Chapter the second,
In which our heroine breaks the first level of the game and gives the readers a false, misguided sense of security.
We left our heroine after she made her way to her new home and the door decided she was not going to go back the same way she came. Her only possesions are a Grimoire with two spells, one of which serves absolutely no purpose, and four inventory slots that represent her pockets and as such can only hold a single slot item each, meaning no weapons and no flashlight, among other no things. Now, let's get back to her.
As you can see The Legacy is a bit weird with its screen layout. All sections are customizable: You can change where you want thingies to appear, resize the main window and the map and the message box. You can also save layouts and then load them whenever you want, but i never do it anyway. For this LP the most important thing you need is to look at the map, the white scroll thingie on the bottom left corner of the screen, since there is a lot of walking around to do in this game. Next to the six movement arrows, that you can ignore if you like WASD plus QE, you can see the icons of my two known spells, appearing only when i carry the spellbook on one of my hands. The rest of the time spells can't be used, creating some amusing situations given the characters are pretty much one-handed for most of the game.
The Hit and Aim buttons at the sides of the character are the attack commands: Hit pretty much does what it says with whatever you hold in the hand closer to the button, and Aim does the same to the thingie you choose on the screen when there are several enemies at the same time. Aim is also useful for ranged attacks against enemies that are not aligned with the center of the screen, since those attacks miss, like, a whole lot. As far as i know Magic can't be aimed like this, what means enemies not aligned with the center of the screen equals mages die, kthxbye. The upper bars are Health and Magic Energy, the lower one is the Accuracy Bar: You attack and it decreases, you wait and it increases, the bigger it is the greater chance to score a hit you have. So back in '93 they already knew button smashers where for retards and retards had no right to be playing videogames.
The first floor is easy once you know the trick, so this first update will not be very exiting and will work more like an extended tutorial or something. We are in the lobby, the door just shut behind us all by itself. We can try to get out, but the house will laught at us and the only thing we will learn is that the door is magically sealed and we are, more or less, fucked. At our feet there is a folded page, the first of, like, thousands to come. Our heroine decides to read it.
A handwritten note.
I, Marcus Roberts, of Boston, write this, in the even of my untimely death, to serve as a warning and aid to any unfortunate who follows me into this house of evil.
For years i have been aware of the history and rumors surrounding Winthrop House. I have studied the accounts that recount the vile depravities of its owners and have discerned a disturbing pattern to them. Every 50 years strange lights have been reported in the skies over the house. Police records for the years 1843, 1893 and 1943, show a series of disappearances in the nearby town of Longport that occurred at the same time as the lights. Parish records recount similar tales from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. These events coincide almost to the day. The next date falls soon in 1993.
When the house became empty, following the disappearance of the Prentiss family, i took the opportunity to enter it. What i found has confirmed my suspicions that the house is possessed by an infernal entity that is preparing to break through into our world. God willing, i may be able to prevent this. If i fail, the fate of the world will be in the hands of whoever follows me.
Marcus Roberts.
This guy, that as you can imagine failed a whole lot, is one of the main guys we will be reading about, since he apparently went around hiding pages for us to find, and contrary to what's common in the genre he is pretty much and honest and upfront guy. There is no big mystery about what we need to do, a refreshing change from all those modern games that try to turn "Find the ancient evil and banish it back to hell before it eats the whole world" into something deep or, like, narrativistic. The main error in his notes, though, is that it is not an infernal entity, but an entire gang of ancient evils and their entire army of darkness following.
The upper doors are all nailed shut, so we can't actually do what the guy in the intro did. Other than that and the doors to the rest of this floor the lobby contains a locked door, a painting of a warlock being burned at the stake in which a depression with fragments of green glass on it can be discovered if you either pixel hunt or are lucky, and a statue of a demon inside of a glass display case. If you pay attention to the map you will discover that The Legacy does not make a good job of hiding its secret passages: The map is more or less screaming at you that the painting of the Warlock is really a secret door, and this is one of the more subtle examples.
There is also another note in the lobby, this one mundane and, thus, unimportant outside of explaining why most of the house is empty.
Dear Miss Faith,
Welcome to Winthrop House. In accordance with your instructions, i have arranged an auction of some of the funishings. The proceeds should cover the estate's outstanding debst. The removals should have been completed prior to your arrival.
I will contact you with news of the auction.
Yours Sincerely
E. Croxley & Co. Realtors.
Most people usually die for the first time around... right now, more or less. You see, they come, take and read the note from Croxley, and since they have a door just in front and nothing more to do in the lobby they go through it, come nose first with a zombie and if they did not, like, buy a lot of brawling ranks they die. This moment also shows just how well done is the game: If you stand there while reading the note you can actually hear the growls from the zombie beyond the door, the volume higher or lower depending on how close or far he is. This way you can actually sneak your way around, instead of just barging out of a room and into a demon's stomach. All monsters do that in some measure, at least that i remember.
