The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Analysis

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Analysis

David Hunter

January 4, 2019

1 Overview

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a third-person action RPG in the tradition of Diablo. It was developed by NeocoreGames and released in December, 2013.

2 Formal Elements

2.1 Players

In The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, you can control of the son of Abraham Van Helsing, famous as the vampire hunter from Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. You control this avatar from the traditional 3/4 top down perspective, however the camera actually displays in perspective, rather than in orthographic mode. The camera is not rotatable, but the ground often has more 3D-ness and verticality than is usually found in these kinds of games. Besides controlling the avatar of the son of Abraham Van Helsing, you also have a ghost companion, Katerina. Although she is controlled by the AI, the player may modify the AI behavior, give her different equipment, and level her up in a similar way to Van Helsing.

The main campaign is strictly single player, but multiplayer sessions may be created online.

Your Van Helsing comes in three classes: a traditional ”Hunter” class, who can use swords and guns, ”Thaugmaturge” class, who can use powerful magic, and the ”Archane Mechanic” class, who can use a kind of magical gun or cannon.

2.2 Objectives

The main objective is to defeat an evil scientist who as taken over a city in central Europe. You have been hired by a mysterious client to oust the scientist and rescue the city. While traveling to the city, the only bridge to it gets dynamited, forcing you to make a detour and of course help lots of people and defeat lots of bosses along the way to the city through a different route.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Movement

Similarly to other action RPGs, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsinghas severely restricted movement options. Your avatar may move horizontally along the plain, although there are many stairs, hills, and sometimes elevators that you may use to move vertically.

There is no swimming, jumping, dodging, or flying. The player may not move through enemies, unless you use a special dash ability. Enemies may crowd around the player somewhat unrealistically, ignoring each other’s colliders.

2.3.2 Gear, Items, and Inventory

Like many ARPGs, it is all about the loot. There are many different items and pieces of equipment. For weapons, you have the one-handed and two-handed melee or magical items, as well as one-handed and two-handed ranged or magical items. For the most part, these use the common trade of a higher attack frequency with less damage with one-handed weapons for the lower attack frequency but much higher attack damage with two-handed weapons. One melee and one ranged weapon may be equipped at any given time, although many more may be carried.

There are also armor and accessory slots:

1. body armor
2. hat
3. cloak
4. belt
5. gloves
6. boots
7. necklace
8. trophy
9. ring (two may be equipped)

These are accessed by using the right joystick to pick a category on a radial menu; however, this is extremely sticky and imprecise, making it time-consuming and extremely frustrating to manage your inventory.

2.3.3 Crafting

There is a crafting system in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, but this is never adequately explained, and for the entire game you can safely ignore it. For completeness sake, here is a brief description: you can ”Enhance” weapons and armor by using different essences which are dropped as loot from slain enemies. Essences may themselves by enhanced or combined to create new properties. You can also remove these essences from weapons by dismantling them. Weapons and armor have a limited essence capacity, so you must choose which essence you apply.

2.3.4 Quests

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsingfeatures quests, many of which are optional. Completing the optional quests will give you extra XP and other possible rewards. They may also increase your reputation, allowing you to unlock a perk.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Talking to an NPC

Many times you will be tasked with speaking to an NPC. This is done in the time-honored fashion that has not changed much since Planescape: Torment: You click the interaction button, and you have a simple menu to choose from. You have a few points in the story where your choices may lead to a different path or influence later play, but these are very small changes.

2.4.2 Searching an Area & Scavenging

Several quests involve gathering a certain number of items, and this means exploring all the regions or locations in an area. They may be laying around, they may be in containers, or it might be necessary to kill a particular type of enemy.

2.4.3 Killing a Boss / Mob

There are several bosses spread throughout the game world of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. Most of them are optional, and will give you a lot of XP, gold, items, and a boost to your reputation. They usually have special abilities, such as draining your mana, spawning walls which block your escape, health regeneration, etc, and naturally have a huge amount of health.

There are hundreds of mobs of different monsters around the world, ranging in size from a handful to several dozen creatures. While attacking either a boss or a mob, you can choose from melee or ranged attacks, and also from different styles of attack. Each attack has three different variations which can be unlocked, and which consume rage when used. However, this is also never clearly explained and I played most of the game without realizing it.

2.4.4 Managing Inventory

This is one of the most annoying parts that you will have to regularly engage in. You start up with 50 inventory slots, but this is deceiving because it seems that items may take up more than one slot. You can also transfer items to Katerina, who can be sent to the shop to sell her items. However, this is also never adequately explained. There is a perk which will allow you to get 100 inventory slots, so if you don’t realize you can do the above, you could invest in this perk. I must reiterate that managing inventory is a huge pain in the ass. Not only do you have quite limited space considering the amount of items that will drop (even at low luck levels), but the using the controller to access your items and check them out is more or less broken.

You use the right joystick and push it towards one of the categories along the radial menu. There are ten item categories, which means you have 36^∘ for each category. When you select one category, it is extremely sticky, so even when you move the position of your joystick much more than 36^∘ away from that category, it remains selected. Even for angles greater than 50^∘ or 60^∘ different than the selected category, no change is shown. Although 36^∘ is not a huge range to aim for when moving your joystick, it is not small either. Still, the game cannot detect where you are aiming accurately, and since the categories are so sticky, it is difficult to change the category to the one you desired.

2.4.5 Leveling up

Each time you kill a monster or complete a quest, you receive XP, which will increase your level after you receive a certain amount. Your companion can also level up in the same way. Each time you level up, you will receive 3 skill points and 5 stat points. Skill points are of course used to increase skills, although skills with a higher level requirement need two skill points.

There are four stats you may invest in, two types of skills (one for melee and one for ranged) with 11 skills each (some of which are passive stat boosts), 10 auras which are passive stat boosts, and 7 tricks, which are also basically passive skills.

There are also perks, which become available after increasing your reputation. These could be increasing the effect of potions, giving your character a one time gift of extra skill points, decreasing the level requirements for weapons, or others.

2.5 Resources

In The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, like in many RPG games, there are numerous resources.

