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| Creator | THE_1 |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 23/80 |
| Rank | 14th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 3/10
The Author’s Curse takes a leaf out of the old Ragefest playbook: it’s full of traps and trolls. The very first chest I opened flooded the map for several turns as I rushed to sacrifice one of my units for some worthless gold. Yet despite the various trolls (another chest I got brought fog down), I was never in any great danger of dying (scripted deaths aside). I’ve no doubt I missed some actual instant-death traps, but as it so happens I managed to win on my first attempt. In the end, after wandering around for long enough and seeing the lord receive quite an amount of torture, he was given the “Falchion” and proceeded to blow away two demon kings for victory.
Overall, this is an awkward submission to grade: enemies are fairly weak and I don’t think much would have stopped me from sitting on a non-troll fort and waiting the fifty turns. I think a similar chapter would fare better in a more Ragefest-inspired contest as opposed to this MAFC-style one.
Presentation: 2/5
All the portraits are palette swaps of FE7 characters and all of the music is vanilla. The map itself is generally alright. Nothing more to say, really.
Story: 2/5
Four men break into a tavern and murder a man. High off of their crime, they decide to kill someone else. That someone so happened to be the hack creator. As such, he decides to put them through an extended torture session to pass the time. Throughout the chapter, we see him toy with the party, killing them off on a whim and making the surviving members suffer every step of the way. In the end, only the boss remains. A flash-forward late in the chapter shows he will never change as he slaps his wife at the dinner table, before the author finally destroys his creation and muses at the magic of computers.
The premise is decent, and there weren’t any typos, but most of what we see are blatantly evil characters being put through the works, culminating with the extreme domestic. I think if we were torturing morally good characters and had a bit of time to know them, it would be more interesting.
Total Score: 7/20
Judge 2: BandanaSplitzzz
Gameplay: 1/10
The Author’s Curse is a troll hack. My extremely low score for gameplay doesn’t come from my hatred for the genre, I think there’s a lot of value in “Ragefest” style hacks that push boundaries on puzzles in FEGBA. TAC does have aspects of it that I do like, like the loot scattered around the map you have to scramble for, and all the funny ways the game just insta-gibs you. My favorite troll has to be the tidal wave from the chest. I’ve seen a lot of funny ways hacks can insta-kill you, and this one felt pretty unique.
However, the solution is not something I like. In my winning attempt, I parked the boss man on a fort and hit “End turn” ~45 times. The natural enemy spawns, save the 1 berserker, are not strong enough to threaten the boss man on advantageous terrain. Likewise, the loot that you obtain from chests isn’t good enough to help you scale… like at all? Beyond the belief that exploring mechanics will reward you in video games (the same belief I carry when playing all video games), there’s no reason to engage with this hack’s mechanics.
Presentation: 2/5
This hack didn’t have an ugly presentation, but it’s very, very “standard”. Most portraits are repalettes, most battle animations were repalettes, and most music was pulled from FE7. I have to give bonus points for the sheer coverage of events, which I do think stretches over into presentation territory.
Story: 2/5
The Author’s Curse contains a simple plot. A group of four faceless, nameless men pick on some man in a tavern, who happens to be a supreme god and tortures them. As much as I appreciate the bit, I must admit that a story like this is exclusively an excuse plot. The value in the dialogue comes in the jokes, which wasn’t the most gripping thing in this hack, but it’s enough to bump it up a point.
Total Score: 5/20
Judge 3: Fringus
Gameplay: 2/10
Endure the torment of an all powerful god punishing four wicked souls. All while trying to find a way to stop him or get out. Styled pretty closely to that of a “Ragefest” entry, if you’ve ever played one. It’s a style I’m not personally fond of, but it does execute that desired goal of trolling the player very well. Though, by it’s design, it’s not conducive to a very fun playing experience. Which really just makes it hard to rate in of itself.
It does solidly knows how to bait the player to make different mistakes, but I definitely ended up having gripes with how some of the more punishing traps forced me to redo everything from the top once again. Because many of them are liable to lead the player into a game over, with the correct path instead dragging out for far too many turns, about 50. The last major thing is just that the end sequence being losable by no fault of the player’s own due to the hitrates is frustrating. It’s low, but possible to have happen, and shouldn’t be there when by this point the player’s likely seen everything else. Lest they have to hammer through 50 turns again.
