Brian Fargo, legendary founder InterPlay and author of the humorous series The Bard’s Tale , For a long time I did not let go of anything worthwhile. The first serious game of his studio Inxile Entertainment After the remake of the Bard of 2004, the GTA Clone was supposed to be the 2004 Heist , But the project was closed. Then under the patronage Bethesda SoftWorks The development of cooperative fantasy-explosion began Hunted: The Demon’s Forge , But here until now, the case moved slowly.
For the first time we wrote about this project exactly a year ago, and even then it was clear that the success of the game in many ways, if not in everything, would depend on the release date. If the work is delayed, the project can, sorry for the expression, knock. However, time passed, similar in mechanics has long been released Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light And Enslaved , And Hunted will get to us only in June.
However, upon closer examination, it turned out that the game has a lot of trump cards and, in addition to cooperative mechanics, and its heroes not only quarrel, not only kill the monsters, but also, for the company, sit on the witchcraft drug.
Duet "Nepara"
For a long time, Hunted: The Demon ’S Forge seemed to us an exceptionally gloomy and pathos action movie about how a brave man and a beauty-woman cleanse the dungeons and understand the ancient evil. And in a conversation with Chris Kinan, the inxile entertainment design director, it turned out that the game was not limited to this. For example, sufficiently frivolous relations are promised between the main characters-a warrior groaned by steroids and an elf-hunter Ilara.
“Kaddok is a hardened and experienced mercenary that is used to being careful. Ilara, on the contrary, is impudent and impulsive. In addition, he wants to protect the girl, but it only annoys her, and therefore, there is, let’s say, very interesting relationships, in which there will be many jokes and tugs over each other, ”Chris smiles.
Nothing reminds? Well, of course, something very similar was in Enslaved, only exactly the opposite. However, with regard to laughter and jokes, Brian Fargo can conduct a master class for anyone. Here Hunted retains continuity with his first game, cult Bard’s Tale 1985, where, in addition to stripping caves (yes, Fargo always pulled underground), there were a lot of irony and drinking.
However, the story itself in Hunted does not give special reasons for jokes. It all starts with the fact that Gaddok and Ilar, by order of an unnamed magician, are looking for a precious mana and a powerful artifact Deathstone in the dungeons. When they get to the goal, strange events take place: a warrior and a hunter get the opportunity to communicate with the dead and are inextricably linked with some ancient evil.
On the needle
According to the design director, this story will be quite chamber: it is no longer about the salvation of the world, but about the fate of two specific heroes and how everything that happened is reflected in them. By reflection, oddly enough, this refers not to the spiritual side of the issue.
So, during adventures, both characters will use a stimulator called Sleg. After drinking it, the heroes temporarily gain incredible power, which will allow you to pass especially dangerous places – but, like any drug, Sleg will have, so to speak, side effects. Its frequent use will lead to terrible (but not yet voiced) consequences, and the final of the history of the game will depend on just who and how often drank this muck.
In addition, the heroes, recall, will have to communicate a lot with the dead. Using Deathstone on some corpse, Gaddok and Ilar will be able to find out secrets from the ghost or get a new quest, a reward in which will be advanced weapons and armor.
Research is an important element of the game (we will later explain why), because the developers could not afford to lock us in the catacombs alone. “You will see everything: from small settlements and besieged cities to ancient stone quarries and green jungle. A variety of locations allow us to play unique gameplay situations. However, the game about the dungeons could not do without dungeons, so the main events will nevertheless turn out underground, ”Chris Kinan winks.
Underground cooperative
In addition to conversations with corpses and stupefying, the heroes will still fight monsters. The most combat mechanics Hunted resembles the already mentioned Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. That is, heroes, one of whom personifies power, and the other – dexterity, fight more efficiently when they help each other. They can impose various useful auras on each other, remotely revive the fallen partner with healing magic, cover it with arrows or protect it with a sword.
In addition, everyone has unique skills, and we will have to competently use and combine them. So, Gaddok can raise the enemy into the air so that Ilara, using the moment, stuff him with arrows. Chris cited another example of such interaction. Among the enemies there will be zombies, which can be impressed only in the flesh not protected by the shield. To do this, you will have to go to the trick: Ilara should aim the creatures in the head – those, noticing this, trustingly lift the shields to cover the remnants of their rotten brains, and, accordingly, expose the navels. Here already his good word should say the Sword of the Gaddok.
Romance with stones
Another game whose author signed in his boundless love for dungeons.
It is customary to call the dungeons in games not only caves or, say, wine cellars, but in general all closed spaces with monsters. This has happened since the table Dungeons and Dragons, has been assigned to Rogue and Diablo, and now Hunted is released, which pays tribute to this very popular RPG-Location.
There is another game in which the dungeons are erected to the Absolute. They are figured there. If you drive the word dungeon into Google, then the first link will be, oddly enough, to Dungeon Keeper, the second-on an article from Wikipedia about dungeons, but the third is just for this insert, indie-RPG Desktop Dungeons.
