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Studio Feature
- Gatehouse Games -
Spiralstone
(Added 6th
April 2003 - By Andrew Blanchard)
"This Gatehouse
Games feature is the fourth of a series of
articles we're compiling at EAGB - regarding studios
that have created what can only be regarded as a 'cutting
edge' title, yet unfortunately are still without a publishing
and distribution deal. This is mainly due to some publishers'
unwillingness to release any title for the GBA market
without a license or movie tie-in theme that automatically
push unit sales.
Since some publishers are reluctant or unable to
back anything that's not going to offer guaranteed sales,
the GBA market is often flooded with many similar and
arguably mundane titles. Obviously this means that you,
the consumer, could be missing out on some extraordinary
games, ones that you might never be aware of."
Gatehouse Games' Spiralstone
- A Bit Of Background
When the RPG Spiralstone was first announced this
time last year, it received a lot of publicity. According
to the developers, the game was going to be ground-breaking
and would "combine the key elements of the best and most popular existing computer
role-playing games like Diablo, Everquest & Pokèmon while adding a whole range of
new features to produce the perfect
RPG experience."
Such a bold claim, coming from anyone else, would have
been met with some skepticism, but the developers at
Gatehouse Games weren't just anyone. Although the company
itself was new, it's three founders were all experienced ex-Core
Design programmers with over 40 published games to their credit
including the popular Tomb Raider 3, 4 and 5. Suffice
to say, GameBoy RPG fans were excited about the
announcement and couldn't wait for Spiralstone to be
released.
Well time passed and although many publishers expressed
interest and admiration for Spiralstone, none have actually
agreed to publish it. Switch to the present day and
surprise, surprise,
I find that my e-mail inbox contains a playable demo
of Spiralstone. Along with the game are heaps of documentation
and most importantly, a note from Gatehouse Games' Tom
Scutt, explaining Spiralstone's situation and asking
if we'd like to preview the demo. Naturally, I agreed...
Spiralstone The Game
Before I begin the preview of the demo, here is a
brief synopsis of the game.
"Spiralstone is a free-form fantasy role-playing
game. There is no main plot or storyline - you decide
the course that your character will take. However, the
history and legends of the lands will unfold as you
play the game. You can explore the world on your own
or with your friends. Trade items and secrets; work
as a team or fight to see who is the greatest warrior."
Starting Out In Spiralstone
Your first task in Spiralstone is to create a character.
Our demo version only allowed a Warrior although the
full version will allow you to create everything from
a Wizard to a Rogue.
Once selected, you then need to
determine exactly what type of Warrior you want your
character to be by allocating some 25 points to various
attributes. These attributes include qualities like
strength, agility and wisdom, which must be chosen carefully
to improve your character's chances of survival.
After
naming your character (ours is called EAGB), you'll
be given a birth year, which in our case was the Eagle.
You're then dropped in the middle of Ashbrook Village
to start your adventure.
Fighting and Trading To
Live
Ashbrook Village, where you start out, is made up
of a selection of shops and houses where you can not
only buy and trade goods but also learn new skills.
You begin with absolutely no funds and
only a sword to defend yourself against all manner of
nasties including some rather oversized spiders. Killing
these eight-legged freaks, however, allows you to collect
their eyes, which can then be traded with some of the rather
strange inhabitants of the Spiralstone world who require
them.
Lucky for you, slaying the spiders is relatively
easy and requires little in the way of swordsmanship
(or Skill Level). As you travel through the game though,
you'll need to constantly train and improve your skills in order to battle the more difficult enemies that you'll
encounter outside the confines of the village.
Training will improve your player 'level' and will eventually
allow you to cast spells, including a rather useful healing
one.
Unlike turn-based RPGs like Pokémon, fighting in
Spiralstone is done in real time. The controls are intuitive
and at its
most basic, you'll only need to press 'A' to use your
melee weapon when encountering an enemy. Accuracy and the
amount of damage inflicted, however, depends on your skills
and equipment. Ranged weapons and spells can be assigned
to the 'B' button while holding down the 'A' or 'B' buttons
gives access to class-related skills earned at higher
experience levels.
