Well folks, Twoie is a member now; so it's time to continue her tale.
I don't have an enormous amount to say about this quest, because it was fairly short (especially compared to its predecessor). We start with Osman being devious (shocker, I know), and pointedly not telling us all the information we need. It's a little funny, playing these as an adult: Osman is portrayed, and referred to by other characters, as a master manipulator, but so far all we've seen him doing is not stopping Ozan from doing what he was always going to do anyway, and giving him the information he needs in the least subtle way possible.
Littlefinger he ain't.
Anyway, we take off from Osman, and get some payoff for the Assassin's Creed bit I made in the last post:
Sadly I wasn't quick enough to get a screenshot of Twoie doing the Leap of Fai-sorry, "Parrot Jump", but I trust you can fill in the blanks. I actually don't like the reference being this explicit, I think it works better as an homage rather than a blatant rip-off, but it's a small moment that's over quickly, so whatever.
We then move into the Shantay Pass, which helpfully tutorializes the desert effect (good design!), and gives us some free waterskins (also good design! although I didn't end up using any water). I also like how the game subtly draws a connection between the way Lady Keli controlled the mercs at the end of Stolen Hearts, and whatever the Kharid-ib is doing to Shantay; it's a nice way to foreshadow the twist at the end of 'Phite Club.
Ozan gets a little bit of exposition here, where he very heavily foreshadows that we're not going to get away with the Kharid-ib, but of course it's all going to be blamed on him:
Which is really helpful, because it would be a massive bummer to be locked out of Al Kharid after only my second quest there. The Signature Heroes got a bad rep on release (and with good reason; it's a bit annoying as a long-time player for these newbies to be treating me like the new fish), but this is an example of them being used well: there need to be consequences for what's happened, but those consequences shouldn't lock the player out of gameplay, or such a sizeable chunk of the map.
Anyway, Ozan helpfully solves the "puzzle" of the random item Osman told us not to take, and we get this delightful out-of-context moment:
I'm so telling Leela on you, you horndog.
Anyway, this leads us to the main thrust of the quest, which is the sundial puzzle. As puzzles go it's not hard (though I had a brief moment of being confused over where to click; I was trying to click on the images of the gods before realizing I had to click the outside ring), though it does helpfully introduce the Desert gods, which is a nice bit of lore-building.
Not much to say otherwise, except that I liked this detail:
I'm glad a work of fiction finally pointed out that quicksand doesn't actually work the way movies say it does. Sadly, this is fake quicksand, which does pull us completely under, so the game gets to have its cake and eat it too.
Leezan confirmed!
...okay, I'll keep workshopping.
One more point on the quicksand thing, though this also applies to the tunnels "puzzle" in the next section. In contrast to the dialogue puzzle with Khnum last time, it's interesting to see a puzzle where it's not possible to succeed. This is the sort of thing that's really hard to do in video games, where the player is conditioned to always expect success (and for failure to come from their own failure, not from the mandates of story), but I don't think it's an inherent bad thing to try; it creates some interesting emotional response, which I think work especially well in these two situations:
- In the quicksand, it create a sense of helplessness and panic as your character is sucked into the abyss
- In the tunnels it creates frustration at Ozan, who sends you on this Sisyphean quest for literally no reason
Both of these work because they induce in the player the same emotions that would be felt by the character in the situation. It's railroading in a sense, but it helps build empathy between player and player character, so I think it works. It also helps add interactivity to import narrative moments (Scabaras' interference in particular feels like foreshadowing, though it hasn't been paid off in-game yet) that would otherwise just be a cutscene. I liked the next scene, leading Ozan down the darkening tunnel, for that reason as well.
We move to the kalphite puzzle next, which is annoying but aided by the failure mitigation (Ozan pointing out kalphites, and the increasing audio/visual cues). I like a puzzle that forces you to pay attention, as well as one that makes use of the aural elements of the quest (which were something of a selling point for the Ozan Double Bill at the time, as I recall), and this does both. Although it can be frustrating to keep clicking on kalphites, it doesn't last too long until we find the Kharid-ib and Leela rescues us.
This final sundial puzzle is something I want to end on, though, because it highlights a major problem with the narrative consistency of the game, and why I like the scale theory. This is where the sundial points us:
By all rights we should be able to see Lady Keli and her goons standing in front of that stone head. By rights we should have been able to see them while running towards the Scabaras sundial, making the last several scenes completely redundant.
Scale theory, in case you haven't heard of it, is basically the theory that we're only seeing a condensed version of the game world. That doesn't just mean adding space around the outside edges (like Ashdale, Solak's Grove, Anachronia, etc.), but also in-between game locations: the theory goes that Varrock and Falador are much bigger than they appear, that there are more, smaller settlements between the major cities, that the desert is larger than we're seeing, etc. So far Jagex hasn't made any changes to verify this (they've largely left the game world as-is except for graphical updates, preferring to add new areas to the periphery), but it's a theory that makes almost too much sense in a world where you can run from one end of a continent to another, passing through half-a-dozen major settlements, in less than an hour.
Anyway, moving on:
Foreshadowing begins an elaborate religious ritual.
Sure enough, Lady Keli turns out to be Amascut, and sics her goons on us. The boss fight isn't terribly hard, even though I was only wearing Desert robes, but it's a novice quest so what do you want. We rescue Prince Ali, Ozan runs after Amascut and the Kharid-ib, we return to Osman where Leela gets very angry about is incredibly skillful manipulations, and quest complete.
A couple of notes before I go:
- Some nice foreshadowing from Jabari, stuff that won't get paid off until the Menaphos quests
- It's a little odd that Amascut doesn't react to the Kharid-ib speaking through Apep and Heru. Maybe she doesn't realize what's happening?
- Part of Icthlarin's deal (as we'll see in later quests in the desert series) is looking after his sister. So why isn't he doing anything about this plan?
- I also like the subtle foreshadowing regarding Scabaras and the rest of the desert pantheon. We're told of eight desert gods, but only two make an appearance (and Scabaras only by proxy). That creates a mystery in the player's mind, and it creates a bunch of storytelling hooks that will later get expanded into their own quests. Well done!