[Subtitles by ScumCoder] ...Yeah, I don’t have the follow-up episode yet. But wo-o-o! Welcome to the Halloween episode! This time we have a double feature – a game I’ve played, and a game I haven’t. And one of them is going to be age restricted. I had to. There was no way around it. But that’s for later. Tonight we have Veil of Darkness. This is an adventure… RPG… something game? This is another new one for me. I heard about it, suspected it might be good for Halloween, but never had the guts to brave early 90-ies RPG mechanics. Until now. Uh… I can’t read any of this. Oh. Well, I guess it’s a little better than Realms of the Haunting’s quote, but I’m not impressed. All this is some guy in 1500’s saying the Dark Lord can be defeated. It doesn’t even rhyme. Okay, it came later, but Diablo 2’s manual had a pretty solid intro quote. See, look! It rhymes! We didn’t need 2000’s technology to rhyme! Oh well, I guess… Daah! It’s our hero – I guess – looking casually lost. Uh oh, look behind you! Look behind you! He’s coming! Oh, you’re dead now. Yep, okay. So I guess this was our starter hero. You know how some horror movies kill people off right at the beginning, just to keep people in the seats? I guess this is what this is. “Veil of Darkness”! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Okay, you might think I screwed up here and maybe I did, but I’m giving this plenty of clock speed and this intro is probably the lowest framerate I’ve ever seen in a game. I timed it. This intro is cruising at a smooth 2,25 frames per second. It’s less authentic, but I’m going to speed things up a tad. So, you are a pilot flying over Romania. Cool as ice. Meanwhile, some grumpy vampire is having another bad night from the looks of things, but his jewel thing serves you up as some entertainment. Well, he tries to down your plane by telekinetically screwing with the controls, which doesn’t work because you are too good a pilot. That pisses him off, so he sends some bats to take another stab at this. Yep, that does the trick. Down you go. Ha-ha, that’s hilarious. And our intrepid pilot makes it! Sort of. No, he collapses. Well, some Frankenstein-looking figures are ready for him and carry him off into the night. Whatever is going on here, this town sure seemed ready for him. Oh, and I apologize if the music is getting on your nerves. It’s a good theme, but it’s a 45-second loop. Yeah, let’s cut it a second. Ugh. You’re getting off easy; if I didn’t speed things up, you would have heard this theme six times just from watching the intro. More on the music later. And we awaken to… uh… Well, she looks like she has ventriloquist dummy eyes, to be honest. But we’ll just assume she’s human. So our hero probably has a concussion, and her father rescued you from the plane crash. Her name is Deirdre, and we are?… Oh, it’s one of those games where you choose your name. Okay, hmm… I gonna go with Chuck. He looks like a Chuck to me. So Chuck hits on Dull-eyes a little bit, but she says he needs to go see her father. So I guess that’s where we go. We have another Revenant-style control scheme, where you have to hold down the direction you want to go. But this came out in ’93, so, honestly, anything goes as far as the controls. And speak of the Devil: “Would I like to play with Full, Simplified, or Easy combat?” Again: this is an early 90-ies game with RPG elements. I trust a game like that to have a reasonable combat system as much as I trust Chuck to talk his way out of that intro. Easy all the way. No shame, no regrets. Okay, we are in a hallway… Whoops. “Hello game player! From time to time there will be doors behind which there is nothing important. In that case I will print the message ‘There is nothing important behind this door’ so that you do not need to figure out how to get past the door.” Okay… I guess that’s the computer talking to me? That’s a little weird, but we’ll go with it. ‘Nothing important’. That one’s locked. ‘Nothing important’. ‘Nothing important’. ‘Nothing important’. Oh, a cutscene. Doopa-doop-dup-da-do. ‘Nothing important’. ‘Nothing important’. Okay, these rooms are pretty nice, but there is nothing in them I can interact with. Ah ha! Our host! “When the metal beast fell from the sky, Deirdre and my servant went to investigate. They were stunned when you emerged from the wreckage”. Ah, looks like airplanes are the new hotness here. “You will find that this valley is somewhat behind the times, good sir. We have never seen this thing you call an airplane”. That brings us to a good point: what year is this? I think our only lead is the plane itself. If there are any aviators in the audience, maybe you can ID Chuck’s plane here. I don’t know much about planes, so I’m guessing at least the 30-ies. So, a little bit of a culture shock, and here we see the conversation system. As you talk, the game will highlight words which you can bring up to discuss. And in return for saving us, he asks if I can go get a hammer back from his neighbor since he’s been a punk about returning it. Sure, I can play repo man for a bunch of strangers. This is my kind of game. Before I leave, I find a basement and some coins. This game has a great feature, which is, it can magnify items that are of importance. Then you can just drag them into your inventory Legend of Kyrandia style. This is almost necessary, because the vast majority of items, you can’t interact with. Shelves; boxes; portraits; piano; fireplace – it’s all decoration. So, yeah, we need this. And off we go to explore the town. Huh, seems like the sign with a severed head is our natural first stop, whaddya think? Inside we have a Peter Lorre-looking bartender. “Wait a minute. I don’t remember seeing you in here before. You’re not that guy that, ahhh, came from that thing that fell out of the sky, are you?” Yeah, it’s pretty clear that’s going to be my new label for life in this town. Anyway, he tells us how much he likes collecting cups. “It’s my finest, my pride and joy! I’m just aching to drink from such a fine cup. Of course, I’d never do such a thing unless I had the finest vintage. Only the best for such a fine goblet, eh?” The local bar-fly hits on me; I think I’ll pass. Moving on, I guess I’ll check out the house with skulls on pikes out front. Inside… [lip smack] ah, of course. It’s the urban spices shop. “Hello Annabelle, my name’s Chuck”. She tries to sell me some fennel seeds, and I’m conflicted. I mean, I probably will need those, but I can’t think of why, and I only have two silver. So I think we’ll hold off for now. Now, the shop *without* skulls out front is the general store. He