RATS APLENTY JUDGING
Kelandon
A good humor-based scenario. It was definitely very funny. Smoo is very good at hilarious one-liners, and this scenario is littered with them. My favorite: "It's like it's drilling into your mind and dropping your emotional pants."
Since it was supposed to be funny, most of the people seemed cracked, often delightfully so, but this did make the plot a little hard to follow. I spent rather too long talking to people in Scurftown; they were funny, but I wanted to make sure that I'd talked to everyone, just in case someone said something important, and it took forever.
Combat was okay. I found myself getting really annoyed at wandering back up out of the Lost City to heal after just about every combat, but this was not a very big deal. And there certainly were rats. Aplenty.
Rating: 7.8
Terror's Martyr
I dunno if Smoo's trying so much for humor nowadays. This one seems like more of a lighthearted adventure than a laugh-scenario. Still, it's good enough at what it's attempting to do. It's got humorous moments, but more importantly, Smoo's gameplay is slowly crawling up. The "stealth" mission didn't exactly work out correctly, but it's experimental in a way that most designers just haven't tried yet. The moving rat in the final dungeon (I'll let you see it for yourself) was nice, but I couldn't say as much about the floods of monsters or the "fetch the ancient items" bit. It's got its flaws, but it's worth the playthrough.
Rating: 7.8
Thuryl
Has some very funny moments and well-written dialogue (although the humour is a little hit-and-miss; the blacksmith seemed a bit over the top to me). The contrast between the fletcher who couldn't talk and the leatherworker who wouldn't shut up in the same building was amusing in a surprisingly subtle way. Gets more serious toward the end, although the seriousness is a little undercut by the fact that you're still dealing with a bunch of talking rats. The Duffeldorf Manor sequence was fun but the quests associated with it were somewhat buggy. Combat is a little uneven in difficulty; it's possible to stumble into very difficult fights outdoors early on, but the final battle is relatively trivial. (Unlimited training in Blademaster for 500 gold per point is a bit much for a beginner-level scenario, too.)
Rating: 8.5
A good humor-based scenario. It was definitely very funny. Smoo is very good at hilarious one-liners, and this scenario is littered with them. My favorite: "It's like it's drilling into your mind and dropping your emotional pants."
Since it was supposed to be funny, most of the people seemed cracked, often delightfully so, but this did make the plot a little hard to follow. I spent rather too long talking to people in Scurftown; they were funny, but I wanted to make sure that I'd talked to everyone, just in case someone said something important, and it took forever.
Combat was okay. I found myself getting really annoyed at wandering back up out of the Lost City to heal after just about every combat, but this was not a very big deal. And there certainly were rats. Aplenty.
Rating: 7.8
Terror's Martyr
I dunno if Smoo's trying so much for humor nowadays. This one seems like more of a lighthearted adventure than a laugh-scenario. Still, it's good enough at what it's attempting to do. It's got humorous moments, but more importantly, Smoo's gameplay is slowly crawling up. The "stealth" mission didn't exactly work out correctly, but it's experimental in a way that most designers just haven't tried yet. The moving rat in the final dungeon (I'll let you see it for yourself) was nice, but I couldn't say as much about the floods of monsters or the "fetch the ancient items" bit. It's got its flaws, but it's worth the playthrough.
Rating: 7.8
Thuryl
Has some very funny moments and well-written dialogue (although the humour is a little hit-and-miss; the blacksmith seemed a bit over the top to me). The contrast between the fletcher who couldn't talk and the leatherworker who wouldn't shut up in the same building was amusing in a surprisingly subtle way. Gets more serious toward the end, although the seriousness is a little undercut by the fact that you're still dealing with a bunch of talking rats. The Duffeldorf Manor sequence was fun but the quests associated with it were somewhat buggy. Combat is a little uneven in difficulty; it's possible to stumble into very difficult fights outdoors early on, but the final battle is relatively trivial. (Unlimited training in Blademaster for 500 gold per point is a bit much for a beginner-level scenario, too.)
Rating: 8.5
WINNER OF BEST
SHORT SCENARIO