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The Lost Children - The Adventures of Alaric
Blackmoon - Episode 5
Author: Larry Horsfield
Date: 2016
ADRIFT 5
Reviewed by rovarsson
It had been a long time since I ventured into Hecate, the land of Alaric
Blackmoon. I was immediately drawn back in. I love the
high-on-questing/low-on-magic setting. Alaric is a down-to-earth veteran who got
appointed Duke for saving Hecate in the first game, Axe of Kolt . Since then he
has been roaming the lands to help his people where he can.
In The Lost
Children the children of Hecate are being kidnapped by the trolls, who are
normally friendly commercial partners. Might there be some magical coercion
behind their changed behavior?
The story of The Lost Children is standard
but great fun. Alaric goes on a straightforward, unironic quest to save the
missing children, solving problems and puzzles on his way. The first area, west
of the Fireheart Mountains, involves two fetch-quests. One is particularly
weird/hilarious. The mother of one of the missing children has information
Alaric needs, but she demands that he fix her leaking roof first. The fact that
she’s an Elf who knows through a psychic connection that her son is alive and
well might help explain her warped priorities, but still…
The puzzles
here range from the very simple find-object-use-object kind to more elaborate
obstacles where our hero must obtain the right information first and go through
a multi-step plan to get what he needs.
It is during one of these
fetch-quests that the player encounters a magnificent puzzle where they have to
take stock of their inventory, the geography of multiple locations and make a
mental leap that would come natural for a playing child. The moment it clicks is
fantastic. ()
The area east of the mountains offers a whole other set of
obstacles. Here Alaric comes face to face with the trolls and must find ways to
deceive, kill or in some other way go around them. There is certainly some
learn-by-dying involved in the endgame, where the player has to figure out which
steps to take and then restore and execute those steps in as few moves as
possible, or else be caught by trolls or pulverized by wizard-fire. In a game as
proudly oldschool as this one, I had not one bit of a problem with that.
The problems with The Lost Children mostly lie in a lack of gatekeeping between
the two areas. It is exceedingly easy to move through the tunnels under the
Fireheart Mountains to the valley of the trolls from which there is no return,
and only then notice that you lack a necessary object to kill the ogre.
Indeed, there are many, many ways to get the game into walking-dead terrain. Too
many. That’s a shame, because the good oldschool features (I learned to like a
well-thought-through try-die-repeat puzzle) of the game threaten to be buried
under the frustration that comes with too many restores and lack of clues and
guidance.
I enjoyed playing through this game with a massive amount of
hints and explicit help. Without that, I would recommend playing another Alaric
Blackmoon-game like Die Feuerfaust instead.
Reviewed by Denk
The Lost Children is the fifth and last game in the
Alaric Blackmoon series. It is somewhat smaller than previous episodes but the
high quality is the same as previous episodes and the game has the same
implemented commands such as VOCAB (list of words understood by the game) and
HALL (Hall of fame for those who manage to complete the game).
First
I must mention that I was a playtester for this game. Still I enjoyed the game
very much.
In this game Alaric must investigate the disappearance
of several children in Hecate where Alaric is duke. The investigation leads to a
megalith with a magical gateway, which leads to another place far from Hecate.
Alaric goes through this gateway in the prologue and once on the other side, the
game begins.
Without revealing too much of the story, Alaric must
investigate this new area, where he will befriend some characters and he will
need to equip himself for the final encounter with those responsible for the
lost children. And hopefully he will save the children in the end.
The
game has the same feel and appearance as previous Alaric Blackmoon games, and
still its own personal touch. Though it is still important to search and examine
things, this game has less emphasis on looking under and behind objects. Instead
conversation is quite important, at least with some characters. It is important
to ask many questions to some characters, not just asking ABOUT topics but also
asking FOR objects. Of course, there are many traditional puzzles as well.
This game is really good - as usual for Alaric
Blackmoon games - but also tough in forgiveness. Throughout the game you will
have to choose how you spend your money before the shops close. So choose wisely
and save often.
All in all another Alaric Blackmoon game I highly
recommend.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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