As I wandered around looking for the Shadow Beast, I noticed a really nice, new effect that Jeff has added to this new game: rain. OK, we've had rain before, but this is really convincing rain. If you're on a sandy surface it leaves little gray spots for just a moment that then dry up.
Very convincing graphic for a game that's supposed to be deficient on graphics. (I've never found Spiderweb games deficient on graphics--but that's the charge from people who like big-budget corporate games.)
This was a pretty bland area. Fights with spiders, wolves, a coupla giant rats, and the occasional charmed party of hostile humans. One egotistical, cannibalistic ogre. Normal stuff. I believe there were a couple of mature hellhounds in the mix, but I dispatched those very easily. They should have been more difficult.
The boss battle with the Shadow Beast was more challenging. I really liked that. Had to do it in two tries. Got my sorceress killed the first time because I didn't place my party properly. On the second try I backed her up against a wall. That was better.
Also, I must remember not to put all the group heal scrolls with one person. That person might be dazed or ensnared when I need it. (Proof that after all this time, I'm still a putz at these games)
At the end of the battle I was just making real progress with the Beast when the evil wizard intervened. I think we know who's behind all the evil magic in this area, don't we. Well, that's been obvious. Maybe Jeff will surprise us.
One thing I really did not like. After you win your boss battle, all the trapdoors in the neighborhood lock shut. You can't get down into the tunnels again. I missed one trapdoor before I found the Beast, and don't know if that made me miss more goodies underneath. Probably not, but normally you can get back into places once you're finished with them in these games. I don't like it when you can't. (In Nethergate, you can't get back into a major, major dungeon after you've escaped. Marvelous loot languishes behind a closed portcullis, tantalizingly close, never to be regained. You can loot the place and drop the loot outside the portcullis, but if you don't know that going in, you're going to miss out on all that loot. Not good.)
So now I'm back in Avadon, being sent to Kva lands again. I have to use some of these magical enhancements on my equipment before I go, though. In this game you find stones that can be combined with your choice of armor or weapon that will give you extra points in, say, dexterity, or whatever your stone supplies. Problem is that you're going to find much better equipment as you go along in the game, so you hate to enhance something this early. Of course, I'll find lots better enhancements too, so, I guess I'll go for it!
AND! Thanks to a poster called "The Turtle Moves" on the Spiderweb Forum, I was able to add a cheat to the game. You need lockpicks to get into lots of doors and chests. You have to find all these lockpicks. But alas, the lockpicks are a light gray color that almost perfectly matches the backgrounds you normally find them on. They are very easy to miss. So, a guy on the Forum added some lines to the game script that makes them glow! (Did the same with the teensy secret switches, too). I tried to add the lines by typing them in, but crashed the game. Restored my original backup copies and the game ran perfectly again. So, I went back and did a copy and paste job instead, and that worked!
So now I have glowing lockpicks! Hooray! Wheee!
I don't yet know about the switches, and I wonder if I should have done that one because those really ought be hard to find, as part of the game. However, my eyes are weaker than most, so I can justify it. Sort of.
But I really needed those glowing lockpicks. No apologies for that!
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