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Some Interesting Trivia on "Azrael's Tear" (and "ATEL: Battlespire")

iqzulk

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This may be the stupidest idea, I've had in a long long while (that is to post all of this here), but here you go.

A short Q&A session with Richard Guy.
Thought you might be interested in that stuff. Don't know if I'll continue with some new questions - as of right now I'm fresh out of ideas.

Anyways, the source link is THERE (scroll to the comments).

I'll also dub both 'questions' and 'answers' posts here for the conservation purposes.

My post with questions goes like this:
Greetings, Richard.

I registered on the WordPress just now with one (and only one) specific purpose. To express my deepest gratitude to you for being a vital part of creative process behind two games, that happened to be very special for me recently. These games are Azrael’s Tear and Battlespire.

I’ve completed Azrael’s Tear not a very long time ago (in January, if I remember correctly). I honestly think it’s an extremely well done adventure game with great amount of thought poured into it, decent longevity, solid puzzlework (very intuitive; despite me being prone to get kind of stuck in it quite often, I ultimately needed only 2 hints to complete the game [one - because of my own mistake, another - to pixelhunt for the ring needed for the optional puzzle]), lush and detailed graphics (as for 1996 standarts), some very good music, lots of nonlinearity and c&c, interesting story which really benefited from the non-linear structure of the game, extremely well done voice acting and, finally, suprising yet really fitting ending. I’m not saying it was a perfect game. The engine could use some polish, the last third of the game left a slight impression of being kind of rushed (although not _nearly_ to the same extent as the last act of Grim Fandando, Full Throttle or Last Express), the cinematics music and the in-game music were obviosly written by completely different people and contrasted with one another quite distinctively, the interface could be more intuitive and the intro could make a better job of accustoming player to the game. But overall it was a solid, really well designed and thoroughly enjoyable adventure game, which, come to think of it, is one of the best adventure games, I’ve ever played (not THE best, I’m sorry, my favorite adventure game is and, probably, always will be Riven; but definitely in top10).
It’s really surprising (and saddening) to me that the game THIS good didn’t have any impact at its time, didn’t sell at all and doesn’t EVER get mentioned anywhere (other than some occasional and really underground forum discussions). Was it due to the bad luck, Quake release, lack of promotion or the fact that Intelligent Games wasn’t known to adventure gamers at that time and didn’t have any reputation among them? I don’t know. But I really do think that if some things turned out to be different, this game could be received VERY differently as well (and to be considered an instant adventure genre classics, which it kind of deserves).
It was also quite interesing for me to notice some similarities between AzT and the first Tomb Raider game. I am not talking about some distinctive similarities or borrowed elements – no, it’s more about overall mood of the games. But I really DID find the sense of desolation and the soundtrack/sound_design of first Tomb Raider to be extremely reminiscent of the desolate atmosphere of Aeternis and the AzT’s ingame music, made by Gentle Giant. Moreover, the mood associated with the whole Atlantean theme in TR1 (especially – in the cutscene with the imprisonment of Natla in cryogenic cylinder) again reminded me vividly of the mood, conveyed by the cinematics of AzT (especially, the outro of the game with its descriptions of the new utopic/antiutopic [or even slightly libertatian] society). Again, there is nothing in those games so similar, that I can put my finger on it. It’s more like intuition there. The games really do feel very-very similar to one another in some places for me. Guess the similar moods and ideas really floated in different heads simultaneously in 1995-1996.

I also have some questions about AzT for you. I would be really grateful, if you found the time to answer some of those.
1) I can’t find neither any information about Quake UK release date nor any information about AzT release date on the Net. Could you clarify when exactly was it released?
2) Is there any particual story behind the box art fo the AzT (in particular – the story behind the version with the guy in a shiny blue suit and the Holy Grail)? Why is it so… how do I put it… strange (and uninteresting, and unispiring, and doen’t correspond to the ingame Raptor suit design at all, and so forth)?
3) What was the creative process like? I take it you and Ken Haywood played the main parts in creating the overall concept of the game. What influences came from him? What themes and details own their exitance to you? How long was the game in development? What was cut from it in the end? How much was the concept of sequel developed at the time it was decided to drop it? Was there a complete script ready?

