Game
08
Basic
Game Adventures B11-12
Harvest of Chaos
(1989)
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King's
Festival by Carl Sargent |
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Editing: |
Jim Lowder |
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Cover Artist: |
Clyde Caldwell |
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Interior Artist: |
Valerie Valusek |
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Cartographer: |
Diesel |
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Typographer: |
Gaye O'Keefe |
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Keyliner: |
Stephanie Tabat |
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Queen's
Harvest by Carl Sargent |
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Editing: |
Jim Lowder |
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Cover Artists: |
John and Laura Lakey |
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Interior Artist: |
Karl Waller |
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Cartographer: |
Diesel |
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Typographers: |
Angelika Lokotz and Kathleen C. MacDonald |
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Keyliner: |
Stephanie Tabat |
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The Realm Review:
A series of adventures
that run the gamut of low-level campaigning. Harvest of Chaos can be used as a
stand alone campaign, introducing new players to AD&D, or these modules can
be used to lay the foundation for a long-lasting campaign. Memorable villains and
well-placed treasures make for a fast-paced, exciting time!
Realm Rating: 4.5/5
...Download Game08 at
the Magic Mirror...
Dawn and Foy, Around
the Realm:
Game08 by Ray Dyer
B11-12, Harvest of
Chaos
This game is much
longer than the others. It includes both B11 - Kings Festival and B12 - Queens
Harvest. It starts out innocently enough with a mission to rescue the town's
priest from a marauding band of Orcs but leads on to much more interesting
things.
The story is very good
and includes 4 distinct sections or quests. It is all handled in standard
dungeons, no overlands, just like all of the Realm games we've played so far.
While I loved the overall story and feel of the game it had some serious bugs that
required some programming on my part.
Things I liked:
* The frame & font
set. By far the best I've seen in the Realms. It looked like a recolored Savage
Frontier frame.
* The intrigue, I
caught myself not trusting several individuals it turned out I could trust, and
trusted those I shouldn't have.
* Lots of treasure,
including magic, and lots of EP's.
* Some of the traps
were cool
* The land outside the
Queen's castle and its "special" inhabitant.
* The Queen's castle
gate was a very good fight, I was sweating bullets at the end but I managed to
do all of it in a single series of fights. But what was even better was that it
started giving you a chance to flee after the second battle, which my wife took
advantage of to rest and recover between bouts. When you returned to the castle
it took up where you left off, mostly... :-)
* Like in Raven's
Ruin, many of the treasures were handled as Inventory Items which could be
cashed in at the town shop. Since they don't add to your encumbrance, I held
onto them until the end so I could carry more coin!
Things I disliked:
* Hangs. We had
continuous problems with hangs in this game. Some of them just happened at odd
moments and we just had to reboot and restart until we finally managed to get
past it. One of them was very "hard", if you let the Orc chieftain
have a combat turn the game would freeze. Pelt him with magic missiles and
arrows and make sure he dies before he gets a chance to move!
* Bugs. There were
several bugs but the most serious one was in the 3rd portion of the game. I
didn't encounter it, I suppose I did everything in the "right" order,
but my wife became stuck in the dungeon. She had all the items she was supposed
to get but whenever she went to leave, it wouldn't let her.
I finally had to hack
the dungeon so she could leave. The others were fairly minor, like traps that
went off after your thief supposedly disarmed it.
* Lots of text was not
marked as "Once Only". Not as irritating as in Game07 (Assault on
Raven's Ruin) since you don't stay in the same dungeon for an extended period
of time, but still not good. The worst was the Congratulations text at the end
of the module. It is imbedded on the final overland (where all the games put
you at the end) and it was long and tedious if you accidentally stumble over it
more than once.
* Too much treasure (I
know this was a like too!). At the end all of my characters were down to move 3
and I still left as much behind as I carried out. More treasure in the way of
jewels and gems is better than thousands of gold I can't haul out. Especially
since there are no Vault events in the Realms (which I understand).
* At the end I got a
chance to buy goods at a very complete shop. Unfortunately I couldn't sell my
Inventory treasure at that same shop. I ended up hacking the overland so we
could go buy stuff after the game was over.
* Gender specific
pronouns. All the Realms games do this but this one had a couple of awkward
moments. Dawn always plays all-female parties. Imagine her distaste when a
couple of "beautiful" female theives show up and she's asked to
select her most charismatic male character. Oh well.
We had a love/hate
relationship with this module. I loved the story and challenge, but hated the
bugs and hangs. This is the only Realms game I've had to hack so far, I hope it
is my last. For our next game we decided to tackle Game03 - Palace of the
Silver Princess.
Foy
Other Collected
reviews on Game 08:
Game08.zip
Harvest of Chaos Ray & Maureen Dyer
This was a fun
adventure. The designers combined to modules into one combined adventure. There
were a couple of bugs, both pretty important. In the mansion basement, the
module did not recognize the 2nd item we needed, so it would not let me leave.
I had to go in and "fix" this so I could continue. The second bug
came when it was suggested I go back to Stallingford and rest and train. When I
tried to leave to continue the adventure it sent me back to the orc caves.
Again I went into the design and "fixed" the problem. I really
enjoyed the plot matter and the text as usual is interesting and draws you into
the story.
Plot Matter: 9
Artwork: 9 Hacks: 9 Text: 9
Events: 8
Originality: 9 Errors: 1 Difficulty: 5
Total Rating:
81% Mycroft: 8
-Susan McKinney
So here we are
again, after a successful journey through a Realm adventure. Since I have the
original P&P adventures (and even did a conversion of B11, King's Harvest,
for an April Fool's contest), I can compare them to the originals and see what
there is to see. And there's a lot. I've always enjoyed these adventures; they
are perfect learning tools for beginning players and DMs, with lots of tips,
hints, and some good dungeons to explore. Not to mention fabulous treasures and
terrifying creatures.
As usual, Ray
did a fantastic conversion, although it lacks the humour that my conversion did
(which was intentional and not at all to be taken seriously anyway). There were
a few new bits, like the weather (continuing the campaign idea, the party moved
from Autumn in Game06, Journey to the Rock, to winter in Game08, Harvest of
Chaos). Excellent decision on Ray's part. The fogwarden was new; I don't recall
ever seeing one of those before. But it was a logical encounter, and advanced
the story. However, the text in that area repeated every time we retreated to
rest.
For those who
haven't played this design yet, hurry up and do so. It's a challenging
adventure, with lots of action and some great story points. There actually is
an underlying plot; it's not just a 'hack-n-slash' festival. Ray brings out
that plot well through description, and use of artwork from the original
designs. The climactic battle was challenging, and the treasure was worth it. I
found myself more than once in a position where I had to discard some of the
goodies I had found, because I simply didn't have room to put them all. Such is
life for an adventurer. So if you go to the keep, you'll probably find a lot of
gloves, belts, boots, spears, and crossbows lying around where I left them.
Technically, there
were few problems, although the text-repetition problem I mentioned above
definitely got a bit irritating. Still, nothing and no one is perfect, so I
won't shoot Ray for this small flaw in an otherwise excellent design.
Mycroft's module
rating: 9.5 out of 10
Glen
