Scenario Review: DiD 3 - A Haunting in Winter

[JL42]

What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

v. 1.16.10
Summoner / Challenging

How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

3

How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

The objectives were rather obscure, but they are supposed to be puzzle-like so I guess that makes sense. I ultimately had to look most of it up in the walkthrough because the puzzles are very complex and ambiguous. That's not a bad thing, but a few more hints or dialogue prompting would probably be helpful. Most especially, I found the very end of the scenario to be confusing; after I killed the scorpion and reached the water there is just nowhere else to go. I sent a skeleton to explore the water but it's an obvious dead-end, with no kind of artifact or point of interest. There's no instruction or logical reason whatsoever to move Malin himself into the water, and unlike the other puzzles you have to complete this one in order to progress. I would suggest some kind of comment from Darken, like maybe when *any* of your units enter the water he could say, "Go into the water yourself, Malin; see what you find there."

How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Really good. Very immersive and enjoyable writing throughout here. I love how Darken carefully explains all the magic, and just the general sense that they are hanging out together through the winter and learning. Malin starts to become more accustomed to acting like a necromancer and accepting that role.

In one place, Darken says "I've already showed you how to raise a skeleton ...." The grammar here should be "shown" (standard past participle, in both British and U.S. English). Also though, in the broader sense, I think this is the first time they have done skeletons, so it's confusing why he says that he has already taught this to Malin. You can't recruit skeletons prior to this scenario. Maybe just delete that line completely.

What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Mostly just figuring out the obscure puzzles. The mudcrawlers can be a bit of a pain until you get them under control. I restarted once due to them smashing all my skeletons.

How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

9 – This kind of solo-adventure scenario is a rarity in Wesnoth, and probably not really what the system was designed for, but I think it's very enjoyable to have it thrown into the mix. This one is very well done and its integration with the dialogue and story progression is awesome.

What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

The only thing I would suggest is adding a few more hints about the puzzles, especially the final one as described above.

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About the Overall Campaign:

I was a bit conflicted about how to rate this campaign, because it has some elements that are just completely epically awesome, but other elements that are still glitchy and frustrating. The best parts are the overall story with its nuance and moral complexity, the final scenario concept, and the unique leveling system. A lot of the maps seem to have improved since the last time I played, with more interesting terrain and tactics and new "special objectives"; those changes seem generally great. On the downside though, the implementation of the leveling system has some confusing and frustrating aspects, some of the writing is not up to the story's overall standards, and there are numerous minor glitches, poorly placed objectives, confusing descriptions and events, confusing map clutter, etc. To avoid repetition I'll put the details of leveling issues etc. into the last scenario thread. Overall I'm going to give the campaign 5 out of 5 stars, because I think its awesomeness outweighs the lingering problems. But, it could definitely still benefit from patching up in places.