Azrael's Tear

[ghostdog]

Also, probably the best implementation of "trust no one" ever.

After Strife, of course.

 

[DraQ]

Also, probably the best implementation of "trust no one" ever.

After Strife, of course.

Better than Strife. Far better.

This game just soaks you in the paranoia fuel and then it generously applies open flames.

 

[thursday]

A little late to the party, but I really want to play this game. Thanks to SCO, I got the game running in DOSBox, but it's so sluggish it's unplayable. Currently trying to work step 6 out...

6) {optional} you can bind dos32a but it's complicated because one of the resulting exe file has to be configured by a additional dos32a tool and i don't think the average monkey of the net has that capability. Regardless -all of this on dosbox- the exe files to bind are R.exe, TM.exe and replace dos4gw.exe for a renamed dos32a.exe (bind is sb.exe /R executable_name with dos32a.exe in the dir). If you try to run the game it will moan about real memory, so configure it with the ss.exe tool of dos32a ("ss.exe TM.EXE" i think) press F1 and double the selectors from 256 to 512.

...with no success. Can anyone point this internet monkey toward a tutorial in binding DOS files, or walk me through it if you have the patience?

 

[DraQ]

You can try running it natively, with VDMSound.
Then you'll experience it being so fast it'll be unplayable.

 

[ghostdog]

A little late to the party, but I really want to play this game. Thanks to SCO, I got the game running in DOSBox, but it's so sluggish it's unplayable. Currently trying to work step 6 out...

6) {optional} you can bind dos32a but it's complicated because one of the resulting exe file has to be configured by a additional dos32a tool and i don't think the average monkey of the net has that capability. Regardless -all of this on dosbox- the exe files to bind are R.exe, TM.exe and replace dos4gw.exe for a renamed dos32a.exe (bind is sb.exe /R executable_name with dos32a.exe in the dir). If you try to run the game it will moan about real memory, so configure it with the ss.exe tool of dos32a ("ss.exe TM.EXE" i think) press F1 and double the selectors from 256 to 512.

...with no success. Can anyone point this internet monkey toward a tutorial in binding DOS files, or walk me through it if you have the patience?

http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?sho ... 6&letter=A

 

[SCO]

A little late to the party, but I really want to play this game. Thanks to SCO, I got the game running in DOSBox, but it's so sluggish it's unplayable. Currently trying to work step 6 out...

6) {optional} you can bind dos32a but it's complicated because one of the resulting exe file has to be configured by a additional dos32a tool and i don't think the average monkey of the net has that capability. Regardless -all of this on dosbox- the exe files to bind are R.exe, TM.exe and replace dos4gw.exe for a renamed dos32a.exe (bind is sb.exe /R executable_name with dos32a.exe in the dir). If you try to run the game it will moan about real memory, so configure it with the ss.exe tool of dos32a ("ss.exe TM.EXE" i think) press F1 and double the selectors from 256 to 512.

...with no success. Can anyone point this internet monkey toward a tutorial in binding DOS files, or walk me through it if you have the patience?

1) get this : http://download.narechk.net/dos32a-912-bin.zip
2) extract dos32a.exe and sb.exe and ss.exe to the game dir
3) open dosbox in the game dir. If you don't know how to do this read the dosbox read me. It's just mounting on the game dir.
4) check if R.exe has a extender by : sb.exe R.exe (it says if it has)
5) (if it has a extender) sb.exe /R R.exe
6) check if R.exe has a extender by : sb.exe TM.exe (it says if it has)
7) (if it has a extender) sb.exe /R TM.exe
8) delete dos4gw.exe
9) rename dos32a.exe to dos4gw.exe
10) ss.exe TM.exe
11) F1
12) find the menu part about selectors, it should say 256, navigate with arrows to it, enter, type 512 instead, enter save config (it's a command there).
13) delete ss.exe and sb.exe

 

[thursday]

Wow--three helpful replies from the codex already. Thanks guys!

Turns out that I simply wasn't mounting the drive correctly in DOSbox (not typing 'C:' after mounting). Derp.

The graphics are surprisingly good for a 3D game this old. Chalk it up to the shadows ironed on to textures trick discussed a few pages back, I guess. I just wish there was a way to make the interface a little less painful.