tries to sell me an oil lamp. This sounds *way* more useful, but again, I want to see what my options are before I start buying. And we are operating on Zelda rules, where nobody seems to care if I just walk into the back room and their homes. Let’s see what we can find. Well, I find a sick girl who is apparently dying of “the madness”. At first I thought it was rabies, but I don’t think she’s been bit; it’s just “the madness”. The mother asks me to leave; I think it’s probably for the best. Moving along. Let’s check this house. There are some more skulls on the shelf. I’m tempted to start another skull counter like in The Black Mirror, but I think I’m gonna get overwhelmed. Ah ha! I think we may have a clue! You find all kinds of interesting things going through other peoples’ homes. So what would a detective do? Hmm… Look at how clever I am! All right, money… Yeah, let me just get my fingerprints on the murder weapon here… This must be the hammer the host was talking about. I’m getting the feeling this small favor just turned into a big one. Okay, seriously, game. I don’t get any commentary on this? The protagonist just loots him and moves on? I’m not expecting a line for every single little thing, like “Look! That’s a chair!”. But this isn’t noteworthy enough to get a response? All right, let’s keep going… So, what’s in this house? These homes feel bigger on the inside. This kid’s working on that yo-yo like there’s no tomorrow. He needs to go outside. “You’re the man Gheorghe was talking about! He said you were a monster, but you’re just a man”. Yeah, it’s gonna be difficult explaining what a plane is to these people. “Are you sure it isn’t a monster, like the werewolf that attacked mother? This kid’s gonna have a lot to deal with growing up. He wants to see the plane. Not now. “You’re just like Dad! He never lets me do anything. All he ever wants to do is show me how to make candles. I don’t care about candles! I want to see the thing that fell out of the sky”. Hey, that’s enough lip out of you, mister! Now you gonna go back to making candles and you gonna like it! Well, that could’ve gone better. Let’s check the basement. Surprise! It’s a candle maker! “Are you the outlander that fell from the sky?” Yeah, that title works. I’ll take it. “I guess I’ve been called worse. My name’s Chuck”. Well, he tells us how his wife’s dead and hopes his son doesn’t get “the madness”. “Death is an ever-present companion in this place”. Yeah, yeah. That’s this guy’s whole schtick. Death and candles. Stop! Hammer time! Yeah, this is going to be an interesting conversation. I wonder if we gonna wipe the blood off first. Nope. We’re giving it raw. Fine by me. “You’ve found the bloody hammer”. Uh… yeah. “Salvation… now I’m sure you’re the one! If it wasn’t you, the hammer would never have been found”. Yes. I am the one. I found the hammer. Some call me hero, but I was just doing my job. Ah, okay. So Chuck isn’t vaulting through the corpses, oblivious to the world around him. He *is* reacting like a human. I admit: if I was in his shoes, I might just play it off cool, act like everything’s normal, and just ride my hammer fame out. I’m not sure screaming they are crazy would be the smart play. But the host gets it. “No, Chuck, not crazy… Cursed is what we are”. Yeah... “And you are cursed too. You’re trapped here”. Okay, well, uh… “You represent hope. Hope for us all! You can deliver us from Kairn’s evil!” Pressure’s on, Chuck. “I’m out of here, with or without your help”. Yeah, just try it, Chuck. No one leaves here alive. You’ll either go mad, or be slain by monsters. And now he starts rapping about the prophecy, and I’m the one, and he studied it his whole life. Man, I hate prophecies. Is Chuck really prophecy material? I know I was ripping on Conan an another episode, but I can’t deny: Conan looks like he is cut out to fulfill some prophecies. ♪ The Grand Cathedral - Church Scene by Damjan Mravunac ♪
I know I was ripping on Conan an another episode, but I can’t deny: Conan looks like he is cut out to fulfill some prophecies. ♪ The Grand Cathedral - Church Scene by Damjan Mravunac ♪ ♪ The Grand Cathedral - Church Scene by Damjan Mravunac ♪
This is exactly what you want to see when it comes to prophecies. Or, in gaming: B.J. Blazkowicz. Duke Nukem. Serious Sam. These are who you want fulfilling your prophecies. Chuck… I don’t know. You gonna need more than a chipper attitude. Oh, great. So I’m supposed to fight an *elder* vampire. You are not Van Helsing, Chuck. But it’s the prophecy, right? Wouldn’t want to forget that. So let’s devote an entire portion of the HUD just to keep track of our prophecy. See? You click on it, and it will automatically mark off when you fulfilled each portion of the prophecy! It’s a freaking prophecy-o-meter! This gets an award. So I got stuck for a little bit, but if you talk to the villagers in the bar a *second* time, they talk about a farm for you to go check out, so let’s do it. Ah, now we have a map! Now *this* belongs on the HUD. At the farm, the farmer actually reacts to you just walking into his house. He says he could’ve killed you for doing that, but he is too lazy to get up off the couch. He tells you that your plane crashed in his field, and implies maybe you should go clean that up. In the back, his lovely wife is chopping up rats for dinner. She talks about how you have to chop them up good, otherwise her husband can choke on the tails. Now, even though this game has RPG elements, there is no hunger meter, so I guess we’re done here. From here… wait a minute. What’s that? That looks like a refrigerator to me. They have refrigerators, but they’ve never heard of planes?.. Well, okay. They’re near the mountains; I guess it could just be an ice box. I might be jumping the gun here. On to the crash site. Uh oh, it has wolves. So, uh, back to the farm. Luckily, there is a pitchfork out in the barn. Yeah, here’s how the combat works. You see the HUD, of course. Well, it’s been hiding the whole time! You have to equip a weapon in your hand, then you thrust, and have a cooldown. This is a lot better than what I was expecting, actually. Even if that’s not how I would hold a pitchfork. Come get some, wolf! Oh, no. Dice rolls for my hits. Come on! Rragh! Well, I guess that wasn’t too bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have picked “Easy” after all. I’m honestly kind of shocked that a game from this era proclaiming to be easy is actually easy. Or, really, it’s hard as nails, if you only use the mouse, but this is playable with the keyboard. Although it’s not perfect, because sometimes I hit