The Spiralstone World
As you travel and explore, you will find that the
three main types of settlements in the Spiralstone world
are Cities, Towns and Villages.
Cities are home to the great arenas, where players can
fight other players or battle with monsters in tournaments.
Early on in the game, Towns and Villages (where you
start your quest) are fairly safe places but will get
more dangerous as you venture further afield.
Outside of the various settlements there are wilderness
areas to explore, travel through or simply go monster
hunting, which really is great fun.
Things get a little
more serious though as you plumb the depths of the Spiralstone
world in the various Caves and Dungeons to find the most challenging monsters
and most powerful magic items. Many of the quests require you
to venture deep into the earth, defeating enemies, avoiding
traps and solving puzzles.
You can usually travel on
foot between areas, but later in the game you will be
able to travel to new lands by boat but usually at great
expense. In certain areas there are the monolithic
Spiralstones and once activated, these can be used to travel
instantly between any Spiralstones already discovered.
Dying And Coming Back Again
You will probably meet your demise on more than one
occasion when you first start the game. Fortunately
though when this happens, your equipment stays with
your corpse and the game is auto-saved. You will then be
reborn in the last Town you visited, albeit with some
experience
penalty at higher levels.
Getting your corpse back, however, isn't that simple.
You have two choices – either you find it yourself
and 'loot' it, which can be tricky if you were killed
in area with a lot of deadly monsters, or you can get
the local Necromancer and pay him to retrieve
it. Although the second choice is easier, it does cost
further life-force (experience).
Gotta' Kill Them All
There are many monsters in Spiralstone, and while
Pokèmon has the Pokèdex to keep track of them all, Spiralstone
has the Bestiary. In Spiralstone, when
you see a creature for the first time its picture automatically
appears in your Bestiary and as you discover things
about the creature (e.g. its resistance to fire) these
facts appear on its page. The Bestiary will also lists how many
of the creatures that you have killed in your career
(the creature's picture only appears as a sepia drawing
until you've killed it – then it appears in full colour)
while blank pages in the bestiary show that there are creatures
you still haven't seen.
Sounds, Visuals And Connectivity
According to Gatehouse, the Spiralstone demo contained
mostly beta screens and unfinished artwork. Their main
objective it seems was to produce a
solid working game engine first before concentrating
on the
cosmetic and visual aspects. Judging from what I've
seen, however, even in its beta stage, the visuals in
Spiralstone is quite impressive.
Wisely enough, the game employs a three quarter perspective which
easily allows you to see everything that's happening in the immediate
area. The animation and character rendering are also
well above average, whilst some of the weather effects
that come out of nowhere will have you literally grabbing your
coat and running for cover.
At the moment, because of its beta status, most of
the sound effects and music in Spiralstone are as basic
as they get, although they worked well enough to compliment
the on-screen action. For the final release, however,
the score and sound effects will be created by
Nathan McCree, the composer of the original Tomb Raider
music.
Gatehouse also informs us that plans are afoot,
should Spiralstone ever gain release, for a two-player cooperative
mode via a GBA link cable as well as a GameCube version
of Spiralstone with
connectivity to the GBA.
Rants And Remarks
Spiralstone is without doubt one of the most original
and innovative titles that I've sampled on the GBA for some
time. Even in demo form, it was immensely enjoyable and satisfying
to play, and revealed quite convincingly the potential
it had to be a knock-out title when finally finished.
Jaded gamers bored with old school RPGs and their
linear plots, will find Spiralstone refreshing, thanks
to its innovative free-form approach and clever re-working
of elements from other popular RPGs - the monster collecting
in Pokèmon and the real-time action in Diablo. As such,
I really hope that Spiralstone gets picked-up soon by
a publisher and released
Sadly, however, Spiralstone might never see the light
of day and not because it isn't good or original, but
because it isn't attached to any popular license or
movie tie-in. Regular readers will know my lament, although
I can't help but say it again - the GBA market is flooded with too
many similar and
arguably mundane titles!
Special
thanks to Tom Scutt
for his help in this feature.
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