We already wrote about this amazing game in an article about IGF 2011 and cannot miss the chance to tell about it again.
Edmund Makmillen aptly compared it with single -user chess. This is a step -by -step role slave, the average party time is fifteen minutes. The playing field is very compact – only twenty for twenty cells, but this tiny space is naked by gameplay under the eyeballs. Needless to say, because it’s not like a blow or there is a Faerbol throw, but even the hero’s step is already a tactical action that you should break your head.
At the time of the start of the batch, the player stands on one of the four hundred cells of the game field and sees another 8 cells adjacent to it – the rest are covered with fog of war. As he moves, he opens new cells.
It is here that the main gameplay find DD lurks: every time the hero opens new cells and the fog of war scatters over the sections of the dungeon, he receives health and mana points.
This is how it works: you fight with the monster, win, and then go for a walk in unexplored territories, restoring the reserves of life and witchcraft energy. Then you also deal with the next monster. And with one more. On the tenth killed enemy, the wounded hero confidently is going to improve health and faces an unpleasant discovery: the whole dungeon has already been investigated, there are no more dark cells (there are only four hundred of them, remember?). Having once realized this, the player begins to relate to cells (that is, the very dungeon!) just like the hero Hugh Jackman from the film "Fountain" – to the tree of life. That is, with incredible trepidation. You need to walk very carefully, in no case spending excess cages, if there is a different way to restore strength.
A lot of subtleties are strung on this basic mechanics. So, monsters in the game do not know how to walk at all – the hero decides when to attack them. There are many classes, and each has very specific, very useful skills. For example, a warrior sees through the fog of the war of monsters of his level, and the magician – scrolls with spells. This allows them to calculate the path to the goal in advance and not spend extra cells along the road. And let's say, the berserker receives a bonus to attack when he fights with monsters whose level is higher than his (on the berserker avatar – a naked man with a iron and without weapons).
Finally, the gods who need to be pleased in every way to please the game. So, the patron saint of warriors cannot stand magic and sorcerers: every time you kill a monster-black manner or get rid https://hustles-casino.co.uk/ of a magic scroll, he will give you all kinds of bonuses. There is also a vampire god who will quietly suck your blood, the goddess-colle, encouraging abandonment with fireballs, or the insane goddess of pain, giving adherents their blessings when they receive wounds in battles.
All this is the player’s starting position, the location of monsters, scrolls, altars of the gods, gold and valuable objects – each time is shuffled and dumped on the screen in random order. Desktop Dungeons is one hundred percent-we will not be surprised if it is once included in a set of standard Windows-games. Until this happened, we urge you to download it from the network. The preliminary version weighs four and a half megabyte and is completely free.
Shield and onion
Even if you leave interaction with a partner beyond the brackets, the battles will not lose the tactical depth. And this is by no means a fashionable system of shelters, which will also appear. It is more important that in battle you can use the elements of the environment, apply point damage, look for vulnerable places of the enemy, and most importantly – as in a thoroughbred slasher! – you need to correctly block the blows.
“Understand what a blow you can or, conversely, cannot be blocked – this is the key to success in our fights. It is impossible to win here by selflessly by force of the attack or by going into a blank defense, ”our interlocutor warns.
Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the shields will constantly break, both your and enemy. You can choose a new one from the corpse of a defeated enemy – but only if you just did not turn it in exactly the same pile of rubbish with your own blows.
In addition to shields, arrows will be a constant cost item. The authors with special care implemented the main weapon of Ilara: the game will have a lot of various bows, each of which differs in the speed of the shot (the lower it is, the more precisely the attack and higher damage). If a slow bow shoots in the same way as any normal onion from RPG, then fast frying with arrows, like a natural machine gun.
The tears of the dragon
However, Gaddok and Ilar will be able to use not only ordinary, but also magical weapons (each it has its own), as well as combat magic (for example, throw lightning, freeze enemies or activate a certain runic trap). Such an abundance of types of equipment, magic and skills, multiplied by the unique features of each enemy, will allow the use of a variety of tactical options in the battles. “Every time during Hunted's presentations, we are amazed at how many new combinations of skills people find in the same situations,” Kinan shares his impressions.
And of course, all this can be pumped. To improve ordinary skills (in a harsh man, they are clearly connected with a near battle, in the eared girl – with distant) there are collected magic crystals, and the so -called tears of the dragon are spent on the upgrade of magic; they will have to look for them too.
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Research and search for valuable resources in the best traditions of the Dungeon Crawler genre becomes the most important part of the gameplay. In addition to crystals, dragon tears, hands and shields, you will constantly need to replenish the reserves of various potions. Moreover, you will not find the most valuable equipment, according to the authors, performing exclusively plot tasks and moving directly to the credits. Well, but about talkative corpses with side quests behind the bosom, we have already told you.
We will wait? The old-regime stripping of the dungeons with a truly steeply implemented mechanics of archery, inventive cooperative and heroes who have fallen on the witchcraft drug.
Percentage of readiness: 90%