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228: The Scourger Author: Metatarasal Release Date: November 19, 2005
"Listen up rock man: You teach me the Goblin language now, or I'll topple you over."
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.2) on The Dink Network.
"The Scourger" seems like an odd title to my eyes. I'm used to seeing the word 'scourge' as a noun. It can be a verb, but I've never seen the word 'scourger' before. It seems like it would make more sense to just call it "The Scourge."
This mod is the last to have the "epic" label until 2010. It's the only epic of 2005, now that Apex has (quite correctly) been relabeled a romp. It received a large update on April 1, 2010 that added new content, including an "extra world" at the end. Actually, what I just said about epics is only true in retrospect. Apparently, "The Scourger" wasn't added to the "epic" category until its update, at which point "Historical Hero" had already come out! At any rate, I think it deserves the designation, as it took me over four hours to finish - 4 hours and two minutes, to be exact. I probably could have beaten it faster, but hey, it's not a race.
"The Scourger" picks up from the plot of "Quest for the Gems." Apparently, the villain from that mod succeeded in his evil plan. Although I never quite worked out what that plan was while playing "QftG," it turns out that it involved resurrecting an ancient wizard who is basically made of fire.
The red guy is the Scourger, and he is bad news.
I feel like this DMOD is a big step up for Metatarasal. The game design is a lot clearer than his earlier mods. In "Quest for the Gems," the events felt frustratingly arbitrary and the plot was hard to follow at times. In "Scourger," things made more sense and the flow was better. "Scourger" is a mostly linear game with a number of distinct areas, roughly in the mold of DMODs like "Stone of Balance." The areas include:
*A pair of neighboring desert towns locked in bitter conflict over their preferred methods of preparing food. The eastern town insists that food should only be "cooked, not fried" (judging by the way their cooking requires water, I think "cooking" means "boiling" here), while the western town insists that frying is the only acceptable way to prepare food. I found this silly concept really clever and charming, and I loved how far the author went with it. Such is the zeal with which residents support their side of the argument that even when the eastern town desperately needs water, residents refuse to trade with the relatively wet westerners because 'all they'd want is bonca fat, and I refuse to be involved in frying.' This is Dr. Seuss-level genius.
And I thought shows like Iron Chef took food preparation techniques seriously.
*The catacombs of an icy castle, where Dink must find at least 10 magical "blue stars." If you can manage to find all 12, you get the fireball spell as a bonus. It was fun being told to look for secrets and probing my way around the walls and objects to find the 12 stars. It took me a while, though, and the endless repetition of a MIDI version of "Shine" by Collective Soul eventually got annoying enough that I muted the game.
Outside the castle, there's also a little ice fisihing challenge. I think this is the first time Dink has been ice fishing, but who knows anymore?
This little reference must have been added in the update, since Metatarasal's tutorial file came out in 2009.
*A garrison where Dink is tasked with retrieving personal items from the bodies of dead soldiers. Unexpectedly, this made me kind of sad. A description of a personal item has a strange way of making you feel sorry for a nameless, faceless, dead knight. This area is connected to a town built in underground caves. This concept has turned up quite a few times - I suspect it might have something to do with how easy it makes it to map out a town area.
*A village that sits on the border of a huge maze of skinny paths over water. You have to do favors for all five village residents before they'll let you into the maze. There are several mazes in this DMOD, but this one is by far the trickiest. Still, it isn't too onerous - nothing a little "follow the right wall" action won't solve eventually. I've seen the author cite mazes as a concern about this DMOD, but while it's maze-heavy to be sure, I didn't really have a problem with it.
It is kind of funny how you can tell how full of mazes the game is just by looking at the map, though. Prepare to be amazed.
*A smaller maze filled with fire. I had problems with this segment. You get trapped in this maze with an acid rain spell that you can cast only a very small number of times. It's up to you to scout ahead and determine which route requires you to put out the fewest fires. The warning you get about this is really vague, though, and you're not likely to figure it out on your first try. Since you're trapped, there's nothing to do but load a save, which at a minimum puts you back before the start of the area. I hadn't saved right before entering, though, so I had to recover some ground. This could have put a really bad taste in my mouth if I'd been even more forgetful about saving. The puzzle itself is pretty clever, but I'm opposed to making the player feel trapped and hopeless like this. There should have been a way to retry the puzzle.
By the way, if you run out of charges right at the end, it's possible to kind of "cheat" your way past the spike obstacle at the end of this section. Similar to how it was possible to skip a whole section back in "Prophecy of the Ancients" by barging right through a fatal energy barrier, you can equip an elixir, walk across the spikes (taking fatal damage) and use the elixir before your health reaches zero. It calls to mind the rolling health meters from the Earthbound series.
AH COME ON
*The final area, a goblin prison. I assume this is the "new world" that got added in the update. It has the neatest gameplay element in the DMOD: warps take you to the "shadow world" and back. This switches the background between regular and blacked-out, changes which enemies you encounter, and changes several elements (gates, hazards) in such a way that you're required to swap back and forth to make your way through the prison. I had an idea for an entire DMOD based around this kind of concept a while back, and I like the way it was handled here. My favorite bit was a shelf of bombs that could only be removed in the shadow world, where they are, for some reason, apples. This means you have to leave an apple sitting in front of a rock that's in your way.