2.5.1 Tangible Resources

1. Gold: Gold is dropped by slain monsters, found in loot containers, and also received as a reward for completing quests.
2. Essences: Essences are also dropped from slain monsters and found in loot containers. They can be used to modify weapons and armor.
3. Potions: Potions can be found around the game world in loot contains, and are also dropped by slain monsters. You may also purchase them from merchants. The two main potions are health and mana, although a few unique ones also exist.
4. Trophies: These are also dropped from slain enemies. Like the trophies in The Witcher franchise, they are body parts which give some bonuses to different stats, increasing max health or mana, increasing attack speed, granting fire or ice damage, etc.
5. Armor, Weapons, and Accessories: Guess what, these also drop from slain enemies, can be purchased from shops, and found in crates around the game world.

2.5.2 Intangible Resources

1. Player and Companion Level: As you earn XP, your level will increase. This unlocks some skills and allows you to use better equipment.
2. Player and Katerina XP: Both Van Helsing and his companion Katerina gain XP from killing enemies. Van Helsing further gains it by complete quests.
3. Reputation: This is gained by killing powerful enemies
4. Skill Levels and Points: Each skill has level requirements and other prerequisites. By investing skill points in a skill, you increase certain aspects of the skill, either its potency, area of effect, duration, or possibly reduce its man/rage cost or cooldown period.
5. Stat Levels and Points: By investing stat points in a stat, you increase the numerical value of the stat, which increases other stats which are dependent on it. For example, by increasing the Body stat you increase the physical damage the character can do in melee, their health, and their defensive abilities, while increasing Dexterity increases ranged damage, chance to dodge, etc.
6. Perks and Perk Points: Perks are either one time gifts of skill points or passive stat boosters.
7. Reputation: This is increased by killing bosses and powerful optional monsters throughout the game world.
8. Health: When this drops to 0, you will respawn at the nearest town.
9. Mana: Used to cast spells and for special attacks.
10. Rage: This builds as you kill enemies, and can be consumed in a special attack.
11. Item Stats: Each item has a handful of stats, which like most of the game mechanics are never adequately explained. Weapons have a damage range, and may have bonuses to health, health regeneration, luck, reduced ability cooldown times, or many others. Armor and accessories have similar stats, but with a protection rating instead.

2.6 Conflicts

The main conflict in terms of story and gameplay is player versus environment. There are many enemies and monsters that fill each area, and they will attack you once you come into range, then follow you for quite a distance before stopping.

2.6.1 Point Investment

You cannot unlock all skills to their max during a full game, so you must choose skills to invest in that match your playstyle and equipment.

2.7 Boundaries

As mentioned before, movement does have a somewhat greater sense of verticality due to the way the base layer is allowed to move up and down, but there is no jumping, swimming, or other types of movement allowed. Further, the maps are of the historical rooms/dungeons plus corridors variety so commonly found in games of this genre.

2.7.1 Inventory

Only 50 item slots exist for the player, plus another 50 for your ghost companion, although you can get 50 more from a perk. You can only have one of each item type equipped at any given time, with the exception of the rings, although it is difficult to notice this and it is not explained or pointed out.

2.7.2 Skills

You cannot max out all skills in a single playthrough, and although you might be able to unlock the base versions of all the skills, you cannot have them all equipped at the same time. At most six skills may be equipped, one mapped to each of the face buttons on a controller, and the other two to the right bumper and right trigger. This too has persistent bugs that make it annoying to play: frequently your mapped skills will become unmapped, forcing you to return to the skill menu and manually mapping them to specific buttons again. In addition, when you switch from melee to ranged weapons, certain skills that are available for both modes get moved to different buttons. The reasoning is never explained, and it is just something you have to put up with.

2.8 Outcomes

There is only one outcome: you defeat the evil scientist who was terrorizing the city of Borgovia.

3 Dynamic Elements

Unlike many ARPGs, there is no grinding in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. When you kill a monster, that monster will never respawn in that area again, so when you clear an area, it stays cleared for the whole game. This removes the possibility of many dynamic elements related to how many monsters spawn in and what kind of monsters spawn in. There is no day/night cycle, nor weather cycle, and you do not gain or lose reputation with any NPCs nor factions.

3.1 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

3.1.1 Slow Cycle

During one section of game play, waves of enemies will attack your base, and you must defend against them.

3.1.2 Stopping Mechanism

As in many RPGs, this is seen in cooldown mechanisms on abilities and potions.

3.1.3 Escalating Challenge

The number and power of enemies generally tends to increase over the course of the game.

3.1.4 Worker Placement

During the previously described tower defense section, you may place different traps along different routes which enemies may travel to reach your base. Since the gates used during each wave are different, you may try to rearrange the traps in between waves, and also change the place that Van Helsing is focused on in order to achieve greater or more effective coverage.

3.1.5 Dynamic Friction

This is mostly seen in the increasing XP and skill point requirements as you level up and try to unlock higher skills.

3.1.6 Trade

Given the amount of loot that drops, you must trade it in or you will be come woefully short on cash and will not be able to buy enough health potions throughout the game. There is almost no other use for money, however, as the merchants almost never have loot better than what can be found by killing monsters, and there is little point in upgrading your armor or weapons through infusing them with essences.

4 Dramatic Elements

Although there is a story and there are characters, like in many ARPGs, nobody is playing the game for the characters or the story.

4.1 Characters

Van Helsing is poorly characterized, while his ghost companion Katerina has a snide sarcastic personality. Almost all the other characters have no personality, just a few lines of dialogue that convey information and flavor text.

4.2 Story

As mentioned before, the story is about Van Helsing being called in to save the city of Borgovia from the machinations of an evil scientist who is making machines. That terrible pun is also about as clever as the writing throughout the game, which makes lots of tongue in check references to The Lord of the Rings movies, Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, and many, many other cultural and intellectual properties.

Anyway. As the bridge that leads to the city is destroyed in front of your eyes, you journey to a village to find someone who can lead you to the city. This person is out on business, and, it should go without saying, you need to go rescue them. They give you their advice, and you spend the rest of the first half of the game fighting through different areas to make it to the city. The last half of the game is spent in many different sections of Borgovia itself, first tracking down your client, then dismantling the evil scientist’s machines and machinations one by one. The evil scientist paraphrase lines from pop culture all through the fight, perhaps in an attempt to alleviate some of the tedium of the fight. There is something of a cliff hanger or hint at the sequels at the end, when someone makes cryptic comments about something that I really don’t care about anymore.

