GCI/Playtesting/Northern Rebirth/Nightmare

Playtesting/Northern Rebirth/Nightmare by Yani Malcev

Level 1 - Breaking the Chains - I found this level the first and unfortunately the last level with concentrated strategy thinking required becouse of the low moves posible(barely enough to finish the level), limited ammount of gold and the only level with "avoiding" the enemy(which was exactly the hard part of it). Eitherway the level is perfect.

Level 2 - Infested Caves - The fact that the player in this level is surrounded from all sides and not be able to escape for realy long time(becouse of the hordes of trolls and skeletons) makes him loose way too much time and gold(and if you dont have enough gold from the previous level you must restart the campaign - annoing). This causes the player to loose 30 rounds of just fighting back at his keep and from there for only around 15-20 rounds he must defeat all left sceletons and find the dwarfes? Its not like imposible but it causes too many losts which can make the player give up from the level(and campaign) at this dificulty. My best option is to or increase the moves with 2-3(wich i think is more than enough) or decrease the starting gold of the enemyes. Otherwise the level is fine, not so fun as the previous one(becouse of the losses), and it have 1 minor bug:

https://gna.org/bugs/?17293

Level 3 - To The Mines - This level is "fresh air" in all sides of view. Its not hard to complete it(compared to the previous level this one is... more than easy), becouse you just lead your small force infront to take fight with the enemy and Talin(the "king") just passes through the battle to the entrance - i can not say "nightmare" for this level. Still i loved it becouse it was easy. "Make it to the mines" objective - eaven if i knew that that was actualy saing "lead Talin to the mines" it is realy confusing "who" you mist lead to the mines - from original objective i understand it like: go with any unit to the mines - eaven now when i know it must be only Talin.

Level 4 - Clearing The Mines - The second and last level i found interesting to play in. It have realy good measure for fighting scale(not to less like previous level and not too much like the next ones), but it was shock for me to find that all my forses are annihilated by the fat green NPCs that came "out of nowhere". My option here is that there must be somekind of cinematic(or atleast warning) when the water becomes green(that "something is wrong and the player sould go back" or something like that), becouse is realy annoing to start over again(5-10 moves back maybe) only becouse you dont know that. Otherwise i realy enjoied the level - high ammount of gold, high ammount of gold income and many keeps to keep moving forward(not like next levels - fight only at your cental keep)

Level 5 - The Pursuit - Excepth that i find the level not realy hard(becouse of the bug that you can see little below), it will be realy good to tell the player(at the cinematic when Talin gets the keep) that he must look ALL the lables(to find the gold not for other reason - this level sure eats tons of gold. I have neutral opinion for the level and nothing in it needs to be improved except the bugs must be fixed:

https://gna.org/bugs/?17295  https://gna.org/bugs/?17294

Level 6 - Old Friend - The only thing i can say is that i couldnt eaven get out of the caves.

Level 7 - Settling Disputes - This level much reminds level 2 - too low ammount of moves - it takes much tries to get and afer that kill the boss, but the moves are low and that speeds up the level so... i think the level is OK. Still something in the story line is wrong here - the 2 skeleton bosses accepted the deal way too fast - the same with the dwarf. All of them are prould of what they are and what is asking from them is humiliating for theyr pride(more or less), but they accepted it easily... i'm not specialist what they must say but this for me was strange(like they have some kind of reserve plan aganst the eachother that they'll complete soon, but nothing like this is hapening in the game).

Level 8 - Elvish Princess:

Saving the princes - its not realy the most hard part to save her when you have the flying units but there is a pinch in the enemy - they concentrate to atack you(which is normal) but that frees the way to the princes and with 2 moves you can penetrate tho whole fighting force of the big fortress.

Without saving the princes - easy - survive 18 moves... not realy hard but boring just to wait so much time. I think there should be a lable behind the player's keep to stand back and leave instantly the level without loosing gold for units.

Level 9 - Introductions(princess saved only) - Fast and not too hard. The only good thing about it is the little storyline part.

Level 10 - Stolen Gold - Maybe the worst level of all - only 200g for start aganst this 4 hordes of trolls? Its not fatal but what if the player has lost his 3-rd level units before this level? He wouldnt eaven manage to beat eaven 1 of the 4 bosses. For me the gold of this level should be more than now otherwise its... well realy unpleasant level to fight with few warriors surrounded by 4 enemyes. Otherwise the level is not that bad - its realy good idea how the player must move from 1 place to another and use the full potential of his healers without being totaly surrounded.

Level 11 - Eastern Fortress - The only bad thing about this level is that its realy long. Otherwise its a level with much terrain usage and its realy fun to find out how to get the higher ground.

level 12 - Taking The gold (saved princess only) - the only level thats not 1 in 4(or more), but 4 in 1. Which is talking in 1 way - easy and realy fun to combine the 3 forces together(dragons, elfes and humans)

Level 13(last) - Showdown - except the realy annoing bug(see the link below) that i didnt got all my gold from "The Pursuit" level and the fact that this level is ridiculously long - why the player dont have control over the dwarfes? Its stange that you can control 2 of your allies but not and the third ones - eaven more strange - control dragons, but not dwarfes... bug: https://gna.org/bugs/?17296

Epilogue - Karash's words when you dont save the pricess are alittle stange: “:…In addition to gaining the respect of the elves and the dwarfes….”(its taling about Talin(the player)) - you actualy grain respect when you save the princes, but when you dont you save only 1 elf that is considered dead years ago. 1 elf must not be sayed as the whole race. For me this should only stay "..respect of the dwarfes…".

Storyline: its only 1 thing - Awaysome with some realy unexpected speech from the characters that made me laught. It needs absolutely no change(except the little one in the Epilogue).