Your inventory is removed at the start of this segment. That's fine, but it meant I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time punching the tough blob enemies. It wasn't hard, just tedious.
A screen in the regular world...
...and that same screen in the shadow world.
After the one in the header, this was my favorite line of dialogue in the DMOD.
The fight against the Scourger is tough, and took me a few tries. It doesn't look like he agrees with you, Dink!
It wasn't always easy to figure out what to do next, but it was never particularly hard either. The only time I got really stuck was in looking for a couple of caves that blend into the shadows of the cliff walls a bit TOO well.
Even with Dink actually crawling into it, it's still hard to see.
Pressing the "J" key in this DMOD brings up a list of objectives and highlights your current task. I didn't have much use for this, but it could be handy to somebody who didn't play the game in one day. The "T" key is used to throw away inventory, but I only used this once, when the game requires you to throw away a certain item.
Here's an oddity - you don't get to select your level-up bonus in this DMOD. You just get a point of defense instead. I was going to put my points into defense anyway, but I wonder why Meta removed the choice.
I ran into some bugs - mostly hardness errors. On five or six occasions, Dink ended up stuck in a wall, some water, a void - generally, some place he wasn't supposed to be. I just used the Ultimate Cheat to warp back to a place that made sense, but it's no fun having your immersion break like that. In the "pet peeves" department, a segment where Dink is disguised as a goblin features the dreaded "turning back into Dink when pushing" problem. I give the DMOD bonus points, though, for fixing the purple bonca bug and using the walk and death animations that make sense for the spikey enemies.
Another problem: most apostrophes are replaced with this symbol for some reason.
I did run into a fatal bug, but it isn't Metatarasal's fault. This is a rare case of a FreeDink-specific problem (I wonder if that was enough to get Beuc's attention). It turns out that FreeDink doesn't play nice with a script that contains a fade command while another fade (such as the fade that happens when you walk into a map-placed warp) is already happening. I could only proceed by editing the script myself. You can't blame the author for not considering a way to play the game that wasn't even out yet when this was originally released. I found a reference to this problem from 2009, so it's odd that this hasn't been fixed. Until it is, you can't beat this mod in FreeDink without messing with a certain script.
"Scourger" didn't quite wow me as much as the best DMODs I've played, but it's still a great one - fun, consistent, and with few negative points, although the hardness errors were a bit of a bummer in a game that was otherwise well-polished.
I like jokes about the limited set of graphics.
"Listen up rock man: You teach me the Goblin language now, or I'll topple you over."
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.2) on The Dink Network.
"The Scourger" seems like an odd title to my eyes. I'm used to seeing the word 'scourge' as a noun. It can be a verb, but I've never seen the word 'scourger' before. It seems like it would make more sense to just call it "The Scourge."
This mod is the last to have the "epic" label until 2010. It's the only epic of 2005, now that Apex has (quite correctly) been relabeled a romp. It received a large update on April 1, 2010 that added new content, including an "extra world" at the end. Actually, what I just said about epics is only true in retrospect. Apparently, "The Scourger" wasn't added to the "epic" category until its update, at which point "Historical Hero" had already come out! At any rate, I think it deserves the designation, as it took me over four hours to finish - 4 hours and two minutes, to be exact. I probably could have beaten it faster, but hey, it's not a race.
"The Scourger" picks up from the plot of "Quest for the Gems." Apparently, the villain from that mod succeeded in his evil plan. Although I never quite worked out what that plan was while playing "QftG," it turns out that it involved resurrecting an ancient wizard who is basically made of fire.
The red guy is the Scourger, and he is bad news.
I feel like this DMOD is a big step up for Metatarasal. The game design is a lot clearer than his earlier mods. In "Quest for the Gems," the events felt frustratingly arbitrary and the plot was hard to follow at times. In "Scourger," things made more sense and the flow was better. "Scourger" is a mostly linear game with a number of distinct areas, roughly in the mold of DMODs like "Stone of Balance." The areas include:
*A pair of neighboring desert towns locked in bitter conflict over their preferred methods of preparing food. The eastern town insists that food should only be "cooked, not fried" (judging by the way their cooking requires water, I think "cooking" means "boiling" here), while the western town insists that frying is the only acceptable way to prepare food. I found this silly concept really clever and charming, and I loved how far the author went with it. Such is the zeal with which residents support their side of the argument that even when the eastern town desperately needs water, residents refuse to trade with the relatively wet westerners because 'all they'd want is bonca fat, and I refuse to be involved in frying.' This is Dr. Seuss-level genius.
And I thought shows like Iron Chef took food preparation techniques seriously.
*The catacombs of an icy castle, where Dink must find at least 10 magical "blue stars." If you can manage to find all 12, you get the fireball spell as a bonus. It was fun being told to look for secrets and probing my way around the walls and objects to find the 12 stars. It took me a while, though, and the endless repetition of a MIDI version of "Shine" by Collective Soul eventually got annoying enough that I muted the game.