5 Conclusion

Like their other title, King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing presents a few interesting twists (such as having a permanent AI companion) on a tried-and-true formula. Unfortunately, it shares many of the flaws that King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame does: flawed gameplay mechanics, a few persistent bugs, and UI woes. Like their other title, it might be worth checking out if you are a fan of the property or a huge fan of Neocore. If you prefer innovative gameplay, deep leveling systems, fun combat that keeps you on your toes, and a good story, then you should stay away.

The Flame in the Flood Analysis

The Flame in the Flood Analysis

David Hunter

December 25, 2018

1 Overview

The Flame in the Flood is rogue-like survival game developed by The Molasses Flood and published in January, 2017. The game takes place in a procedurally generated flooded world, consisting mainly of a river and many islands and river bank settlements, which the player may visit to scavenge for supplies.

2 Formal Elements

2.1 Players

The Flame in the Flood is a strictly a single player experience and is played from the third-person perspective, with a 3/4 top-down non-rotatable camera that follows the player avatar, a young girl named Scout, around. She has a small dog companion named Aesop, who is not controllable by the player, but by a simple AI.

2.2 Objectives

Some apocalyptic event has triggered flooding, and the local area is more or less abandoned and emptied of people. As a young girl with only her small dog to accompany you, you must make your way down river on a raft in order to investigate a radio signal that spoke about a safe haven. Along the way, you will encounter rabbits, crows, snakes, wild boar, wolves, and bears, and you will need to make sure you have enough food, water, and body warmth to stay alive, besides managing health conditions such as snake bites, broken bones, open wounds, stomach parasites, and infections, and of course trying to avoid the deadly predators mentioned before. While traveling on the river, you will need to steer your raft to avoid colliding with rocks and floating debris, and will need to navigate rapids and decide where and when to land, as the developers went out of their way to make sure that it is impossible to visit every settlement and island in a single playthrough.

2.3 Rules

Although The Flame in the Flood is a rather small game, it features rich interactions.

2.3.1 Movement

Scout, the player’s avatar, can move around on the mostly flat ground. She cannot climb or jump or swim, but she can run until her stamina bar is depleted. She can also wave her walking stick to scare away crows and wolves, but this also reduces her stamina.

She cannot move while interacting with a crate or other container or object, but she can cancel the interaction in order to run away from an attacking animal.

While on the boat, the player only controls the movement of the boat, although the inventory and crafting screens may still be accessed. This is not such a great idea most of the time, as these menus do not pause the game, so the boat will continue moving down the river and may crash into something. The player may use stamina to stroke hard, causing the boat to move more quickly for a short time.

2.3.2 Gear, Items, and Inventory

The player starts with a few items, and must scavenge the environment to make more complicated items. Gear comes in a few categories:

• Clothing: This plays a key role because as the player progresses in the game, the temperature will decrease quite rapidly, and drops even more during the night. The player may equip pants, boots, a jacket, gloves, and a hat.
• Tools: The player can create stone knives and hammers, and steel knives and hammers. These are necessary for crafting other items.
• Traps: Using crafting materials, the player may make a variety of traps. Snares and box traps are suitable for capturing rabbits, while spear traps work for wolves, boars, and bears, although bears will need several traps before dying.
• Kits and Healing Items: The player may craft basic materials into leather kits, stitching kits, and a variety of healing items to treat food poisoning, broken bones, cuts, and other ailments.
• Food and Drink: The player can find many items to eat. Fresh or raw food will spoil after a certain amount of time, while cooked or salted food lasts longer. The player must also worry about getting enough to drink, but rain water is clean to drink, and river water can be filtered at a fire, providing you have crafted a filter.
• Crafting Materials: The player can pick up and gather many objects in the environment, from crow feathers and dandelions, to fishing line and nuts and bolts. Most of these are not useful in and of themselves, but they are crucial for making other items.

The player has a limited inventory starting at 12, which can be expanded by crafting pouches to a maximum of 28 (each pouch expands your inventory by 4 slots). The boat’s inventory may also be expanded to 16 by upgrading it at a Marina. Aesop, your dog companion, may also carry a maximum of 6 items. Certain items may be stacked, but the amount in each stack depends on the item type. Jars of water and some food items may be stacked up to 5, but penicillin and other items may be stacked to ten.

In one of the rogue-like elements of the game, if you die and start a new campaign, the items which Aesop is carrying are carried over into the new game.

2.3.3 Crafting

Crafting may take place on the boat, on land, at a workbench, or at a fire. Certain items can only be crafted at a fire or at a workbench. Each item requires specific materials, which will be consumed upon crafting it. The player may only craft an item if they have room for it in their inventory, or if the items consumed in crafting will create room for the item. Each item requires only one inventory slot. Crafting does not pause the game, so you cannot craft an arrow or trap to get you out of a jam, unless you first reach a safe spot.

2.3.4 Quests

The player may find mail boxes on random islands. These may contain a cache of useful items, but they may also have a task or quest for the player to complete. This could be eating a certain amount of meat, killing a creature or a number of creatures, or performing an action such as making a fire, or healing yourself. Completing a quest will magically give you an item. This part of the game doesn’t really make much sense.

2.4 Procedures

The Flame in the Flood has a few basic procedures.

2.4.1 Talking to an NPC

On random islands, the player may encounter an NPC or two. These do not move around, do not attack the player, and will only engage in limited dialogue or trade.

2.4.2 Searching an Area & Scavenging

As a post-apocalyptic game, a common procedure will be to either be tasked with finding an item, or the player might want or need to find a health item, or just collecting scrap parts or plants for crafting. This will involve moving around the island or settlement and checking boxes, buildings, and cars for items. During exploration, encountering an animal is highly likely.