 

[Bubb]

Is it too late to shoot back the discussion on this game?

I played this recently, was awestruck... started googling, and this seems to be the only place where there are other people who thought this game was truly amazing. I was starting to think I'm crazy!

I finished it a second time yesterday, here is a few notes I have, I hope someone can comment:

* I don't buy the impression that grailstone is UTTERMOST EVIL AND CORRUPTING as some of you take it. Not necessarily, anyway. It is made quite clear throughout the game lore that besides healing and preventing aging, one of the main effects of grailstone is to promote beneficial mutations. With a bunch of fanatical knights fearful of each other holed into decaying underground ruins full of terrible monsters for centuries, why wouldn't the grail have the effect of turning them all into pale and murderous madmen?

I get the impression thet if a healthy living being were exposed to grailstone in a healthy and stable enviroment it wouldn't suffer the same fate of the twelve knights. Maybe?

* Awesome how every single character in the game is a backstabbing son of a bitch. Except maybe the hanging man... but then again, he has been in terrible pain and (un)living hell on earth for a couple of centuries. The poor russian guy doesn't have enough energy to plot schemes to kill you. I never understood why the game does not give you the option to put him out of his misery. You can shoot him dead, off course, but since he is clearly exposed to grailstone in that area, he will eventually be revived.

Everyone else has their own agenda, even the ghosts.

The two living characters that I thought were not such bastards were Jack and Geoffrey. I initially thought Jack was a good guy, but choosing the right dialogue options reveals that he is spying on you for Tobias and lying out of his ass.

I could never quite figure out Geoffrey... he is the only knight that does not really appear to be insane, and he offers to help you, yet it is quite obvious that he tries to kill you in the end(i.e: throws you into a poisoned room and then expresses surprise to see you have survived). I never quite understood why he does it. The comments the other knights make about him are all one sided... they all say that he is a reclusive and cold genius obcessed with his work and studies, but not much else. Lurka mentions that he is "arrogant" and will consider you "his inferior", but I never thought it was a relevant comment. He plotted to steal a grailstone gem and escape Aeternis, but I just don't see what he had to gain by setting you up like he did.

The ghosts aren't really evil, but they are quite insane, self-centered and unable to accept that they are dead.

* Malik is an awesome backstory element, I wouldn't call him the main villain though. Tobias is the one. He is the crazy bastard that plots all the traps and "tests" to fullfill his little prophecy, only to later go insane and decide to kill you and take your place. And he lives through the events of the game, just like Malik did. He stole Geoffrey's grailstone after all. He probably left Aeternis after flooding it, it is just too bad that thge ending doesn't mention him, just his brother.

 

[Bubb]

Also, the theory about Sasha(The sister of Niamh, the ghost in the well) being the water monster is true. Putting together a few facts makes it clear:

* Niamh mentions that Sasha "fell in love with the stones of the deep", that she kept going "deeper in the realms of the gods" and it "made her ugly and fearful of light).

* If you throw Oisinns amulet to the monster it utters a painful noise and goes away.

* None of the knights knows the origin of the monster. His complex behaviour seems toi point to human intelligence.

Niamh story is quite interesting if you take the time to put the pieces together. She and sasha were members of a pict tribe that lived near caves that lead to the old complex. Their people worshipped the place as "the realm of the sun gods" and offered human sacrifices in times of drought. She and sasha were sent there as offerings and somehow surived all the mutated dinosaurs. If I understood correctly, they were both trapped into the well area for a long time, until being found by a man named Oisinn.

This is the part that gets murky... I couldn't quite get who was this guy or what he was doing there. By his name, by the design of his amulet and by the fact that the underground complex is located in scotland I take that he is celtic. Also, Niamh makes it quite clear that he is the one that taught her english, so I wager that she and her sister stayed in that well for centuries before being found(times goes by slower in Aeternis anyway).

Both sisters fell in love with him and when he left( where to? Did he survive? You find his amulet in Niamh's chest, but nothing else) couldn't follow him because of their aversion to any form of light. Sasha began journeying deeper into the caves, went insane and "ugly" and killed Niamh.