As for Battlespire, I haven’t completed the game as of yet (the last save was in the middle of the 4th level, if I remember correctly). I thourougly enjoy it, but I have Just The Right Mood for it extremely rarely, maybe once per 3 or 4 months. It’s actually more than a year since I’ve started playing it. The game has really good and interesting levels, challenging, very dynamic and satisfying combat, an AMAZING, absolutely breathtaking ambient soundtrack, interesting puzzles. At the same time, it is still buggy (even with the 1.5 patch) – with bugs affecting both exploration (“additional chests” bug, which can potentially corrupt your save file once a certain threshold is overcome; I don’t use advantages – additional arrows, for example – which that bug provides, as I consider it to be cheating) and combat (with two or more enemies in close proximity, the enemies cannot effectively strike while moving, which makes combat with them a lot simpler); also the visual style of intro movie doesn’t correspond to the ingame visual style very well (if I remember correctly, Mark Jones wrote on his homepage that the decision to use external company for those cutscenes was made quite unexpectedly); and the ingame dialogue texts could be more… stylized in order to better correspond to the ingame atmosphere. But, then again, I consider all of these to be minor quirks and I really enjoy playing the game (regardless of how often I actually play it). Moreover, Battlespire is actually the ONLY game in the all of the “Elder Scrolls” series, that I really like. The games for main TES series are just too freeform and casual and unfocused for me (never played Daggerfall though). And Redguard I played for a really short time and didn’t find it to be anything special (then again, it’s possible I was wrong). But the Battlespire… The truth is that this dungeon crawling format is EXACTLY my kind of game. With complex interesting levels, awesome combat, complex leveling system – AND with distinctive unique looks and mindblowing soundtrack as a bonus. It’s a facinating example of a really good game created by a small team of really dedicated people. And AGAIN I just don’t understand, why is this game so obscure (and, moreover, surrounded by such controversy in TES community). OK, it did step on some toes and fan expectations in its time, it did have some bugs also, it came nearly… Oh no, it was released exactly the same day as Quake 2, and with much less sophisticated engine… Anyways, I strongly believe, that on its own, this game has all the rights to be recognized as equal to Ultima Underworld, both System Shocks and Arx Fatalis (though Ultima Underworld has a clear advantage of being revolutionary for its time).

Anyways, that’s what I think about AzT and Batlespire. I want to sincerely thank you once again for being a part of development teams for both of them. It also turned out to be quite a lengthy post (not something I’ve foreseen), so I also thank you for taking your time to actually read all my ramblings.

Also, there is one last question. It could be quite an ill-posed question (if you consider it to be that way, just ignore the question altogether), but I feel I just HAVE to ask it. I also need to say, that I am just a fan and not affiliated in any way with anything I’ll mention below.

Is there any chance you could consider returning to game industry? I can think of only one development studio right now wich does things similar to the way Battlespire was done. It’s Arkane Studios (Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of M&M, Dishonored). So the question goes like that: is there any chance I will see your name in some credits (be it Arkane game or any other company) some time in the distant or not so distant future, or are you really, really, really done with videogaming industry for good?

Thanks for your attention and time,
Alex.


And Richard's post with answers goes like that:
Thank you very, very much for the kind words. I’m frankly amazed anyone is still playing Azrael’s Tear – I’m amazed it’s even playable on current machines. I guess there are emulators that slow the clock down to an acceptable rate for the engine?

I’ll answer your questions as well as I can – although I see reading over this that I haven’t answered them in order…

It was a huge pleasure and challenge to work on both AT and Battlespire, although my input on the latter was much less: Ken Rolston’s the person to credit with any and all design cleverness there (and also, I think, the voices of the minor daedra).

Ken Haywood came to Intelligent Games with the core story for AT written, under the working title “Raptor;” with all the elements inspired by “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” and the idea of Aeternis and the mixture of Templars and dinosaurs and the switch ending in his original design. But he was quite sketchy at that time about what was actually in the temple. Over about a year, he and I worked through that together, developing a very deliberately non-linear plot (or, rather, a series of parallel plot options: IIRC there are 4 mandatory “gates” in the design that you have to work through in sequence, so it’s a limited kind of non-linearity, but still a huge headache to design, despite its limitations).

Ken may remember it differently, but my sense is that during that process you really couldn’t have said who designed what – it all came out of conversation and back-and-forth creation, which extended to the whole team of artists, programmers and dialogue writers.

We were lucky to have such good artists and sound people – we were all just starting out, but there was a lot of talent to draw from… and 3D graphics were then still at the stage where you could learn to do cutting-edge stuff quite quickly. Once we knew what had to happen in a room and where it had to fit in the map, we’d hand it over to a single artist to develop (Doug Telford and Andy Grove did standout work), which I think had the advantage of making each room quite individual and cohesive, rather than enforcing a consistent art style too strongly.

