The Council - episodic narrative adventure with RPG elements set in the late 18th century

[V_K]

I don't know which ending you got, but actually finding the lance - the right lance - matters a lot.

Spoiler

Sarah's fate is a bit of a bummer, but the alternative is that she dies right on the island, either shot by the Duchess or in some other way, I don't remember

Come to think of it,

Spoiler

Sarah lost a hand in the Longinus puzzle. If Loui does that, he dies in the end, because the trap is poisoned. So logically, Sarah was doomed either way from the very beginning.

Oh, that is quite interesting - how do you find out that fact in-game?

Spoiler

Which one? That she lost her hand in that puzzle? She outright tells you that.
That the puzzles is poisoned? Well, you don't unless you solve it wrong and then just roll with it until the game ends.

I did pick the right Great Macguffin (at least, I'm pretty sure), so I understand things might have gone differently otherwise, but fuck me there's no excuse for the dragon ball standoff either way.

I'm afraid I didn't play dragon ball, so I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. If you're talking about the confrontation with Mortimer, there are several ways the game can end:

Spoiler

- If you have the wrong spear, he possesses you.
- If you have the right spear, you can kill him. You still need an opening to use it, which you can get in two ways:
-- You ally with the twins, so they "battle" Mortimer (is that what you're calling the dragon ball stand off?);
-- You don't ally with the twins, but find the magic book, which you use as a decoy to get him close;
- If you have the right spear, but no opening to use it, Mortimer still possesses you;
- As I've said before, if you misused the circle puzzle, you die (I don't remember if you get the chance to take out Mortimer in that case, I think you do);
- Finally, you can make a deal with the father demon in the dream world, I don't remember what happens then.
Then there are different permutations of all of the above, leading up to ~30 ways the final scene can play out. There's a video on YT collecting all the endings, see for yourself.

Spoiler

The prominently placed one in the altar surrounded by fire, spear-shaped, copper rimmed, fish. My guess was boar spear detail was a red herring like gold. Although I thought it was a bit buggy: I read Piaggi's notes claiming boar-spear shape, but my notes said a spear-shape, and then Piaggi talked to me about some other detail, but then my notes now said boar-shape AND spear shape...

I think the contradicting clues are actually on purpose, you have to separate truth from hearsay.

 

[taxalot]

Why do video game writers always fuck up by teasing with a great setting, full of originality, doing things that are almost never seen in a game...

... and then "of course, the reason why this is all interesting is because ancient magic artifacts, demons, and superpowers". ?

Why ?

Why is this necessary ?

Why do you do this ?

 

[Berekän]

It's much easier to make up a mistery that to actually give a satisfying resolution to it.

Also, as with most episodic games of this kind, I suspect they were running out of funds by the end of it so they just wanted to finish it and be done with it, you can tell that they start feeling more rushed from chapter 2 onwards.

 

[Tigranes]

It's just so fucking annoying to see a nicely written game actively piss on its own achievements.

It's never ever a good idea, especially in a mystery/detective setting. Set up the rules by which the player explores the mystery, and then oh well, just break them all. At least they could have been disciplined about it, where occultism is confined to very specifically rules-bound powers that require exactly the right conditions to execute and leave telltale hints. Instead, they change the rules every 5 minutes until everybody can do anything. It's telling that the quality of the dialogue degenerates, as well, because what the hell is your character supposed to do? All he can now do is ask "uhh what is this new power?" "ohhhhhhh cool ok"


V_K By dragon ball, I mean:

Spoiler

Yes, I had the right spear, the twins (one of them resurrected into a servant body, because you know, ~demons~ can do anything now), we basically walked up to Mortimer in the dining table, he gave an EVIL MANIAC LAUGH and started causing SEVERE MIGRAINES with hand waves, the twins COUNTERED with their own HANDWAVES while I heroically thrust my phallus at his heart. One of this game's great strengths was its camera work and scene pacing (sometimes awkward but always with its own style), and that too was rushed here as if it was a TV show running out of screen time.

