The Devil's Flute - version 0.1.4c

[Heindal]

There is a kind of white circle in the middle of the "upper" island. You have to move with all your heroes there. Its not enough just to move one hero there.

[lipk]

Hello

I really liked the campaign, especially the sense of humour and the main characters. I had quite a problem with last scenario though, the Danse Macabre. I wasn't able to make it through. The description says "get them to the magic circle at the end of abyss". Where the hell is that? On my side there are just runes that move separate island but still I couldn't pass the abyss anyhow. I will gladly play another game of you, but those "logic" parts really bug me.

The magic circle is quite identifiable imho:

magic-circle.png (276.61 KiB) Viewed 7943 times

I guess your real problem is that you couldn't solve the puzzle? I can tell you the solution if you'd like to.

[lipk]

03:
about the tomato surprises here:
the nagas are ridiculously far away and they didn't do much before the teleport in the flood event.
maybe the nagas could be closer from the start, and could reach the battle because of better movement in the water without such teleport, though not sure if that would work.
or the naga leader could say at the previous turn: "the city is about to get flooded, prepare to relocate upstream."
the saurian teleport was less of a problem because it didn't result in instant death of any of my units.

Those ideas are good, the only reason I'm reluctant to apply them right away (other than not having time) is that it was very difficult to make that scenario more or less balanced (it's a three-cornered battle, after all) and I'm afraid that every little change could break the fragile equilibrium.

in that scenario, the book appeared as a halo on unit that carried it, and dropped on the ground to be picked up again when the carrying unit died.
having played descent into darkness i was a bit surprised at someone else killing the wizard resulting in instant defeat.

Good idea as well. I'm not entirely sure why did I make the game end when a reptile kills Dunduggwyn, I'm going to fix that in the next release (and also the halo).

looking at the script, i saw: "Great! The flute is now in safe."
could be: "Great! We have secured ourselves the flute."

06:
"I have a bad feeling that we won't get our well-merited relax!"
could be: "[...]our well deserved rest!"

08:
"Just through my dead body."
as far as i know, the expression is: "Over my dead body."

Okay.

after reading that message, i didn't recruit anything at all.
this is because i thought the circle rune would probably turn into a camp when i fulfill the objective of reaching it.
it was much quicker when i recruited a few fugitives to help me out along the way to the circle, and much easier to deal with amadeus.
the initial camp could be smaller, though.

I don't think one should read "not too much" as "nothing", but it's not worth arguing about that. The message was meant to help players, but since it's apparently confusing, it's going to be removed.

some general thoughts:
maybe my difficulty level was too low, but the game did not force me to slip through enemy main front using the skirmisher ability (except a bit in "agent jack" maybe).
and also, i didn't notice much benefit from the fugitive's hide ability either.
if such things would have been rewarded more, it would probably have added more special flavor to the campaign.

The campaign is too easy in general, I'm aware of that. During the development, I was concentrating on getting all the fancy scripts working and didn't pay too much attention to balancing. I'm planning to rebalance the whole thing... somewhen.

i see no garden there, neither a garden for growing vegetables nor a garden for growing flowers.
is there supposed to be a garden somewhere?
if it is meant like: "this way to get out of the door of your house" it sounds bit inappropriate to say "this way" for basyl in the first place, as it is not basyl's house (or the suddenly implied invisible garden around the house).
pointing in some other direction but the main gate to leave the town would be expected, though.

Ah. I was counting on the players' abstraction skill, that they can imagine a garden even if it's not visually indicated on the map

[Crow_T]

A couple of things:

Spoiler:

In the first scenario, my unit can attack an enemy in range of the lich- they talk, then after the talk the unit attacks again.

In the Inn search scenario, it turned out the necromancer was the guy I was looking for, but the following dialogue refers to the "fake merman."

More things:

Spoiler:

The dialogue ""However, this couldn't annoy most of the team. They were just after a generous payday and a before a several weeks long vacation. Or at least they thought so...""

I'm not sure what you are trying to imply here, but maybe "But this didn't bother the team as they were now only thinking of a generous payday and a long vacation- Fate, however, had other plans...

Also in the text before this it should be "didn't arrive before sunset"

So far this has been an interesting campaign

[Hiromasa]

I played till the last.
I played while replacing .po file with Japanese and watched a story.(However, I machine-translate it (laughter))
［Merlyn］
It is not difficult when I block it up around Patrick.Besides, I can easily block it .

When it was next to Patrick, I may not block it up if Patrick attacks it.

［Prelude of the Finale］
I played in a degree of difficulty of 'normal', but think that it was allowed to be a little more difficult because it is the end game.

[tr0ll]

I guess your real problem is that you couldn't solve the puzzle? I can tell you the solution if you'd like to.

Thinking about difficulty levels: some people like difficult puzzles and RPG quests while others like to win hopeless battle scenarios. I wonder if campaigns should be rated (or even adjustable) on two scales - puzzles and battles. That way players can choose Easy for puzzles and the designer can have one of the characters give hints in game, or Easy for battles and change the recruitment list.

