GCI/Playtesting/Under the Burning Suns/Challenging

Playtested and reviewed by Captain_Wrathbow

My replays can be downloaded from <a href="">here.</a>

- The Morning After

Questionnaire

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
      Version 1.9.2, and "Challenging" difficulty level.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario (1-10)
      No more than 3. But it is the first scenario of the campaign, after all.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
      No problem.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
      Very well-written and immersive.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
      None.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
      7. It's a pretty good start to a very good campaign.
(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
      None.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
      Nope, no tomatoes here.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
      It's an overwhelmingly huge scenario file, (then again, all of UtBS's scenario files are like that...) but it's some of the most well-commented WML I've seen. Although I've never seen any legitimate need for swearing in Wesnoth's dialog, let alone in the comments...

Bugs

None.

Other comments

None.

- Across the Harsh Sands

Questionnaire

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
      Version 1.9.2, and "Challenging" difficulty level.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario (1-10)
      5.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
      Just fine.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
      Okay. Nothing spectacular, but certainly not bad.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
      The blasted dehydration mechanic.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
      Only a 4. See next answer.
(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
      Remove the dehydration mechanics. It's a neat, creative idea, but it doesn't actually add much to the scenario. In fact, it does little more than frustrate the player, in my opinion. For me, this one issue made the whole scenario less enjoyable.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
      No.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
      There's some really creative and clever code in there, but it isn't as well-commented as the first scenario was. However, I couldn't care less, personally.

Bugs

I noticed a few fairly minor grammatical mistakes:

When Nym opens the bottle containing the Dust Devil, Kaleh comments, "It seems to like you, looks like you just got yourself a pet." The comma should be a semicolon.

After rescuing Elyssa from the undead in the ruined castle, she mentions that they look like elves and Kaleh replies, "We are, we're the Quenoth elves and we are traveling north." This should be split into two sentences or separated by a semicolon. The same goes for Elyssa's similar reply.

And a "real" bug:

The (dialog-only) event when you meet the "Black Hand" outlaws guarding the third oasis triggered twice: once when I moved close enough to sight them, and again when one of their units moved on their turn. I don't know what caused this, although I suspect that the unreliable "sighted" event- name may be the culprit. I don't really feel like wading through 2200 lines of code to find the problem, though.

And then there was this also:

In the ruined castle near the end of the scenario, both the ogres and the undead appeared. Is this intentional? If not, then there's a bug, and if so, then this is poor design; I got to just stand back and watch as they killed each other, then I went in and killed a couple nearly-dead survivors with hardly any resistance.

Other comments

When the defeated scorpions drop the Ring of Travel, it is placed on the hex where the last scorpion died. The next one of your units to move onto that hex immediately takes the ring. I would suggest adding in an message with two [option]s so the player can decide if he wants that unit to take the ring or not. This is a better idea for two reasons: (a) Pick-up-able objects in every other mainline campaign are handled this way, and (b) it just makes more sense and prevents accidentally taking an object.