Music was down to Harry Holmwood, who had a lot of very innovative ideas, which have since become quite widespread – he was a real enthusiast and a pleasure to work with.

The engine could use some polish
Yup. And IIRC the game came out in the same week as Quake. Despite having really smart engine and tools programmers, we just didn’t have the resources to improve the engine significantly – it was pushing what machines could do at the time, but still not getting anything like the framerate or polygon counts of… well… Quake, which became the de facto industry standard overnight.

a slight impression of being kind of rushed
That’s true too – one of my jobs was managing the schedule, and that seemed often to come in direct conflict with polishing up the design. We slashed out big chunks late in development and had to close up some plot plumbing to make it work. And some of that’s down to my inexperience at the time: I had some ideas of things to do with the player character but no very clear idea of how to communicate them (with the drop into the grail chamber I can see I was thinking like a film director, not a game designer, for instance).

the intro could make a better job of accustoming player to the game.
…and I think that’s down to a shortage of outside input: it was one of the last things to be done, by which time everyone looking at it already knew what it was trying to do – it needed fresh eyes.

one of the best adventure games, I’ve ever played (not THE best… Riven
You’re too kind. Myst set the pace when we started development, and over the next few years after AT, I worked for several game companies that dreamed of replicating Riven but lacked the capital, which for the state of the industry at the time was enormous.

bad luck, Quake release, lack of promotion
some of each, I imagine. I was never happy with the marketing Mindscape gave it, but that was entirely outside our control (like the box art that you mention, which made a lot of folks on the team angry). If I were to work in the industry again, I would pay a lot more attention to that interface between marketing and game creation. At the time I confess I didn’t see how important it was (I heard that was also pretty much the year that overall marketing costs for games outstripped production costs across the PC industry: a sea-change was happening in retail, and we were busy dealing with the sea-changes in processor speeds and graphics).

similarities between AzT and the first Tomb Raider game
We were very conscious that TR was in development because of their much smarter marketing presence, doing previews through the magazines. I think the similarity in mood is coincidental, though… maybe we were watching the same movies.

How much was the concept of sequel developed at the time it was decided to drop it? Was there a complete script ready?
Not at all. Ken had some story written, but the rest of the team immediately went to work on another game using the same engine, to try to develop more than one property. That game was never finished, though a bunch of levels were developed for it. It aimed for a lot more running and jumping and combat, and frankly the engine just wasn’t competitive.

Regarding Battlespire, it sounds like you’ve been enjoying Ken Rolston’s sensibility. I’ve been a big fan of his for as long as I can remember (he co-wrote Paranoia, and I think something of his sense of humor shines through in everything he does, even Battlespire). I like the idea of the Elder Scrolls games, as computer equivalents to the old DnD sandboxes, but I’ve never been satisfied with the execution. And Daggerfall has/had the same bug-ridden trouble as Battlespire, only scaled up, together with the complexity of the game.

It’s a facinating example of a really good game created by a small team of really dedicated people
That’s certainly true, although I couldn’t fault the dedication of the Redguard team, who were in the next room over – they had real faith in what they were doing, and Todd, who I see is still there after Oblivion, was a great team leader.

…it was released exactly the same day as Quake 2, and with much less sophisticated engine
John Carmack, my nemesis. Well, me and the rest of the games industry through those years…

I want to sincerely thank you once again
Thank you, for writing this, for taking such an interest, and for trawling through these really quite elderly games!

Is there any chance you could consider returning to game industry?
If my son had his way I’d be back there right now! I still think about it from time to time, but I’m working on very different stuff now – architectural and maritime history – and I’m eager to see where that takes me. What I’d really like to do is marry the two – the 3D technologies from gaming and the educational content of my historian work, but that’s a topic for another day/post!

Thanks again, and I hope this was of interest,

Richard


That's all (as of this moment, anyway). Have a nice read.

P.S. Oh yeah, and Ken Haywood can be found HERE, if anyone is interested.

P.P.S. Also made a stupid mistake in naming of Battlespire. It should go like "AESL: Batteslpire", not "ATEL: Battlespire".
 

SCO

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Azrael's Tear can actually run quite speedly in dosbox if you replace the dos extender for dos32a.

Very interesting interview. If this place wasn't prejudiced against the nobler genre, i'd suggest it to be cleaned up and put in the main page.

