The Dawn of The Metal Age: Part 2
Garrett has the recording of Truart’s meeting with Karras. Now he just has to break into the good Sheriff’s home and blackmail him with it. Really living up to that anti-hero label, is our Garrett.
From here I don’t know the levels as well (excluding “Life of the Party”), so there’ll be a few more discoveries, and no doubt some frustrations.
“Blackmail”:
Excuse me for being a little concerned about what’s actually in this Chronicle of the Metal Age.
Fucking hell, Garrett’s straight up suggesting Truart will get the noose if the recording ever becomes public. That’s ice fucking cold.
Yeah… I remember like two rooms of this level.
Another hand drawn map with no clear provenance. Not sure how on earth Garrett has a map this detailed of the Sheriff’s own home.
All the NPCs in “Blackmail” are on hair triggers in terms of sense perceptions. Even closing a door at the other end of a corridor elicits a reaction.
You can totally just hop over the wall to your left when you start the level. Feels transgressive as everything about the framing indicates you should head to your right.
Tip you can buy before the mission starts. I remember reading “foundation” as “fountain” the first time and spending ages looking around the garden for a fountain.
Loot objective is back. I like the fictional justifications for stealing from the Sheriff and for not killing anybody while you’re there.
Oh man. I almost feel sorry for stealing your stuff now Ekim, almost.
Hidden behind Truart’s house is a family plot. I’m assuming, father, mother and brother? The fact there’s a freshly dug grave is a bit ominous.
Truart has a pretty big house for a public servant. It’s almost like he’s corrupt as fuck. Unfortunately for Garrett he’s also very security conscious.
No messing about, straight in via the back doors. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
In a nice moment of continuity the advanced security system Truart has had installed in his house is the same one T. M. Blackheart had to protect his recording studio in “Shipping… and Receiving”.
The interior of Truart’s mansion is a mixture of “Running Interference” and “First City Bank and Trust”. Broadly the layout is a standard mansion, floors are almost exclusively tile with overlaid carpets, security devices are dotted around, guard patrols are numerous.
Mechanist security devices at certain doors create 3 zones of security. The ground floor is easily accessible and relatively lightly guarded. The next floor up is more visibly prestigious, and heavily trafficked. The top level is… Well, we’ll get to that…
Another reference to the Alchemist (Grimmad), Lucy really needs to chill.
Benny you are one glorious fuck up aren’t you?
Exploring the second floor (UK first floor… Yeah it’s confusing), means relying on the classic Thief tactic of standing in the middle of a dark corridor until you can work out which side the approaching guard will walk down so you can move to the other.
It was only after navigating around this Watcher that I found the switch to disable power to the Mechanist security devices. *Sigh*
I’ll be honest, I’m surprised they let Benny use the pool. Though I supposed they probably didn’t. He was likely fired months ago and he’s just too useless to actually leave.
Don’t turn to your right… Don’t turn to your right…
Well that lighting scheme isn’t exactly welcoming… What’s that commotion at the top of the stairs? Truart’s been murdered?! Shit. Being found with blackmail evidence and a sword might not cast Garrett in the best light.
“… It was standing right over his body. I must have spooked it. When it saw me it flew right out the doors and off the balcony. I’ve never seen anything move like that. It couldn’t have been human.” Getting a “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” vibe from this.
I can’t find a way into Truart’s room, I think I need a key but the only one I’ve got is labeled “Balcony Key” and doesn’t work on interior doors. There are more guards patrolling now – I guess the murder of the Sheriff will do that – yet I can’t find any with a key.
This one female guard is just running around the second floor waving her sword around. I managed to snag the purse from her belt as she rushed past… Still no key.
I’m spending a lot of time in this level hiding in the small patches of shadow created by doorways.
Found a guard with a key, somewhat awkwardly he’s in a brightly lit room watching the corridor through a window. Leaning around the corner doesn’t get me close enough to steal his key.
I did find an Invisibility Potion in one of the rooms here. I should probably be concerned that the City Watch have Invisibility Potions, I will ease that fear by using the potion to steal the “Estate Key”.
Back up to the top floor. While Truart’s suite is well guarded – kind of a shame for the Sheriff that wasn’t true earlier – the other suite on this floor is empty.
With everybody now milling around outside Truart’s bedroom the rest of this floor is entirely empty. Sadly there’s not that much loot to be found up here. I completed the loot objective earlier so anything I do find is a bonus.
