T w e n t y S i d e d

So according to my map, those watery tunnels of questionable hazard have brought me to…Somewhere in the Battlespire. I don’t know what I expected, but a guy can hope.

To be more specific, “Somewhere” is a cavern full of unkillable wraiths, projectile spam, impassable magically-locked gateways, and wandering skeletons. None of them are faster than you, and none of them are worth fighting, so it’s not threatening so much as very unfriendly. If Tamriel had a mall, and a Christmas for it to be two days away from, this is what it would feel like.

You know how in the original Doom you would come through a portal or locked door into a demon carnival and be thrust into a lunging, strafing, exhilarating struggle for survival? This area lets me imagine Doom without the speed or fun combat or power fantasy.

Did you get the joke? It’s that the people who made this game own Doom now.

I find a way up to a platform where there’s two wheel-valves and a devil. This looks like it might be a poignant made-for-YouTube art film, or else one of this game’s more conventional wastes of time.

After a little freestyle tango with Mister Morphoid I twist both wheels and am presented with the classic metpahor at the heart of every fantasy hero’s journey: a sweet jump. Specifically, I need to jump from this platform to that second one to the third one. I sure wish the draw distance would let me see where I’m jumping to, but I suppose that can’t be helped.

Also, I am completely screwed, because this game’s jumping mechanic is a demented carnival game.

To recap:

I can’t just run and jump like in a normal game because in Battlespire, your jump needs to charge up. It demonstrates how charged it is by moving a floating marker. However, you need to be running for it to show accurately how charged up it is–the marker leaps forward as soon as you start moving, apparently without regard for speed or direction. However, you can’t move very much on a platform, and you need to know quite accurately where the marker will fall, as it has a wide range. So, in theory, the way to do this is to juke nervously around until the right moment is incipient, then place yourself in precisely the correct place to land where you want to while the marker is still moving.

Accidentally jump when the marker’s representing your standing distance, you’ll overshoot and die.

Accidentally jump too soon, you’ll undershoot and die.

Let go of the jump button a second after you let go of the move button, you’ll instantly revert to standing momentum, undershoot, and die.

Accidentally wait too long and let the marker reset, you’ll undershoot and die.

Accidentally jump while side-strafing so you can see where you’ll land with momentum, you’ll land too far to the side and die.

Jump at the exact correct moment after running to the proper position and releasing at the proper time without flying off the platform or aiming incorrectly, and you’ll probably land two feet short anyway and get stuck on the platform edge.

In the end, I finally manage to stick the landing. Just barely. By accident. On the farthest platform. At this point, I discover that there’s another platform that’s supposed to come up from the ground before I can reach the end of the jumping puzzle, way on the other side of the room.

Prepare for a tale of incredulous riddles, hidden artifacts, and bewitching conversations with scantily-clad NPCs as I attempt to raise this uncooperative landing. Then huff in disappointment, because instead I just kill a Jumping potion and hurl myself an unsportsmanlike distance on account of my hypercharged stats and Jump skill. Which is not without its aggravations, since it means all of the above trials plus an unusual jump distance and trying not to let a potion with a completely unknown duration wear off, but it’s less work than figuring out which statue I’m supposed to tickle to get out of here the correct way.

Oh, fine, I’ll look it up. One second.

…

Looks like there was a wheel in that underwater complex. Actually, it was in one of the major pools you enter the complex from. I literally would have found it if I’d gone right instead of left. I’d have never even realized what it did.

So, this was more work. But it was also more of a pain in the ass, and at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.

About twenty seconds later, a skeleton breaks my cuirass. The fortunate thing is that there are items in this game called Coffers of Restoration that a few scrolls I’ve read have alleged can repair items. I even tried to do so right before the equipment glitch kicked in. I was unsuccessful at repairing anything, but I was very successful at convincing myself that this was what was causing items not to equip properly.

(It wasn’t.)

The upshot is that I threw them all out and have no way of salvaging my armor. Thankfully, the universe’s armorers took pity on me, and in the very next chest I find a brand new helmet. And it matches my newly-revealed shirt perfectly!

Behold, our fearless, bloodsoaked modern gladiator:

LATER THIS WEEK: CAPTAIN CAHMEL AND THE ISLAND OF CRAPPY TREASURE

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.