:eek: Azrael's Tear was created in the next room to a team lead by :hearnoevil:

Well i don't recall much of the plot but there are things that jump out.

Why the "byzantine empire"? Templars would probably be aware that the "byzantines" were quite recent.
2 solutions for the inconsistency that myself and DraQ discussed at the time were straight alternate timeline/world, or just medieval obscurantist theological "metaphor" (they were aliens but their "brothers", paralleling Christians and Orthodox).

The "hidden" plot of the game is remarkably subtle, with the monster/ghost/banishedknight/spies plots. Very courageous (and rewarding) decision not to spell out most things. I've only ever seen this type of narrative in books, and i think it's possibly a first in games.

I loved the "twist" of the main villain of the backstory (and the current game really) not even being present in the game!
 

iqzulk

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:eek: Azrael's Tear was created in the next room to a team lead by :hearnoevil:

Actually, Battlespire was created that way, not AzT.

Also, the additional source of confusion is that Ken Haywood (scriptwriter of AzT) and Ken Rolston are both referred to simply as "Ken" in Richard's post sometimes.
 

SCO

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You could ask him if the ending was supposed to be "for real".
Even if you think of it as a "true libertarian" ending, besides being repugnant, it doesn't make a lick of sense considering the rate of extinction going on.

Would the canon of the sequel be that the grail did a number on our archeologist, like it did (evidently) to the templars?
I suppose it would be kept ambiguous, and it doesn't make sense to ask (whichever the answer is, someone will be disappointed).
Still.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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Ask him about kickstarting a sequel and hope for a miracle.

Why the "byzantine empire"? Templars would probably be aware that the "byzantines" were quite recent.

Not really. This:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium

But it actually probably had to do with the limited medieval knowledge of the templars. For a medieval scholar to name an ancient civilization found in the current Byzantine empire "ancient Byzantines" would make sense. The game actually makes a point that this hypothetical civilization did quite a lot of globetrotting as well, right? Being that they had ruins in Scotland. It doesn't necessarily means that they had anything to do with the Byzantines, even though the Templars thought so because they found the original(and bigger) ruins there. The origin of the ancient civilization presented in the game is probably Mespotamia("ziggurat", etc) or maybe Atlantis.

It makes sense to ask him a little more about the background though. The setting was very well thought off, his explanation might be even more ellaborate than this.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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You could ask him if the ending was supposed to be "for real".
Even if you think of it as a "true libertarian" ending, besides being repugnant, it doesn't make a lick of sense considering the rate of extinction going on.

Would the canon of the sequel be that the grail did a number on our archeologist, like it did (evidently) to the templars?
I suppose it would be kept ambiguous, and it doesn't make sense to ask (whichever the answer is, someone will be disappointed).
Still.

Yeah, this would be a good question. I wouldn't call the randroid ending "repugnant" though. It made sense in the setting if we consider that the world was overpopulated, though I agree that railroading the player character into getting along was suboptimal. Alternate endings would have been interesting. Joining the other factions, for instance.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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Posted a question there mentioning kickstarter. Fingers crossed.

(ok, it is stupid and the guy obviously abandoned gaming, but hope never dies.)
 
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Guido Fawkes

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He replied to me, if anyone's interested:

You’re very kind, thank you. I got out of the industry partly because I saw that it was pretty unlikely that I’d ever get to work on something as creatively unfettered as Azrael’s Tear ever again – don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of creative work going on in the industry, but it is for the most part creativity directed into certain channels, and I wanted to get out of those channels.
What I would be interested in kickstarting is the use of gaming technologies to present realworld data – archaeological sites, reconstructions – a sort of “real Tomb Raider” (or maybe “ancient site explorer”… must work on the title). I’m thinking about that at the moment.
…and then, of course, when one has built up some scholarly credentials for careful, exactingly-researched work, one can then kick them right over again by setting a potboiling fantasy epic atop the same material! Perhaps.

:)

I will try to make another comment and maybe get the info on AT some people here requested.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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He replied to the last batch of questions. I won't bug the guy anymore because it would be unpolite, but I got to say this is some very interesting info and that he is certainly a scholar and a gentleman for taking the time to reply.

