Update 3: Jack the Ripper and von Schmelling's report
And welcome back to this (sorta) LP of Space 1889 - now with video! Which turns it into, umm, a hybrid LP thingie, I guess.
Azira said:
Can you add the fifth character to your party at a later time, or would you have to restart to get a "full" party?
I don't think you can, but I'll keep on trying. Still, why not try beating the game with a four character party? If it fails, well, tough luck.
We cannot further explore the tomb of Prophet Kazakhstan until we grab more dynamite, so back to the pawn shop we go.
Fully stocked now! I wonder if that'll suffice. Probably not -- in the previous update we were told Silbury Hill had multiple levels, after all.
We come across a new NPC, Chief Inspector Doyle (as in Conan Doyle, yeah), along the way. He entrusts us with the task of eliminating the famous Jack the Ripper. We're on it! What remains is now to actually
meet the murderous bastard.
We also encounter Claus von Schmelling, the German from the game's intro, wandering around the streets of London. Being a German, he is of course corrupt and willing to part with the report for a whopping £2000.
Keeping in mind that Earl Kazgar has some bargaining skills, we attempt to beat the price down a bit, but to no avail. I wonder if that's an option in the game at all, or is it just that our bargaining skill is too low?
So yeah, we have to pay £2000. Good thing Miss Bee has the funds.
"Here is the report. Good luck. I think you will need it!"
And the report is ours. Great.
Studying it, we learn of one Hans Ogleby living... in New York City. My, that's far away from here! As I already said, so far I think this game's exploration aspect has some potential, as there is no hand-holding, the world is open, and NPCs and clues are scattered around the place and hard to find.
We scan the area until we finally stumble upon Jack the Ripper in an alley near Silbury Hill.
He doesn't attack us automatically for some reason, but I don't like his attitude so he must be killed. Also, £2000!
We press F to enter combat mode. Now we get to assign orders to the members of our party.
The combat system is designed so that you, the player, control one of your party’s five characters personally, while giving your other four characters a combat strategy they will carry out without your direct intervention. This combat design allows all five of your characters to get into action in battles against one to five opponents.
As your characters move in combat a red box will surround your lead character’s attribute box to show which character you must personally control in combat. Pressing the appropriate key for any of the combat actions in the five individual boxes will activate that particular action. The combat actions and their reds are explained below. After all combat actions have been determined for your characters, press the 'N' key to return to combat mode. The character whose combat actions you determined last will be your current party leader -- whom you must personally control. The other four characters will carry out the combat actions you specified for them. An unconscious character, of course, cannot perform combat moves at all.
The six combat actions we can perform are
Attack,
Change weapon,
Reload current weapon,
Move to a new location,
Block an enemy's attack, and
Flee. They are self-explanatory, I believe.
Naturally, we win.
I've recorded a video of our party fighting Jack the Ripper. I had to reload to record the video, and when I reloaded, it turned out the game randomizes the location of NPCs somewhat, so I had to search for the Ripper elsewhere. I eventually found him at a crossroads, but as soon as I attacked him the constable strolled by -- and entered the fight, too, on Jack the Ripper's side no least!
You can see what came out of that in the following video:
Let's watch: Space 1889 - Fighting Jack the Ripper
(You'd probably want to turn the sound down, ugh. The PC speaker is horrible. Next time I'll be playing the Amiga version.)
This was a very simple, basically tutorial, fight, so there was no tactics or anything involved. One thing to which I'd like to draw your attention is that friendly fire is possible during combat and, given our mediocre marksmanship skills, tends to happen often, so I had to keep that in mind.
After the fight is over, we loot Jack the Ripper's corpse, picking up his knife...
...and his scalpel. The scalpel is needed to prove that the Ripper is dead to Inspector Doyle.
We locate Doyle (NPCs tender to wander around aimlessly, so they aren't always easy to find again) and give him the scalpel.
Chief Inspector Doyle hands over £2000.
Next time: back to the tomb of Kazakhstan!
Also, no, you are officially the best.