Up to the attic… Getting weird flash forwards about creepy paintings in attic rooms… And out across the roof to Truart’s suite on the south side of the mansion.
Let’s all just agree that the body has been gruesomely killed. Time to look for some evidence. Have to wonder if the red lights are because of what’s happened or if Truart just likes (liked) them.
Oh Mosley, that was clumsy. Though it’s unlikely you did the deed yourself (I personally have a more simian explanation), you really should have been more careful about hiding your involvement. Luckily for you I’m here to clean up after you.
For those following along, Mosley’s involvement indicates the Pagans – though that’s all circumstantial at the moment. But what’s even left of the Pagans after the fall of the Woodsie Lord? (Spoiler: It’s Viktoria.)
If you remember from “Framed”, Madam Volari runs a brothel, and the City Watch suspect her of using it to obtain blackmail material on the City’s prominent citizens. Also Norman Druart? Really? Garrett is being threatened by a guy this unimaginative?
This conversation that occurs outside Truart’s room is important enough to present in full. One of the longest conversations in the game there’s a lot of information to process. (Thanks to 242 from the TTLG Forums for the transcription.)
The Downwinders have been shut down, so that image from earlier very well could have been the raid on their casino. Mosley is both liked and respected by the City Watch, and might have gotten away with the murder even if I hadn’t removed the evidence.
I wonder what else is going on in this room? Oh, I see… Well, never mind me.
Time to get out of here. A brief detour first though…
Old school, I like it. Others maybe not so much.
Not picture – I stole it – the Broadhead Arrow on the wall pointing up at the little hammer shaped alcove. I wonder what that means… *Draws Bow*… Thunk… Oh… Secret door under the giant Hammer.
Nope, not creepy at all. There’s also a Haunt down here, and they are always “fun”.
This room looks… Nice. Can’t imagine why it’s not labeled on the map.
Yeah, right I’m totally going to press that. Huh, weird nothing happened. (Somewhere in an alternate dimension Garrett is in a fight to the death against two giant spiders.)
Well since I’m going this way anyway… Sleep well Truart you enormous asshole. For some reason the objective text broke, it should be a Bonus Objective about Garrett and Truart finally putting their differences to rest.
“Blackmail” completed. Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Truart won’t be a problem anymore, but things did just get more complicated.
Design-wise “Blackmail” creates a space that gives the impression of security while being surprisingly easily exploitable. Some of that is down to human error – Benny – and some due to overconfidence in their Mechanist security systems.
That “Blackmail” and “Shipping… and Receiving” were made by the same design (Mike Chrzanowski) is unsurprising. They have a similar approach to secret placement and spatial relationships. Both feature “zones of control” in a way the other maps don’t.
In “Shipping… and Receiving” those zones are organised linearly around Buildings A, B, and Davidson’s ship. In “Blackmail” the divisions are floor based. Both use this notion of moving through these “zones” to indicate spatial, and to an extent temporal, progression.
“Trace The Courier”:
Truart might be dead, but whoever hired him to kill Garrett is still out there. Mosley had something to do with his murder, she might not be connected to the people trying to kill Garrett but “enemy of my enemy” and all that. Time to find out what Mosley knows.
Straightforward objectives. Mosley has gone out for a walk carrying a letter. Tail her, and find some way to read the contents of that letter.
The same map as “Ambush!”, even having played it just days ago the change in starting location makes it initially hard to orient myself.
Her ponytail makes Mosley easy to differentiate from the other guards wandering about. Of which there are quite a few, more even than during “Ambush!” I suppose the murder of the Sheriff has everybody a little on edge.
It’s not really paranoia when somebody actually is tailing you from the shadows.
I don’t remember that ladder being there last time. This section is a little tricky, a quick drop into the canals and I should be able to come out ahead of Mosley.
There we go. The other two City Watch are heading away from me so I can just wait here until Mosley catches up.
She’s moving again I’d better… Wait… What’s that? She dropped the letter. I doubt that was accidental.
“My co-conspirator:” You really are new to this whole intrigue and murder routine aren’t you Mosley?
Time to put the letter back and see what happens next.
Someone’s coming… He’s muttering something under his breath but I can’t make it out over the sound of the canal. He’s picking up the letter, and not being exactly subtle about it either.
You have some leeway to get ahead of Mosley and her contact, but if you get too far it’s mission failed. You don’t really have the opportunity to use any knowledge of the space you gained when you were here before.