Presentation: 2/5
It’s recolored portraits from the GBA games, they look nice enough and all have pretty pleasing palettes. The few new items look good. The biggest gripe is just the track used is not very enjoyable to listen to due to the general length of the map.
Story: 1/5
A squad of murderhobos go about causing havoc until they mess with the wrong guy, the developer of the game himself. The idea’s fun and mostly shoots lighthearted. With tons of zingers all about. Unfortunately it’s heavily brought down by most of the banter coming from the villain, who doesn’t have the charisma needed to carry it across. Which ends up bringing down most of the comedy and often misses more than it swings (though, FEGBA is pretty difficult to do comedy well in, anyways) Alongside making me really bat for our group of terrible people to win over them. The grado general jumpscare was probably the biggest positive writing wise.
This is when it gets bad, near the end, when suddenly shown a flash-forward of the main character beating his wife. Which is just completely inappropriate for everything else this hack has in it tonally. Nothing really supports it happening and so it’s just incredibly unearned and unnecessary shock value. Something which completely drags this down because, as said, it just shouldn’t be there.
The other seemingly intentionally played straight emotional beats at the end also just don’t work. Namely when it tries to muse on making the player feel through something fictional, it was another aspect that felt incredibly jarring with the tone of everything else. Where even if trying to be done ironically, the script struggles to make the sudden sentimentality over everything be funny in an absurd way.
Total Score: 5/20
Judge 4: Electric Serge
Gameplay: 3/10
You’d be inclined to believe, upon entering the map for the first time, that the setup for The Author’s Curse is that of an escape room, where amidst all the scattered secrets and tomfoolery there is a sequence of events that will help you break out of this prison and escape your omnipotent oppressor. Eventually, however, you come to realize that the map you traverse is just a conduit for The Author to psychologically torture this quartet of unnamed scoundrels until they croak… or until 50 turns pass where he gets bored and gives you everything you need to clear the chapter.
The quality of this gameplay experience very much tanks based on how many times you need to attempt it to actually clear it. I had to reset several times, and upon learning that everyone except the Hero is doomed to death at The Author’s whims, made my goal taking advantage of the events and enemies to funnel as many resources into the Hero as possible so he can live long enough to trigger the map’s win condition, which is considerably less exciting.
Said multiple attempts were also not helped by the severe lack of QoL. It’s vanilla FE8 at its most vanilla, to the point that you can’t even hold down a button to speed up enemy movement, making the 50 turns slower than they already were, assuming you don’t have to play even longer because you accidentally discovered a trap that softlocks or kills you outright. The silver lining is that even though the map is mostly 50 boring turns, at least it’s not 50 agonizingly hard turns.
Presentation: 2/5
The majority of the assets are either vanilla or vanilla recolors in the case of the portraits. Even with that in mind, the map itself looks visually pleasing, and I appreciate the use of color-coded tiles to highlight important events or doors that need to be opened. The music choices fit the map, though you’ll probably be tired of them after playing said map for as long as it asks you to.
Story: 1/5
There’s some mild enjoyment to be had in watching a group of horrid criminals getting their comeuppance, but not much of that time is spent on the playable characters themselves. Most of the dialogue during the map comes from the Author, whose inane ramblings can sometimes score a chuckle and other times are just ramblings. Besides the main playable character, everyone else is kinda just a stock bad guy who the Author decides to randomly kill before exploring them in much detail.
Speaking of, I’d be remiss not to mention that the Author really wants to sell that the main character is a really horrible person without hope of redemption, to the point that he makes him watch a flash-forward where he shows off his horrible table manners and proceeds to beat his wife for calling him out on it. I guess this does deliver the message of his moral bankruptcy, but it’s done in the most tasteless way imaginable and there were many more avenues to show someone being horrible than randomly shoving in a scene of domestic abuse. Frankly, the fact that The Author turned to the camera after the map ended and said “Look at how we can use bits of code to make you feel things” was almost hilarious given the complete tonal whiplash coming off of that one scene that came before it.
Total Score: 6/20
Results
| Category | Darrman | Bandana | Fringus | Serge | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| Presentation | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| Story | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Total | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 23 |