Another thing, who the hell is the owner of that elephant gun? How the hell did it end up there? It certainly did not belong to Oisinn, and there is no big hunt in Scotland. I wonder if someone found an entrance to Aeternis and decided to hunt some dinos? That is one the few details in the game that does not make much sense. everyting else is incredibly elaborate but exposed.

 

[SCO]

Welcome to the codex. The last place in the net where you will find sanity relating to games, and several kinds of insanity relating to the real world.

As an aside.


Suck it again Dragon Age. Look upon your narrative superiors and despair.

(while laughing all the way to the bank i bet)

 

[SCO]

As for the questions, this is the kind of game that you want to be consistent. Absolute consistency (even more if thematic) doesn't exist though.
Just last page i was doing that relative to the "ancient byzantine civilization".

Sometimes a fuckup or a LOL is just that.
If it were justified, it would be as a environmental clue. The game is not very big on the tell, don't show mode that is normal for other games. When it does that, it is to central elements of the plot and only momentarily and as a easter eggs (ex: malik diary, the various limited to 3 questions conversations you can have, some of them requiring previous very complex conversation navigation to happen).

As for the grailstone not being evil shit:
Don't believe it.
The most well adjusted knight, the smartest one and most scientifically minded, in fact the one that the (don't forget : french) authors would consider the most near modernity of the first group became batshit crazy when exposed to it.

Why do gamers don't value brilliant narrative? They say they do, but they don't actually.

 

[SCO]

http://www.badlanguage.net/tiny-epic-usability-fail

Today I spent 45 minutes helping my father-in-law fix a problem that had been caused by a kludgy bit of UI design in Windows 7. It has so many options and buttons and ways to do things that it’s really easy for a naive user to do something that appears logical but actually causes real pain.

Years ago, I ran a computer games company and we produced one of the greatest PC games that you have never heard of: Azrael’s Tear (also on YouTube). I still get fan mail about this game every month or two, which is a lot considering how few people bought it. Happy few.

One of the problems with the game was a user interface which was hard to figure out. It meant that there was quite a steep learning curve early in the game. It was designed by expert gamers for expert games.

Last week I played the original Command and Conquer for the first time in 15 years. It was also a complex game but it had a very gentle learning curve and relied on user interface metaphors that people knew well, such as drag select.

[...]

I’m not going back into the games business (thank goodness) but I am starting up a new website venture and I must remember these lessons. Tiny epic design wins. No tiny epic usability fails.

This makes jesus cry

 

[DraQ]

Is it too late to shoot back the discussion on this game?

It's never too late on the Codex.

I played this recently, was awestruck... started googling, and this seems to be the only place where there are other people who thought this game was truly amazing. I was starting to think I'm crazy!

Why do you think you are not?

* I don't buy the impression that grailstone is UTTERMOST EVIL AND CORRUPTING as some of you take it. Not necessarily, anyway. It is made quite clear throughout the game lore that besides healing and preventing aging, one of the main effects of grailstone is to promote beneficial mutations. With a bunch of fanatical knights fearful of each other holed into decaying underground ruins full of terrible monsters for centuries, why wouldn't the grail have the effect of turning them all into pale and murderous madmen?

I don't think it's evil either, more along the lines of "lovecraftian", definitely something that shouldn't be messed with.
Good and evil are such shallow notions.

I get the impression thet if a healthy living being were exposed to grailstone in a healthy and stable enviroment it wouldn't suffer the same fate of the twelve knights. Maybe?

I think you're wrong, because any massive influence that isn't carefully adjusted and controlled is likely to prove corrupting and destructive rather than beneficial. It's not because grailstone is evil, it's because it profoundly affects and changes whatever it touches. Chances are, that an ordinary human would go bonkers after centuries after centuries of life because humans were never built to live that long and never selected for stability in such conditions.

Again, think Lovecraft. Not any kind of actively malevolent entity, but a powerful force that will fuck you up, because this is what any powerful force will do if you happen to be in the way. Grailstone is a substance that will prolong and sustain life, resurrect dead, keep irresurrectable ones around somehow as ghosts, alter timeflow and deposit in massive amounts in one's organism after prolonged exposure also causing strange, but directed mutations - HOW can it NOT fuck you up if it isn't specifically fine-tuned to not fuck you up?