2.4.3 Killing an Animal

Bears, boars, wolves, and rabbits are killable in The Flame in the Flood, but snakes, ants, bears, boars and wolves pose a danger to the player. Boars will charge and chase the player for a short distance, causing a broken bone or laceration which may later become infected if left untreated. Repeated charges can kill the player. Wolves will hunt the player and jump in to attack, causing lacerations. These attacks can also be fatal if the player does not escape or heal themselves. Wolves and boars can be scared away briefly by waving Scout’s walking stick. Wolves and boars can be killed using a single spear trap, and or several arrows. Wolves can additionally be killed using tainted meat or poisoned bait. Bears will only attack the player if the player gets very close to them, however this is extremely foolhardy to do without preparation. Bears move very quickly and cannot be scared away by waving the player’s walking stick. It takes 3-4 spear traps, or many arrows to kill a bear, and unless these are ready, the bear’s repeated attacks will probably kill Scout. Ants bite the player if you walk across their nests, and snakes will also bite and poison the player if you get too close. The ant bites can lead the way to staph infections and death, while snake bites can be fatal by themselves.

The killed animals provide meat and skin for the player to eat or to use in crafting other items, such as bait, pouches, or clothes.

2.4.4 Managing Health Conditions

There are four main health bars the player must manage: hunger, thirst, sleep, and body temperature. Hunger, thirst, and sleep all gradually decrease until the player eats, drinks, or rests. Different food items will refill the hunger meter to different amounts, while any beverage will replenish the thirst meter by 50 points. Resting can be done in 1 hour increments. The default is 4 hours, which will give +50 to rest, and deplete hunger by 8 and thirst by 10.

Body temperature depends on the current outside temperature, whether you are wet, and your current clothing. Each item of clothing has a heat rating, and this is compared against the current temperature to determine whether you maintain or lose body heat.

Besides these health bars, there are numerous other conditions that effect Scout’s survival. If she has been attacked by a wolf, boar, or bear, she may get a laceration, which will cause her rest bar to be decreased by 20 points, and cause her hunger bar to decrease 3.5 times quicker. If it is not treated, it could cause a staph infection, which will continue the punishing drain on hunger, and add a similar drain on thirst. This condition will lead to death if not treated after around 8 hours. Snake bites similarly reduce rest and hunger, while also causing thirst to deplete 7.5 times quicker. Broken bones decrease Scout’s speed, and cause hunger to decrease as the previous afflictions. Eating raw meat, spoiled food, or drinking dirty water can all cause their own different problems, from dysentery, giardia, parasites, or blood flukes, each of which could lead to death or cause your hunger or thirst meters to drop rapidly to zero, killing you indirectly.

Animals are not the only threat in The Flame in the Flood. There are also patches of brambles and poison ivy, which cause small cuts and itchiness, respectively.

Luckily, all these conditions can be treated. Snake bites can be cured by drinking dandelion or sumac tea, broken bones can be splinted, poison ivy can be rubbed with aloe, etc.

2.5 Resources

Like any survival game worth its salt, The Flame in the Flood comes with many resources.

2.5.1 Tangible Resources

1. Food: Food comes in many forms: it could be raw, cooked, or jerked meat from rabbit, bear, wolf or wild boar, raw or cooked yucca, or several other varieties. Each will give the player a different amount of energy.
2. Beverages: Beverages are generally limited: the player may drink dirty or clean water, teas, and alcohol.
3. Crafting Items: There are many different crafting items in the game, ranging from saplings, old lumber, and nuts and bolts to fishing line, various animal hides, and moldy lumps (when food spoils it turns into these). Each takes one slot in the player’s inventory, but most can be stacked into groups of 5 or 10.
4. Clothing: Each item of unequipped clothing takes up a slot in the player’s inventory. Unwanted clothing can be shredded into rags, which are used for making bandages and other items.
5. Traps, Bombs, and Weapons: There are three kinds of traps: snares for rabbits, box traps for rabbits, and spear traps for larger animals. The player may also may bows and arrows, however, it usually takes several arrows to kill a boar or wolf.

2.5.2 Intangible Resources

1. Hunger: This gauge measures how full you are, so as it drops you will become weaker and weaker until you starve. It is replenished by eating.
2. Stamina: This gauge measures how much energy you can use in a short time. Running, pushing hard when on the boat, and waving your walking stick all deplete it.
3. Rest: This measures how rested you are. It slowly drops the more time you spend awake and moving around. It can be refilled by sleeping.
4. Thirst: Slowly drops over time until you drink something.
5. Body Temperature: If this gets low enough you will die of hypothermia. Keep it high by staying close to fires and by wearing warm clothes.
6. Raft Condition: The raft has ”health” which can be damaged by running into rocks. If this reaches 0, the raft will sink and Scout will die.
7. Tools: Once crafted, these do not take up inventory space. Their condition will slowly deteriorate as you use them to craft more items.

2.6 Conflicts

There are many conflicts in The Flame in the Flood. You cannot visit every location that is generated along the river, so you must choose which you wish to visit. Do you go to the campground/wilderness and try to pick up some rabbit skins and flint, or do you go to the gas station and collect some gas for your boat? Either choice could have profound consequences.

Once you reach a settlement of your choice, you need to decide whether you wish to explore it. It may be night time, and wolves are more plentiful at night. You need to ask yourself: Is the risk worth it? Can you stay away from any wolves you encounter, or are you prepared to deal with them using traps, arrows, and poisoned bait?

You must also deal with inventory. You cannot carry an infinite amount, so you must prioritize accordingly. Do you need those extra mulberries, or would the space be better used by old lumber to use for raft upgrades?

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Map

The map in the campaign is limited to a certain distance and number of regions. The game will begin its ending sequence after that limit has been passed.

The settlements can only be explored to their limits, and there is no climbing, swimming, jumping, or flying allowed, making the horizontal exploration of each area crucial.

The river, likewise, may only be explored in a single plane, and there are no branchings: at most, there are islands in the river which must be navigated around, but you will always rejoin the main flow.

2.7.2 Inventory

The player, the raft, and the player’s dog (Aesop) all have limited inventory, which have already been described before.

2.8 Outcomes

There are two main outcomes: the player may die by many different events, as outlined above, leading to a game over screen and the choice to load from a previous checkpoint or to completely start fresh, or the player may struggle all the way to the end, and be awarded with the happy ending of the game.