:salute:

If anyone is interested:

Thanks for your interest. I haven’t seen Ken in years – he might be able to answer some of the questions that I can’t.
The ending was in there right from the beginning, although we had originally intended to make it more game-like: it wound up being presented a bit perfunctorily. It was in Ken’s original story document and We talked about it several times, but we wound up agreeing that: (a) it sets up the sequel (alas never realised) and (b) mystery is a better reward than congratulation. I don’t know if I’d do it the same way today…
The grail is supposed to be ambiguous and that was going to be played on a lot more in the sequel. As for whether it’s evil or not – my answer is it just is: the Templars have their interpretation and you’re free to come up with your own. Again, there were going to be all kinds of implications explored regarding two-edged swords and tough choices and political changes wrought by the grail in the sequel, but Ken knows a lot more about that than I do: we really concentrated on developing AT itself and mostly left some suggestive strands in place for the next step, rather than working everything out in advance.
Regarding ancient Byzantines, IIRC we never really stated whether the whole of Aeternis was Geoffrey’s design or if there was a pre-existing ziggurat when the Templays arrived. In either case, the Templars would have seen everything from a Crusader’s perspective, and Byzantium could’ve been a figleaf for some other less approved group of ancients.
Ken and I might differ on this, but I saw the “Byzantines” as perhaps related to the Sea Peoples who toppled the Old Kingdom in Egypt, or the Minoans – a group older than Constantine’s move to Eastern Rome. This was all going to be explored in the sequel.
Regarding putting it on GOG – that’s a great idea. Matthew Stibbe would be the best person to contact regarding who has the rights these days – he’s on Facebook (I’m pretty sure he’s the only Matthew Stibbe on there). If you write to him, send my regards.
Thanks again
Richard

Some notes:

- I am pretty sure the ziggurat and that old well were stated to be there before the templars arrived and that it was pretty clear in the game, but can't really blame the guy for not remembering after all this time. I think this info is in the botched LP I did here(in the conversations and pages of diaries).
- What he says about the templars calling the makers of the grail "ancient Byzantines" makes sense. It is kind of what I thought would be the reason.
- ITT, ambiguous nature of the grail. No wonder every person here that played the game has a different take on it. Awesome.
- Man I would like to play that sequel...
 

DraQ

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I'd like to hear some answers regarding grailstone and titular "Azrael's Tear".
I'm guessing there was a lot of background material and lore that never made it into the game, which is a pity as what made it into the game hinted at some nearly Lovecraftian themes.

I was really hoping to explore that in game and thought that the remainder of the game will revolve around plumbing those obscure depths but instead I got *BAM* libertarians.
The ending might have been mitigated by the planned sequel, but seemed very jarring and out of character otherwise (plus a really bad animation).

Yeah, mystery is better than straight reward, but only if it's the mystery that arises as the result of the previous one getting solved. AzT didn't do it quite as well as I expected based on rather stellar majority of the game.

Also - employing sophisticated sensor, analysis and data storage gear as a storytelling device running in parallel to direct sensory input was a surprisingly clever move. Any insights regarding how this idea came about and maybe what else was planned to be done with it?

Also, what SCO said.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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Humm, I guess you could post more questions in his blog if you like. I don't know if we wouldn't be abusing the guy's time and good will though, and there must be quite a lot he doesn't know or at least doesn't remember. The original writer of the story/characters was Ken Haywood, and he is pretty much incommunicado.

Mathew Stibbe answers fan mail too though, we could ask him. He has the original design document and said he could digitalize it and release it, problem is that there is not a single fansite for AT and its admirers are spread throughout the web. I don't know how he could go about it.

I'd like to hear some answers regarding grailstone and titular "Azrael's Tear".

I like that the grail was ambiguous. Every single person that played the game here had a different take on it. I, for instance, thought the grail merely caused evolutionary adaptations and was not necessarily evil. Others that it was pure evil, or that it was actually sacred/magical and that it was the impurity and corruption of the templars that caused mischief.

"Azrael's tear" came from a prophetic fictional medieval religious text found in the game. It was found in the chambers of Tobias.

The origins of grailstone are pretty much open game. I like the theory about it being an alien substance coming from a meteor shower(it fit with the religious text found in the game), but it could very well be left-overs from the technology of a forgotten civilization. The game hinted at both.

Yeah, mystery is better than straight reward, but only if it's the mystery that arises as the result of the previous one getting solved. AzT didn't do it quite as well as I expected based on rather stellar majority of the game.

I agree, the ending didn't really deliver. It does work in getting everyone that plays the game through wanting more, but since there never will be a sequel...
 

