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January 15th 2015, 05:38 AM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
332: Goblin Wars - Breaking Point Author: Castman Release Date: July 14, 2011
"The King had trust in his special team"

"Goblin Wars" is the second D-Mod from Castman, the author of the "City of the Dead" demo from late 2007. It's definitely better and feels more complete than his first release.

This D-Mod is set 16 years before the original game, during the Goblin War. King Lewis of GoodHeart... you know what, I'm going to have to stop there, because now that I think about it, it was clearly established that Daniel was King at the end of the Goblin War. I guess they must have changed kings between this point and then. Anyway, Lewis finds out from a goblin spy that the goblins are planning an attack, so he summons an elite squad to carry out a special mission of attack, sabotage, rescue and espionage. You control this squad. It consists of...

*Sir Nathan, the Brave. His sarcastic wit is almost half as sharp as his axe. Well, probably a third. Gun to my head, at least a quarter.

*Lady Myleena Barkstomp. I hope you like the implied bow from "Lyna's Story." Also skilled at being sneaky. Tries to keep the team on task in the face of bickering; fails.

*And Sir Dan of the Cliff, a Dink Smallwood lookalike. Well, I guess Dink is a Sir Dan lookalike. Is Dan his father? Is Dan actually a young King Daniel, and it turns out that dying your hair and putting on two hundred pounds are requisites for kingship? Could BOTH be true? Beats me. Dan knows the fireball spell, but his main role is stealing information. He's a bit of a bumbler and is constantly derided by his teammates, especially Nate.


His majesty's finest!

Much of this D-Mod is set in part of the original game's map, only most of the interesting elements (enemies, powerups, even some of the decoration) have been removed, leaving the map feeling rather drab and uninteresting. There's no leveling up, but unlike, say, "Power of Blood," which removes experience points - a sensible thing to do if you don't want the player leveling up - this D-Mod lets you accumulate experience, you just say "What a gyp!" when it rolls over, as if you'd maxed the counter while already level 32 in the original game. What, if you'll excuse the possibly racist expression, a gyp. At least a couple of the issues mentioned in the only review have been addressed in the latest version. Instead of just running into "invisible walls" when you try to leave the portion of the original map that's been copied over, characters now at least say something about not going too far from their mission objective. The bug where you used to be able to go into a certain section as the wrong character has been fixed with a little "I shouldn't go in there" type text.

You only control one of the three... uh, mouseketeers (I wish this team had a name) at a time, and you rotate through them as you accomplish various tasks. I was impressed by the way you change active characters seamlessly without fading down the screen; I did this in "Malachi the Jerk," and several steps are involved. Each character has different items they can use. Oddly, all of these are kept in your inventory at all times, and if you try to use them as the wrong character, a message appears at the top of the screen. Multiple such messages can overlap. It would have been better to just have your current character's item than inventory, so it doesn't seem that Myleena is carrying an axe, for example. Nate and Myleena also turn into "Sir Dan" when you push if you started the game by loading a save. Each character has a different text color, which is reflected in the default messages and so forth. This is accomplished by changing the text color that's usually yellow using set_font_color, a side effect of which is that the experience points numbers that show above dead enemies change color too. I bet I bore y'all with this minutiae, but I found it interesting.

"Goblin Wars" isn't the type of D-Mod to leave you to your own devices. The game consists of a series of events that feel very structured. Honestly, it was a nice change of pace, and the characters' sometimes snide interactions added some personality, even though the dialogue was a bit odd and misshapen at times. There are some interesting gameplay ideas. For example, at one point Myleena must cross between rooftops by shooting an arrow at a certain point. The arrow supposedly has a rope tied to it, although of course this isn't shown. There's a significant stealth-based section where getting spotted by goblins means failure as Myleena sneaks through a prison to free a prisoner. A few D-Mods have had stealth elements before, but I think this is the first time it's really been done well. It's pretty clear when you're out of sight and when you're in sight. I got caught an embarrassing number of times, but it didn't feel unfair. It just takes a bit of patience.


The shady spots might look a little odd, but they let you know exactly where you can stand to avoid detection.

I was really impressed by the mapping of the goblin encampment. Bridges connecting the roofs of huts create a second level. Differing elevations are difficult to convey in Dink's kooky isometric perspective, but the author succeeds totally in creating an environment with two levels, in which the bridges above can be walked under if you're on the ground or upon if you're on the upper level. This is because there are actually two copies of the area in the D-Mod's map, although you'd never know it by playing. The only difference between the two is the placement of hardness and the depth dots of the bridges. This is damn clever! You might want to play this just to see this concept in action. There's even a spot where you can walk directly from one level to the other, which is done sneakily by an invisible object that directly changes the &player_map value when you touch it. Mind you, it's possible to touch the object and then turn around and go back, thereby placing yourself on the "wrong" level. Still, it's a neat trick.


Traverse the goblin camp from below...


...Or above.

Dan's quest involves copying some information, and Nate must blow up a building and kill all the goblins he finds. I have to say that this mission makes little sense to me. Why are Dan and Myleena bothering to be sneaky if Nate is just gonna kill everybody anyway? Why bother copying the goblins' documents - why not just steal them? The only point of copying them would be to make it appear you'd never been there at all, and obviously that's out the window. It all turns out to be for naught anyway, as the goblin spy is a double agent and the whole thing is a ruse, and the real attack on the kingdom is already proceeding. Come to think of it, though, that just adds another plot hole. If the mission is blundering into a trap, why on Earth wouldn't you make it a proper, well-prepared trap? The goblins really seem unprepared for our heroes showing up. Thanks to the double agent, they should know about this and be prepared. Our elite squad members should be captured or killed, or should at least have to attempt a daring escape after the trap springs. It don't make no sense.


Oh no, this is a disaster! I mean, you should always remember to freeze the player during cutscenes!

At the end, you're urged to make a save to be imported into a sequel later. This is the second D-Mod that has asked you to do this, but in neither case did the follow-up ever materialize. I can't see what the point would be in this case - there are no secrets to find or levels to gain in this D-Mod, so all the save could indicate is that you've beaten it.

It's a bit rough around the edges, and the plot has some big problems, but "Goblin Wars" is still a neat idea for a D-Mod and contains some boffo gameplay concepts. Maybe give it a go if any of what I've described caught your interest.