3 Dynamic Elements

There are numerous dynamic elements in The Flame in the Flood.

3.1 Day/Night Cycle and Weather

The time of day will slowly change between daylight and nighttime. This is accompanied by changes in lighting and temperature changes. This also affects how likely wolves are to appear.

3.2 River and Island Placement

As a procedurally-generated game, the exact curvature and width of the river, the placement of the islands and settlements, and the exact layout of of each settlement is dynamic. This is discussed in detail in this GDC Talk.

3.3 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

3.3.1 Slow Cycle

The main use of the slow cycle pattern occurs in the day/night cycle. This influences the temperature and the chances of wolves appearing.

3.3.2 Stopping Mechanism

The stopping mechanism is used in several places. You can find it in the limited stamina bars, preventing you from holding wolves at bay indefinitely and from simply steering or stroking against the flow of the river and going wherever you want. It also appears in the inventory limitations, preventing you from carrying those 200 stacks of reeds and saplings you’d really like to, as they are so usefully.

3.3.3 Escalating Challenge

The main component of the escalating challenge pattern is found in the steady drop in temperature as you proceed further down the river. Wolves also become more common, and resources become scarcer.

3.3.4 Static Friction

The static friction pattern is used extensively in many survival games to simulate the drain of hunger, thirst, sleep, etc, and The Flame in the Flood is no exception. It is used for the items mentioned above, as well as in the crafting times and scavenging times for different items. Since they take time, you cannot just spam the button, but decide carefully whether to invest the time in it or not.

3.3.5 Trade

You sometimes encounter other characters who will engage in limited trade. You do not have much control over this: they will peek at your inventory, and offer you something in return for one of the items. You can either accept this, reject, or try for a different deal.

3.3.6 Unified Analysis

In the two graphics below, you will find most of the patterns above mentioned. The first works something like Frogger: you must move from location to location as islands and rocks move by you. You may choose to enter an island, where the second mode takes place. If you encounter a rock, the raft takes damage.

In this mode, you may move around and scavenge item and craft them. You can also encounter animals which have a chance of injuring you and inflicting different maladies.

4 Dramatic Elements

Since The Flame in the Flood relies heavily on procedural generation, designed dramatic elements are rather limited. There are a few NPCs which the player may encounter and speak with, but their dialogue is extremely limited, at most about 5-8 lines, and does not feature any role-playing elements of choosing different options, which then affect your standing or reputation with that NPC or group of NPCs. Of course, this is not the focus of the game, so the lack of these elements allows the player’s own adventure and journey to survive to shine all the more.

There are quilts which tell small stories that can be found in certain settlements, but these do not add much in the way of information about where everyone is, what exactly happened, or why.

4.1 Characters

There are a handful of characters, although there is almost no dialogue and almost no meaningful interaction among them.

4.2 Story

The story, such as it is, is this: there has been some kind of disaster that has caused the world to become flooded. You take control of a young girl known only as Scout, who appears to be a member of the Girl Scouts. She is accompanied by her dog, Aesop. During her journey she encounters a few children, and several different adults. These interactions are limited to a few lines of dialogue, and a few different choices, which do not seem to have a large effect on the story.

At first she will make her way down river to find a radio signal. After finding the tower, she will have to continue down river to find another location, and finally she will reach a ”kingdom” or theme park area with many other girls and dogs who have survived similarly harrowing adventures.

5 Conclusion

The Flame in the Flood is a relatively small and short game. After dying, reloading, dying and restarting several times, I was able to make it to the final area in about 13 hours. I felt like I had really survived and gone through all the trials and rough spots that Scout had. I shouted in dismay when a wolf attacked me, I cringed and grimaced when I made a bad raft maneuver and drowned. When fever or sepsis caused me to collapse, I sighed and went back to another save, determined not to make the same stupid mistakes again.

The music adds to the atmosphere, coming in and fading out at all the right moments.

As a survival game, the cute arts makes you think you are in for a gentle experience, which is dashed as soon as you try to take alive for more than a few days. Your water will run low, you might eat some rotten food and come down with parasites, or any number of other accidents might befall you. It will take careful planning, thought, and no small amount of luck to make it to the end. Should you do so, you will have had a delightful, and difficult experience.

Grim Dawn Analysis

Grim Dawn Analysis

David Hunter

September 19, 2018

1 Overview

Ever since 1996, when the first Diablo was released by Blizzard, the ARPG has become a revered, beloved and also sometimes derided genre. Grim Dawn is one of the newer ARPGs, and was developed by Crate Entertainment and released on PC in February, 2016.

2 Formal Elements

Although the graphics and complexity of the action have of course improved since 1996, many elements have remained the same.

1. 3/4 top-down isometric camera angle.
2. The player controls a single character by pointing and clicking on the map, items, and characters. Number keys and hotkeys can be used to trigger abilities, or open/close menus.
3. The player will battle dozens of enemies at a time, collecting randomized items, money, and weapons and armor.
4. The player will navigate a 3D world with different buildings, caves, mines, etc to explore.

2.1 Players

The player’s character is a recovered ”Taken,” a human whose body was taken over by a being from another plane, called Aetherials, but then released. The player may choose a male or female character, and after reaching level 2, from one of six initial classes.

1. Soldier: tanky and aggressive melee damage dealers
2. Demolitionist: focuses on using guns and bombs
3. Occultist: uses curses, summoned monsters, poison and acid damage
4. Nightblade: dual-wielders, high DPS but low health,
5. Arcanist: use powerful magic spells and weapon enchantments
6. Shaman: high damage melee fighters, can also summon beasts and use lightning magic

After reaching level 10 a second class may be chosen.

The player controls the avatar as described above, by clicking on the ground, various objects, and characters. There is no direct control scheme, no dodging, swimming, or flying, or any other advanced movement options or controls.

Like most ARPGs, the player has several equipment slots for armor, accessories, and weapons. You will spend a large amount of time going over item stats, comparing them, and cogitating about which ones you should keep for later, sell, equip now, dismantle, etc.

