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Completed Let's play Occult Chronicles (completed)

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Hi people,
The game is available here with info, a link to a demo and another to the manual. For more info Gragt made a review for the codex.
This first post will contain many boring explanations about mechanisms, but further updates should be spared.

Let's begin. We'll play in default difficulty and in Ironman mode. In theory I'd like to make 2 or 3 runs to show different classes ; but maybe one run until I die will already be long enough.
26AePYl.jpg
There's no real difference between the missions. The goal is to become stronger by facing a series of events spread into the manor and then to finally look for confront the threat within the given time.
The game takes the form of a board game where you're moving from tile to tile looking for events, and each event will be associated with a challenge to face, sometimes with various solutions, requiring to pass diverse stat checks resolved through a card minigame where you'll be able to use various bonuses and tricks.

Character creation :
The character has HPs and Sanity points (if one of those reaches 0 it's game over) and 4 stats :
  • Swords determine our ability in physical combat
  • Cups determine our ability to face physical (speed, endurance) challenges like evading a trap
  • Wands concerns mental challenges, like deciphering texts or puzzling mechanisms, resisting horror and communicating with spirits
  • pentacles are used for arcane challenges like casting spells and resisting spells
Let's choose the Professor class, because why not :
His main stat is wands and he begins with bonuses to deal with mental challenges. He will easily communicate with the spirits, especially to get quests from them. He will also be able to fight the spirits during spiritual duels.
The different bonuses mentioned in the sheet above are determined at random so I'll detail them after the game begins.

We also have to choose a Bone. Bones are 6-sided dices that you need to use some cards. With my class I need the Bone of Wands but also already own it ; I'll choose the Bone of Pentacles which is required to cast spells (not sure I'll ever get to use it).
Now we need to choose an additionnal starting edge, which is a passive bonus.
I choose a bonus for "flee, evade or hide challenge", because sometimes we'll have no choice but to avoid traps or to flee and we're not good at that.

Now about the stats :
Every stat will be used to some extent, and each upgrade costs more than the previous one and so min/maxing at this point is too costly. After upgrading my stats I have got 3 remaining points that I put into health because due to its class (and by correlation due to its 3+1=4 wand points) our character shouldn't be worried about its sanity.

Let's start the game and take a look at what we got :
Let's take a look at the character sheet and the different bonuses we got.

"Quick off the Mark" is the bonus I've chosen during character creation, 1 is its current level, 4 is its max level.
The second one, which comes with our class, is as intended a bonus for "puzzle, lore or perception challenge" :
These bonuses are passive and will be used anytime we'll face an appropriate challenge.

Let's talk about the Bones :
As stated before, these are 6 sided-dices that you need to use some cards you own ; typically you need a pentacle bone to cast spells.

Let's see what else we got with our class :
OK, a candle and a Mental Dexterity card, these two cards don't give any passive bonus but will have to be used during challenges.
The candle is used during "Evade Trap" challenge, and doesn't cost any resource. (You may notice that it requires a Wand bone, which is the one which comes with our class).
As its name suggests, Mental Dexterity is used during mental challenge, and requires to spend some courage (each time we gain some courage, we will be able to recharge this card with it).

OK, let's start walking :
We walk from tile to tile. Let's reach the door to the left, open it and enter the corridor.

We triggered a gas trap.
First event, the gas trap :
That's what every event looks like. Here we have got two choices, materialized by the two icons on the bottom of the sheet.
Let's see how this works.
Here the trap is already triggered, whatever we choose will consist in moving to evade the trap ; it's a physical task, so Cups are the main attribute in both cases. The level of difficulty of the challenge is 8, and we have 2 cups which reduce it to 6.
Now there are two possible solutions :
The first solution consists in being quick enough to evade the trap so it uses swords as secondary attributes, while the second one consists in figuring out how it worked (maybe a little late I conceide) then to reach a safe place and uses wand as second attribute ; we'll be better at trying the second one, figuring out stuff is our thing.
Now let's see how the resolution of events works ; the events resolve via a card minigame :
FgIT3q8.jpg

There are 6 "Tricks" (= cards to reveal, and related with our number of wands here) and we get 4 "cards" in hand (here related with our number of cups).

