[Let's Play] The Way. Episodic Indie RPG Magnum Opus. Episode 2: Stuff happens.

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Get the game here. (Warning: Popup)

Recent PLAY Magazine interview with the creator, Luke Wacholtz

Many of these homemade RPGs lack polish, but some brave titles contain a level of artistry long unseen in the creative vacuum of “establishment” gaming. One controversial title, The Way created by Luke Wacholtz, not only stood out as an underground great but, more importantly, became one of my favorite games of all time.

Wacholtz, better known by his alias Lun Calsari, spent three and a half years on the six episodes that make up his magnum opus, The Way. Greater minds than me have tried to describe The Way. It’s like a fantasy world penned by Jodorowsky or David Lynch, or a dream painted with pixels, or a message from the distant future made with the tools left over from our apocalypse and sent back to us, neither warning nor greeting. An experience far beyond the norm.

Many underground RPGs are made by teams of people, and while Wacholtz was given some songs, character portraits, and animated sprites by other gaming enthusiasts, The Way is mostly the work of Wacholtz alone, a veritable “Howard Roark” of independent game creation.

What is The Way?

The way is a small wonder that exploded from the mostly awful indie RM2k scene of the early 2000s. Released with little fanfare, the first episode had only a nice set of custom 3D backgrounds and midi themes to set it apart from the usual dreck, and the episodic release schedule wasn't helping things. Many promising titles released demos and then were never heard from again -- in fact there were people who released nothing BUT a string of demos for years. It was an obvious symptom of the creative process, and even today the amount of quality demos still floating around dwarfs the few complete games, good or bad.

A few of the demos have their own legendary status. Consider the case of "A Blurred Line," a game still only available in prolonged demo form, yet also one that consistently ranks in the top 5 of any RM2k best of list.

Fortunately, The Way was eventually completed and the wait was beneficial, allowing it to build steady word of mouth and a cult of devoted followers who salivated at the creator's doorstep between releases.

As I mentioned before, the first episode of The Way was a decidedly mixed bag. Good production values, though nowhere near the best on display at the time, and a setting that could either be unique or just poorly thought out. The protagonist, Rhue, emits the kind of angsty charm that was popular with an audience who worshipped at the alter of Cloud Strife, and the plot only showed promise toward the end. Episode 2, though, changed things, and by the time episode 3 rolled out everyone playing knew they'd found something worth sticking around for. When episode 4 was released and the mysteries and possibilities of The Way were reaching critical mass the fanbase had degenerated into a speculation circle-jerk that would make Lost fans blush, and with episode 5 it was obvious that there was some real vision and talent on display, however crude the medium.

Then came episode 6 and the ending(s) of The Way. True to form, the revelations within polarized the fanbase and the mysteries were pondered and scrutinized for years. But we'll get to that in time.

In the end, The Way is one of two RM2k games from that era that I would ever recommend as genuinely worth playing, the other being the more traditional "Three The Hard Way." It is by no means a perfect game, and still conforms to many of the limits of the RM2k engine, but as the product of a single author's vision, talent, and commitment, it's amazing.

So what is The Way, really?

Behind all that hype, The Way is an RM2k RPG. If you're not familiar with RM2k, it's a simple engine that allows the user to construct a FFIV-era console RPG. Many of the graphical tilesets (for backgrounds) and sprites are ripped straight from SNES RPGs like the Breath of Fire series, Tales of Phantasia, and of course the Final Fantasy games. The engine allows simple turn-based battles like those found in the Dragon Quest series; no complex animations or ATB systems here, just a screen full of monsters and a few menus to navigate. Of course, it was possible to program all sorts of things into the engine and many people did. But the problem was that they spent so much time trying to get their custom FFVI-style ATB systems off the ground that they never released more than a demo. All the major finished games used the default battle system augmented by custom menues and mechanics.

Graphically, The Way manages a consistent and clean style by using mostly attractive FFVI and BOF 2 rips along with the occasional custom background. The sprites started out as custom variations of default characters, but were spruced up with very nice custom animations and attractive facesets. The music is a mixture of mostly custom themes with some borrowed sound effects and mood pieces.

The last major feature to the game, aside from the numerous mini-games, is the Plunge system, a dangerous duelling game based on simple rock-paper-scissors mechanics.

The World of The Way

Rhue, the protagonist and viewpoint character that we control through the game, is a wanderer. A wanderer is a self explanatory title for most of the people on the Way, but you need to understand what the Way itself is to really get the point.

The world Rhue inhabits, and you may have figured this out by now on your own, is called the Way by those who wander it. And wandering isn't just a hobby, it's the how almost everyone lives. It's visualized as a vast, linear stretch of land that is constantly flowing. Not the land itself, but both the beginning and the end of the Way are shrouded in perpetual mist. This mist never stop moving, and so neither do most people. You either keep going forward or you get swallowed by the mist. The exact dimensions of the Way and the speed of the mists are never more than hinted at, but there are in fact a few settlements dotting the lands, so you can assume that it's vast enough for people to stay in one place a while if they get a good head start.

Still, wandering is both a way of life and a sort of religion; given the choice, most will keep moving on even with the option of settling, however temporarily. In fact, the main organized religious group calls themselves the Guided, and one of their core doctrines is the distrust and dislike of settlements. The more militant and zealous arms of it actively seek out and destroy settlements.