“Lady of the greens, keep us safe, grant us home, takes us when we lies down for a ways to live again.” Got close enough to him to hear what he was saying, and yeah, totally a Pagan.
One nice touch is that as you follow the Pagan you can still see Mosley wandering around the City. She studiously ignores him, as do the rest of the City Watch which seems a bit odd. I suppose he keeps quiet when he walks past them. Maybe they think he’s one of Mosley’s confidential informants?
Back through the market square, this guy is taking a circuitous route to wherever he’s going. Crossing the bridge is risky, so instead I leap across to the fountain, and then to the other side. Putting myself ahead of him briefly.
We’re now heading into a part of the City that was gated off during our previous visit.
Looks like he’s heading for the graveyard of all places. But what’s this? An ambush? (Ironic) The Mechanists were waiting.
“We darest not venture in there. Cemeteries are no place for the living to be treading about at night.”
“Perhaps we should return home, and forge thee a backbone.”
I need to find a way into the graveyard – I can’t remember how. I also need to go and pick a few more pockets to complete that objective. I wonder if stealing arrows from quivers counts as pickpocketing for this objective?
Well at least somebody is have a good night, or a really bad one. Maybe this is Benny finally having been fired for incompetence now getting stinking drunk.
Seems like nabbing arrows from quivers does count – I also might have lost track of how many pockets I’ve picked. Either way I can now try and get into the graveyard.
The Mechanist standing by the graveyard entrance doesn’t seem likely to move. Sneaking quickly past her patrolling companions I find a dark alley with a suspicious looking stone (classic Hanna-Barbera style). Oh look.
There are several tombs inside the graveyard. I find a body, but that doesn’t look like our Pagan friend.
Hmm… I guess I should follow this trail of blood (what?). Seems like it ends at this tomb.
Well shit… Here we go I guess.
That’s “Trace the Courier” done, a short level and our first example of map reuse. As with “Ambush!” I like the concept more than the execution. The lack of building interiors makes more sense here where there is some degree of constraint on your freedom.
Both levels might work better if the City was a hub area you could return to earlier in the game. Let players really feel like it’s their home turf before making them complete objectives in it.
Some degree of randomisation of routes and destinations would be beneficial – maybe it already does this to some degree? That way you could grant the player more freedom because they couldn’t just rush straight to the destination and wait. As it is “Trace the Courier” is really just a prologue to a larger level. I imagine if the technology had allowed it there wouldn’t be an explicit break between the two.
“Trail Of Blood”:
“Trail of Blood” is a level I never got on with when I first played it. Keen to see how I feel, and how familiar some of the spaces feel, now that I’ve finished The Dark Project.
I believe from here on I’ve not played these levels for over a decade.
Through the portal and out the other side. A forest, somewhere. The Pagan is still bleeding and his blood is the only clue Garrett has. Onward into the unknown.
I like the image of Garrett in the middle of nowhere taking time to draw a picture of a copse of trees just so he can passive aggressively use it to complain about not knowing where he is.
There’s probably not a huge difference between the versions of the Dark Engine used for each game, but the more organic spaces in The Metal Age are immediately more convincing. Maybe it’s the coloured lighting?
This doesn’t look good…
Mechanists!
Ghosts… It’s almost like they are talking directly to me. Some of them appear almost aware than I’m here, while others are clearly reliving the moment of their death.
Lilly – “You cans haves this. I don’t needs it any more.”
Mother – “Come Lily, must we go.”
Lilly – “His name’s Dewdrop, and he doesn’t likes Mechanists.”
Mother – “Lily…”
Lilly – “I haves to go now.”
Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Dewdrop.
Grabbed a map from a dead Mechanist.
The Pagans have a plan to escape, here’s hoping some of them made it.
So maybe a lot of the Mechanists walking around the village are now unconscious, their bodies dumped in various corners. And maybe Garrett doesn’t care so much if they are never found… If they die out here he didn’t kill them.
Fuck the Mechanists! Like, it was always clear than the Hammers were a fucked up bunch of religious fanatics, but they did at least seem to stick to the City. The Mechanists are out here “cleansing” the forest of people who clearly pose no threat to them.
Impressive.
So Jabril is a total piece of shit. Found the first message in Truart’s mansion, and the second in one of the huts in the village. One of the huts where everybody inside is dead.
Fuck.
This appears to be one of the metal constructs from before. The ones that were being “birthed” at the Eastport Mechanist seminary.
Birch – “Someone has to stays behind to delayses the Mechaints threat.”