* Awesome how every single character in the game is a backstabbing son of a bitch.

Yeah, the game is pretty much a festival of paranoia.

I never understood why the game does not give you the option to put him out of his misery. You can shoot him dead, off course, but since he is clearly exposed to grailstone in that area, he will eventually be revived.

And how would you go about putting him out of his misery?

I could never quite figure out Geoffrey... he is the only knight that does not really appear to be insane, and he offers to help you, yet it is quite obvious that he tries to kill you in the end(i.e: throws you into a poisoned room and then expresses surprise to see you have survived). I never quite understood why he does it. The comments the other knights make about him are all one sided... they all say that he is a reclusive and cold genius obcessed with his work and studies, but not much else.

I'm not sure about him actually wanting you dead. You do end up in an area filled with poison, but it still beats the other option.

Odd that he actually turns out to be the most trustworthy person, he doesn't really seem a trustworthy kind. He certainly seems the most sane.

* Malik is an awesome backstory element, I wouldn't call him the main villain though. Tobias is the one. He is the crazy bastard that plots all the traps and "tests" to fullfill his little prophecy, only to later go insane and decide to kill you and take your place. And he lives through the events of the game, just like Malik did. He stole Geoffrey's grailstone after all. He probably left Aeternis after flooding it, it is just too bad that thge ending doesn't mention him, just his brother.

It's also too bad that the ending is dissonant, DHO didn't get released to clear things up, that you didn't get to explore lower caverns nor even get the slightest clue about what grailstone actually IS and so on.

Too many lose ends and no sequel (DHO) that would at least give you a chance to tie them up.

Also, ancient Byzantines were pretty fail.

Another thing, who the hell is the owner of that elephant gun? How the hell did it end up there? It certainly did not belong to Oisinn, and there is no big hunt in Scotland. I wonder if someone found an entrance to Aeternis and decided to hunt some dinos? That is one the few details in the game that does not make much sense. everyting else is incredibly elaborate but exposed.

Well, several people did manage to find the entrance in one way or another, so the owner of the elephant gun must have been among them. Maybe someone observed a dino on the loose, and the owner wanted some impressive room ornament?

Welcome to the codex. The last place in the net where you will find sanity relating to games, and several kinds of insanity relating to the real world.

Pretty much this.
Brace yourself for quite a few moments, a lot of verbal abuse and don't click obfuscated links, especially at work. We are all angry and frustrated here.

As an aside.


Suck it again Dragon Age. Look upon your narrative superiors and despair.

(while laughing all the way to the bank i bet)

P.S. Can someone tell me where the fuck there was a learning curve, steep or otherwise, involved in AT? All this game lacked was ability to customize key bindings, it's not like there was massive amount of interface functions or some arcane tricks involved in playing it. Well, you did learn to dread the dialogue for paranoia it inspired alone and the fact that it was genuinely hard, and riddled with multiple traps and pitfalls which made you think hard about what you were about say, but that's hardly a drawback.

 

[Bubb]

As for the questions, this is the kind of game that you want to be consistent. Absolute consistency (even more if thematic) doesn't exist though.
Just last page i was doing that relative to the "ancient byzantine civilization".

I don't know, I thought that was just Tobias perception of these people? Reading his journal makes it clear that he deeply admired the eastern roman empire and lamented it being sacked during the crusades. IMHO, the ancient byzantines were not an advanced ancient civilization, they were just a greek colony founded 6 centuries BC:

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

I always had the impression that calling them "ancient byzantines" was just Tobias distorted medieval view of the world. The only concrete thing we see about them is that "zyggurat" structure, which is actually mesopotamian in origin.

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

Though the style of the one we see is quite unique... so they are probably not mesopotamiam.

Niamh also makes it quite clear that the well mechanism was there before the templars arrived, which means this civilization is VERY advanced. One of the most interesting things in her lines is that she describes how the mine and well area were before the templars arrived... seemed like they were aiming for some kind of babylonian paradise(Niamh called the mine area the "beautiful flower garden cave" or something to that effect).

