An introduction

In the Nephil Search: Escape, you are a band of adventurers, as
always. This time, however, you're not where you are because of
some major that requested you to do this mission. This time you
are here because Avernum trusts you. You are well-liked, and people know you throughout the caves. It's no wonder the king himself, upon hearing this dreadful news, asked your assistance. Assistance with what, then?

Avernum is cold, and death is everywhere. The Avernum-Empire war has come to an end just a few months ago, and now the news has come. A bit too late, but still. A new passage has been found. Finally, after all the trying, a new set of caves has opened up. Many people have tried to find a passage and flee the war. This has only been known upon finding the passage, though, as most of the searching was done secretly. People were not only afraid of the Empire, they were afraid of some of their own men, too. You would have been severely punished upon trying to get away, and nobody wanted to know what it exactly was they would try to do to you.

But the war was over, and people were free again to do whatever they wanted. So when the passage was found, the happy news quickly spread all over Avernum. Immediately Avernum forces were dispatched to search the newly found area. There was some struggle, but it was nothing much. A new town was erected, Upper Barton, and a group of researchers was sent deeper into the cave. Now here lay the problem: the new caves were a set of three big halls, interconnected by small passages. the second big, cavernous hall was filled with lava. Crossing seemed difficult. They got slightly discouraged and asked for your help.

What you read here, was a slightly altered version of the intro sequence. I changed some facts as not to bore you with, for now, irrelevant stuff. I'm not giving away anything about the plot except this, as the scenario isn't that far in its designing process. Like with Where the Rivers Meet, count on a medium-large sized scenario which will take me loads of time to make. Don't worry, the plot will be better.

Features

Some features of the scenario:
- Special spells (most probably).
- Custom sounds (if I get it working, then it will be only available to Mac users. I apologize to the Windows users)
- Multiple languages. Yes you heard me, the scenario will be in two languages, and you can choose and switch between those languages!
- A wide variety of possible outcomes of missions and moral decissions you make, resulting a higher or lower reputation.
- Giving a very good reason to have a high nature lore.
- Hopefully intelligent AI monsters, friendlies that will talk to each other. I have to see how I'm going to implement this, though.
- You will be able to think about clues. I'm going to cut the spoon feeding crap to a minimum here.
- Puzzles.

Especially the last one is an incredibly important factor. My intention with this scenario, is to get the player thinking about his every move. I have had enough of scenarios with quests like "Go kill the bandit leader." Now you have to go from point A to B and think about how you are going to do that. Some puzzles will probably be brain crushers, while most of them will be of medium difficulty. With puzzles, though, I don't only think of pushing buttons and moving stuff, I'm also thinking of combat: a puzzle in which you are fighting, but have to find a specific solution to kill the enemy. The finding of the solution will be, of course, by understanding the problem and reacting to that, looking at the terrain around you for clues, or even as a ways as shelter, as to be able to think calmly.

A seemingly different thing, but certainly a puzzle-like thing, is the well known moral dillemma. You'll get multiple of those which effect your reputation amongst a group of people/creatures. This will hopefully give you, the player, a stimulant to make the decision "Shall I do good, or shall I hurry and get out of this place?" which is what I want to achieve. Both the options will prove to have their good things, but be carefull! Taking to long about things might get people angry!

An other thing which I want to do, is make clues and not tell of their importance. I recently held a poll about this back at Spiderweb, and the results were what I hoped for: people want to think for theirselves. My plan is as following: I will include lots of clues for you to find out the thing I want you to find out, and I'm not going to say anything about their importance. That means that, when you find a clue, there won't be any sentence starting with "You think..." or "maybe you should...". YOU will be the one to put those sentences there, not me. YOU are going to be the one that will have to think about what to do with the given clue.

To make this idea not bound by any dialogue, I will add a function at the beginning of every talking node called "ask about" as was done in the Exile series. That way people can walk up to a character and ask about a certain clue they found by asking about a certain word. If you played and of the Exile series, you will know what I'm talking about. Why do I say this, though? Why do I tlak about the adjustment of dialogue to reach my goal? The reason is as follows, but first a small introduction:

Most scenarios, if not all, for BoA, have a very simple principle: the party has to find the bad guy, and does it by collecting clues. With most of them, if not all, this is done in a way in which the player is sort of told what the party thinks. An example:

"You found a scroll, saying yada yada yada. It looks as though the goblins have something to do with this. Go tell random mayor/captain #5 about it."

I suppose this has to be done in the scenarios in which it happens, for a reason already being stated in the example: "Go tell random mayor/captain #5 about it." This basically means that we are bound to a system in which dialogue spoon feeds the player, by telling him stuff he himself probably didn't even think about, or, for the better, did think about but didn't get the chance to express. This is what Exile did a lot better. In Exile, one didn't have to state that "this is that." The party could find a clue, think for himself about it, and try asking certain words to random mayor/captain #5, which is a good thing. An other reason could well be that it has become a standard to immediatly tell what things could be, so, naturally, every designer does it, which is a pity.

Last thing, is the introduction of a new town type. Don't have any illusions, this town exists for already a very long time, but I might be the first to recognize it as giving it a very different function, name and role in a scenario. Until now, we have the friendly and enemy towns. Now a third one will be added: the obstacle town. The obstacle town serve a purpose of progressing the plot, but also forming an onbstacle for the party in terms of puzzles (at least in this scenario). They are towns that the enemy put there in order to keep unwanted visitors away from them. By definition, an obstacle town will not be friendly. This doesn't mean it always bears enemy units! Far from it, this scenario will be low in combat and high in thinking.

One might recognize elements from three different games/scenarios:
- Bahssikava: Like Bahssikava, The Nephil Search: Escape, will have (for some) brain crushing puzzles;
- Exodus: The Nephil Search: Escape will have the same principle. i realised people didn't like that, so already early in development, I thought of extra stuff to make The Nephil Search: Escape interesting.
- Avernum 2: remember that boattrip you make to the Vahnatai lands? Though in The Nephil Search: Escape Youw ill hardly use boats, It is probably the same principle, like in Exodus.

Conclusion

I have set myself some ambitious goals, I feel, but this is the scenario I always wanted to make, and I'm making it now. I have, at this moment, some towns finished, but most not. Every puzzle I make I'm thinking about: will it be fun? Won't it be too difficult? How can I explain it in a good way? Therefor, it will take, again, a long time until it is finished. i ask you to be very patient. Some day it will be finished.

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