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Author |
File Description |
bobT |
Posted on 05/22/01 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Minimap:
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Following in my usual manner The Dead Seas will require you to take great care in city planning. Once you were a great leader. Athens was your home and your Empire. All of that has changed however now that you have returned home only to find Athens no longer exists. Your party habits cost you dearly. Ithome will hopefully prove to be a new birth for you.
The file is extremely large. I added naration to this for fun. I did enjoy it and hope you will too. This file only contains narration for Parent episodes. Due to the size of the mp3 files I had to split it into two zip files. If you want the Adventure victory and colony sound files please download the second zip called DeadSeasSound2.zip
One small hint for you. Try to stay clear of marsh lands.
Dont be too cruel with my narration.
I hope you enjoy.
bobT
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Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Gweilo2
Staff |
Posted on 09/30/06 @ 01:47 PM
Playability: 5
My 'fun factor' was so high, it went off the scale! Gorgeous maps and elegant scripting tend to do that to me.
Balance: 5
Dead Seas provides a fine challenge for advanced players. The first episode is especially exciting as you only start out with $4800 at Olympian level and cannot use taxation. Bob provides just enough trade opportunities to pull your city up by its bootstraps, and you better not make many mistakes. The maps in the various episodes do require micromanagement of supplies and storageyards, which is always an additional challenge. The disasters and invasions were also nicely done to add to the difficulty without becoming too overwhelming.
Creativity: 5
The highest accolades go to this adventure for creativity. The map design, the scripting, the (rare) use of sound files - this adventure delivers it all. Bob is one of the best designers at incorporating the 'synergistic effect' of scripting multiple events that fire at (or near) the same time during gameplay, which provides additional levels of challenge by forcing the player to juggle multiple responses simultaneously. The disaster scripting was especially well-done.
Map Design: 5
Fantastic maps that are quite realistic looking. It's obvious Bob gave alot of attention to the details of the maps, and how players would build on them. He is especially gifted in placement of ore deposits and the aesthetic details of designing a coastline (including coastal marsh).
Story/Instructions: 4
The story was solid, if somewhat lacking in depth, and was improved by the sound files. There is a strong undertone of humor in the storyline, and this is enhanced by Bob's unique vocals. I enjoyed the plotline that built up through the episodes, as your parent-city progressed. The story might have been written with a little more substance and a little less modern slang English - both of which would have helped the player's feeling of immersion in the ancient Greek world.
Additional Comments:
I'm not normally a fan of building huge cities, but I fell in love with this adventure so much that I didn't mind building extra housing blocks to meet the population goal. That in itself speaks more loudly than words as to just how good this adventure is. It's a top-quality production by a master. Don't miss playing it!
[Edited on 10/02/06 @ 11:33 AM]
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RedRackham |
Posted on 06/17/11 @ 05:15 PM
Playability: 5
Very entertaining gameplay throughout. I love having my goat-herders cross alot of water.
Balance: 5
Very well done : playing at oympian, i'm having an interesting challenge, especially in the first episode.
No episode feels "too easy", which is great.
Creativity: 5
Superb.
Map Design: 5
Perfect : there's just enough room/obstacles in just the right places
Story/Instructions: 5
An adventure with sounds ! And your speech is very decent, not that far from the core adventures' quality. Wonderful !
Additional Comments:
The best custom adventure I've downloaded here so far.
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Mazeppa |
Posted on 01/28/14 @ 12:17 PM
Playability: 5
In the beginning, the adventure starts out with a low-but-just-enough treasury to start a city. This is something I really like which ultimately adds to the challenge. As soon as I built my first housing block, I started getting bronze for export whilst fleece for import as my money soon ran out quickly after evolving my housing given that taxation wasn't allowed early on.
The tidal waves added in the beginning really gave a nice effect to the first episode. I was pretty scared when I saw it the first time, then the second time but thankfully, it occurred somewhere else so there was nothing to worry there. That little sense of adrenaline after witnessing that event made me like this adventure more :)
The colonies were interesting too. One colony was quite limited in space and made me pause the game for a few minutes trying to come up with a starting housing block pattern. But boy, did I make a different one! :o After that, begun working for the required resources the objectives wanted - so there was no problem there.
The 2nd colony had no problems in space provision to build your housing block. However, it made up for it by subsequent invasions. Surprisingly, my rabble army defeated each amazon invasion despite their number without breaking even a sweat! I think I've experimented with the atlantean archer strengths far too long that I've ended up forgetting how strong the greek rabble was. The profit goal however, looked a little daunting at first but was easy to achieve.