2.2 Objectives

The avatar wakes up after the Aetherial has left your avatar’s body. Immediately, you are tasked with assisting nearby village of Devil’s Crossing by investigating what is causing so many living dead to appear. This leads to other tasks to help them out, then to help out the neighboring village, etc. These tasks will see the player slaughtering hordes of undead, insects, trolls, robbers, and religious fanatics, as well as gathering important items and materials to help out the settlements. Throughout these trials, you will come to know the threat posed by Aetherials in more detail, and essentially work your way up their hierarchy.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Areas

There are many areas that only unlock after a particular story point has been reached, and dozens that require materials, such as scrap or dynamite, to clear debris away and/or build a new bridge. The player may fast travel at any point, even during combat, to a previously existing portal somewhere else on the map. In general, the above ground area enemies scale to the player’s level within limits determined by the area itself. The opening areas of the game have a maximum level of around 20, for example, while mid-game areas max out around 40.

2.3.2 Combat

The combat revolves around using the left mouse button for your main attack /ability, right mouse button for a secondary ability, and the number and letter keys for others. There is no active dodge, but you can avoid certain enemy attacks by moving out of their area of influence.

If the player dies, the player will respawn at the closest main town, leaving a tombstone behind with some XP. If the player moves through to that area again, the monsters that have already been killed remain dead, but bosses regain some of their health. If the player can reach the tombstone without dying, they may regain some of the lost XP, but if they die before reaching it, it will be gone forever.

2.3.3 Stats and Leveling

The player has direct control over three main stats:

• Physique is the main influence on player health, health regeneration, and defensive ability. It is also one of the main requirements for armor, melee weapons and shields.
• Cunning is the main requirement for ranged weapons. It provides bonuses to physical, piercing, and duration damage.
• Spirit is the main requirement for spells and magical items. It gives bonuses to magical damage types.

When the player levels up, they will be given one stat point to invest in one of these stats, plus three skill points. Skills points may be invested either directly in skills or in increasing the level of one’s class. Your character has a particular level, which increases based on experience received from killing monsters, finding lore books, and completing quests. Your classes for that character also have levels, which are determined by how many skill points you invest in them. Investing points in a class gives bonuses in differing amounts to the three main stats above, in addition to increasing health and spirit. Besides these benefits, increasing your class level will also unlock further skills in that class’s skill tree at 5- or 10-level intervals. Once a skill has been unlocked, the player may use one of the three skill points to activate it or to increase the skill’s level. Depending on the skill, this could mean increasing the damage dealt, increasing the range of its effect, increasing the effect size or duration of the effect, or several other changes.

Besides your three main stats, player level also functions as a requirement for some items, so even if you have enough Physique to use a shield, perhaps you must be a level 20 character, but you are currently at 15. Tough luck.

Throughout the world of Grim Dawn, the player can find many shrines. Some of these can be repaired or restored by sacrificing items, while others have been defiled by monsters which the player must slay in order to cleanse them. Once restored or cleansed, the player will receive a devotion point. Devotion points make up the other main prong of the leveling system. The player may invest devotion points in constellations: groups of stat bonuses and skills which must be unlocked in a particular order. Each constellation belongs to a class:

• Ascendant: related to immense feats or reverence from others
• Chaotic: entropy and destruction
• Eldritch: wild forces of magic
• Order: harmony and balance
• Primordial: life, death, reality itself

and may have affinity requirements (for example, the tier two constellation Affliction requires the player to have 4 points of devotion in Ascendant, 3 points in Chaotic, and 4 points in Eldritch before it unlocks and becomes available to the player). As the player unlocks stars in a constellation, they will receive affinity bonuses with the class to which the constellation belongs. These may help to unlock more powerful constellations with higher affinity requirements. Some constellations have a special skill which may be associated with a class skill of the player’s choosing. For example, by completely investing in the Falcon constellation, the player may unlock the Falcon Swoop ability, which spawns a certain number of falcons that fly through enemies dealing damage based on the currently equipped weapon, plus a certain amount of bleeding damage over three seconds. This skill can be triggered by using a class skill. If you are playing as a Shaman, say, you could link the Falcon Swoop to the Shaman’s Wind Devil skill, which creates swirling tornadoes that deal damage to any enemies in their path. Whenever you use the Wind Devil skill, you will have a chance of also triggering the Falcon Swoop skill, increasing your damage across a broader spectrum of damage types. As long as you have Falcon Swoop it will gain experience as you do, gaining in power, duration and the number of falcons that come to your aid.

2.3.4 Reputation

Similarly to Din’s Curse and Depths of Peril, the monsters and human groups in the game have opinions of the player’s actions, and will even battle each other. The more monsters of a group that you kill, the worse your reputation with that group becomes. This will lead to more monsters spawning in, and more hero units will appear as well. For human factions, if the player has a positive relationship with them, this will allow the player to purchase items at greater discounts, access unique item crafting recipes, and a few other benefits that increase proportionately to your reputation with the faction.

2.3.5 Crafting and Inventory

Harking back to the ARPG oldies, Grim Dawn uses a grid based inventory system that inspires players to take up Tetris in order to better squeeze extra loot into it. Each item takes up a certain number of slots on the grid, from two-handed swords that take up 1x4, chest and leg armors which are 2x3, to general components and accessories which are 1x1. In general, equipable items do not stack, while consumables do. Over time, the player will receive extra bags that increase one’s inventory space, and there is a ”smuggler” character who serves a storehouse for items the player wants to keep for the long haul or to transfer to another character. Still, you will spend a large amount of time pondering whether a +3% Physique bonus outweighs a +3% attack speed.

Items come in five tiers based on value/rarity:

• Common: ordinary items, weapons, and armor. Provide no magical damage or protection.
• Magical: a common item that can have one magical prefix and/or one magical suffix.
• Rare: a magical item that has a chance of getting a rare affix (Magical Prefix+ Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Rare Suffix). Rare affixes provide more substantial bonuses.
• Epic: These items are unique: they have unique stats, unique art, etc, and are not based on the random generation of Prefix + Base Item + Suffix.
• Legendary: Legendary items are higher level epic items: they are unique, but just better quality. They do not start to drop until the player reaches level 50.