diagonal and nothing happens, other times it works. Anyway, I find some bushes, and my plane is gone! Damn. Whoa, what was that? Uh… Oh, a tree. Sure, let’s talk to the trees. “May the Dark One rot for this. I want my body back. You gotta help me! Please... The spiders, they’re all over me… I can feel them crawling”. Chuck has the appropriate reaction. So, the short version is, this guy came to check out the crash, the vampire’s minions came, hauled off the plane – that’s a lot of minions, – then the vampire himself showed up and turned him into a tree. So let’s recap here. Chuck is supposed to stop an elder vampire, who can see people coming miles away, can turn into a bat, telekinetically project his will, command animals of the night, has enough minions to haul a freaking plane away, and apparently is *also* a sorcerer who can turn people into trees. You know, every vampire story has its own rules, so I’m glad to see this one isn’t watering down the power of an elder vampire. If anything, this is even above average. You may think you are the Big Man on Campus now that you have a pitchfork, Chuck, but you really have your work cut out for you. I don’t know what this guy expects me to do. Let’s make like a tree and get out of here. Unfortunately, I really don’t know what to do. This is my limit on figuring things out on my own. So, no regrets about turning to a walkthrough online. That’s an upside of not playing this in ‘93. “I have found no apparent advantages to killing creatures, rather than avoiding them”. Okay, so I feel even more dumb for playing on easy, but I couldn’t have known that! I mean, in how many RPGs does it pay off to avoid enemies? So the walkthrough says I needed that oil lamp. I knew it. So, let’s go back and get it. Wait. What? I can’t buy it anymore?.. I only have one chance?.. See? Here it is earlier. Now it’s gone. No. Something I haven’t needed until now, the game doesn’t just highlight words you can talk about; it expects you to type them in, too. Ugh. One of those… And it gets worse! I was at least told about the lamp. Apparently, some words you don’t even get told. You have to guess. I have so little tolerance for this crap. I don’t miss this one bit. See? I also have to ask the host for a pipe. How would I know that?! Maybe I missed a clue, but that feels like a shot in the dark to me. All right, so we have the lamp, we have a match, we put one in each hand, then light it. Then we… throw it at the tree? Are we going to smoke the spiders out or something? Seems like that can hurt him. All right, well, I am not one to question the walkthrough. Here we go. “Wait… What are you doing? I’m going to burn… Please don’t do this! I’m going to burn! NOOooo...” Oh, wow. This is dark, guys. I hope you’re proud of yourself, Chuck. I’m not saying I had a better answer to the situation, but… damn. From here we need to get into a habit of going back to the tavern, because the villagers will gossip about what you need to do next. Well, that’s the monastery, so let’s head over there as it’s opened up on our map. Here there’s a priest who sells holy water; also he is apparently surrounded by his invisible brotherhood. “Some of the brothers are here right now. Can’t you see them? They see you. Isn’t that right, brother Leon?” “Oh yes, I see him right now!” If we go in the basement, there’s some cursed monk who can’t stop writing because of a cursed quill. But he can’t talk about the quill. So if ask him *for* the quill, that breaks the curse, and now we can talk, because he is no longer cursed. You know what? Forget it. This whole subquest logic is just pissing me off. And that’s it for the monastery; so, back to town. Seems talk of the town is now the gypsies. So, let’s go see the gypsies. I like how chill the music is here. Speaking of the music… Okay, here’s the deal. Most of the music conveys a pretty good tone and is quite fitting. But you are listening to the Adlib version. But this is actually excellent for the Adlib. Adlib music always sounds so cheap. Wah-wah-wah-wah, wowah-wah-wah-wah. I always felt like it could have been better, even back then. I mean, compare Adlib to almost anything on the Super Nintendo, and the defense rests. ♪ Brinstar - Underground Depths by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano ♪ But. This game also supported the mythical Roland MT-32, which was about as good as it got back then. And hey! Wouldn’t you know it? That sounds *way* better! Now, modern software does support MT-32 emulation, but my understanding is, it’s just not there. It can’t emulate it properly. ♪ Beautiful music ♪ ♪ Distorted dissonant music ♪ It reminds me of this picture I saw showing an “enhancement” mod. Some things are better, some things aren’t. The MT-32 is *the* best way to experience old game music, but something about it is apparently impossible by modern science to recreate. Someone needs to go out there and record all the music from games that used it, before it’s too late! Even this guy only got three or four tracks recorded, then gave up. Hurry! Anyway, here’s where we start hitting full-on RPG mode, because we get nothing but loose ends for rapidly multiplying quests. One gypsy will read my fortune, and it’s kinda a ripoff; all she says is I’ll be holding a hammer and raising my arm up and down. Oh, yeah. That helps. Another gypsy will make a potion to cure “the madness”. Yeah, you remember “the madness”, right? But look at all this crap she needs! “A wide belly jar with a face painted on it”. Okay, now I *know* she is screwing with me. But, I’m the outsider, so it’s not like I can call her bluff. Yeah, this is gonna take a while. And this guy needs a piece of wood to make a flute, and God knows why we need a flute. Yeah, this is an RPG all right. But it’s also an adventure game, because *of course* we know to ask *this* gypsy about Eduard. So, she gives us a package with a key. Still no regrets about using a walkthrough, guys. So I guess from here it’s off to Eduard’s house. He was that dude that didn’t return the hammer and got mauled. And wouldn’t you know it, he has a secret entrance to the catacombs inside his basement. That might explain the cracks in the wall here. The foundation itself may have issues, and I’m guessing catacombs could do that. I have no idea about Romania, but in Florida sinkholes will swallow up houses like they’re nothing. I’ve always had a certain fascination seeing so much time and resources put into a home, only to have the Earth say “We’re just gonna eat you now”. Inside the catacombs there is a bunch of bats, but we can just run away. I’m still glad I