DraQ

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The origins of grailstone are pretty much open game. I like the theory about it being an alien substance coming from a meteor shower(it fit with the religious text found in the game), but it could very well be left-overs from the technology of a forgotten civilization. The game hinted at both.
It's been quite some time since I played AzT, but I remember grailstone was rather unambiguously extraterrestrial in origin and was doing screwy things to living organisms and spacetime itself. I expected the game, being sci-fi after all, to drill into its mystery and provide at least some clues for players to chew on, no matter how cryptic.

I got the impression the game was setting me up (masterfully, I might add) for a gigantic, mind-screwing whoa, which ultimately didn't came.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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I haven't played it in a while myself. Last time it was for the botched lp I did long ago. I'm thinking of doing another LP, this time for realz.

Sure, grailstone did strange things with time/space and altered living organisms. Thing is the only character with a modern point of view in the setting was the WWII scottish soldier, and he knew just a little of what was going on. So no character in the game actually advocated it being alien in origin because I guess no character would grasp the concept of alien life.

The prophetic text spoke about something like "salvation falling from the heavens and being harvested" or such, that was the only hint. But there were also several hints of the supernatural, like the prophetic text itself and that very ominous moment were you found that accurate medieval painting of a Raptor suit. Tobias and other knights had visions of the future and appeared to have developed the gift of premonition.
 

iqzulk

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The "hidden" plot of the game is remarkably subtle, with the monster/ghost/banishedknight/spies plots. Very courageous (and rewarding) decision not to spell out most things. I've only ever seen this type of narrative in books, and i think it's possibly a first in games.

BTW, I've just remembered something (a bit of an offtop though, also !!!SPOILERS!!!).

"Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain" also did just that. The whole "Dark Entity"/Hash'ak'gik twist will come completely out of the blue in the end of the game IF the player doesn't pay attention to this particular book about certain strange cult and doesn't find this particular secret in Avernus during the course of the game.

Also, the Wahrk worshiping ritual in "Riven: the Sequel to Myst" follows the same pattern. All of the clues are there, but it's up to the player to connect the dots, as the ritual doesn't EVER get mentioned in the ingame texts, if I remember correctly.

Both of the games were released after "Azrael's Tear" though.
 
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Guido Fawkes

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The writing on those games is not nearly as good as AT's, though. I think it is quite possibly the best written adventure game around. I like Jane Jensen's games, but this just tops it as far as setting/characters/originality is concerned.

I don't know of any other mix of lovecraftian influences/alernative history/ancient conspiracies. Specially one so well done.
 

commie

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I hate when devs get ahead of themselves and do a 'find out next time what REALLY is going on!' type of bullshit ending. With all the failed and unreleased sequels don't they ever learn that you must have a resolution of the main themes of the current story by the end and perhaps only add a hook that hints at further adventures?
 

iqzulk

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Apr 24, 2012
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294
Oh boy, here we go...
The writing on those games is not nearly as good as AT's, though.
I certainly wouldn't go THAT far in my fanboyism. Blood Omen is just a simple and incredibly atmosperic gothic tale with really good voice acting (on par with AzT, I'd say), solid middle_ages_folklore research, some twists and turns along the road AND hidden Hash'ak'gik twist. The writing there does its job and it does it really damn well, I'd say.
Riven relies HEAVILY on visual clues, but also features 4 awesomely written working journals that FEEL just like that - THE WORKING JOURNALS (as opposed to the sentimental crap that was featured in Exile, Revelation and ESPECIALLY in End of Ages). The actors are also perfectly believable and the lines they deliver are perfectly authentic both to their characters and the ingame setting. Again, the text does its job extremely well as for a game that CLEARLY has no significant accent whatsoever on all that textual and dialogue stuff.
I think it is quite possibly the best written adventure game around.
Actually, IMHO the best written adventure game around is Pathologic. It also has MUCH more textual content (including dialogues), than AzT (even if you count every last bit of nonlinearity in the latter, Pathologic easily surpasses it in scope 3-4-fold). English translation is crap though (or so I've heard, I've only played the Russian original) .
I don't know of any other mix of lovecraftian influences/alernative history/ancient conspiracies.
Frankly speaking, I fail to see, what's so distinctively lovecraftian about this game. Okay, there was a tentacled Sasha. And there was this Grail thing (which, in my opinion, is not lovecrafting, but is just the thing that grants the surrounding people and creatures their true wishes to some extent [as the wish not to die no matter what even in situations where it's actually preferable to die] AND, more importantly, reflects their true natures, some combination of these two; thus Tobias indeed gains some prophetic abilities, hateful Sasha - and Lurka to a lesser extent - turns into hideous monster, cold and intellectual Philip and Geoffrey remain largely unaffected, Tallum, haunted by guilt, turns into bulletproof behemoth and so on so forth; it ALSO ties really nicely with distinctively libertarian - "the strong and talented will prosper, the weak and unworthy can go to hell" - overtones of the ending). Oh, and that Malik's idol (which is easily the most sketchy and unexplained part of the plot). And... Is that all? If that's the case, then WHY consider it to be any more lovecraftian, than, I don't know, Descent Freespace 1-2? Or aforementioned Pathologic game? Or Dreamweb? Or Perimeter? Or Thief: The Dark Project? Or even Twin Peaks series?
As for your question (historical/lovecraftian/videogame mix) - my answer is Bungie's "Pathways into Darkness" (though the game clearly has a considerably thinner plot and is not as nicely written as AzT). Also, to a smaller extent, Silicon Knights' "Eternal Darkness". Also... "Black Dahlia", maybe (don't know how it would fare on your lovecraftian scale though)?
 