Since we are smart and, like, have a very good karmic memory we will go to the opposite side, to a door marked by a small pool of blood in front of it and from which no evil growls come. Beyond we find a small closet with another folded page, a first aid kit containing 7 bandages, and our inventory, an attache case made of imitation leather that will be attached (that's a very bad pun, doesn't it?) to our left hand for the rest of the game. If you leave it you are back into two hands and four small pockets territory, and believe me when i say you do not want that. Even with the case you will be always lacking inventory space.
Another note here. Our heroine reads it.
A handwritten note.
Trapped. There is no escape from the house. Mocking laughter taunts me whenever i try the front door. Worse still, i have unleashed hordes of zombies from the mausoleum to the east. The zombies now prowl this floor of the house. Only quick thinking and nimble feet have allowed me to survive this long.
I have discovered gates to planes of darkness from which daemons and other monstrous beings enter the house. They lurk on the floor above this and increase daily.
I have found no way of closing the damnable portals. My spells have proved effective at protecting me so far, but i fear that my time is running out.
Marcus Roberts.
Yeah, that would be the same Marcus Roberts who unleashed the very same zombies that made most players abandon the game in a fit of frustration in the first floor. Thanks a whole lot, guy. We also learn what to expect from the second floor and from the mausoleum. We could now go out and start sneaking around, crawling through corridors while evading zombies and trying to not get killed, but that would be a waste of resources and time. Since Miss Faith has the power known as Metagaming Sight, she already knows what she needs to do to totally abuse the first level instead of being left a humiliated lump in her first adventuring chapter.
First she leaves all her folded pages in the closet, that from now on will be her storage area. Then she goes through the only open door on the west side of the lobby, the one just to the side of the one where the growling came from. There she finds a green bottle, that would be a Club weapon, and a locked wall safe. Not lossing time with any of those objects she again goes west, out to the one of the only two empty corridors in the entire first floor. She enters the next room and gets a keyring, also known as the all-keys-in-a-single-inventory-slot charm, then back to the corridor she came from and now north. Then she sneaks around some dumb zombie in a Patrol, which means it would only attack her if she got in its way. She does not, having played Thief already many times.
After a couple steps north she comes to two doors and takes the one to the west. In the floor she can see a worn key.
She advances to take it and now comes the explanation about the Fear mechanic i promised. Look at the next screenshot.
Codex, meet Puffy the friendly floating tentacle monster. He is a kind of monster that mostly just chill around and float and stuff, and that will kick your ass in a blink if you mess with him at the proverbial level one. We will not mess with him, because Miss Faith already did in one of her first tries at the game and she still remembers what happen when you go through a door, come to a green thing full of tentacles, and try to empty your revolver on its cute face. Like, it is not pretty since the game did not screw him over and actually gave it the fireball spell we wanted.
But the important thing about Puffy and its family is that characters all get scared stupid when they face them for the first time, and several times after that. If you gave attention to that screenshot and have a Perception higher than one you noticed Miss Faith is screaming her lungs away at the sight of our new friend, and that some of the movement arrows that should be active are greyed out. That means she is scared and can't, in that particular case, advance towards the creature that scared her, among other things. Now observe the next screenshot.
Miss Faith once more has come face to, like, thingie with Puffy, and again she decided to cry until her voice went on a vacation. But now she got even more scared than before and, as you can see, her only movement actions are rotating in her place and she can't advance nor retreat. So if Puffy actually were an angry cunt she would be dead by... Around right now, more or less. There are more effects mentioned on the manual, but thus far i have never encountered them either because i always play Witches and willpower is related to the fear mechanic or because i never got to fight the really big, angry things or because they did not implement everything or because i did and just forgot since it has been some time since my last try that got really far.
There isn't really a way to know how frightful a creature is, though usually the less humanoid and the more tentacular it is the more scary it seems to be, so, for an example, no character with a standar willpower will become paralized by facing a zombie or a run of the mill winged demon, even if she can get slightly frightened by the encounter. It is Lovecraftian like that.
Now let's keep going. This game is all about exploration and evasion, combat should only be used when you are sure you are going to win or are cornered or come face to face with a boss monster. I repeat it because we came this way, using Miss Faith's Metagaming Sight powers, to get an item that turns every single zombie on the first floor to friendly: The Juju Fetish. If by chance you got to this room the last and after carving a bloody path through the zombie hordes now you would be creating a new character and cursing, like, a lot. In this room we also get a speedloader with 6 small caliber bullets and another first aid kit. There is also another bottle if you like to hit things over the head with them.