know that. Now, this *is* a maze, but the game graciously automaps it as you go. And – you don’t see this every day – it gives you a hotkey to print it as you go, also. This game might have been made before the industry started adding planned obsolescence to printers, so this isn’t quite as frivolous as it seems. It’s really not that hard a maze, actually. Maybe they’ll throw their full weight at me later. We exit through the catacombs and whoa! Jackpot! We’re in the wine cellar of our gracious host! I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, I don’t like stealing from a guy who rescued me from certain vampire doom, but on the other hand he won’t shut up about his prophecy, so let’s run with that. Yeah, does the prophecy say how a stranger will loot your savings and run off with your daughter? Did they forget that part? Well, we steal his wine, too. Then, if we head over to the tavern, the barkeep immediately recognizes the wine, can’t believe the owner parted with it, and proposes a toast, so that we can drink it immediately. Chuck says “hell yeah”, so we get a cutscene where he breaks out his fancy gold goblet. Chuck then explains that because he handed the gold goblet to him, it now belongs to him. This majorly pisses off the bartender, so we decide to leave. But it’s okay. Chuck promises he’ll bring it back. Okay. So now we need to head back to the monastery. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how the priest will resurrect people from the dead. He just needs their ashes, and he needed the Cup of Life back, as it went missing. Well, guess what we have now. That’s right, this is the Cup of Life! Oh, and he also charges three silver pieces for the service. That’s about $60 in today’s prices, though I’ve heard silver is currently undervalued due to market manipulation by J. P. Morgan. Either way, that’s a *great* price for a resurrection. I’ve seen other games charge *way* more than that. This is a bargain, no matter how you slice it. Divine Deeds Done Dirt cheap. And that also means there was a purpose to Chuck torching that tree man. So let’s get this show on the road and bring him back to life! Whooop. Looks good to me. Actually, he kinda looks like the Unstable Mutation guy from Magic: the Gathering. Eh, close enough. Oh, and the priest points out that this is a quality resurrection, with his soul intact – not your everyday necromancy. So you should consider that before you compare his prices to other games. Out revenant is pretty pissed, though. Apparently, being burned to death is awful. Yeah, I bet it is. We ask him where our plane is. At first he holds out, but then he tells us it’s in the swamp. “May the Dark One take your soul!” How’s that for gratitude? We should’ve just threaten to turn him into a tree again, I bet that would shut him up. This is one of those situations where nobody is really in the right here. And, speaking of which, we head out, but leave the magic goblet I “borrowed” with the priest. Smooth, Chuck. Especially since you promised you will bring it back. I don’t even tell him the priest has it; I just leave. You know, I had a friend who acted a lot like Chuck is right now. So, let’s check out the swamp. Yeah, our plane’s done. We’re not going to be flying out of here. It’s littered with useful stuff, though. A machete, revolver, rope, a lighter, a second backpack… I’m glad I have all this, but I’m slowly having an inventory crisis. I’m filled with crap that I don’t know if I need, but I have smaller containers I can stuff more things into. But only smaller items…? Or, rather, it depends. But on top of *that*, I have a weight limit. So this might turn ugly later. Plus, I don’t know, if I drop things, if they’ll be there when I come back. In Diablo, you can drop money, and if you come back later, it will always be there. Not in Diablo 2. If it’s not in storage, it’s gone. I don’t want to drop an essential item, then have it been purged from memory half an hour later. Maybe that can’t happen in this game; I don’t know. This is a 90-ies RPG. It is *so* not safe for me to assume that. And now it’s back to the tavern for our next update, and wouldn’t you know it – the tavernkeep does *not* pull a shotgun on me from under the counter. So I’m free to do whatever, it seems. Plus, now we have a gun. Well, the villagers drop that there is *another* village. Oh-ho. Yep, there it is. It’s called “The Other Village”. Excellent. Well, in this village the music isn’t as good, and here we find the reason quest logs were invented. First, we have the silversmith, and business is booming. Silver is used against the undead, so people can’t get enough of the stuff. But uh-oh, watch out! The walkthrough says “do NOT talk to him about crafting a small sword from silver”. It sounds like that’ll live you broke, and you won’t be able to complete the game because you need to buy other things first…? So, yeah. One of those games again. We talk to some old lady about herbs, and her son, who is the local historian, will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the lore. He knows the history of the buildings; he knows the family tree of the vampire lord: he had six brothers – like Aleksander, who had his head cut off in a duel, Feodor, found in a dark alley with his skull split open, Nathan, shredded during a hunting accident… eh, you get the idea. But, if that’s not enough lore for you, the manual has a 32-page prequel about the grumpy vampire’s origin. It also has what looks like copy protection to me, but I think this copy has been pre-cracked. Next stop is the magistrate, but first… Look at that. You see that? Yeah. That fountain has an animation. This is exactly what I was talking about in the Cave World. This game gets it. But yeah, this guy is your classic ruler. He’s been appointed by the vampire lord to govern this region. The law is anything that does not please him or his master. Simple enough. Also, hey, wanna earn some money? Go kill this werewolf that keeps killing the villagers. You got this, kid. Yeah, you can’t kill him with conventional weapons, but you’ll figure something out. Also, I had some guy hung for killing Eduard, but word is, it was the wrong guy… I dunno. Yeah, it’s like the game says. He had to hang someone. So, Chuck freaks out about this, so the magistrate is like “yeah, yeah, fine, tough guy. Bring me some evidence showing who did it and I’ll hang somebody else, all right? Jeez, get off my back already”. Yeah, remember the laws, Chuck. So, moving on, we have another house with skulls out front. So whoever lives here must be good people. Yep. It’s the