Outside the castle, there's also a little ice fisihing challenge. I think this is the first time Dink has been ice fishing, but who knows anymore?
This little reference must have been added in the update, since Metatarasal's tutorial file came out in 2009.
*A garrison where Dink is tasked with retrieving personal items from the bodies of dead soldiers. Unexpectedly, this made me kind of sad. A description of a personal item has a strange way of making you feel sorry for a nameless, faceless, dead knight. This area is connected to a town built in underground caves. This concept has turned up quite a few times - I suspect it might have something to do with how easy it makes it to map out a town area.
*A village that sits on the border of a huge maze of skinny paths over water. You have to do favors for all five village residents before they'll let you into the maze. There are several mazes in this DMOD, but this one is by far the trickiest. Still, it isn't too onerous - nothing a little "follow the right wall" action won't solve eventually. I've seen the author cite mazes as a concern about this DMOD, but while it's maze-heavy to be sure, I didn't really have a problem with it.
It is kind of funny how you can tell how full of mazes the game is just by looking at the map, though. Prepare to be amazed.
*A smaller maze filled with fire. I had problems with this segment. You get trapped in this maze with an acid rain spell that you can cast only a very small number of times. It's up to you to scout ahead and determine which route requires you to put out the fewest fires. The warning you get about this is really vague, though, and you're not likely to figure it out on your first try. Since you're trapped, there's nothing to do but load a save, which at a minimum puts you back before the start of the area. I hadn't saved right before entering, though, so I had to recover some ground. This could have put a really bad taste in my mouth if I'd been even more forgetful about saving. The puzzle itself is pretty clever, but I'm opposed to making the player feel trapped and hopeless like this. There should have been a way to retry the puzzle.
By the way, if you run out of charges right at the end, it's possible to kind of "cheat" your way past the spike obstacle at the end of this section. Similar to how it was possible to skip a whole section back in "Prophecy of the Ancients" by barging right through a fatal energy barrier, you can equip an elixir, walk across the spikes (taking fatal damage) and use the elixir before your health reaches zero. It calls to mind the rolling health meters from the Earthbound series.
AH COME ON
*The final area, a goblin prison. I assume this is the "new world" that got added in the update. It has the neatest gameplay element in the DMOD: warps take you to the "shadow world" and back. This switches the background between regular and blacked-out, changes which enemies you encounter, and changes several elements (gates, hazards) in such a way that you're required to swap back and forth to make your way through the prison. I had an idea for an entire DMOD based around this kind of concept a while back, and I like the way it was handled here. My favorite bit was a shelf of bombs that could only be removed in the shadow world, where they are, for some reason, apples. This means you have to leave an apple sitting in front of a rock that's in your way.
Your inventory is removed at the start of this segment. That's fine, but it meant I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time punching the tough blob enemies. It wasn't hard, just tedious.
A screen in the regular world...
...and that same screen in the shadow world.
After the one in the header, this was my favorite line of dialogue in the DMOD.
The fight against the Scourger is tough, and took me a few tries. It doesn't look like he agrees with you, Dink!
It wasn't always easy to figure out what to do next, but it was never particularly hard either. The only time I got really stuck was in looking for a couple of caves that blend into the shadows of the cliff walls a bit TOO well.
Even with Dink actually crawling into it, it's still hard to see.
Pressing the "J" key in this DMOD brings up a list of objectives and highlights your current task. I didn't have much use for this, but it could be handy to somebody who didn't play the game in one day. The "T" key is used to throw away inventory, but I only used this once, when the game requires you to throw away a certain item.
Here's an oddity - you don't get to select your level-up bonus in this DMOD. You just get a point of defense instead. I was going to put my points into defense anyway, but I wonder why Meta removed the choice.
I ran into some bugs - mostly hardness errors. On five or six occasions, Dink ended up stuck in a wall, some water, a void - generally, some place he wasn't supposed to be. I just used the Ultimate Cheat to warp back to a place that made sense, but it's no fun having your immersion break like that. In the "pet peeves" department, a segment where Dink is disguised as a goblin features the dreaded "turning back into Dink when pushing" problem. I give the DMOD bonus points, though, for fixing the purple bonca bug and using the walk and death animations that make sense for the spikey enemies.
Another problem: most apostrophes are replaced with this symbol for some reason.
I did run into a fatal bug, but it isn't Metatarasal's fault. This is a rare case of a FreeDink-specific problem (I wonder if that was enough to get Beuc's attention). It turns out that FreeDink doesn't play nice with a script that contains a fade command while another fade (such as the fade that happens when you walk into a map-placed warp) is already happening. I could only proceed by editing the script myself. You can't blame the author for not considering a way to play the game that wasn't even out yet when this was originally released. I found a reference to this problem from 2009, so it's odd that this hasn't been fixed. Until it is, you can't beat this mod in FreeDink without messing with a certain script.
"Scourger" didn't quite wow me as much as the best DMODs I've played, but it's still a great one - fun, consistent, and with few negative points, although the hardness errors were a bit of a bummer in a game that was otherwise well-polished.
I like jokes about the limited set of graphics.