DraQ

Arcane
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Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Frankly speaking, I fail to see, what's so distinctively lovecraftian about this game. Okay, there was a tentacled Sasha. And there was this Grail thing (which, in my opinion, is not lovecrafting, but is just the thing that grants the surrounding people and creatures their true wishes to some extent [as the wish not to die no matter what even in situations where it's actually preferable to die] )
I think this interpretation of grailstone is flawed and doesn't work.

First, it assumes that true wish to not die is universal, which kind of doesn't make sense given stuff like suicides. Much more fitting explanation is that grailstone simply makes all things immortal or near immortal after prolonged exposure regardless. Possible explanation is that it also makes itself guardians from available creatures based on what they'd work best as, but they might just as well be changing without any particular goal.
It is known that it mutates living beings and that it
Screws with the spacetime itself
. It also came from space, we don't know anything about it but what was detailed and it definitely evokes "cosmic dread" - how the fuck is that not lovecraftian? It even resembles The Colour Out of Space somewhat.

We also have superficial religious elements that then turn into reinterpretation of religious myths on the grounds of cosmic horror.

Sounds lovecraftian to me.
 
Unwanted

Guido Fawkes

Defensor Fidei
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
4,825
Project: Eternity
You know, I actually played Blood Omen a long time ago. On the playstation... so maybe it's bad memory, its writing just didn't catch my attention that much. Myst was also never really my thing.

I did become something of an Azrael's Tear fanboy though, I will give you that.

Frankly speaking, I fail to see, what's so distinctively lovecraftian about this game.

There is a whole lot. Let's see... lost underground ruins of horrible forgotten civilizations, monsters who dread beyond human imagination, human beings driven insane by powers beyond their scope...

But like Draq said, the most obvious influence is out of "The Color out of Space". The effects of grailstone, at least in those underground caves, are just very similar to that narrative. It corrupts and it warps. Not only the creatures you find in the depths of Aeternis, but the very people inhabiting it and the vegetation that somehow survives there. Living things tend to become monstruous when exposed to it.

there was this Grail thing (which, in my opinion, is not lovecrafting, but is just the thing that grants the surrounding people and creatures their true wishes to some extent [as the wish not to die no matter what even in situations where it's actually preferable to die] )

I have seem my share of weird interpretations of what Grailstone is, but this I wouldn't take. I mean, it being a "magic lamp" of sorts doesn't make sense. All the trapped souls you find in Aeternis certainly want to be free of its effects and leave their corpses. Sasha wanted to follow Oisin out of the caves and was not able to, for instance. Mikhail calls his predictment "an eternity of torment" and certainly wouldn't mind dying as opposed to inhabiting a half-mutilated corpse hanging on a barren and deserted area for all times. There is much more...

My interpretation is that it is not necessarily evil, it just is. It provokes evolutionary adaptation, it keeps all living things under its influence from dying, and it seems to trap souls on earth. When you play the game you don't know if the the effects it has on living things would be different in let's say... a more "healthy" enviroment than those forsaken caves. The conclusion that the game throws at you is that humans shouldn't mess with such a thing, but then that ending is slapped on your face and you are left wondering.

The game only throws you scraps. A supernatural explanation wouldn't be out of order being that something like "immortal souls" do exist in the game universe, and that when you play it you know that a devout old man in the 12th century somehow had a vision of the pre-historic event in details on his deathbed. I can see why some people actually see it as a demonic thing, or even as a horrible creation from a not so benevolent God that tests living things relentlessly.