As the player travels around the world of Grim Dawn, they will kill thousands, possibly millions of enemies. These enemies will quite often drop loot, which the player will pick up because there was a nice jingle sound and they look shiny and special. The player must then sort through the loot. Besides equipable items, there are also materials or components that will drop. These are frequently based on body parts of the slain enemies, Ancient Armor Plate from undead enemies, or Vicious Jawbone or Bristly Fur from various animal or beast enemies. Collecting the required number of these components allows the player to create a complete piece of material which may be applied to an appropriate piece of equipment to give it a bonus, or used at a blacksmith to craft a new item. For truly high level legendary items, there will be a complex crafting chain: collecting X of material A, Y of material B, and Z of material C, then combining some of A and other materials to create a more advanced material D, combining B and something else to create material E, and possibly using a blueprint and still more materials to create a relic or other advanced item F, before finally combining it all together to get the item you wanted: AFT, which stands for About Fucking Time. Besides requiring the parts and level to craft these items at the blacksmith, you will also need enough ”iron bits,” the in-game currency.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading

Deciding how to level up your character is a recurring procedure the player will undertake. As described above, this involves three main choices: how to spend your stat point, how to invest your skill points, and finally how to invest any devotion points you received from cleansing shrines.

The second part is deciding on equipment, which will depend on your character build, skills, and what item upgrade materials you have available.

2.4.2 Exploring

The world of Grim Dawn is a large interconnected network of paths with some larger open areas. Throughout the world, the player can find numerous caves, mines, ruins, dungeons etc, which are of course filled with monsters and other creatures which the player may kill indiscriminately. There are also pieces of lore scattered around which tell a larger story of people fleeing their homes, good or at least neutral humans turning to crime and banditry, and many people being taken over by demonic invaders.

The player can also find secret hidden areas, areas not marked on the map that can only be accessed by destroying a particular wall or having a particular key. These often contain high level loot or even one-time chests, which one appear once per character on each difficulty setting.

2.4.3 Crafting

Crafting ties into many of the game systems: combat, in which the player may find needed components, the many faction-based shops and vendors which may have a critical item, and the faction-based reputation system which unlocks higher level recipes/blueprints and materials.

2.4.4 Boss-Slaying

The majority of game time will be spent moving from a hub to the next boss in the game, whether the boss is required to be killed in order to unlock the next area of the game, or is one of the ubiquitous bounties that the player may complete for the factions in the game. The bosses are typically higher level than the player (between 2-5 levels higher), and come with large health bars, powerful spells and attacks, and some unique abilities. Killing them will typically give the player XP, money, items, and a boost/deduction with several factions.

2.5 Resources

This section covers the resources in Grim Dawn.

2.5.1 Abstract

• Health: This will slowly regenerate over time given the right equipment and stats. If it goes to zero the player dies and will reappear at the last main town the player visited.
• Spirit: This is used for casting spells and using special abilities.
• Player Level: The player’s level will increase once enough XP has been acquired. Each level up increases the amount of XP required to reach the next level, and also provides +10 to both Offensive and Defensive Abilities.
• Class Level: Upon leveling up, the player will receive 3 skill points, which may be invested in skills or in increasing the player’s class level. Each class provides different bonuses per level to Cunning, Physique, Spirit, Health, Spirit Energy, Offensive Abillity, and Defensive Ability. New abilities also unlock at the 5, 10, 15,20, 25, 32, 40, and 50 marks.
• Player XP: Player XP is received by reading lore, killing enemies, and completing quests.
• Skills: Each class has approximately 30 skills, which about 2-5 new skills unlocked at each of the marks mentioned above.
• Skill Points: The player will receive between 3-1 skill points each time they level up their character. Until level 50, they receive 3 points, then the number drops to 2, again drops to 1 after level 90.
• Devotion Points: For each shrine which the player cleanses, you will receive one devotion point which can be spent as described previously.
• Celestial Power XP: Each equipped celestial power gains XP as the player gains XP. So, if you kill 10 monsters worth 100 XP each, each celestial power you have equipped will gain 1000 XP.
• Celestial Power Level: When you reach a set amount of XP for each Celestial Power, it will move to the next rank, which will increase its power.
• Stats: The stats described in 2.3.3 are all abstract resources, although they are effected by player level, class and class level, and currently equipped items.

2.5.2 Concrete

• Consumables: There are many different consumables, but the main two are health potions and spirit potions. Consumables have a cool down, so they cannot be spammed.
• Items: Items come in several different varieties: there are many types of weapons, some usable with with one hand, others requiring two; there are pieces of armor for each armor slot on the character; there are accessories, such as rings, amulets, relics, etc. These may be equipped if the player has the requisite stats, or they may be sold, dropped, or dismantled.
• Materials: The player can gather many materials throughout the world of Grim Dawn. These can be gathered from fallen enemies, received from dismantling items, or assembled from lower level materials at a blacksmith.
• Notes: The player can find dozens of different notes throughout the levels of Grim Dawn. These grant varying amounts of XP and tell the player extra backstory about what occurred.
• Blueprints: Blueprints and recipes are special consumable items that allow the player to assemble the item detailed in them at a blacksmith, provided they have the required materials and money.
• Pets: The player may only have one pet active at a time. This is usually a summoned creature that will accompany the player for as long as it has health. Pets may deal damage to enemies and keep them occupied while the player is dealing with others. They also have special abilities which increase their effectiveness.
• Money: The game uses iron bits as its cash. Chests and monsters sometimes drop iron bits, but they can also be received for completing quests, and by selling items. Money is required to purchase items from vendors, dismantle items, create items, and to respec the player’s skill and devotion points.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 Stat Point Investment

The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points. This is not enough to max out your stats nor your skills, therefore, the player must choose carefully and consider which skills and stats will most benefit their class, equipment, and build.

2.6.2 Factions

The player cannot please each faction equally. While most quests and most human factions are neutral regarding each other, two in particular are diametrically opposed. Depending on who the player decides to support, the opposing faction will become your enemies.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Stat Point Investment

The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points, although these hard limits are extended in the expansion packs.

2.7.2 Level

The player may reach a max level of 85, but this is increased in the DLC.

2.7.3 NPCs

Most NPCs cannot be attacked or killed. However, their status may change depending on the player’s dialogue choices.