All in all, I think the game was consistent on this one. Perhaps *too* consistent, as it simply wouldn't make any sense for medieval templars to understand and correctly name a civilization that even modern archaologists(raptors) do not know of. I'm serious, the only broken thing I noticed in my two playthroughs was the elephant gun. This game is just very well researched and planned, every character and place is there for a reason, though the game doesn't hand all the info on a platter, it is all in the details, which makes it even more brilliant.

Tobias also mentions in his journals that the templars found similar ruins in eastern roman territory(but this time with grailstone depleted). Maybe that is one of the reasons he chooses the monicker "ancient byzantines"?

As for the grailstone not being evil shit:
Don't believe it.
The most well adjusted knight, the smartest one and most scientifically minded, in fact the one that the (don't forget : french) authors would consider the most near modernity of the first group became batshit crazy when exposed to it.

The smartest and most scientifically minded knight is Geoffrey, and he seemed quite sane and level headed, even though he was originally an obsessed genius that didn't mind murdering 600 slaves in cold blood to reach his goals. Then again it is made quite clear throughout the game that he spends most of his time in isolation and study, and that he does not give much mind to all the backstabbing and treachery among the knights. Also, if I'm not mistaken his computer reading showed that he wasn't as heavily mutated as the other knights(I think it showed the same description as Jack, the other not-so-insane inhabitant of Aeternis). That kind of supports my point, though I agree with Draq, grailstone is very lovecraftian and one can't expect any living being exposed to it to remain normal.

 

[Bubb]

I never understood why the game does not give you the option to put him out of his misery. You can shoot him dead, off course, but since he is clearly exposed to grailstone in that area, he will eventually be revived.

And how would you go about putting him out of his misery?

You are right off course, decapitation would just turn him into another insane ghost trapped in aeternis forever. I suppose you could at least release him from the knot. Though I do agree that from a game design point of view it wouldn't be practical...

I could never quite figure out Geoffrey... he is the only knight that does not really appear to be insane, and he offers to help you, yet it is quite obvious that he tries to kill you in the end(i.e: throws you into a poisoned room and then expresses surprise to see you have survived). I never quite understood why he does it. The comments the other knights make about him are all one sided... they all say that he is a reclusive and cold genius obcessed with his work and studies, but not much else.

I'm not sure about him actually wanting you dead. You do end up in an area filled with poison, but it still beats the other option.

Odd that he actually turns out to be the most trustworthy person, he doesn't really seem a trustworthy kind. He certainly seems the most sane.

Yup, I thought Jack was the one you could relate the most, since he is also a modern man, but he lies to you and plays a part... and Geoffrey does not, at least not that I figured it out.

* Malik is an awesome backstory element, I wouldn't call him the main villain though. Tobias is the one. He is the crazy bastard that plots all the traps and "tests" to fullfill his little prophecy, only to later go insane and decide to kill you and take your place. And he lives through the events of the game, just like Malik did. He stole Geoffrey's grailstone after all. He probably left Aeternis after flooding it, it is just too bad that thge ending doesn't mention him, just his brother.

It's also too bad that the ending is dissonant, DHO didn't get released to clear things up, that you didn't get to explore lower caverns nor even get the slightest clue about what grailstone actually IS and so on.

Too many lose ends and no sequel (DHO) that would at least give you a chance to tie them up.

I know, I too was left yearning for a sequel... I think it is a crime that this game failed commercially, I agree that the design is not retard friendly(which is never good, commercially speaking), but is one of if not THE most intelligent and adult minded game I have played.

Another thing, who the hell is the owner of that elephant gun? How the hell did it end up there? It certainly did not belong to Oisinn, and there is no big hunt in Scotland. I wonder if someone found an entrance to Aeternis and decided to hunt some dinos? That is one the few details in the game that does not make much sense. everyting else is incredibly elaborate but exposed.

Well, several people did manage to find the entrance in one way or another, so the owner of the elephant gun must have been among them. Maybe someone observed a dino on the loose, and the owner wanted some impressive room ornament?

My thoughts exactly, I'm just disappointed that the game does not give you more info about it. A journal from this hunter would have been a little gem, for instance. Though I think the point was that he was eaten by dinos as soon as he got there(the computer points that his bones were broken by teeth, right?), and that area is not exposed to grailstone, so we never see his ghost.