[NoQ]

Bump. A fantastic campaign, really much more than merely a technical demonstration i originally thought it to be looking at the description

The story of Agent Jack felt a bit short, it could probably turn into some funny level when Creona is doing some stuff in order to catch herself before discovered ... not sure what could it be.

Played it till the end on 1.11.5. It seems that when stepping on the magic circle can sometimes throw some units into outer space even though other pillars do remarkably well keeping your units on the ground.

[lipk]

Whoah. I missed the last couple of comments here.

In the first scenario, my unit can attack an enemy in range of the lich- they talk, then after the talk the unit attacks again.

Noted, thanks.

In the Inn search scenario, it turned out the necromancer was the guy I was looking for, but the following dialogue refers to the "fake merman."

Yeah, I believe someone else has mentioned that too.

The dialogue ""However, this couldn't annoy most of the team. They were just after a generous payday and a before a several weeks long vacation. Or at least they thought so...""

I'm not sure what you are trying to imply here, but maybe "But this didn't bother the team as they were now only thinking of a generous payday and a long vacation- Fate, however, had other plans...

Also in the text before this it should be "didn't arrive before sunset"

Alright.

I played in a degree of difficulty of 'normal', but think that it was allowed to be a little more difficult because it is the end game.

The campaign is kinda imbalanced after scenario 6, yes.

Thinking about difficulty levels: some people like difficult puzzles and RPG quests while others like to win hopeless battle scenarios. I wonder if campaigns should be rated (or even adjustable) on two scales - puzzles and battles. That way players can choose Easy for puzzles and the designer can have one of the characters give hints in game, or Easy for battles and change the recruitment list.

Good idea, but I'm pretty much in maintenance mode right now, so this will have to wait for an indefinite time.

Bump. A fantastic campaign, really much more than merely a technical demonstration i originally thought it to be looking at the description

Thanks!

The story of Agent Jack felt a bit short, it could probably turn into some funny level when Creona is doing some stuff in order to catch herself before discovered ... not sure what could it be.

Hehe, I like the idea. But again, I'm not planning any major development on this campaign for the foreseenable future.

Played it till the end on 1.11.5. It seems that when stepping on the magic circle can sometimes throw some units into outer space even though other pillars do remarkably well keeping your units on the ground.

An age-old bug, I'll hopefully fix it some day.

[vasek2]

Hey,

I could not go through this scenario. Any help or idea how to kill agent jack (go through his guys)?thnks

[Turuk]

Merged.

Vasek2, I moved your post as you are more likely to get the attention of those who could help you here. Good luck!

[lipk]

Well, the first prerequisite is having a strong recall list. If you don't have a good number of level twos and at least a few level threes, it might prove impossible to kill Jack before turn limit exceeds. Get to the river and try to force the enemy to fight from the water. As soon as you start having the upper hand, get behind their lines with a few agile units (Rangers are particularly useful here, but anything from the Thief or the Footpad line will do) and start moving towards Jack. Try to trick him out of his keep (by placing a weak or wounded unit within his reach). Then you can capture him close enough to your troops to kill him within time.

[Mu]

I just finished the campaign and I want to congratulate the author.

First time I was a bit confused, by I ended enjoying a lot the peculiar sense of humor.

The only problem I found was in the scenario where you must take the flute.

Spoiler that will totally ruin your experience:

The mission was to reach the house, and the more logical approach to me was to rush Creona to reach the house before the saurians and nagas could get to it. That meant I only recruited in the first turn. When I reached the house, it turned that I had to kill the wizard. When I killed the wizard, it turned that I had to take the flute. And when I took it, it turned I had to exit the scenario. And then, the saurian magically moved half scenario and established near the exit. And when, after being killed and loading the game several times, I managed to scape through the wasters, the naga leader magically moved very close to my badly wounded hero and magically recruited six or eight nagas. Too many tomato surprises for me. I almost abandoned the campaign, but I ended editing the savefile and I am glad because I liked a lot the rest of the scenarios. I think redesigning the scenario is quite complicated without losing it essence, I only can think to give some hint not to rush too much or to recruit a good number of units.

That was my only problem. The rest of the campaign was quite funny. The zombie puzzle was very interesting, and the last scenario puzzle too (btw, one of my units was trapped in space). The choreography was impressing, but the favorite thing of the whole campaign was the unit name and graphic of the final boss. I wish I was an artist so I could draw a portrait of that boss. The names of that characters are funny two (Mal A****** and L****g).

Great job guy/guys.

[lipk]

Thanks for playing!

I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the campaign. Most of the issues you mentioned are known of, but I've been out of touch with this campaign (or WML coding general for that matter) for a very long time so I can't confidently say that I'm ever going to fix them.

[Pepe]

Hello,

Here is spanish translation (100%).

I dont know if AI is lately active maintaining add-on translations.

Pepe
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[Hiromasa]

It seems to be compatible with Wesnoth 1.16, so I thoroughly reviewed the translation files I had previously made with machine translation.
Machine translation will still be the main focus, but I was surprised by the improved capabilities of the translation site.
I am aware that this is a poor translation file, but I would appreciate it if you could use it as a temporary one until some competent translator comes along.