We will reveal the different Trick cards and if we have cards of the same color in our hand then we have to cover the revealed with our card.
To gain points you must cover the card with a stronger card. then you earn the points of the two cards (the covering and the covered cards ; the numbers give 1 point, and the faces give more points, page = 2 points, knight = 3 points, queen = 4 , king = 5).
Putting a face on a lower face will often suffice to pass a challenge. But, as much important as passing the challenge, we want to score a lot of points, it's what will determine our rewards. (And even when we fail, some points are welcomed not to face a too horrible fate with a lot of negative rewards).

Let's go, 5 of cups on the 6, 8 of cups and we don't have any cup anymore, queen of wands on the 2 (which gives 4+1=5 points).
Now it's time to remember we have a card to use for evading trap challenges, our precious Candle.
kM9V5PE.jpg

It's free and it's exactly what we're needing, we can increase the value of our 5 to beat the 6.
Let's roll the dice and make a Wand check by the way, we just need to obtain less than 4 (our number of wands) to succeed then any score will work (a 6 would beat a 6).
viISt22.jpg

3, nice.
Cdg1I5U.jpg

Now our 8 beat the 6, which adds 1+1=2 points.
We won, but let's continue, we want more points.
8RLMRTb.jpg

OK, 11, that's good.
RA1KZWZ.jpg

That's the reward screen, we won so we'll get positive rewards :
ubwdSOJ.jpg

We gain one HP (physical challenges affect health while mental ones affect sanity) and two experience points.
Good time to see how experience works then.
This is the screen where we'll distribute experience :
ldzzGyk.jpg

We only have one skill card yet, our Professor card. The 3 first choices we have there are determined by our class.
We can gain one wand, one pentacle, or one edge for mental challenges similar to the one we already have. Note that we choose the edge we gain this time, it's not randomly determined as at the beginning of the game. I've got two points so I will immediately use them to get a wand.
UkeldIS.jpg

It unlocked a new option, +1 wand again which costs 3 XPs this time.

The "Add Skill Card" choice is to choose a sub-class which will translate in a new card similar to the professor card. We can have up to 3 cards, and if we live long enough we will certainly have 3 cards.

Let's go on.
The "?" icon indicates that there's an event on the adjacent case. Let's go.

The polar bear (or the first interesting thing) :

A ghost possessing a decorative bear, and like with any scary thing in the game, first thing to do is to pass a sanity test. Note that our professor is not easily impressed and these sanity tests should never be a big problem for him.
There's not that much to gain from these, this sanity point we're gaining here is not that bad :
Now let's go with the real issue, it's our first encounter so I'll detail the different choices we have.

First option : attacking it physically, since it's a possessed stuff after all so there's something to hit :
u2cIwqn.jpg

Notice the target score of 10 with only 4 cards to fit and 4 in hand, we don't wanna do that, hitting things is not our thing, we're more cerebral.

Second option : We can flee, and for a purely physical threat we would maybe have chosen this option. It's generally very easy to flee (and it is, here).
The important point is that this bear would not follow us, because it's not a random encounter.
6btYt5K.jpg


Third option : trying to banish him with sorcery ; so far we're not good at that, it requires pentacles.
13PJU0h.jpg


Fourth option : the psychic duel, and that's exactly what we're good at. Level is 7 with 4 Tricks and 7 Draws, that should work, and anyway if it doesn't work then we should at least not fail too hard, which is important.
MRpAgPt.jpg

Let's go for the fourth option.
HkTY0cb.jpg

8emAaTj.jpg

Well, we failed. Let's see if we're damaged.
g5pQ9iX.jpg

That's OK.
E8qbhKF.jpg

We can try again ; the important thing to notice here, is the '5' Tricks (it was previsouly 4), your Tricks and Draws raise up to 5 each time you fail, but you mustn't try any other option, or they go back to their original values.
8Vooh0f.jpg