As soon a our heroine began to leave, cue new encounter with Puffy and a new session of screaming, the lights went out with the sound of distant thunder. Soon they returned, as this first lights out moment is just a warning to start looking for a flashlight or, like, preparing that one useless spell. Since we have the Fetish, though, we have free reign in this level for as long as we hold it in hand and don't draw first blood, so our spellbook is making a trip to one of the pockets and we start leisurely looting around and go get the flashlight. I love that Metagaming Sight spell.
So we start going south. First we come across a rune engraved in the wall, flowing with magic energies. There are many around the house and later become, like, very important but for now they are just decor. Then we come across another petite pool of blood, in front of a wall diferent to the rest... Maybe the game is trying to tell me something? After forcing my little gray cells i notice the minimap shows there is a niche were that wall should be! I told you already this game was not really subtle with the secret passages and stuff. Inside i get my second totally useless spell: I forgot to take a screenshot since i never use the thing, it is a spell that raises the damage you do with a weapon. Miss Faith does not uses weapons, so there. Thank you, game!
I keep going south and come upon our second zombie, and this one is not on patrol: It lurks in a place and whenever you come close he runs up to you and starts trying to keep your head as a puppet. Since we are armed with the voodoo thingie he just, like, stands here growling almost as much as he stinks. We go and take the speedloader and the silver poker, and then keep going south like he isn't here, across another room and into the last one on this side of the first floor. An old clock informs us its now 00:26, and two angry zombies in a corner remind us of why we love our skeletal arm. In that corner there is also a music sheet i don't remember why was important but there you go.
Since i am back at the start i go through the lobby, leaving the sheet, the bullets, and the silver pocket in the storage closet. Then we go looting to the other side of the house: Smith & Wesson Model 10 with six bullets on the first room, another bottle we leave abandoned, and a room that laughts at us every now and then. In this last one another folded page we find.
A torn piece of note paper.
A lot of strange things have happened to me since that weird guy hired me to investigate this crazy joint. One thing's for sure: nothing or nowhere is safe unless it's marked with a strange triangle symbol. As for the rest... I just can't figure it out!
This is actually pretty critical information: You can only rest in the rooms whose doors are marked with the triangle thingie, and you must rest every now and then to not die, as being tired affects all your actions and, over time, you may fall unconscious and get automatically killed. And the good news do not end here, but let's keep going for now. A couple steps beyond i find the flashlight, abandoned in the middle of some corridor. In the room just over there i find a new spell, this one screenshoted because it is actually useful: Shroud of the Dark Walker, another defensive spell.
Another clock tells me is now 00:36, and i find my first magic crystal, another rune engraved on the wall, some vials of blessed water i really do not know why i should want but surely will come in handy, and another room with an angry zombie, a pool of blood, and a secret niche marked on the minimap, this one with the key to the safe we already passed by before. Now, to this point i would have killed four angry zombies and either killed or evaded around twice as many Patrolling ones, and still have a lot of first floor to go but i will make it short since it is not very interesting when the zombies throw rose petals before Faith's feet.
The safe contained a battered VHS cassette with "My Brother and I" written on the label. Our heroine gets it and goes back to exploring. She finds more folded pages, this time with an history lesson that reveals who was the guy on the painting we found on the lobby.
A History of Winthrop House.
Winthrop House was built near Longport in 1639 by Governor Elias Winthrop. Although he presided over many witch trials, Elias Winthrop was burnt as a warlock in 1662. At his trial local villagers claimed that Winthrop House was haunted and that Elias "had in thrall diverse divills and daemons."
Elias' only son, Hildebrand, used the house for debauched revelries until 1699 when he died in a fire. The fire also destroyed some of the house and was claimed to have been caused by an oil lantern thrown through a window.
Hildebrand Winthrop was the last Winthrop to live in Longport, but the house's sinister reputation has continued to this day.
She also finds an introductory level puzzle: A room, a key, two trapdoors, two switches. Need the solution? That leaves only part of the north half of the first floor to explore and loot before we can get serious and start dying.
There she finds three doors she has not the keys to open, a page with a family tree, more bullets and thingies, and wallrunes. In the norteast corner of the house she finds the stairway leading to the already mentioned mausoleum, with another folded page by Mister Exposition left just before it.
A handwritten note.
Darkness lies before me.
The stench of death lies heavy in my nostrils. It crawls up the stairs beyond, seeking to suck the life from me.
That which i now seek, the Golden Torc, lies somewhere ahead. I only hope that i can survive the horror that lurks in the darkness.
Marcus Roberts.
Whatever that Golden Torc is we surely want it, but the problem is that the game decided to screw me with the spell selection and the stair leads to the infamous shotgun totting zombie commando with night glasses, that kills me without even trying as is shown in the next couple of screenshots. I have all my defensive spells active in that, and he misses a whole lot so i could in theory kill him if i had something to cast.
But i don't, so we go keep exploring. Thxbye, i guess my Magic Fetish does not works well with shotguns or, like, zombies with nighshades are immune to voodoo magic.