With no capitol, there is no government and no police or military besides an organized group of vigilantes and the Blood Lyn, who are assassins for hire. Fortunately, the Way itself is peaceful enough and most wanderers somewhat rugged individualists, only grouping up when it's convenient or they're passing through some dangerous stretch, sticking to family the rest of the time. There are still groups of bandits to contend with, the most notorious being the elusive Blue Scarves.

The real danger of the moment, however, is the rogue murderer who's been prowling nearby stretches. Dubbed the Phantom Slasher, he's rarely seen, strikes at random, and leaves no survivors.

Two features that are key to the stretch of the Way Rhue is travelling are the city of Estrana, which is the largest settlement around and also happens to be built on the ruins of an older Estrana that was almost completely destroyed in a fire more than a decade ago, and the fabled Landorin Stretch (Stretch being the name of a particular section of the Way, usually referenced as a person's birthplace), host to an event shrouded in so much mystery and fear that nobody will even speak of it. Rhue claims to be one of the only survivors, but he can't quite remember what happened.

He does remember one thing, the thing that has been driving him ever since: there was a girl, another survivor. She's the one he's looking for. She's the one he's always been looking for. Now, if he could just remember what she looked like. . . .

Let's Play The Way

I will be doing a video LP. There's not much grinding in this game, but I'll still be editing as much of the incidental combat out as I can. I'll be focusing on the story, which is character based and involves a fair bit of text that I will not be reading aloud unless I really have to. All the text should be perfectly visible in the videos, and I will only be narrating my own decisions and tactics, and whatever else I feel the need to mention.

There are multiple branching paths and 3 different endings in this game. I will be going for the best outcome from every decision (those that offer greatest rewards and lead to the other endings). I will also do my best to get all 3 endings, which I think I can do without too much trouble. However, if you want to see the other branching options you're welcome to play the game yourself. In fact, I encourage it; it's not that long and is fun enough if you're a fan of console RPGs.



Episode One Playlist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWujyJwOcA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-4P2q6sBkI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH1p4oCB87E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dBCngnc5M0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDjKxL8f5SA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk0FngJrdCA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf0X7wzBey0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txNC9YWFD_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GYy46D8v4

Episode One Recap (for the lazy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZlVI-CgV50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eNRIbYj80M

Episode Two playlist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLcdea75cw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw6Lxc-MxuI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWk9jeIoSn4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98W6ODm460c

Feedback welcome.

Helloween

A few tips after watching a part or two.

Firstly is less about the LP in general but...9 parts? Man not many people will sit through that much in one go. 2-3 is usually a good amount.

You seem to not have a lot to say in some parts, you could always get a partner to bounce jokes and what not off if you wanted.

Youtube lets you go up to 10:59 if that helps you split parts up.

While seeming a hard game to LP, it looks intesting. Good luck!

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I don't mind if people watch it a bit at a time; that'll give me time to catch up on the next episode. I on;y did the whole of Episode One at once because it's the shortest and doesn't have a good hook until the very end. It's only just over an hour, but I can see your point. While I've seen longer and much more ponderous LPs (especially for RPGs), Episode One is very light on action and doesn't even have that much story. I've been thinking about just making a shorter video with just the important bits and moving on to Episode Two. I'll keep the longer one up because if anyone wants to play it themselves I'll be showing all the secret item locations or whatever. Meh.

I don't know about talking more. The whole point was to let the game do that, because I think it's more interesting than anything I can say about it and I don't want to distract during the cut scenes (the only thing I could add to them would be reading the dialogue out, which I don't think is a good idea). Then there are the dungeons, and even though I'm cutting out the combat, they're still just walking around and solving a few puzzles. And I still don't have much to say. I don't know about having someone else on the commentary with me, since my friends haven't played the game and aren't really interested in doing so. Even then, it's more a LP of the game for people who haven't played it then an entertainment oriented commentary, which is why I'm not cracking jokes.

Thanks for the input, though.

Alright, I've done a couple of quick recap videos for Episode One. Two videos, each under 10 minutes, that have all the really important details. Now I can work on Episode Two in peace, but I'm going to be doing more editing than I did with Episode One, just to keep things at a better pace.

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Alright, I've started in on Episode Two. I'd have posted these earlier, but I've been busy and also, bandwidth issues. But that's in the past, I'm hoping to move on to brighter things.

I've done a lot more editing this time to get past the generic walking around and beating up monsters. My goal was to skip to where the action starts to pick up, and I think I have. I'm posting these 4 because I had them all done and I didn't see the point in delaying a couple just to have a cleaner release schedule.

On that topic, I plan on making the updates more regular and more succinct. Not that I'll be cutting anything major out, but hopefully a couple videos every 3 or so days instead of 5 or 6 every week. Maybe that will make them easier to watch, I don't know; the most important thing for me is that I at least end on a hook, keep you wanting more.

Had a bit of mic trouble this time, but I think I've worked it out.

Also, I think my Episode One recap covered everything you need to know to jump right in to Episode Two, but if you're playing yourself you could still go through the long version if you need help with the puzzles or finding the hidden items.



Episode Two playlist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLcdea75cw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw6Lxc-MxuI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWk9jeIoSn4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98W6ODm460c

Again, questions and comments are welcome.