2 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a mid-40s DB/fire brute, diff 2 for ~goodfights~.

   —

   Ah, Dr. Aeon. Everybody’s second-favorite unhinged scientist.

   (”LAUGH WITH ME!”)

   Anyway, looks pretty straightforward so far. Dr. n00b is making noises and in time-tested evil science fashion, I’m heading over to peer-destroy his experiments.

   Well well well. It’s a red goo scenario!

   Even though I get batted around some by gravity bosses and their gravity sings, they always manage to stack enough controls to make it a non-issue for most of the fight.

   Well, nothing like getting paid twice.

   Although, uh, getting on board with self-replicating AI seems a bit dicey. Maybe I could try something safer. Like stealing Mako’s teeth. Out of his mouth.

   —

   Hmm. If I’m sending a message to Dr. Creed, maybe make that a “mission start” clue?

   Seems to have worked, anyway. HAL’s girlfriend is right on time.

   I guess I should expect the same powers from HAL as from his duplicate, but still, seems a bit of a boring fight.

   —

   Maybe you can drop in some different-colored text in the briefing to mission 3 about how you’re going off script…

   Good on you for remembering the difference in Cap Clockwork, *bzzt*zzl*.

   Though wow. That’s a sudden level drop. Am I “supposed” to be running this arc at level 20? Double-crossing Dr. Aeon doesn’t seem very low-level.

   —

   Dr. Aeon’s going to be devoured by his own experiments. It must be Thursday! (though again, I’d appreciate some color-text denoting My Villainous Plan)

   Haha, and the Mu Strikers mow down the VALs with minimal casualties. Yeah, they’re that broken.

   Ah, punchin’ out Dr. Aeon. Some things never get old.

   And then the containment… wait, she’s just a boss? Aeon was, I think, an EB… well, the assault bots help a little with difficulty.

   I’m kinda torn here. On the one hand I’d kinda like the option of turning her loose anyway, because I THIRST FOR CHAOS. On the other, trying to stop someone with a bunch of robots from running away might not be that possible for some ATs.

   …wait, what? VAL is “on the loose”? I just shredded various essential pieces of circuitry. Be nice if I got a clue or, well, something explaining what happened after the enforced shutdown.

   —

   Storyline - ****. I’d rate this higher if it wasn’t billed as a “power play”. Right now it’s just picking somebody to side with, doing what Creed tells me as opposed to what Aeon does.

   Design - ****. I’d like the different models of VAL chassis to actually look different - right now they all seem to have the same “red-and-black robot” look to them, which is alright but makes it tough to, say, pick out the bubblers and take them down first.

   Gameplay - ****. Dipping down to level 20 in the middle of an otherwise all-levels arc doesn’t feel right.

   Detail - ****. The incidental detail with clues and interactions and suchlike is pretty nice, but it seems like all the VAL units had the exact same description.

   Overall - ****. Not quite the power play I was hoping for, with a custom group that all ran together and an inexplicable level cut right in the middle. Overall a solid arc with a decent idea behind it and some solid fighting, but it needs a few tweaks still.

   Posted on July 11th, 2009 at 9:47 pm

2. @PW Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   I really like the premise, in which you are betraying the contact rather than the more typical instance where the contact betrays you. I like how you are playing Dr. Aeon and Dr. Creed against each other for much of the arc, and I like the idea of trying to steal an army of VAL robots and the fact that VAL becomes self-aware. The dialog and characterization were quite good.

   However, I didn’t like that I was kind of in the dark as to what “my” plan was, for much of the story arc. I could catch an occasional glimmer of what “my” master plan was, but I think you really need to make it clearer what the players master plan is somehow - perhaps by use of clues reinforcing what “the player” is thinking about doing, or even adding non-Aeon related text to the briefings, perhaps italicized or colored differently to show it’s internal monologue and not Aeon monologue. I think some more explanation and/or guidance as to what “the plan” is would be an improvement.

   I also kinda wish that VAL X-3 were not a required objective in the final mission. Partly this is because I sympathized with her, but partly because even for a hardened villain, there’s no obvious percentage in beating up VAL X-3 after you find out from Dr. Aeon that she won’t work as a loyal slavebot. I think that either she should be made an optional objective, or else there should be more motivation for defeating her (perhaps you want to steal valuable cybernetic parts from her chassis or download her AI for later analysis or something). Right now it seems like you defeat her just because she’s there. If you do make her optional, perhaps you could add a glowie or two of “loot” the player can steal after defeating Dr. Aeon — you’re in Dr. Aeon’s lab and have just beat him up, I bet there’s lots of tech goodies that would be worth stealing.

   This would also help address another problem with the ending, which is basically that the player loses — her mad plan to play Creed and Aeon against each other, while cool, ultimately fails and the player is left with nothing to show for it. I kinda think the player should end up with something, even if it’s just some stolen tech junk. Possibly you could make this tech junk stolen from Dr. Aeon the seed of a new master plan — giving it a certain symmetry with the theft of the VAL technology from Dr. Creed at the start of the arc. Or alternatively if you can figure out a way for the player to work out an arrangement with VAL X-3 and “let” her go, you could perhaps receive some reward or occasional help from VAL X-3 herself.

   Some of these suggestions might change your story more than you’d like, so ultimately it’s up to you.

   I did enjoy the arc and thought it had a neat premise.

   Posted on July 16th, 2009 at 3:45 pm