I wouldn't've figured out what to do. It is by no means obvious, and there are no hints anywhere. You have to go to different parts of a town, under time pressure, in a particular order, after having done a very specific thing... and there are no clues. This was a bad idea.

Okay, having said that, APF is a good scenario. I would claim that EM, VoDT, and ASR are all about on the same level as it, give or take. APF has good dialogue, good coding, limited but good use of custom graphics, and overall decently good use of the elements of Blades design. It just has those one or two long stretches of painfulness that kill instead of climax the rest of the scenario.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Lazarus on the CSR:

I liked APF, and think that it is still one of the better scenarios out there. The plot moves quickly and is well told, as is to be expected from a designer like *i. Unfortunately the final dungeon was not only a fairly annoying puzzle, it also seemed distant from the plot up to this point. It left me with a sour taste when I left the scenario.

But the last dungeon doesn't negate the good things in APF. It had several good cutscenes and interesting encounters. The outdoors, while quite bland in the way of terrain, has plenty of sidequests and areas to explore. As I mentioned earlier, the story is well told and kept me interested up until the final dungeon.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Arachnid on the CSR:

A Perfect Forest is a relatively entertaining scenario, though I was expecting more from such an experienced author. The scenario itself is worthy of a 7.5 or so, but unfortunately, there are a number of problems that really stood out to me.

* NPCs look too much alike. I often found it hard to tell in cutscenes who was who.

* The Mirror Puzzle - Good GOD, the Mirror puzzle was awful. That whole last sequence could have been really cool, but ended up being kind of irritating instead.

* I thought the whole ending was kind of lame, actually, though not for any particular reason.

* Finding Klinger wasn't exactly obvious.

These, along with the fact that Stareye is a MUCH better designer than this force me to give A Perfect Forest a rating of [rating]GOOD[/rating], though I would like to give it much higher.

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

A perfect forest begins with a feeling that is a nice scenario. However, it ends to fast for my taste.

I think everything about this has been said, but I want to say that the mirror puzzle would've been enjoyable if it hadn't had the orb draining you. I always hate when you have to "think" and you are being constantly harassed by some random condition (in this case the orb).

Good scenario, but *i can do better.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

I haven't tested the other boa scenari yet but as I've read before this one is one the best.

I found the intro was excellent and totally exciting but I soon understood that there wasn't a lot of terrain to explore and that I was in the hand of the story ( many animations and "running time" keep you in a one way line story ).

I haven't finished the story yet as I am stranded in that boring "mirror puzzle".

Stop mirror puzzles.>: That's boring.

If there wasn't that mirror puzzle I would certainly have given the best note.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

PS : Excuse my poor english as I'm french native!

From Smoo on the CSR:

I entered this scenario with a level thirty singleton so when I played APF I concentrated on the plot and such. Much has been said about APF already so I'll just say this was worth playing but not that great.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

Avast! A few spoilers.

A Perfect Forest was a pretty entertaining scenario. The plotline was interesting and held my attention almost the whole way home. Technically, the scenario was excellent. It may take me years to figure out how to properly mimic Mr. Kiedrowski's scripting, which is a lot to say this early in the game.

There were relatively few mistakes in the scenario, a couple of misspellings that you have to expect in any scenario, but no serious coding errors. However, given the vast amount of playtesting that seems to have been done on this scenario, I wonder:

1) Why was this scenario ridiculously easy in the early going and then ridiculously hard later on? There was a logical progression, but the curve was too steep at the end and too shallow early on. I easily trounced every early encounter with my 1-PC party mostly because of my NPC's. Later on, sans the NPC's, some encounters required about 30 attempts to get lucky or be careful enough to survive. The traitor encounter was particularly troublesome for my singleton. My advice to anyone who goes this with a 1-PC party is to make that 1 PC an Archer/Priest (and being Divinely Touched might be worth a look). Archery combined with clever use of my only hasting potion and a couple of scrolls is the only way that I won this encounter, and then only after a dozen and more tries.

2) I too agree that the Lost Mine was confusing. I had no earthly clue where to go to find the machinery, and died while wandering blindly in darkness about 40 times. But my frustration was primarily due to my 1-PC fetish and the fact that I had to exit the mine, exit the city, and rest in between every manifestation of the Spirit.