2.7.4 Map

Many areas of the map are initially locked to the player until they can either complete the requisite quests to unlock them, or until they can gather the needed materials to do so.

2.7.5 Inventory

The player begins with a 12 x 8 inventory grid, but will later acquire additional bags of 8 x 8 each.

2.8 Outcomes

There is one main outcome for Grim Dawn: the player defeats the final boss, a mythical creature that is attempting to bring an invading army of Aetherials into the mundane world. The player may continue to play at that difficulty to farm, or to finish any remaining quests.

3 Dramatic Elements

Grim Dawn has relatively strong story elements. The characters for the main quests’ main conversations all have voiced dialogue, but the rest of the optional dialogue and all the other characters’ dialogue is unvoiced. There are almost no scenes besides the opening one, and there are no cutscene or special animations during conversation.

3.1 Characters

The weakest part of Grim Dawn is in the characterization of the characters. They have very little personality, and will mostly only speak to the player about the mission at hand.

3.2 Story

The story begins with several people cornering an Aetherial that has taken over a human’s body. They hang the Aetherial, which then flees the body. The body is the player. You awaken after having been possessed, and are quickly given a task to help a nearby village, as usually happens when you almost die from hanging. The player will interact with the NPCs of the village, and even find survivors out in the areas now occupied by robbers and monsters. After completing the first task, it naturally leads to another, and then another; necessitating the player’s eventually departure to other settlements to seek help for the beleaguered Devil’s Crossing.

Along the way, the player will encounter other settlements and NPCs in need of assistance, and other factions. Upon reaching Homestead, the player will have the opportunity to choose between the Order of Death’s Vigil and Kymon’s Chosen. Whichever faction the player does not choose will become an enemy faction, and whenever the player encounters that faction’s units, they will be hostile.

After assisting Homestead, the player will fight their way to Fort Ikon. Rinse and repeat the previous steps.

4 Dynamic Elements

This section covers the game features that change in reaction to the player’s actions/game progress.

4.1 Day / Night Cycle

The game features a day/night cycle. As time passes, the lighting will change from day to night and back again. This seems done mostly for cosmetic reasons and does not affect the monsters or gameplay.

4.2 Enemy Spawning

The number and type of enemies that will spawn in is determined partly by the character’s level and also by the character’s reputation with the faction that they are fighting.

4.3 Faction Reputation

As the player helps out a faction, their reputation with that faction will naturally increase. Conversely, if you kill thousands and thousands of Aetherial monsters, your reputation with the Aetherials will be highly negative. A positive reputation gives the player discounts on items, access to special faction items, and even access to the faction quest table, which will randomly create new quests to help increase your reputation with the faction. A negative reputation leads to increase enemy spawns and more hero unit spawns, making that faction harder to fight against.

4.4 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

4.4.1 Playing Style Reinforcement

As with many ARPGs, the player will receive tons of loot. This loot can give the player new abilities or powerful stat boosts, or even crippling penalties. The player can choose loot, stats, and skills that best match their chosen play style.

4.4.2 Dynamic Friction

Dynamic friction, like the stopping mechanism below, appears in several places in gameplay. Anything involving leveling in Grim Dawn makes use of this pattern. Experience requirements to achieve the next level increase from level to level, as do the number of points required to unlock the next tier of abilities in the class skill trees.

Faction-based bonuses and penalties require exponentially increasing values of reputation in order to receive them, and the number and level of enemies that spawn in is mostly controlled by the player’s level: most enemies will appear at or slightly above the player’s level, while hero and boss units could be at or 5 or more levels higher. Of course, the level of the enemies is also limited by the area: unless the unit is part of a randomly generated quest, the max level is determined by the area and the difficulty the player is playing on.

4.4.3 Stopping Mechanism

The stopping mechanism pattern is mostly seen in skill cooldowns: after using a skill the player must wait a minimum amount of time before being able to use it again. This time varies from skill to skill, and can be modified by skill point investment and item bonuses.

Another place is in the skill points received per level up. After reaching certain caps described above, the number of skill points decreases one by one.

4.4.4 Trade

The player may farm items and sell them for more cash at many different vendors.

5 Conclusion

Grim Dawn is a deep ARPG experience, with hours of gameplay in it. Although the story elements are not the most brilliant seen in RPG history, they are not laughable nor worthy of denigration. It allows the player to customize their character’s equipment, stats, and skills to produce varied and diverse character types and playstyles.

5.1 Potent Elements

Character customization and the lure of getting that one game changing piece of loot are powerful draws that will bring the player back again and again.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

Areas are always the same, making it somewhat more repetitive than necessary to farm for XP, items, or blueprints.

More Game Jams, Busy October

hey all,

It has been a surprisingly busy summer. Last August, I got the idea for Particularly Wavy and spent most of the last year working on that. Because of that, I didn't really do any game jams between 2017, August and 2018, May. However, in July and August this year I did participate in several game jams. The latest one was the Brackeys Game Jam, which had the theme of light. The game I created for that jam, Salvation of the Fireflies, has gotten more comments than my usual projects, so I'd like to extend my work on that a little and try to polish it up.

I've got one more coming up in a month or so, but my current focus is on two projects: a visual novel that I'm working with a very small team on, and my RPG/RTS project. For the former, we need player profile saving systems, and also systems that can interact with Fungus, which is a free plug in we are using to create the menus and dialogue. For the later, I am still hacking away at the date / time system. The goal there is to be able to create holidays, to correctly add and subtract amounts of time from a current date/time, and lastly to compute the difference between two dates/times. These actions will be necessary for making time pass correctly, waiting in game, and tracking time limits for quests.

Next month is going to be superbusy. Michi and I are planning on taking a four day hiking/camping trip to the Japanese Northern Alps, specifically Mt. Hotaka, and the very next day after we get back we're attending a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The next weekend, we're going to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel design near Nagoya, and the week after that we're checking out a Paul McCartney concert.

It is now six months until the next GDC, and I'm determined to go in 2019, no matter what. I really regret not going in 2018, but this time I've got enough saved up already and I plan on continuing to save throughout the year to make sure this happens.

Cheers,