gravedigger, who sort of looks like my uncle, and he is getting annoyed that dead just keep getting up out of their graves. I can understand that. It’s like watching all your work being undone. He also drops some hints, like “hey! Maybe he can dig Chuck’s grave, wink wink”. Chuck doesn’t seem to think so. “That’s what they all say, my friend. That’s what they all say”. Yeah, this guy is seasoned. He’s seen it all before. Oh well, time to steal from him, I guess. We have a shirt, a bottle of wine… I thought these were pills, but it’s a strength potion. Close enough. The digger blocks this door up front, however, and Chuck doesn’t press the matter. Chuck is the friendliest home invader I’ve seen. The gravedigger does have a werewolf-y beard going on, so it would be interesting to see if we have to come back here later to kill him. On the way out, we also steal his shovel and parsley in his garden. You know, as a memento. The gravedigger recommended we stop by the cemetery to check out his handiwork. Sounds like a plan. We’re immediately mobbed by skeletons, though it’s really not that bad because it actually is *easy*. I still can’t believe it. Although my machete does not work on the skeletons, only the mace does. So this is one of those games where you have to have the right weapon for the job. Which might be a problem later with this inventory, but whatever. And this music is really annoying. Yeah, that’s better. Some demon is blocking entrance to the mausoleum, because the master says we may not pass. Okay… We also got a tip about a witch down at the crossroads from the historian, so let’s pay *her* a visit. Oh, but whoops. Some dead guy is talking to us. Apparently this was the fall guy for Eduard’s murder. So this is who the magistrate was talking about. Well, he can’t pass on because of a spell or something, so he is chatting up everybody who comes by here, instead. He also says not to trust the witch – she’ll betray you, cook you in her pot, blah blah… “And please find out who really murdered me? Otherwise I’m going to be stuck like this”. Okay, well, let’s see what the witch has to say about all this. Well, she is quite friendly, actually, except she is having a feud with the dead guy, because he has some key to a crypt, where one of her ancestors was wrongfully killed, and she needs to set him at peace, but she needs some ivory horn, so she can carve magic engravings on it, so you can summon the dead ferryman to take you across the lake, to find the book, so her grandfather’s spirit can… Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa! Everybody slow down here! How many open quests do I have at this point?! Ten? It’s like nobody ever did anything helpful in this town until I came along. Yeah, better pick up the pace, Chuck. Your prophecy meter isn’t moving very fast. Well, we return to “Village”, and whoops – looks like the minstrel got murdered by the werewolf while you were out. Yeah, I skipped over him; he was just some guy playing a violin, and now he’s dead. That’s the short and long of it. The townsfolk can’t believe it. It literally happened at this inn, and the werewolf came in through the window?.. Oh my God! The tavernkeep tells everybody to pipe down, he’ll take care of it. Just give him a minute. You think this is the first time he has to deal with somebody being murdered here? Jeez. Well, that’s your cue, Chuck. Go and get first pickings at the crime scene. Yep. He is dead all right. Well, finders keepers. I guess we are supposed to investigate this. Hey, everything okay in here? Getting ready for bed, huh? I’ve done that before. Well, this guy has a crazy face. He’s a good suspect. He tells me about a guy named Crazy Frank on the edge of the woods who he got in a fight with. The old hermit punched him so hard, he knocked out his tooth, but he bashed *him* even harder, and knocked out three. Score. Then he tried to give it to the gypsies to make a voodoo doll out of them, but they refused. So he is offering to sell *me* the teeth instead, because of the sentimental value. Sold. Sounds like a deal to me. Well, I guess we better go and visit Crazy Frank at the edge of town. He screams a lot of nonsense and wants us to leave. I guess I should have seen this coming. The music here is awesome, though. Seriously, we need to get the MT-32 on this, guys. Frank wasn’t nice to me, so I guess now we head back to the gypsies and ask about that voodoo doll. I’m not sure why we’re doing this. I’m also not sure why we’re asking Romanian gypsies about voodoo. Chuck smooths things over and says it’s cool, he is not going to kill Frank with it. He just wants to scare him. Yeah, that sounds like a foolproof plan there, Chuck. She wants me to promise I won’t use it to hurt him. Uh, no. I can’t do that. I set a tree man on fire, remember? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, because she needs a list of *more* ingredients… ngaaah. This is getting out of control. I’ve *got* to close these quests! So let’s do that. By now I’ve wondered the countryside enough to find most of the ingredients for the healing potion, but I still need a lock of that kid’s hair. I don’t think mom is going to be cool with me asking for that, so I ask yo-yo kid for help, instead. “Dad says it’s the Pale Prince’s evil soul reaching out and touching his children, the people in the valley. Dad says we’re all forsaken, lost to the rest of the world”. I like how this just rolls off his tongue. I cannot imagine what this kid is going to be like as an adult. Anyway, he just so happens to have a lock of her hair, so let’s do it. Yeah, mix it up. There you go. All right, lady. Here’s the potion for the kid. Get her to drink it already. Damn it, don’t argue with me! Just drink it! There. All better. She’s happy, and… uh… Huh. I don’t know if that cured her of the *madness*. That face does not inspire… Yeah, she would *never* stab anyone. Well, mom’s happy, so we’ll take it. Boom. What’s next? Solve the murder. Well, we find evidence the gravedigger was at the crime scene in his apartment. But that’s not quite enough to satisfy the magistrate. But wait a minute! He was growing parsley in his back yard! And according to the local herbology expert, it’s an *evil* plant! Its roots grow all the way down to Hell itself, and only murderers grow parsley! Well that’s it. We’ve got him dead to rights now. I inform the magistrate, and it’s hanging time. Well, we don’t get to see the hanging, but if we head back to the crossroads, the ghost thanks us and gives us stuff. I like how they just cut him down and let him there right next to the new hanging. Oh, and