It worked.
0y7odOg.jpg

bkgiiE4.jpg


Let's stop for now. Once again sorry for the boring explanations and for detailing everything (and btw sorry for the typo mistakes), the only important thing to notice is that the game is deep.
Don't worry, by now I'll mostly talk about the events and rarely about the mechanisms ; we will gain some new cards but that's all. The game will speak a lot by itself and I'll just have to explain my choices.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 1 : Let's get some quests and be a coward

The dolls :
In the next room we encounter a gang of dolls. We resist the horror and beat them in a psychic battle. No reward, unfortunately.

The guillotine :
In the same room there's a possessed guillotine. Once again we beat it in a psychic battle. The rewards are good this time ; in particular we gain a talsiman (which can help against bad rewards when we fail some challenge).

The axeman :
In the next room we meet an axeman, let's just flee.

The clock :
Nothing to do with this Clock yet, it will be involved in a quest.

The guy with the sphere :
We meet another guy with a scary face, let's flee again. Note that in the process, when keeping our sanity, we've gained some courage to refill our "Mental Dexterity" card.

Random encounter : The ghost :
Going back to the corridor we're meeting a ghost. Actually, meeting a ghost is not a problem for us, we're prepared to fight ghost, not to fight some dudes with weapons. Let's also spend some XPs to gain a pentacle (pentacles are often the secondary attribute related with the kind of challenge we like to face).

The Alchemist :
Next, we're meeting an alchemist. We could knock him out but we can also talk to him, and we will. We miss one time, then manage to talk to him. He requests us to bring him his papers from some pile of papers.



The scary face :
Then we meet another face which inspire confidence. We begin by deciphering the pictograms which are printed on it, then it becomes trivial to listen to what it wants. It requests us to bring it back its heart which was hidden in a wall which now bleeds.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 2 : We're fine so far

The door :
We're opening a closed door ; it should be anodyne, but as a reward we earn an upgrade for one of our edge in the process ; we upgrade the flee/evade one. Besides the door leads to the underfloors. There are 3 underfloors and the threat we're looking for is waiting there. The challenges are a lot harder under the manor so we'll go there when we are almost out of time and not before.


The Rakshasha :
In the next room we meet a Rakshasha. We could challenge him in a duel of sorcery but we'll just talk to him. He wants his papers back just like the alchemist.

The corpse :
We also meet a burning corpse. We flee.

The painting :
We spiritually duel a duelist in a painting.

The iron maiden :
Next we find an iron maiden. This one is actually interesting. We could choose to climb inside it, and if we stayed alive it could give us a worthy reward which would make us more resistant. But it's very risky, we could be injured or even face an instant death and we have an important chance of failing. Let's just leave for now.

The door :

Next door is trapped. But it's prove to be just an illusion and our mind is strong enough to deal with it. We gain some luck, which is a hidden stat. We also have enough XPs to gain one more wand.

Chess :
We can play chess against an apparition of death. Losing is not a good idea here, but unlike with the iron maiden, here our chances of winning are high. Let's play. It goes well and we even gain a tarot card. These cards are very powerful, they can bet every card (for 6 points) when used and give diverse bonus (passive or when used) ; the one we earn gives us a permanent additionnal sword.

The zombie :
Leaving the room, we meet a zombie. Like every random encounter against physical threats it's not anodyne, and our just-gained sword will help. We were defeated two times in a row, but got no damage at all, our talisman annihilating it. Then we won.

The head :
We defeat a talking dead in a spiritual duel.

The cook :
We find a cook ; we could dismiss it, maybe with good rewards since there's a chance to win by a margin. But let's just talk with it. He wants his possessed knife back.

We have 4 quests to solve so far. We have 4 XPs but we'll wait for a 5th one to get one more wand, it's used during more challenges than any of the available edges, and these edges are related to the challenges we like to face, so they wouldn't compensate any of our weaknesses.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 3 : Let's find a shotgun

The plant :
We met a plant, nothing we can do with it so far, we also found a precious clue which will give us a bonus for the very last encounter in the case we would ever reach it.