P.S. Can someone tell me where the fuck there was a learning curve, steep or otherwise, involved in AT? All this game lacked was ability to customize key bindings, it's not like there was massive amount of interface functions or some arcane tricks involved in playing it. Well, you did learn to dread the dialogue for paranoia it inspired alone and the fact that it was genuinely hard, and riddled with multiple traps and pitfalls which made you think hard about what you were about say, but that's hardly a drawback.

heh, I played it in my notebook, and it was actually a bit hard to get used to the controls.

I disagree about the dialogue, though, it actually made it more interesting. On my second playthrough I kept saving before conversations and loading back just to get the most of it. And even then you just know you didn't get everything, since many options depend on answers you got from other characters before. I wish we had access to a design document or that someone could hack into the files and hear all the voice audio. It is the only way you can know what every character has to say without playing the game a dozen times and going insane.

 

[DraQ]

My thoughts exactly, I'm just disappointed that the game does not give you more info about it. A journal from this hunter would have been a little gem, for instance. Though I think the point was that he was eaten by dinos as soon as he got there(the computer points that his bones were broken by teeth, right?), and that area is not exposed to grailstone, so we never see his ghost.

The other thing is that grailstone seemed to need some time to start working, IIRC.

I disagree about the dialogue, though, it actually made it more interesting.

In other words, you agree with me about the dialogue - I didn't mean it in a negative way. The dialogue was awesome, the thing is that it kept you on your toes, because you couldn't just loop through the dialogue tree mechanically till you exhausted all the options.

Dreading dialogue with an ax-crazy mutated dude in heavy armour isn't bad nor does it speak badly of the quality of dialogue itself, in the same way as dreading some monster in a horror game is more of a testament to developers' skill, than anything.

Again, not a drawback.

 

[Bubb]

Oh, four more things:

* About the ending so many whine about... I agree that it is "randian"(lol), but I think it is fitting. Like someone else said, this is certainly not a kiddies game... it would be confortable to grab that thing and save the world and everybody at the end, but it wouldn't make sense and it would be nigh impossible and unrealistic. We are talking about a superpopulated world being ravaged by a deadly plague that science can't fix!

I mean really, things are so bad that people are back to pursuing holy grail legends.

And we are talking about one broken ancient grail, and billions of people... and aeternis is flooded and destroyed at the end of the game, which makes it impossible to find more grailstone. I think the solution applied by the priory is actually the most reasonable one and the better one, all things considered...

Though I would be quite pissed to be one of the millions dying from the plague and wandering around those walls begging entrance...

* I love it how Niamh, one the most unimportant and bland characters, that initially seems to be thrown in just for flavor, turns out to have so much lore and information. She is the one that points out the origin of so many things... oisinns amulet, the water monster, the well system. And she also points out that the templars destroyed many of the original constructions and used a lot of the science and knowledge of the ancient ruins.

* This game reminded me of Borges for some reason, it reminded me of the genre of "magical realism". It is such a cold and practical setting, everything seems to have an explanation, but then you see tiny details that point to the supernatural, like Tobias prophecies actually being true and the accurate depictions of raptor suits painted by him.

*Man, I keep wondering what Malik has been up to all the years he has been outside. With his genius and with the uses he discovered for grailstone he could build an army of Claudelike monsters and wreak havok on the world. Whatever they planned for the sequel, it must have been very interesting.

 

[DraQ]

Oh, four more things:

* About the ending so many whine about... I agree that it is "randian"(lol), but I think it is fitting. Like someone else said, this is certainly not a kiddies game... it would be confortable to grab that thing and save the world and everybody at the end, but it wouldn't make sense and it would be nigh impossible and unrealistic.

I'm pretty comfortable with uncomfortable endings, but this one was just bwuh.

The thing it lacked the most, IMO, was lack of ability to delve deeper into the mystery and at least scratch the surface of WTF was happening all the time.
Plusr, the problem with the ending wasn't that it was uncomfortable, it was that it was dissonant. I get that a 'raptor' character would probably not turn out to be the nicest fellow ever, but my in-game avatar suddenly going randroid was rather... abrupt.