Woman – “But we needs you with us Birch.”
Birch – “No! Takes Minnow and go! Go nows!”
Woman – “Look out!”
Rest in peace, Birch.
I’d already found two of these crystals in dark corners of the village. Following the note I found earlier, one goes in each eye, and into the mouth I go. A rather literal maw one might say.
… This looks, almost familiar.
Oh. That’s some The Dark Project levels of helpful there map.
The general structure is similar to the Maw, though it’s as if hundreds of thousands of years have passed. The hard stone has eroded into crumbling dirt, and an entirely new ecosystems has replaced what was there before.
Yeah, sure, why the fuck not?!
Erm…
Vine Arrows. Logically they work similarly to Rope Arrows, albeit with some extra functionality.
Well these are new. They appear to be carrying, blowguns. Hmm… Ape men with blowguns is maybe a questionable choice all things considered. Note Gas Arrow in the second image, that I will be grabbing as soon as I can.
This might be a problem… Fortunately I have the Gas Arrow I made a detour to pick up a moment ago. One Noisemaker Arrow to draw them all in and… Dowsed the torch, and knocked out a trio of ape men, I fucking love Gas Arrows.
It’s at this point that I realise that what I thought were rat men in The Dark Project were actually ape men. I’d also like to note that nobody corrected me on this. I probably got confused because there are rat men in Deadly Shadows.
For some reason I don’t have a screenshot of the similar bridge from The Dark Project. Either way this one looks a little different, again it’s like everything is the same but twisted and altered as if by time or some other primal force.
There’s a letter on the floor. It’s Mosley’s first correspondence to the Pagans (Is it capitalised because it’s an organisation, or not because it’s a generic term?). So she wasn’t brought up as one, she’s a sympathiser, a convert.
These sprites (?) illuminate the space around them, which can be pretty annoying. Fortunately they are fairly easily avoided.
A bowl full of vast trees, hollowed out in places with wooden bridges between. Grass on the floor below. Ape men wander around, laughing, arguing.
There are four of these tree villages each connected in sequence: spring, summer, fall, winter. Only the last is deserted.
I’d forgotten I had a sword, and that it could break things. So I spent longer that I should trying to find my way out of the winter village after being confronted by this.
The map updates as you progress further. I can just see Garrett crouching down to draw out each area as he comes to it, sketching in the glow of bioluminescent fungus.
Out of the villages and back into what looks like the forest I started it. The soundscape is full of clicking and creaking that’s incredibly off putting. I remember being attacked by something large last time I got this far…
… I guess he didn’t make it. But Garrett did.
I feel like this is the first time one of the (rare) animated cutscenes has come before the end of mission stats screen. It makes sense here as it is very much the conclusion to this level rather than a scene that serves to connect two others.
Welp, I guess that’s what happened to the last of the Mechanists that made it through the portal.
Viktoria!
She’s not happy to see Garrett, I suspect the feeling is mutual. He lost an eye, she lost her God. They’re not exactly even. Nicely evocative of the Trickster’s big reveal scene from The Dark Project.
There is so much going on in this sequence. Viktoria reveals her forces, admits she has spies in every district of the City, and then conjures up a miniature version of the City out of plants and fungi.
The Mechanists are the ones who want Garrett dead, as they want Viktoria and her kin destroyed. Enemy of my enemy. A pact is made. Sealed in sap and blood. Shit just got complicated, again.
The earth itself will hold Viktoria to her side of the deal, and presumable it’ll not be too keen if Garrett breaks his word either.
As much as I love this series, I still fantasise about the game suggested by these cutscenes. How much was the technology of the time holding them back?
“Trail of Blood” finished. Isn’t as straightforward a reproduction of “The Maw of Chaos” as I’d thought it was. That actually fits better though, this is no longer the Trickster’s domain but rather that of another.
There’s not as clear of a three act structure to The Metal Age. We’ve encountered our first major twist, along with a change of antagonist. We’re not quite at the end of Act 2, but such divisions aren’t as useful here. Everything is still deliciously noir though. I used to consider this the start of Act 3, I’m not so sure anymore. Either way, the true antagonist has been revealed and it’s time to take action.
As with “Into the Maw of Chaos” before it, “Trail of Blood” is structurally linear. It’s a journey into a different world, and it doesn’t feel restrictive because it’s so clearly a format breaker. Still not one of my favourites, I’m much more favourable toward it now than when I first played it.
Next: “Life Of The Party”