The frightened ghost :
We met a ghost with a gun in a painting which seems to need a last duel before reposing in peace. We offer him his duel. Notice that we'll get some close defeats without consequences during some of the next challenges.

The haunted furniture :
We duel a haunted furniture. We spend earned XPs on another wand.

The possessed knife :
We find the knife requested by the cook. The cook told us how to deal with it, so it's an easy task. Then we meet another roamming ghost. We win an edge upgrade by defeating it.

The time passes.

The scientist :
We meet a mad scientist who requests us to find some jar in a refrigerator. Note that we use our "Mental Dexterity" to score a lot of points while talking to him. It was worth it since we gained 3 XPs.

The dead end, the creature and the cultists :
We reach a dead end where we have to fight a creature and some cultists, gaining no reward except some ammos, but we don't own a gun...yet. And then we have to follow the reverse path, we clearly wasted some precious time here.

The gun case :
We find a gun case and look into it. We get a shotgun. It adds an additionnal option for encounters and a trick to use during battles.

The crocodile :
We meet a possessed decorative crocodile. There's no satisfying option and we should probably have fled but we used our shotgun. After two tries, we defeat it, but we used a lot of ammos for almost nothing.

The bleeding wall :
We find the bleeding wall the demon told us about. We could take the heart of the demon from the wall. The problem is that owning the heart gives us a malus and the demon is far from where we are. We could take the heart and take some time to bring back the heart and the knife but we decide to let the heart in the wall for now.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 4 : Let's get a subclass

The Pan :
After being shot for some damage, We duel a Pan. We gain some XPs and choose a subclass. We need some Cups or we'll inevitably faced some physical injury. Mechanist would be an interesting choice, we wouldn't go too far from what we're good at but still get a few Cups. But we'll choose a real physical class for a maximum of cups, the athlete one. We have enough XPs to unlock a Cup right now.

The witches :
Some witches ask us to bring them a book.

The snake :
We encounter a snake. We flee without hesitation because if we try to fight him and are defeated we will have to escape its entanglement before being able to try another action.

The circle :
We find an incantation circle and a death guy. A demon is here. We decide to speak with him and he explains he did kill the guy which was trying to fix the circle, probably to banish him. He asks us to find one of his servant in a hearth in the manor. In the process we earn a "fleeing" trick.

Completing a few quests :
We can't advance anymore so we're going back and take some time to brink back his heart to the talking face demon and its knife to the cook. We gain a tarot card, and an item which gives us an additionnal pentacle. We also use our XP to buy another cup.

The piano :
After fighting a bunch of shadows, we find a piano possessed by sad souls. The piano was in fact sabotaged and cursed ; we need to find some missing parts, and a music sheet with a melody we'll need to play to remove the curse. The missing parts are in the clock we've already encountered.

The Rakshasha's papers :
After fighting a bunch of bats and picking a closed door, we find the papers the Rakshasha requested to bring him. We lose some sanity in the process.

The insects :
We step across of "carpet" of insects in a corridor. They won't move but they'll stay on the map, maybe we'll have to step across them again.

The demon's servant :
We meet the burning demon's servant. We could bargain with him (and maybe we should, I'm not sure here) but we'll just take what the other demon requested, some papers with a demon's name printed on it.

The plant :
We meet a carnivorous plant, try to kill it with our shotgun and fail. We don't have any ammo left then we kill it with our bare hands. We find a strange machine that we can't interact with, fight a bunch of zombies with surprisingly good rewards and buy another Cup with our XP.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 5 : Let's clear our questlog

The ghost party :
We fight a succubus, then we reach some ghosts having a dinner. They request us to find the butler and ask him for some dessert. Then we fight some more roamming cultist and another roamming zombie. We regain some ammos and one upgrade for our evading edge.

The butler :
The butler proves to be close. We request the dessert and will bring him to the ghost soon.