 

[V_K]

Also, as with most episodic games of this kind, I suspect they were running out of funds by the end of it so they just wanted to finish it and be done with it, you can tell that they start feeling more rushed from chapter 2 onwards.

Yeah, I also think that they just planned more story than they could fit into 5 episodes, happens with tv shows all the time, thus the abrupt reveal.

 

[Zombra]

I keep wanting to defend the writing, but really .... I can't. Tigranes has the right of it. Even if they wanted to go off on such a goofy twist, they could at least have written down some rules and stuck to them, instead of just "whatever super powers I feel like scribbling for this scene."

I will say one minor positive thing about it all. I was honestly surprised by the big twist, and though it was annoying for a while, when I thought about it, I was like, you know, the main characters in the game are all occultists, right? They actually believed in stuff like this the whole time. So it was kind of cool for their mumbo jumbo to be true all along.

But that's really the only cool thing about that decision.

 

[taxalot]

The thing is that The Council was supposed to introduce the universe, and they should have followed with other games.
But apparently, Big Business got in the way and they're now working on Vampire TM games. Oh well.

 

[Tigranes]

I keep wanting to defend the writing, but really .... I can't. Tigranes has the right of it. Even if they wanted to go off on such a goofy twist, they could at least have written down some rules and stuck to them, instead of just "whatever super powers I feel like scribbling for this scene."

I will say one minor positive thing about it all. I was honestly surprised by the big twist, and though it was annoying for a while, when I thought about it, I was like, you know, the main characters in the game are all occultists, right? They actually believed in stuff like this the whole time. So it was kind of cool for their mumbo jumbo to be true all along.

But that's really the only cool thing about that decision.

That's why Wollner should have been the fulcrum for that process of discovery and disorientation, not Hillsborough.

 

[Humphrey Plugg]

Also Sarah had the worst voice acting I've ever heard lol - I'd rather hear her french VA.

I also picked this up over the holidays and I have to agree. If there was any voice acting direction given for her, it just did not work. There are some other odd choices in the (English) voice work, to the extent that when someone mentions that three Frenchmen are present at the conference I had to think for a moment about who they were.

But perhaps because I played it all at once and was pre-warned that the plot takes a bit of a, shall we say "turn", I found it the most interesting and enjoyable example I've found of the episodic narrative adventure things that Telltale pioneered (although I wonder if the episodic format is effectively dead at this point).

 

[WallaceChambers]

I gatta say I love how mind-bendlingly stupid the latter half of the council gets. It's not, strictly speaking, good... but it's damn sure entertaining. I was laughing my balls off during episode 4 with all the twists and dramatic reveals.

 

[Humphrey Plugg]

I am curious to know what people thought of the skill-based approach to dialog (and the consumables), putting aside any considerations of whether it successfully grafted RPG mechanics to the game. Did it enhance the experience for you?

My guinea-pig on such matters is my good lady wife, who initially found it confusing and annoying, but warmed to it by half-way through. I think that having the different dialog options be annotated by the skill and the effort required added at least some flavor to the proceedings. Also, I liked that some of the talents that got unlocked gave positive and negative effects based on failure as well as success. I wish they had leaned harder into that.

That said, I assume after the first chapter most people decided to at least unlock all the skills to level one, because it feels like you miss out on a lot of options otherwise. I feel like it would need a pretty different design approach for me to commit to going full occultist or whatever.

Finally, I betrayed the PC Master Race by once again playing on XBox and I hope the PC version got extra patching, because the experience was rough in places. Special shout-outs to: some text not being translated from French in Chapter 2; the voiced and written dialog not always matching (albeit in unimportant ways); an entire conversation with George Washington being unvoiced in Chapter 4; and last but not least, a maddening inability to decide whether to refer to "Sir Gregory" or "Sir Holm". If you are going to be wrong about what to call him, at least commit. Weirdly, this started off completely wrong, got better for a couple of chapters, and then went back to wrong for the last two. Presumably QA issues as the money ran out?