the girl’s dad’s ghost also thanks us and gives us stuff. Sort of. I mean, we have to help ourselves, but, you know. And now that we are back at the cemetery, I found a book to get rid of this demon ghost thing. All right, first we need to use the ribbon on the bell. Uh… check. Then we need to light a candle. Check. But wait, what do we do with the candle? We can’t keep holding it. Okay, back to the inventory, I guess? Because now we need both hands to use the spike on the bell with the ribbon. [ding] It didn’t work. What’s going on? Does the candle need to be on the ground? [ding] Damn it, I hate summoning rituals! Banishing rituals… This crap always happens to me. What’s going on?! Ohhh, it has to be a *blessed* candle. Okay, back to town to buy another candle, then head to the priest to get it blessed. Now back to the ribbon and the bell, light the *blessed* candle, *now* do the bell with the spike. [ding] Damn it, it’s still not working! I hate rituals! Oh, wait. Let’s put the candle back in my backpack. [ding] Yes! That did it! That was… almost worth it. But uh-uh-uh-uh! What’s the walkthrough say? “Do not enter the mausoleum”! Don’t do it, Chuck! Why would you want to enter after clearing an opening? No-o-o. Where we want to go next is the middle of the forest. Well, here’s the forest. On the way in, we meet a friendly lumberjack warning us we gonna die. Off we go. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. There are blob things trying to kill me, wolves trying to kill me, these damn will-o'-wisp things that want a piece of me, and of course none of my weapons work on them, except the wolves. I found that damn horn the witch wanted, and… Oh. Hello, banshee. Whoops. RIP. “An Outsider who failed to pierce the Veil of Darkness”. Waa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Okay, so we shouldn’t do that again. What we should have done, is wear the talisman that was bought from the historian earlier. So *this* time, we’ll-- Oh God, a ghost hit me an I’ve aged 40 years! That sucks! That sucks so hard! I can’t walk as fast now, either, and I’m sure my damage has gone down. I ran away, but I am *crawling* now. Gaaah! I can’t outrun these wisps! Oh! I’ve been weakened *on top* of being aged! Yeah, look at the bags under his eyes now. Well, the banshee doesn’t bother me anymore, but this is so bad! I can’t just walk this one off. What does the guide say about this? “Read the book of Temporal Incantation”. I don’t have a book of Temporal Incantation! I haven’t seen anything like that the entire game! Well, we’re gonna have to use our own, home-brewed anti-aging spell. It’s called “loading your game”. We’ll skip ahead here. All you’re missing is more pain. So we get out of the forest, drop off the horn for the witch, she scribbles her whatever into it, and now it’s off to the lake. Oh my God, more will-o'-wisps! Weakened! They are mobbing me! I can’t do this! My weapons still don’t do anything. So it looks like I have to go back to the forest, pick up this branch here, bring it to the carving guy, and he makes a badass enchanted staff for me instead of a flute. And doesn’t even charge me, because he is a bro. And *now* it’s back to the lake. They weaken me again, but at least now I can fight back. Plus, I’m not aged again. Though, in fairness, going out and bashing forest spirits with my stick is the sort of thing I can see doing in my old age. Thankfully, we just have to take some herbs to cure weakness. That’s way better. Time to blow the horn. [single Adlib note] Hark! It’s the call of Adlib! The ferryman appears to take us across, though this honestly feels uncomfortable, since he only has one arm. You should be rowing *him*, Chuck. Oh my God, it’s more will-o'-wisps! Get away! No! Well, that was bad. But now it’s time for the real pain. The hedge maze. It’s exactly what you think. Except not only do we need to find our way through the maze, oh no. We *also* need six cloves of garlic sprinkled throughout the maze, *and* there are these snake things all over the place, *and* they poison you. These remind me a lot of snake things from Path of Exile. That game has a hedge maze too. But unlike Path of Exile, only one weapon works on them. I only figured out later that the pitchfork doesn’t work. I don’t know what to say here, other than this is just awful. I really associate stuff like this with a lot of old games. To have all this cool stuff going for them, and it’s obvious a lot of effort went into them, but then you have stuff like this that just makes you walk back all the good impressions you had, until you don’t know what to think. Even with the automap, it’s just a slog, because we have to be thorough and find all the damn garlic, *and* manage our inventory. And remember: this is all *because* I loaded my game, so I’m not cursed. Can you imagine doing all this as old man, Chuck? I can’t. Well, it ends. Eventually. Yeah, look at my backpack. It’s about ready to explode. I’m just gonna have to dump some things and hope I don’t need them. Past the hedge maze is a mansion with a magnificently aggressive looking British aristocrat. He can’t believe I got past the hedge maze. Me neither. He has a holy relic that will glow when it’s close to a vampire’s coffin, that he’ll trade me for some cigarettes. Uh… Yeah. I guess that’s a trade we’re gonna be making. He says I’m welcome to stay here, but please don’t steal anything. I wonder what that means. Anyway, in the back he has a copy of that Temporal Incantations book. We’re gonna need that. And up in the attic he has a fancy rapier. That can be useful too. So, this visit’s a pretty good haul. Well, we’re getting closer to the vampire lord himself, but we still have some loose ends to tie up. First, we can finally afford a silver shopping spree. So we get that silver sword, along with silver bullets, though you have to know to *ask* about the bullets, because this is 1993. Next, we check in with our host, only to find out he’s been keeping his zombie son in the attic, or something like that. Also, Deirdre got kidnapped by the vampire lord while you were out. Whoops. Well, let’s take care of that zombie. Ah ha! Meh. I am kind of wishing the game had sound effects here. Supposedly it does, but I couldn’t get them to work. See? Look. Sound Blaster is not good enough, apparently. It’s good enough for most DOS games. But remember that werewolf? About that. All I have to go on is the walkthrough and what I’m seeing in the game. So maybe I’m missing something, but I *think* the only way to determine who the werewolf is is to manually accuse every single character