The little girl :

We dismiss some ghostly little girl, as always by explaining her she's not part of the physical world and has to leave it. Note that we previously fought some possessed dolls ; if we didn't then the girl would have given use some quest linked with them.
Let's use our XPs to buy a bone of cups since we have a "flee" card which requires one. Besides our next upgrade will probably be another card which also needs one.

The refrigerator :
We find the refrigator containing the jar requested by the Mad Scientist. If we would like we could take another jar and put the wrong label onto it to sabotage his experience. But we'll just take the good jar.
We use our XP to buy the "Calm Side Step" feat which we'll able to use to evade trap. We could take another one which instead of directly increasing our chances to evade traps would limit the damage taken ; I don't think it would be a better choice because we can sustain some damage but we really want to avoid any injury, and the best way to prevent injuries is to actually pass the tests.

The baker :
After dueling some poltergeist, we meet a ghost baker. At this point he doesn't have anything to request us so we'll just dismiss him.

The dessert :
In a pile of papers we find the alchemist's ones. Then we defeat a zombie with our shotgun and bring back their dessert to the ghosts having dinner.
We gain a lot of XP and decide to choose our second subclass. At this moment since we own a shotgun the gunner class wouldn't be stupid but we'll go with a class which will give us some swords and physical feats but also a little more wands, the investigator class.

The armor :
We have a lot of key items to deliver in the west part of this floor. The doors are not on the map but we actually can only reach the east part by the south part where we have nothing to do. We're going upward via the eastern staircase, then we should be able to go back downward through the main middle staircase.
On the second floor we evade a trap, earnsome XPs and buy a sword, then we meet a cursed armor which asks us to find the item which will help releasing his cursed. We also find the book requested by the witches in a bookshelf.

The gentleman :
The time passes, we encounter an undead creature in a bathroom but we just flee. Then some ghost requests us to pick his missing cigars from the burning corpse we previously met.

The vase :
We dismiss "something" inside a vase. Then we're going back to the first floor via the main staircase. The burning corpse is near. We pick the cigars from his fingers, but it's not sure that we'll take some time to bring them back to the ghost.
Then we meet our alchemist friend and give him back his papers. We spend our XP on a combat feat.

The iron maiden :
We bring back his papers to the Rakshasha, spend our XP on an evade trap edge, and decide to climb inside the Iron Maiden because we should be ready this time. Fortunately we're alive and gain a bonus to resistance to poison damage and a talisman.
We spend some earned courage on some of our different feats. We give the burning demon what he requests us, which is possibly not such a good thing but in our situation it's not really our problem, and earn a second talisman.
We fight some cultists and gain a few ammos.

The witches and the scientist :
We're still completing some of our quest. We're giving back their book to the witches and they're teaching us a combat spell. We also gain a tarot card which gives a huge bonus against horror challenges ; we're not particularly weak against this kind of test, but it will still be useful while exploring the underfloors, where the challenges are much harder. It could avoid us some mind injury which is generally a first step to a quick death.
We bring the scientist the jar he requested, earn a tarot card. He's asking us a second thing, he wants a piece of a plantman we encountered before.
We spend our XPs on a bonus for physical challenges.
We don't have a lot of current quests anymore.


In theory we may still have some time to do a few things before going downward where the real game starts, but we're close to the staircase and there's not so many things around us. We're moderately prepared, we have several feats and edges and we have no injury but our stats are quite low (we have very few passive stat bonuses). If we manage to meet the enemy we're looking for then it's not impossible that we beat him because we have a lot of tarot cards to use against him, but reaching him is unlikely.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 6 : Let's search for evil

The plant-man :
We kill some cultists, gain some precious ammos to reload our shotgun, kill the plant-man and take a piece of it and bring it back to the scientist. He wants us to find and repair his robot but we won't have any time for that. We find a not-so-useful gun (we will use its remaining ammos but probably wlll never reload it). We spend our XP on another trap evading edge.

