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| Creator | bpat |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 40/80 |
| Rank | 9th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 6/10
The Warden’s Woes charges the player with defending for 13 turns. Many prisoners make an attempt to escape, and the warden with a warp staff has to decide where the best place to teleport each unit is. Once he’s done, he serves as a useful support unit with a 1-15 range recover staff. The objective is to stop the bosses from escaping, and a swarm of rogues will try to release them all. The enemies even take the first turn, showing just how dire the situation is for the warden…
Everyone is more than able to hold their own, but will easily get overwhelmed without support. But the challenge lies in deciding how much support is enough: I put too many units on the left and as a result the right was swarmed. The idea is interesting and is generally executed well, but it loses marks for what appears to be a bug: the boss rogue escaped and I did not suffer any
punishment. I killed every other boss, at the cost of almost my whole army. A soldier also couldn’t use his steel lance.
Presentation: 2/5
The map looks nice and the portraits are generally fine, although the bishop’s blink frames are misaligned. Animations are disabled and all other assets are vanilla. The title screen is unchanged.
Story: 2/5
The premise is fairly simple: a prison break is being orchestated, and the warden has to get help from whoever he can get in order to contain it. The dialogue itself is competently written, though several boss death quotes did not properly use character portraits. In the end, the warden takes his break and we do not see the report he has to make to his superiors.
Total Score: 10/20
Judge 2: BandanaSplitzzz
Gameplay: 5/10
Bosses escaping do not trigger any game-over condition. You can beat this map by hitting “end turn” 13 times.
Besides that pretty glaring bug, Warden’s Woes has a unique central gimmick of warping units into the fray. You’re given a pretty big variety of units to warp in, all with unique tools, inventories, and matchups. Even after they’re done trickling in, your warper will still have his hands dirty healing your units, which have no good way to restore health otherwise.
Despite the cool premise, the execution feels a bit messy. I dislike how hard you’re rewarded for letting all of the fodder escape, while you target the bosses and only the bosses. In theory, there’s no reaction (story-wise or gameplay-wise) for prisoners escaping, other than feeling bad. Additionally, reinforcements keep pouring in, even to the 14th turn, where enemies are unlikely to make any meaningful contribution to gameplay. You are unable to see what kinds of fodder and bosses will come in on the map, leading to really unnecessarily punishing positions. For example, the general who comes out of the middle path tore holes through my team, since my Sage was too far away to put him down quickly. Even when given a full-map warp, I think your army is too sparse to deal with things efficiently. I think this map could have used a fair bit more polishing to keep it fair and consistent.
Presentation: 2/5
The custom portraits here are very pretty! Most other assets here are vanilla, though, even the music. The map looks nice, and animations are disabled, even after you… un-disable them? Solid stuff otherwise.
Story: 3/5
The story here is brief. Almost shockingly brief, little more than a few intro and outro lines for major events. Despite that, the dialogue here is incredibly efficient, we know little more than the Warden, his little cronies, and why they’re stopping the jailbreak. There’s bits of implication for most characters histories, and that’s all it needs. It knows what it is, and it is no-nonsense in getting you into the action. I like it.
Total Score: 10/20
Judge 3: Fringus
Gameplay: 6/10
You’ve got a ton of bosses trying to escape, and all a few playables who trickle in to be warped anywhere into the actual map itself. The job is all about mitigating as many problems as possible, and using all the tools you’ve got on hand to mitigate them. It’s good fun, even if you’re on a losing streak rough enough to make you think you’re getting fired for certain. You get a few potent tools, and all your allies are just strong enough that they can put in work while still being encouraged to center on smart use of said items, especially the super-buffed mine. Though, the fact reinforcements trickle in make it really hard a lot of the time to assess where a unit would best be situated until it’s too late. This is as much a strength as it is a weakness, because it leads to some fun shenanigans either way as the situation spirals, alongside frustration.
Unfortunately, it’s really held back throught a total lack of real punishment/discouragement for letting them escape. In the most extreme sense, you can fully choose not to engage with the map and not face a game over even if everybody escapes. So the goal is ultimately guaranteed once you know that, and there’s very little reason to engage once that becomes apparent.
Presentation: 3/5
Visually the hack is solid, nothing looks out of place. The music used, while vanilla, fits well for the mood (and my ironic “They’re gonna fire me” breakdown near the end of the map as I realized how bad of a state I got things to be). Though there are no battle animations, and there’s no titlescreen change.
Story: 2/5
You’re a warden of a prison, and a break has just been attempted. Ultimately, it’s your job to drag in any able body with every favor and offer you’ve got on hand to contain it and hold the line here. Every boss gets some dialogue when freed and killed, and the units you get all gain a little moment when they show up.
Total Score: 11/20
Judge 4: Electric Serge
Gameplay: 4/10
This map has an interesting premise of taking charge of the prison staff and keeping inmates from escaping, primarily focusing on the various bosses scattered throughout the map, with your strongest units arriving near the warden so that he can place them anywhere he wants with his infinite range warp staff. The ability to select where to deploy each of these units is interesting and lends to a good bit of replayability to try and optimize your runs to stop as many escapees as possible.
That said, you only have a relatively small handful of player units to send in, which is a pittance compared to the frankly absurd swarms of enemies that are spawning every turn and running at you nonstop. Not only that, but you’re not actually penalized for letting any particular enemy escape, including the bosses you’re supposed to target. As such, the lack of a significant loss condition makes the map become pretty numbing after a couple of turns, where you’re just kinda going through the motions picking up whatever safe kills you can get until the time runs out. That said, the premise of containing a prison break and the use of the warp staff to place your units are interesting ideas that could go farther with some refinement.
Presentation: 3/5
With the exception of the custom portraits, which all look quite nice, all of the other assets are vanilla, though that doesn’t stop the prison from looking good and the music from setting the proper mood. The animations are forced off even after you change settings, which is kind of a bummer, but with how much combat you’ll be seeing per enemy phase, you were probably gonna turn them off eventually anyway. The most glaring bug involved a couple of bosses’ death quotes having broken formatting that didn’t even cause textboxes to show up, but it’s the only blemish on an otherwise visually consistent chapter.
Story: 2/5
The main character is a prison warden who has to summon all hands on deck to put a stop to a massive prison break. Dialogue is pretty brief for each individual character, with all the named characters getting an introductory scene whenever they appear or are broken out of their cells, as well as having boss quotes and death quotes. The writing doesn’t particularly stand out, but I appreciate that it’s short and snappy so you could instead focus on the gameplay.
Total Score: 9/20
Results
| Category | Darrman | Bandana | Fringus | Serge | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 21 |
| Presentation | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Story | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| Total | 10 | 10 | 11 | 9 | 40 |