 

[Zombra]

I am curious to know what people thought of the skill-based approach to dialog (and the consumables), putting aside any considerations of whether it successfully grafted RPG mechanics to the game. Did it enhance the experience for you?

A thousand times yes. I always enjoy dialogue skill checks in RPGs. Making them the central mechanic of the game instead of a side dish to killing stuff is a dream come true for me. The "boss fights" were especially compelling.

That said, I assume after the first chapter most people decided to at least unlock all the skills to level one, because it feels like you miss out on a lot of options otherwise. I feel like it would need a pretty different design approach for me to commit to going full occultist or whatever.

Agreed. The concept is fantastic but the execution came up short. Between making it cheap to invest small in every skill, and adding enough consumables to ensure that every character could succeed at any check, character building decisions ended up having no teeth. I would have liked to see linear progression costs (level 4 of a skill costs just as much as level 1) and fewer points/consumables available. Come to think of it, Disco Elysium did much better in this regard.

 

[V_K]

I am curious to know what people thought of the skill-based approach to dialog (and the consumables), putting aside any considerations of whether it successfully grafted RPG mechanics to the game. Did it enhance the experience for you?

A thousand times yes. I always enjoy dialogue skill checks in RPGs. Making them the central mechanic of the game instead of a side dish to killing stuff is a dream come true for me. The "boss fights" were especially compelling.

That said, I assume after the first chapter most people decided to at least unlock all the skills to level one, because it feels like you miss out on a lot of options otherwise. I feel like it would need a pretty different design approach for me to commit to going full occultist or whatever.

Agreed. The concept is fantastic but the execution came up short. Between making it cheap to invest small in every skill, and adding enough consumables to ensure that every character could succeed at any check, character building decisions ended up having no teeth. I would have liked to see linear progression costs (level 4 of a skill costs just as much as level 1) and fewer points/consumables available. Come to think of it, Disco Elysium did much better in this regard.

I was so agreeing with your post, and then you ruined it with the last sentence
Lack of scarcity notwithstanding, I find the system for skillchecks in The Council (managing effort instead of trying to meet an arbitrary threshold) to be head and shoulders better than how RPGs, including DE, traditionally do it.

That said, I assume after the first chapter most people decided to at least unlock all the skills to level one, because it feels like you miss out on a lot of options otherwise.

In principle, early game should discourage you from that, because a lot of options are trap options, not giving you anything useful and only there to trick you into spending effort. But I agree that the consumables and the options that reward you with more skillpoints are a bit too plentiful to notice that.

I actually think one of the reasons they started dishing out demon powers in episode 4 is that they realized they gave out too many skillpoints in previous episodes.

 

[Zombra]

Come to think of it, Disco Elysium did much better in this regard.

I was so agreeing with your post, and then you ruined it with the last sentence
Lack of scarcity notwithstanding, I find the system for skillchecks in The Council (managing effort instead of trying to meet an arbitrary threshold) to be head and shoulders better than how RPGs, including DE, traditionally do it.

Hm, I stand by what I said. Overall balance may not have been much better, but DE's linear progression made spending every point interesting.

Disco Elysium: Hm, I have a skill point. Should I increase Authority from 3 to 4, or Physical Instrument from 1 to 2, or Drama from 5 to 6, or, or, or ...

The Council: Hm, I have 8 skill points. Should I increase Occultism from 3 to 4, or unlock 8 new skills?

 

[Alpan]

Disco Elysium would have done much better in that regard if the skill checks actually lead to plot changes, and they weren't easily gameable with the clothing and drugs systems. It does neither of these. The Council absolutely fails to makes skill points a meaningful resource, but so does DE.

 

[V_K]

The Council: Hm, I have 8 skill points. Should I increase Occultism from 3 to 4, or unlock 2 new skills?