Our heroine finds the first of the special rooms: Those are static image rooms, instead of dungeon rooms, that are actually pretty well done and are related to puzzles and stuff. This one is the dinning room: A gramophone plays a pretty happy retro song, a red curtain swings suspiciously, someone has carved "Death awaits!" on Miss Faith's table. We open the dumb waiter and a fresh head falls, but our heroine does not even flinch so i guess she learned something from meeting Mister Puffy. As her fingers come into contact with the, like, thingie it turns into a shrivelled, stinking, dried head that we, naturally, put into our briefcase for later use, showing our heroine has lost not a single sanity point since her adventure began. Behind the curtain there is a hanging man, we get surprised, look for useful crap in his pockets and, finding nothing, get away without even caring. As i said, not affected in the least. The second screenshot also shows an example of the contextual menus you interact with most things with.
Now we can get back to the lobby, since my inventory is starting to feel crowded, and drop more things in the storage closet. We also finally get to open the locked door and find another staircase, this one to the first basement. If we wanted to go down we would find it belongs to the Ghouls.
They are slow and very noisy, so it is actually easy to know when it is safe to move and when it is better to not move. Some have the bad tendency to camp before the door you just got away into, so if there is no other exit from the room you'll have to juggle with making it follow you inside and then running outside all fasty fast. Down there is also the Document's Wallet, that doubles as the all-folded-pages-in-one-inventory-slot charm, at least one spell i remember, and some puzzle rooms. Going down is the first option for later on, so have it in mind.
We go finish exploring and looting what we can access of the first floor.
A clock we pass by tells us is already 1:21, we find some more vials of holy water, the access to the second floor, another magic crystal, and some cold fast food that introduces us to the last game element of this first update: Hunger! You need to eat or you die, but you need to rest or you die, and resting is a quick trip into the future and, thus, into hunger. And you can't just go to the store and buy some food since the house hates your guts, so in the end it works like a time limit that's not extremely strict but manages to both bother and keep you moving. You are too slow, you die. It is even possible to mess your game beyond recognition that way, i guess. I like food in games. System Shock 2 is a great game, but it would have been better if food was actually like in this one instead of a cheap, bad first aid kit. We also get a pouch with coffin dust, that naturally the lady decides to keep in a pocket just in case it might come in handy.
Now, remember Marcus writing about Daemons and Portals on the next floor upwards?
As you can see, at least the first part is true! They are hard to sneak around because they also have a ranged attack, and some of the corridors where they lurk are also inhabited by one of the friendly tentacle monsters, so having a fright attack can be pretty deadly. We also can find the first human being with dialogue trees and some traps, since even the decor wants to kill Miss Faith now and the little blood pools turn traitor! Sigh. Going up is the other option for the choice at the end of the update.
And while going back to the lobby we go to the only accessible place we haven't still explored and find another stair to the first basement.
We also find a weird room where every step you take also rotates you to the side and where we find a small runestone, warm to the touch, that surely will be of use later. Then go back to the storage closet, leave assorted crap as to not go into wild, new territories with only two inventory slots free, and come to the first choice time! Now the introduction has ended and the true adventure begins, etc. You all know the drill, now the game gets serious and we start dying, as you already saw in the screenshots introducing to new areas of the house.
So, what will it be? Up or down? Choose and damn me to all hell, for i do not remember the better order in the slightest.
@ Unkillable Cat
It is pretty dificult, and a lot of unfair at times, but it is pretty atmosferic and fun because of it. While the first level doesn't shows it because i tricked it out to keep resources and explain the basic game rules sort of like a tutorial thingie, but from the next chapter you will see sneaking around the monsters while listening to the sound cues and all is pretty tense, and all good fun. The shotgun zombie commando, though, is pretty cheap. He always misses the first shot, but if you do not run into a niche an buff you out to high noon with the second he can already kill you, by getting lucky, or at least hurt you bad, and since he is on the other side of a pretty long corridor you do not even know what is atacking you the first time you come across him. And we are, like, in the first level! It will not get any easier from there.
@ RK47
It is a very obscure, last count it was really around i having met only eight people that knew of it counting Jasede, nine now with Unkillable Cat. It wasn't well marketed, either, and the dificulty thingie didn't help. I remember reading articles about the game telling about Belthegor, the last boss, being imposible to defeat on certain conditions and all that, when i got adicted to the game and started to researching old news and stuff to satisfy my curiosity about it. So even if it isn't really imposible it was dificult enough for people to believe it was.
But most of the time it depends on the tricks: Like the Fetish for the zombies, or learning how to sneak around for the times when there is no trick, or the mask and robes with the squid magicians. It is uncomon in that the game wants you to play it like a horror game and not a crawler, and then it wants to kill you a lot if you get trigger happy or confident.
