Fallthrough
| title: | Fallthrough |
| url: | link |
| download page: | link |
| license: | abandonware |
| genre: | Role Playing Games |
| developer: | Paul Deal |
| platform: | Dos |
| release: | Unknown |
| features: | text |
| last edit by: | Dark |
Description
Fallthrough is a very large incredibly well put together dos text rpg game. It actually has a bit of a history in the audio gaming community, having been first reviewed by Michael Feir back in Audeasy magazine issue 1 in 1996.
The principle of the game is that you are lost in the mythical kingdom of Faland, and need to get home. This is not only more easily said than done, but also incredibly complex in the doing. Fallthrough firstly features one of the largest and most freely explorable maps imaginable, with environments ranging from forests and farmland to deserts, dungeons and mountains.
Then, like every rpg Fallthrough features turn based statistical combat,---- but with a unique twist. Wandering warriors will challenge you to fight which you may accept or decline. If however you choose to greet them and pass them by, they'll not just give you some advice, but show you their strength, ---- which allows you to note down their weaknesses for later reference.
Fallthrough also features it's own distinct brand of mythical creatures with different strengths and weaknesses as well.
but it's not just all combat. You need to keep your character stocked with food, water and well rested, ---- also be careful of times of day (sinse some of the nastier creatures come out at night). To urn cash, and get skills you can hunt, (which is also a good way to keep yourself fed), buy or sell goods, and of course find treasure in those hazardous dungeons.
the world of faland itself has a huge history, and though many locations feature generic descriptions, there aare also many unique ones as well.
The huge map can be slightly confusing, but not if you take note of the signs and keep an eye on your odometer, which shows where you've been. With extensive random elements and the truly gigantic map, the game has also one of the highest replay values of any text games.
If that isn't enough, you can even play together with other players at the same computer by taking turns. though you cannot directly fight each other, you can certainly help each other out by leaving items for the others to collect, ----- or just running off to do your own thing and geting ahead as fast as possible.
Parzing commands in the game can be rather clunky, especially as some of the operations are not obvious at first especially to people used to more flexible text command systems such as Z code.
The command and syntax, though a litle odd are easily got used to given some patience. For instance in order to move an item, such as a quantity of food, from your backpack to your hand you need to type: move from pack to hand 3 food, or in shorter form: mv fr p01 to hand 3 food. All containers such as packs, sacks and canteens come with markers such as p01 or s01 to distinguish them and make writing short commands easier, it's also worth noting the abbreviations in the comlist file such as t for eat, k for drink etc.
Another concept which can be mildly confusing at first is that objects need to be in the correct location to be acted upon. For instance to fill a canteen with water you first need to drop it in a location near a watersource such as a well, and to buy items you literally need to "lay your money down" buy dropping it in a shop.
While some of these exentricities, and some of the rather clunky item handling such as the necessity to drop items in order to hold enough food or a canteen in order to keep from starving or dying of thirst, can be a litle frustrating at times, and some of the mazes are just plain evil, nothing in the game is insumountable with a litle careful planning and patience, and the rewareds in the form of exploration, epic history, and the sense of freedom are truly fantastic!
Michael Feir revisited fallthrough in Audeasy issue 36 where he put together a very handy starting out stratogy guide which could deffinately be of help to those beginning the game, ---- and don't worry, it doesn't contain spoilers.
In addition to the above link, the game also has This page on baf's interactive fiction archive Where the game may be downloaded and reviews of it written.
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Updates: entry 2 Feb 22 and description 2 Feb 22