However, in the last episode, I suffered daunting challenges. The monster threat was easy to dispatch as I've already got the desired requirements before the hero hall was allowed and also did a little trick - if the sea monster's about to destroy my trading pier, I would just simply delete the pier until the monster goes away and then press undo - it was like nothing happened - so no problems there. However, the amazon invasions! One time, my rabble army nearly got wiped out as I ignorantly thought there were no more amazon invaders left; but little did I know that the amazon archers were just hiding in the rightmost side of my map, actually FIRING at my troops - whilst my troops were doing nothing at all! Eventually I realised this and won against them. Then we have the disasters; the tidal waves! OOOOOOOoooooohhhh! There was one tidal wave that severely weakened all my industry and resulted in more than 30-40% unemployed, LOL! So I went back to my last save (luckily, I do frequent saves every 10 minutes or so; just in case) to head to that exact scenario and spent around 20 minutes rebuilding my industry the way it was before the tidal waves struck. I love those sort of things as it contributes to much enjoyment on my fun factor so this deserves a 5 here :)
Balance: 5
One thing I dearly love in adventures are their ability to give the player challenges; alongside with its intended difficulties to be maintained almost throughout (with emphasis on 'almost' !) the adventure almost efficiently. This adventure achieved just that. The scripting of formal events (e.g. invasions, disasters - stuff that provides obstacles to your goal) were placed carefully in such a way that it allows the player to 'breathe' amidst all those scripted events taking place without taking away the challenges it gives to the player.
The tidal wave for instance, planned in the last episode was perfect as it forced me to rebuild my industry after that incident. This adds to the challenge which I deeply appreciate.
Creativity: 5
The definition of 'creativity' is subjective and different people will always interpret this category differently. For me however, let's say, I will never give a 5 to creativity unless the adventure shows something unique that is not found in many other adventures; a feature in the adventure that brings uniqueness such that it is incomparable to other adventures.
The reason I awarded this a 5 was due to the presence of sound narration files created by none other than the author himself! This feature alone I believe, would've taken many hours of decision making and voice acting and testing etc etc etc and I could see that lots of time was spent in making this adventure stand out from the rest. Thus, there is a hint of dedication as evident from the unique features provided here.
Moreover on a different sided note, the disaster events were beautifully planned. The lava event you see in the beginning of the episode wasn't just a massed up (or messed up!) layer that ruined the map's beauty, but was actually a thin layered pattern branched out; which actually enhanced the aesthetic appeal of the map. The monster spawn areas too, were wisely placed as well as the timings of scripted events in each episode.
Ultimately, the objectives provided in every episode were unique from one another (except some parts of the colonies albeit they were minor) and realistic. This boosts up creativity such that it appealed to the entertainment/enjoyability factor of the adventure. This was very well done.
Map Design: 4
One funny thing I realised with bobT's adventures is that during gameplay, his maps are some of the most realistic creations I've ever seen; everything looked smooth and the 'feels complete' factor went off the charts! Bronze and Silver ores were carefully placed, trees and even the occasional marshlands were beautifully pleasing on all accounts. But unfortunately, due to lack of scrubbing in the parent city map, the parent city map didn't look so appealing to me in the image provided here. Hence, everytime I viewed adventures here, I can't recall how many times I've passed this adventure solely due to the not-so-good image of the parent city map displayed here. This factor alone kept me from awarding a 5 here.
Story/Instructions: 4
I loved the storyline. The idea that you have migrated to another part of the world because your flirtatious habits caused the destruction of Athens deserves high marks here. However, there's a certain 1980's 'r' word mentioned quite a few times in the storyline that kinda destroyed the immersion into the Greek world (like Gweilo said) so that kinda put me off and kept me from awarding maximum marks in this category.
Additional Comments:
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dragonryu |
Posted on 09/19/16 @ 01:53 PM
Just finished, very well made :D
I had lots of fun playing it[Edited on 09/19/16 @ 01:53 PM]
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missAmunet |
Posted on 03/20/19 @ 08:55 AM
really liked it :)
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divodu |
Posted on 03/06/22 @ 11:34 AM
Playability: 5
I had playing playing :) usually I'm not a fan of natural catastrophes, but they made sense here and I love that you gave me heads up in the scenario description. The only minor glitch I had was in the Amphipolis colony. The colony asked for sculptures while I was still in it.
Balance: 5
Nicely done on this front. I would have had more trouble had I not built Zeus' Stronghold as soon as possible. But I guess I have enough experience playing this game to "smell" trouble coming :D
Creativity: 4
There wasn't anything new here for me. Although I must say I've playing this game so much it's hard to wow me.
Map Design: 5
The attention to details made it feel like one of the original scenarios. I also like how I had to use pretty much the entire map.
Story/Instructions: 5
I love narrations! And the story was also interesting :)
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.6 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.8 | Balance | 4.8 | Creativity | 4.5 | Map Design | 4.3 | Story/Instructions | 4.7 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 16,105 |
Favorites: [] | 6 |
Size: | 1.88 MB |
Added: | 05/22/01 |
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