in the game of being the werewolf. This reminds me of a comic I saw about the Law of Averages. This is exactly the game we’re playing here. Though, hey, if Chuck wants to shake his nickname as The One Who Fell From The Sky, this is how you do it. Keep this up, and people will be calling you That Crazy Werewolf Guy in no time. Well, it’s the farmer’s wife! Ta-da-da! Oh, damn! Here we go! Yeah, get that gun ready, Chuck. Blam! Blam! Blam! Well, that’s done. I guess we should exit out the back. Continuing to wrap things up, we drop off everything for our voodoo doll, so we can go scare Crazy Frank. It works! Crazy Frank is scared! He tells us about a cave where a bunch of vampire ladies tried to kill him. We go there, and this sucks, because even though I have a silver sword, that’s been blessed by the priest, that still does no damage to them. The only thing that works is holy water, except this isn’t Castlevania: I have maybe two or three of those, and they cost one silver each. There’s a lot more vampire ladies than that. Go away! But, deep in the cave, we find… The Book. This book is a big deal. Remember that prequel in the manual? It was about how Kairn became an evil vampire because of *this book*. Right here. It’s all chained up though, so Kairn doesn’t have to share its power. This pisses off the book so hard, and he needs me to free him… or it. The book tells me “Kairn is not as intelligent as he thinks he is”, and that the key is going to be right next to his coffin, for sure. Then the book gives me a pep talk, telling me he would kill me if he didn’t need me, and as soon as we finish I become cursed and get Doom Guy’s invincibility eyes. But unlike Doom Guy, I am *not* invincible. I’m just cursed, and people won’t talk to me now. Yeah, I can see that. So it’s off to Kairn’s fortress! Bam-ba-baaam! And here we have some Super Ghouls n’ Ghosts-esque music: [music] I approve. I didn’t even know Adlib could sound this good. Well, his fortress is sufficiently imposing, and we need to find his coffin. Our magic crucifix comes in handy for detecting secret entrances, and we make our way there. Here we find Deirdre, and she is like “Oh my God help me. I can’t believe my dad just gave me to the vampires. Don’t trust him! He made a deal with them!” Well, to be fair, I’m not sure her dad had a lot of options, unless he felt like being turned into a tree. So, we get the key, but we also get a Book to Dispel Evil, vol. III. I like how there is no I or II, we’re just jumping straight to III. It’s like the game knows we’re gonna need the maximum dismissal of evil here, so let’s not screw around with the starter books. This frees us of our curse, but there’s not much point, since we have to go back and talk to the book again, since he has the down low on how to kill Kairn. I mean, it. So, back to the book, we unlock it, and now it’s free to, uh… I dunno. Ruin the world again? And it lets us know Kairn’s true name, which will weaken him. Wait, I thought that was only a big deal for demons – vampires don’t care if you know their name? Well, whatever. His name is Bhenblod. Huh, all right. Actually, the walkthrough says it’s randomly selected each playthrough, so this is what we get. And now, it’s time for the final confrontation! Except wait a minute. What about the mausoleum? Well, *now* we go in. And it’s not the hedge maze, or the forest, but it’s not fun, either. Just a bunch of skeletons and zombies in large rooms. At the end of it are a bunch of statues, and I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it looks like it’s the rest of Kairn’s family, with their souls tied to these somehow? They all hate him, that much is clear. Well, all the crap we’ve been collecting in our inventory belong to them, and by handing it over they lift their curse or something, until Kairn’s dad brings down the thunder. Boom! Blows a hole in the wall and says there’s a box that contains all the sunlight Kairn has trapped, and this is why the valley is always dark. Ah, okay. I didn’t realize Sun literally never shines here, so we have a Dark City thing going on. Except this box has all the missing sunlight. That can be useful, assuming it hasn’t gone nuclear. Although if we gonna be real here, if there was no Sun, this grass would not be green. It’d be pale white or something. So, we are almost ready. But we need the herbologist make a necklace out of garlic cloves, bring along a mushroom, holy water, bless everything – the works. So, this is it. The final encounter. First things first, we nail his coffin shut, because the lore says Kairn will be invincible if he can return to his coffin. I didn’t need a fortune teller to know that this was a good idea. Next, we ascend the tower to face off with him, and this time we don’t have to be afraid of aging 40 years if we take a wrong turn. We just have to read. And this is it. Beyond these stairs is Kairn himself. Now, the walkthrough has an elaborate description of what to do here. I literally had to stop what I was doing and study it. But what the hell. Let’s just try and face him head on, see what happens. Here we go. Toppa-top-top-top-top. Hello. “Look into my eyes and embrace their gaze. You cannot resist! Ha ha ha ha ha! Much better, now that you are my slave! Don’t move – I have a surprise for you!” Ha ha ha. So Kairn just straight up pimp slaps you to death. Why bother with anything more when you’re a vampire? Waa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Okay, now let’s do this right. This is tricky. First, we need the holy water and the mushroom. Then put the garlic necklace on, and make sure the Sun box is in the inventory. Now we eat the mushroom, which makes us blind. Then stumble up the steps. Hello? Uh… Okay, I’m still blind. How is this gonna work? Just click more things? Hello? Oh, there it goes. Yeah, gaze on me now. “NOOOooo!!! How can you resist? It’s not possible!” Okay, so he comes for me before I can react, but boom! The garlic holds him back! They have their back-and-forth… Okay, now throw the holy water, even though it doesn’t get an icon! Yes! It burns! Yeah, it’d better… Okay, now the Sun box. Do I put it on the ground? No, I have to equip it. Hurry! Go, go! Ka-boom! Yeah, he’ll be feeling that one. Jeez, he’s still not down! Uh, uh… Oh damn, his name! What’s his name?! I forgot! Burnblob, or something? I need to know it *exactly*! Yeah, maybe *you* remember it, but you heard it five minutes ago! It’s been longer in-game for me! Hold on, I need to go look at the captured footage. Be right back. Wru-wru-wru-wru [simulating sounds of a VHS player on fast-forward] Bhenblod! How