The first underfloor :

We descend to -1 and begin to face a lot of traps. We still have some ammos to safely shot a skeleton. We avoid falling into a hole and then decide to safely descend into this hole.
Then we're facing a secret door (secret doors are doors you discover only when you reach an adjacent tile). The door is locked with a weird mechanism but we manage, not without difficulty despite deciphering mechanisms being our speciality, to understand the mechanism and to open the door. It was so hard that we decide to spend some XPs on a related perception edge.

The time passes :
We try to shot some cultists, miss, and decide to flee them, they will pursue us from now so if we backtrack we'll have to face them again. It's worth knowing that we can pass through them if we pass our fleeing test by a margin.
We manage to shoot a creature by using some of our feats, but each monster is a real threat now, the monsters in the underfloors are harder than in the upper floors.
The times passes, but we still have some time. We have to evade a lot of traps and our candle is very useful.


Still searching :
We're alterning between the third and last underfloor and the second one.
We flee from an hunting horror which then pursue us. We climb a ladder, then try to step across a bridge, fall and have to make a big way to reach the ladder again.
We fight some rats and flee from two strong abominations.


The cube :
We're exploring the second underfloor and take some completely ridiculous risk of fighting a green cube, are defeated and eaten by the cube, and have the big chance to manage to escape the cube after failing to escape one time (I think it can lead to instant death), then we flee.

Getting close :
We escape some traps, fight some rats and get some ammos, then go along some kind of vortex. We find some cultists guarding a door. Did we find what we're looking for? We try to shoot them, fail and just pass through them.

The end :
We enter the ritual room. We have to fight several hordes of cultist, losing almost all our health and using all our tarot cards to stay alive.
Then we reach the priest performing the ritual. Here we are, the last event. We'd like to smash the priest but we can't, we're too weak, so we'll have to duel him psychically but it's definitely too hard. We lose. Some cultists reach the table and we manage to defeat them. We try to duel the priest again, miss by nothing (we score 11 and the required score is 13). The cultist attack us again and kill us.

We're dead, and that was awesome, I coudn't have dreamed of such a cool final for a Let's Play. I never did and won't ever again die so close to the end during the very last event. It's 100% sure that I did some mistake during that last sequence of events and could have won.
The playthrough is finished, I'll take a break but since I didn't win it's not impossible that I start another one with another class later (probably some physically strong one this time).
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Thanks.

Choosing Investigator instead of Gunner class was definitely a major mistake.
I should have not fought the cube near the end, and I should have used a trump card when the fight proved ; fortunately this was without consequence. I often forget to use my trump cards before the end, which is pretty stupid. I don't know exactly what can kill you but I often instantly die to a fire trap or a precipice or similar traps with many trump cards left.

I think I'll have to get back to it sometimes, even if I come with 10 times shorter summaries, because leaving on a defeat is sad, and in this level of difficulty and with classes like thief for example it's not really a feat, I think maybe at most 3 or 4 tries should suffice.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 7 : Let's bruteforce

Same scenario (not that it would change much), same difficulty settings, this time we'll play as a boxer.
As expected he's good at fighting "real" things and passing physical challenges.
He's already starting with 3 cups with its job bonus, so we'll choose a third sword.
2 wands and 2 pentacles are useful, we'll need them to pass some challenges, typically the horror resisting challenge at the beginning of all events, and less than 2 is very risky because many cards require 2 to carry, it would be a shame not to be able to carry one card we find.
We choose an edge which helps to pass horror challenges, because with only 2 wands and pentacles (and we don't intend to get many more wands or pentacles during the game), the constant horror challenges can slowly make our sanity decrease to insanity which means death.

Let's begin. We've got a cool feat which can reduce damages dealt by traps. Our starting edges are not that useful. We start by bashing a door in (yes, we're not cerebral anymore). We also look in a pile junk, unfortunately we miss the perception check, it's a pity, we should have waited and come back later.

We find a smoldering corpse, but won't do anything to it now, it could be useful later. We kill some cultists on the way. You may notice that with our new boxer this kind of roamming monsters are not as a threat as with our poor dead professor. We also step across a wave of insects, there are on the way and we'll have to pass through them several times, but anyway if we fail and they eventually attack us we'll be able to fight back.