FTFY - it costs at least 3 skill points to unlock a skill. The skill point economy is fairly robust if we only consider skillpoints from level-ups. It's the books and perks that break it.

 

[Zombra]

The Council: Hm, I have 8 skill points. Should I increase Occultism from 3 to 4, or unlock 2 new skills?

FTFY - it costs at least 3 skill points to unlock a skill. The skill point economy is fairly robust if we only consider skillpoints from level-ups. It's the books and perks that break it.

Can you fix the first part too? Those were proverbial numbers. All I remembered is that it cost a lot more to progress than to unlock.

 

[V_K]

The Council: Hm, I have 8 skill points. Should I increase Occultism from 3 to 4, or unlock 2 new skills?

FTFY - it costs at least 3 skill points to unlock a skill. The skill point economy is fairly robust if we only consider skillpoints from level-ups. It's the books and perks that break it.

Can you fix the first part too? Those were proverbial numbers. All I remembered is that it cost a lot more to progress than to unlock.

I can actually - there's no level 4 for skills :D
I think it's 3/4 points to unlock a skill, 5/6 points to level 2 and 11/12 points to level 3 (don't quote me on that though). Which is a lot, but level 3 is also pretty powerful, making checks effort-free. If the game was stingier with consumables, or presented more checks with high effort cost, it might have been a good investment actually.

 

[Tigranes]

Did Numeneras effort system increase your chances in a roll rather than a flat cost to succeed?

I think deterministic is the way to go in a game like the Council - and probably Disco too. And removing almost all bonuses from items. I can see how its hard to give players a sense of progression though. You dont want to feel like you have to keep pumping trolling to lv30 to keep trolling.

 

[V_K]

Did Numeneras effort system increase your chances in a roll rather than a flat cost to succeed?

The former, yes. It was also very easy to restore.

I can see how its hard to give players a sense of progression though. You dont want to feel like you have to keep pumping trolling to lv30 to keep trolling.

Something like SRR's etiquette system could work for that. Like you could have an Occultism skill and at each level you'd pick a binary expertise - Kabbalah, Mesmerism etc. - and then some checks would require not just a skill, but a specific expertise within that skill. Would be hard to balance though.

 

[vortex]

Game is very well written but for the sequel to shine I want to see more gameplay.

This game would have been amazing to have Thief style gameplay in areas you have to sneak in and explore.

Does different builds get you different options?

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, they should add balance beams, a shoe shining minigame, and also make you kill 200 skeletons by shooting fireballs at them. Fuck you.

 

[vortex]

No, no and no. For example, when you have to find some hidden room with a puzzle which is guarded by 2 guards.
If you have speech, negotiations skill high enough you can talk through the guards. If not, you can sneak behind, disperse them and knock them out.

 

[Zombra]

That sounds awful. You want to turn a deep, thoughtful puzzle and conversation game into a coin collecting dungeon. I repeat: fuck you.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Nah, they created a potentially deep and interesting virtual world to explore, but flattened it into a menu through limited interaction. It would be quite easy to redesign the game as a 2d adventure game with all the interactive objects circled in a red line. The current design wastes away one of the greatest strengths of 3d space, which is that you can explore it, and instead it treats space a simple list of interactive objects. As it is every room is a bunch of floating dots, which means that interaction is limited to those dots, so the player can't find his own ways to interact and his own solutions to puzzles (in 99% of games this is an illusion of players thinking they came up with a novel solution on their own, but that's fine).
The game allows you to Walk, but the player can't walk around and find the spot where Sarah is hiding in the rocks. The game allows the avatar to climb, but the player can't climb outside of specifically chosen locations. The game allows the player to Look around, but even the simple act of finding a secret handle is nullified because there's nothing secret in this game. Everything is shown to the player.
I get why they chose such a limited design given the resources they had. It was the right choice. And still in an imaginary world where they had no financial limitations the game would have been far better if they could have afforded to treat the world in a more free form manner.