do you like them apples? Yes! He can feel himself weakened! And he’s aware the book has betrayed him! Is he going down yet?! Okay, he gives us more taunts, then escapes to his coffin as a bat. Well, let’s head back down to the coffin! Wrrrrup All right, here we are! Can we finish him?! Hell yes! Cutscene! That’s right, Chuck! You know what you’re doing! Oh! Perfect! Atta boy, Chuck! Oh, hell yes, he’s gonna cut his head off! Chuck knows how to do this! What did I say?! How every vampire story has different rules? Well, cutting off the head is the one thing that almost always holds true! That covers 99% of any vampire problems you’ll ever run into. And Deirdre’s free, the end. They set out on the Black Sea, looking to the future ahead. Then they kiss, and this becomes quite awkward, because the deck ants keep on working while they’re frozen in time. And the text is scrolling faster than it probably should. This might be an emulation glitch. And that is “Veil of Darkness”! Okay, awards time! Yeah, that prophecy meter is still dumb, so, second award: “Diablo protoplasm”. I’m sure there are more influences than this, but the confrontation of all manner of evil, the sort-of-realtime combat, even parts of the caves and the catacombs were giving me kind of a Diablo vibe. Hell, the inventory system was probably an inspiration for the Horadric Cube in Diablo 2. I’m not a game historian, so I don’t know the origins of all this stuff, but it’s obvious there’s some DNA overlap from this game to Diablo. Really, this game is about the best you can hope for for an old game that’s a little off the beaten path. By modern standards, it has such enormous gameplay problems and endless dead ends, that no one who values their well-being should really be playing this. But, it *was* more Wild West with game design back then, and there are so much other quality content here that you can see why this game is also endeared. Really, this is a prime game for a re-imagining. Give it a full open world RPG style with some modern game design, and you will have a real winner. The valley certainly sparked my imagination, and I’d love to see it fully fleshed out on the ground level. And the final award: “Best elder vampire”. Good God, there was no bullshit when it came to this vampire. I’ve seen so many vampire stories where they build up his power only to walk it back later to make him vulnerable somehow so the hero can defeat him, and it just feels unsatisfying. Not here. This vampire lord lived up to all the stereotypes. And Chuck was no Blade. He was just some guy. And yet, the game made Kairn’s defeat feel legit. This vampire had every trick in the book at his disposal, and it *took* every trick in the book to bring him down. In the comic/movie “30 Days of Night”, this guy gets turned into a vampire, and in – I dunno, ten minutes, something like that – he takes the head elder vampire down in a 1v1 fight?.. I hate crap like that. Vampirism only gets better with age. If you make a villain seemingly unstoppable, you have to be clever about how you take them down, and not just hit some switch and all of a sudden they are defeated by something that shouldn’t defeat them. Or like in Avatar, where the natives shoot arrows at space-age gunships and they just bounce off, because they’re reinforced bullet-proof glass, then later in the movie they do the *exact same thing* while riding a giant bird, and now it works, because we can’t write. Point is, we didn’t get a hint of that in Veil of Darkness. That’s refreshing to see. This is honestly one of the better portrayals I’ve seen of vampires. Almost everything bad could be tied back to a vampire ruining everything. The wrongfully hung guy was killed because of a lazy magistrate – appointed by a vampire. The werewolf killed people because Kairn let other werewolves run free, and she must have gotten infected from them. The girl caught “the madness” from a vampire. Half the people in the village have to redeem their ancestors because of a vampire. So many problems in society can be traced back to vampires, and this game really nails that. I guess that evil book that made him a vampire is a *huge* loose end though, huh. Well, that’s the episode. Hope you have a happy Halloween, and some of you stay tuned for the adult Halloween afterparty episode coming up next. Bwu-hu-ha-ha-ha! [music] “I’ll bring it back after I’m done with it, I promise”.
Still have the box & floppy disks for this. Loved this game. It took the adventure games I loved and added in an action rpg element. For early 90s it was amazing to play a game like this. I’d love for a remaster of this but it’s probably a little too obscure to get that kind of love.
The commentary is a bit grating, but it's cool to see someone pay lip service to Veil of Darkness. It's sort of an isometric cousin to Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Ravenloft: Stone Prophet, and Menzoberranzan.
The company that made them has a sad history.
The Good: After rebranding as Dreamforge Intertainment, they followed their traditional RPG days with really interesting esoteric and strategy game work, like Chronomaster, Sanitarium, War Wind, and Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War. I bought these purely based on box art and they became some of my favorites, not knowing they were made by the same developer until many years later when I started paying attention to such things.
The Bad: They were a small company, contracted by Microsoft to return to their tabletop horror inspired roots with a Werewolf: The Apocalypse game. It was supposed to be a launch title for the original XBox, but when MS landed the Halo deal, they abruptly canceled much of their AA lineup to redirect funds to bagging AAA titles instead, competing more directly with Playstation.
The Ugly: Dreamforge did not survive having the rug pulled out from under them on Werewolf, and apparently they must have taken it really hard personally because most of the core people from there have zero game credits after that. When tragic closures happen in the games industry, we usually see people find homes elsewhere and maybe one main guy decides to get into real estate. This was an entire studio just fading away like an imaginary friend in a movie when the child protagonist doesn't need fantasy anymore.
The only evidence I found of later work was recently, in the form of a failed Kickstarter horror game by a couple of people who worked on Sanitarium, and a short story magazine called DreamForge by a couple of people who used to work there. That second KS was successful, taking in about $7,500.