As for your question (historical/lovecraftian/videogame mix) - my answer is Bungie's "Pathways into Darkness" (though the game clearly has a considerably thinner plot and is not as nicely written as AzT). Also, to a smaller extent, Silicon Knights' "Eternal Darkness". Also... "Black Dahlia", maybe (don't know how it would fare on your lovecraftian scale though)?

Thanks, I will check the first two. Can Eternal Darkness be played with an emulator?

I didn't see nothing lovecraftian about Black Dahlia. I liked that game quite a bit in the day though.

Pathologic seemed amazing, but I could never get past the horrible translation.
 

CappenVarra

phase-based phantasmist
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Mar 14, 2011
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Ardamai
Good news, everyone!

http://www.badlanguage.net/azraels-tear:

In 1996, my old company Intelligent Games released a game called Azrael’s Tear. There was much to love about the game: the story, the visuals, the richly-imagined world, wonderful music and voice characterisation. Although the game died in the market but people are still playing and enjoying the game.

...

Game design documents

Anyhow, I discovered the original game design proposal in my archives (otherwise known as the heap of papers under the bed) and I have scanned them to share with any fans and the people who worked on the game. All hail Ken Heywood and Richard Guy!

Download Azrael’s Tear Original Game Proposal (2MB PDF file). This was the short pitch document that we sent to publishers to try to persuade them to commission the game, which was called Raptor during development. (You’ll need to rotate the page in PDF viewer or print it out as it’s in landscape format.)

Download Azrael’s Tear Original Games Design Part 1, Part 2, Design3 (4-8MB PDF files). This is the original detailed design. At this point in the game’s development we were planning a mix of Myst-like pre-rendered 2D graphics and live video rendered on top of it for character interaction. The game ended up being a fully-3D project instead. We also created a board game version and the rules and map are on page 90+.
I downloaded the PDFs but don't have time to read them right now. Will do later, since there could be nice trivia about the game involved...

In case you don't want to read the blog post and just want the PDF links:

http://badlanguage.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Proposal.pdf

http://badlanguage.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Design1.pdf

http://badlanguage.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Design2.pdf

http://badlanguage.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Design3.pdf
 
Unwanted

Guido Fawkes

Defensor Fidei
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
4,825
Project: Eternity
I put up the links in the LP. I just read through the whole thing, it seems to be a VERY early pre-development document. A lot was changed in the game and the atmosphere, plot and characters are quite different. The most noticeable is the absence of horror influences and none of the paranoia and backstabbing that made the game's atmosphere so great. It was originally much lighter and "myst-like", it seems, with a heavier focus on sci-fi and adventure.

Still, there are a lot of interesting things there. It is specially cool to see how the game evolved from that into what was released.
 

tbob

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 15, 2017
Messages
2
Hello! I apologize for bumping this old thread.

I'm writing an article about Azrael's Tear for a gaming website, and I was hoping to access the PDFs of the game's pitch proposal and design document, which were linked here. However, the original website owner has taken them offline, and hasn't replied to my request that he upload them again. I thought it was worth a shot to ask if someone here had downloaded them and still had them lying around -- there's not really another way I could access them at this point.

Thanks,
TBob
 

iqzulk

Augur
Joined
Apr 24, 2012
Messages
294
Hello! I apologize for bumping this old thread.

I'm writing an article about Azrael's Tear for a gaming website, and I was hoping to access the PDFs of the game's pitch proposal and design document, which were linked here. However, the original website owner has taken them offline, and hasn't replied to my request that he upload them again. I thought it was worth a shot to ask if someone here had downloaded them and still had them lying around -- there's not really another way I could access them at this point.

Thanks,
TBob
Here you go.
These files have survived an HDD failure though, and I don't know for sure, whether any data in them had been damaged or not. They seem to open up pretty okay though (at least, in SumatraPDF).
 

tbob

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 15, 2017
Messages
2
Hello! I apologize for bumping this old thread.

I'm writing an article about Azrael's Tear for a gaming website, and I was hoping to access the PDFs of the game's pitch proposal and design document, which were linked here. However, the original website owner has taken them offline, and hasn't replied to my request that he upload them again. I thought it was worth a shot to ask if someone here had downloaded them and still had them lying around -- there's not really another way I could access them at this point.

Thanks,
TBob
Here you go.
These files have survived an HDD failure though, and I don't know for sure, whether any data in them had been damaged or not. They seem to open up pretty okay though (at least, in SumatraPDF).

They work! Thank you so much. This was a huge help.

TBob
 

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