We come across an haunted piano, but leave it alone for now. We also come across a possessed painting, and we directly tear the painting. Then we also kill a man-eating plant.

We come across some weird card ritual game. Playing the game without further hints would be a very bad idea - we're very bad both at reasoning (wands) and occultism (pentacles) - and could even lead to our death, but we can decipher the game and it reveals that some "key" to the game is hidden in a tapestry we'll have to find.

We avoid a dart trap, gaining some experience points in the process. It's a good time to have a look at our character sheet. We'll be able to take some cups and swords, and some melee edges, but melee edges will wait that we already have chosen further subclasses and increase our stats a little more. For now we get one more cup. We meet and kill an axeman.

We enter a ball room and meet a couple of ghost who seem displeased with something and apparently want to dance but can't for some reason. We manage to talk to them and it turns out that they're missing their pianist to be able to dance. We'll have to find him.

In the same room, we come across an animated gargoyle and decide to fight it. We win and obtain a powerful machine-gun which will add a "shoot" option to our encounters with monsters. We also have enough experience to buy one sword.

We enter the cuisine. We meet a possessed knife, we just flee forward. Then we meet a ghost baker who can't work because his oven is dwelled by a monster. We also meet a butler who asks us to find the chief in order to ask him for a dessert to serve to his master.

We venture into the garden, and after evading a trap we shoot some monsters. You may notice how easy the shooting challenge is (the normal fighting challenge for the snake is here for comparison), and we've got only 4 swords. It costs up to 5 ammos though'. After killing the snake we gain a bandolier. The bandolier will be useless afterwards but it contains 8 ammos that we immediately put into our machine-gun. We fight some roamming cultists, and our victory gives us an edge upgrade, that we quickly use to upgrade our horror challenge edge. We fight some more enemies. Some witches ask us to find them a book, but even if we find it we probably won't return to give them back the book, because they are in a dead-end and because if their reward is a spell then we couldn't even use.

We get back to the manor and find a creature in a cage. It wants use to find the key to its cage. We find the baker's oven and shoot the creature inside. Shooting it gives us a talisman and a gas mask which comes with an additional cup. We've done more or less everything in the left side of the first floor of the manor. We get back to the entrance and start to explore the right side of the floor. We also decide to buy one more cup with our XP points.

We find a closed hidden door in the entrance hall and bash it in. Then we find the key which will free the creature we've previously met from its cage.

We fail to evade a gas trap, losing 2 hps and proving that I don't know how the gas mask is exactly meant to work. Then we fight a succubus with our fists, keeping a few ammos for further fights.

We could play a game with some death apparition, of course we won't, no reason to do that. Instead we shoot a talking head.

In a laboratory, we stumble across a weird kind of experiment. An apparently still functional brain was going to be implanted into a robot. We could just mercykill the brain, but it would be in peace if we start by finding the scientist who was doing the experiment then get back an inform it he's dead, and only then mercykill it. Note that it is certainly not the first victim since on our way out of the room we have to fight one of those brain robots.

We find the tapestry where the key to the card ritual game is hidden. We also talk to a spirit which is binded in an organ as a result of a curse and has two requests for us ; some pieces of the organ were stolen and we need to find them, we also need to find a sheet with a music which will allow to unbind the spirit and let him leave to the spirit world.

We get one more sword, and we bash a reinforced door in. We also meet a ghost who wants his cigars back. We also meet a roamming ghost. We choose to send it back to the spirit world because it's not that harder than fleeing from it. We buy one more cup, meet a demon who wants its heart back and find the missing organ parts. We get back to the smoldering corpse, because it proves that its smoldering fingers are exactly what the gentleman ghost described as his cigars, so we just pick some fingers. We free the creature, and it comes with us. The creature comes with a very welcome pentacle. Although this will probably be useless, it can also allow not to lose life when casting spells. Besides the creature, we also gain a trump card giving one cup, and another talisman.