These two encounters, well done as they were, nearly ruined it for me. Yet objectively I have to say that this scenario was exceptional for a first BoA effort, and about what I expect out of *I's post-Spy's Quest work.

That said, I'm the Romanian judge. I don't intend on giving any scenario that isn't qualifiable brilliance higher than the 7.5 that I give this.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

Slight spoiler in this post. I can't refer to what I mean without giving SOMETHING away.

I agree with Kelandon about the puzzle, to some extent, except I had a different problem: I knew what my objective was, and how to go about it, but the scenario wouldn't let me until I'd fulfilled a completely arbitrary condition (killing the spirit "X" times). I had to edit the script to realise that I was supposed to do that. There was nothing to suggest that you had to kill the spirit a certain number of times. If anything, all evidence seemed to suggest that doing so was pointless.

The puzzle itself wasn't very interesting either. Mirror puzzles get old fast.

Plus the combat in the final dungeon was way too hard for me until I used the character editor; but that's what I get for using a level 1 party. My fault, so no marks off for that.

The other point where I got stuck was earlier on in the scenario. I missed the main plot, wandered up to the beach, and got a "There must be more to find here" type message, causing me to wander all over the scenario for a few hours before giving up and consulting the Scenario Help forum. I would have liked a bit more direction at that point.

Reading over Kelandon's review again, I mostly agree with him, especially about the two main problems he mentioned; namely, Klinger and the lost mine. No, Kel, you're not the only one. As I mentioned above, though, I did realise what I was supposed to do with the machinery. That wasn't too hard to guess if you read the spirit's dialogue thoroughly.

Overall, A Perfect Forest is a good, but not overwhelmingly excellent scenario.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

For what's out right now, APF is excellent. I love the new items. The story was a bit far from my personal tastes, but well done considering what we know and can do with BoA so far.

It gets mah kudos.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From Linthar on the CSR:

There's not much to say that hasn't been said. First I'll mention the cut-scenes which were the most impressive I've seen in a boa scenario so far. The final dungeon was great, and the mirror puzzle was quite tense with the hitpoint drain. In the end I had about 8 spellpoints on my priest, and had already used up all the spellpoint restoring abilities I had.

Interesting little thing happened with the scenario. I accidently placed the folder for the scenario inside the folder of another scenario, and Blades of Avernum still ran the scenario just fine, but when I midway found the error and corrected it, the saves wouldn't work until I moved the scenario folder back into the scenario folder I had dropped it in.

Would I recommend you play this, Yes. It is a good scenario, especially compared to the other blades of avernum scenarios out there.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

Check Stareye's site for the latest version since there seems to be problems with BoA engine v1.0.1 handling some macros.

A Perfect Forest is an excellent scenario that begins to demonstrate why Stareye is held in such high esteem by the BoE crowd. The story itself is well written and executed. It is possible to deadend the story by not finding Klinger before making paths to more areas. My only misgivings about it are that the sidequests are easily missed because of the compartmentalization of the forest and the one direction teleporting. So save often under descriptive names to scour the scenario for hidden dungeons and side prizes.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]

From an unknown reviewer on the CSR:

The first thing one notices about it is that it is very cinematically driven. There are several characters who play important roles in the plot and are very well fleshed out considering the time they are with you. There is a surprising number of cutscenes, including some very well-animated battles, and a lot of dialogue between the characters which gives them more depth than one would have expected. The main plot arc begins relatively soon and does not languish until the scenario is complete, giving A Perfect Forest a very cohesive and complete feel.

On the other hand, the plot-driven nature tends to leave one feeling rushed at times. There is always something urgent to be done, which discourages wandering and may lead one to miss the various subquests along the way.

While some may dismiss the philosophy in A Perfect Forest as overly blatant, the goal of this scenario is not to present the player with a new world view. It tells a story, and a very good one at that, by incorporating a concept we are all familiar with. The conclusion, rather than being a deus ex machina, is hinted at quite regularly throughout the scenario.

Overall, a highly recommended scenario with a very well-designed plot. It feels as though there is even more untapped potential in this storyline; perhaps we'll see more.

[rating]GOOD[/rating]