 

[Bubb]

Well, I liked it. But then again I admit I'm a libertarian that collects precious metals coins and hates central banks.

See? I'm adapting to this place quite well.

Anyway, I can't really think of a better ending. Different endings could be a good thing depending on the attitude of the raptor(i.e: an evil ending where the raptor uses the grail to rule the world or something like that), but since he is found by that priory chopper in the end, I don't really think he has any choice. If the raptor hated what was happening and started to whine about it, he would probbaly be dumped and left do die from the plague. He is just a man after all.

And his gun is broken at the end of the game.

I'm not even sure if the main character in the sequel would again be the "holy thief". If so, that could actually be what you seem to want. Our very own raptor could go rogue on the priory and try to steal the grail for the "people". With Malik and Tobias on the loose with their very own grailstone sources, it would be a very interesting scenario.

 

[Bubb]

http://www.badlanguage.net/tiny-epic-usability-fail

Today I spent 45 minutes helping my father-in-law fix a problem that had been caused by a kludgy bit of UI design in Windows 7. It has so many options and buttons and ways to do things that it’s really easy for a naive user to do something that appears logical but actually causes real pain.

Years ago, I ran a computer games company and we produced one of the greatest PC games that you have never heard of: Azrael’s Tear (also on YouTube). I still get fan mail about this game every month or two, which is a lot considering how few people bought it. Happy few.

One of the problems with the game was a user interface which was hard to figure out. It meant that there was quite a steep learning curve early in the game. It was designed by expert gamers for expert games.

Last week I played the original Command and Conquer for the first time in 15 years. It was also a complex game but it had a very gentle learning curve and relied on user interface metaphors that people knew well, such as drag select.

[...]

I’m not going back into the games business (thank goodness) but I am starting up a new website venture and I must remember these lessons. Tiny epic design wins. No tiny epic usability fails.

This makes jesus cry

Perhaps if we throw money and praise his way he would change his mind?

It is just so sad, at least this guy replies to fan mail, I tried getting in contact with the main designers and they all seem to think of AT as a bad memory of grotesque failure and deny association.

Also, the Stibbe fellow claimed that contrary to popular belief DHO was not finished. It was being developed though, it had a design document and a few playable areas finished.

He also says he might eventually release the design document for AT( he doesn't have the DHO papers), but I wouldn't count on it. AT doesn't even have a fan site.

Never in history has a game suffered greater injustice. The fact that it is such an awesome game makes the whole thing a true tragedy of the 21st century.

 

[Bubb]

Bump?

Seriously, this is the only place on the web where there is valid and recent discussion on this game. I hope I'm not the only one enthusiastic about discussing this.

 

[JarlFrank]

This thread made me curious. Downloadan the game right now. Only on the Codex can you discover ancient gems nobody's played.

 

[DraQ]

Anyway, I can't really think of a better ending.

The one where you learn at least a little bit more about what's happening would be far more satisfying. The game makes it seem as if there were layers upon layers of backstory regarding the grailstone, but in the end you have no opportunity to even scratch the surface - the game ends rather abruptly and then raptor was a randroid, the grailstone itself barely more than mere plot device. After the awesome things like "mystic" visage and it's demystification I was hoping that exploring the secrets of the place would make at least a major subplot, then bam-wham ending.

I'm not even sure if the main character in the sequel would again be the "holy thief". If so, that could actually be what you seem to want. Our very own raptor could go rogue on the priory and try to steal the grail for the "people". With Malik and Tobias on the loose with their very own grailstone sources, it would be a very interesting scenario.

Regardless of the choice of protagonist I assume the game would still provide an opportunity to learn and understand more.

In any case, JF is going to play it, so I don't expect this thread to die without hopes for revival. I think we will see him gushing (or bashing, but let's keep it real ) rather soon.

 

[JarlFrank]

Okay I got this to work. Movement is slow and awkward (WTF IS IT WITH THE INVERTED UPWARD/DOWNWARD LOOKING FFS ), graphics look rather shit, but I'll get used to that. Interface isn't too bad.

 

[DraQ]

I honestly don't get the complaints about graphics. It's basically Quake but with lighting baked into textures instead of being handled by engine. I would actually consider it quite nice.