We play the card game, or accomplish the ritual, I don't know what's the most appropriate formula, and fortunately we are successful which was not given even using the key, and gain an item which gives an additional wand.

We can choose a subclass. Let's choose the Ranged weapon specialist one, it gives sword and edges related with ranged weapons which could help us with ammos. We get to the second floor. We kill some monsters, and find a small gun in a case.

We meet the ghost the organ spirit told us about and convince him to give us the music sheet. We find some interesting vials but also free some evil creature in the process, from which we decide to flee. We chat with an alchemist who asks us to find his papers. We also fight some monsters and avoid some traps.

We find the mad scientist who was creating brain bots and kill it. Then we meet a rakshasa who's also looking for his papers.

We miss to shoot a ooze, despite the challenge being very easy. Fortunately we manage to escape the ooze (we could have instantly died) and then manage to shoot it. We get a rope, which is a very powerful item. It gives one cup and can be used to "safely" descend and ascend floor holes. We take the heart of the demon, which gives a -1 cup malus as long as we're carrying it, but we'll get back to the first floor soon.

Just before going to the first floor, we kill some arrogant-looking man. We buy one more sword, give back his heart to the demon and his cigars to the gentleman ghost.

We find the rakshasa's papers in a pile of papers. We also put the organ parts and the music sheet back on the organ. The music plays, the organ turns into a monster, but we get rid of him and get some nice rewards, so that was a good move.

We choose our last subclass, the investigator one seems appropriate, it'll give us a few more swords, a few wands, and some horror edges if we get enough experience. We tell the brain we avenged him and put an end to its suffery. We are ready to visit the subfloors.

That leaves the subfloors for this game. I've already the screenshots, just have to type the text, and it's a shorter part, so it'll come very soon (probably today).
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Update 8 : Let's fight against time

A lot of various traps, some doors to bash in, and an hidden monster not that hard to kill at this point. Nothing really interesting, we find a dead agent, but don't even take the time to ransack him, since it's not that easy.

Then there's a trap hole, we have to avoid falling in it, then we can descend with the rope. There's only an empty floor above, but fortunately we can also use the rope to climb up the hole again very easily, while climbing up without the rope would be harder.

Some traps like this grenade below are not that easy to avoid. We just get some minor damage this time.

We don't manage to find a way below. There's a door after the acid river on the left of the map, where we don't want to go unless there's no other choice. We're currently facing a room that's not really welcoming so we get back and contiune exploring somewhere else. You may notice that we reached 40 HPs which is the maximum (it depends on the difficulty level).

We try to find the mechanism of a trap in a room which gets filled with water. We fail, fortunately without consequence, and the second try is the good one.

After another trap we're facing some weird altar. We could just leave it alone but shooting it seems to be relatively safe. We gain a card which gives one pentacle and some courage points to allocate to our graceful evasion card.

We spend some experience points on an edge that could give us some ammo for our machine-gun.

Then we find a new trap hole leading below, which leads to a door this time. We bash the door in, as we always do. Unfortunately it just leads to a ladder which leads upwards. Note that using the rope makes our ascending safer than just using the ladder.

We come across another altar, but this time we just leave it alone.

The time is running out. A couple of traps and encounters give us some experience points that we spend on another edge used during horror challenges.

We've roammed an important part of the floor now, and we decide to step over the acid river. There are four steps over the river, we only miss the third one, but by a small gap, only leading to 2 damages, we can sustain them.

We find another descending hole. We have 3 clocks left which may or may not be enough.

We fight some serpent cultists.

Fortunately, very soon after starting to explore the second floor, we find the room leading to the ceremony room. We're confident, our worst enemy at this point was really the low remaining time and we beat it. Our first fight against cultists even give us some bullets for our machine-gun.

We enter the cermony room and charge through the cultists, killing a group of them with one of our cards, and another one with our machine-gun.

We're there, in front of the altar, with our machine-gun and a couple of trump cards left. We shoot the priest before he finishes the summoning ritual.

That concludes the current game, and the LP.
 

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