Eleven Days

Please note this current version has a game freezing bug just before the last battle.

Here's a question to ponder, if the world was coming to an end, would you want to know? Not what would you do, that generally involves quitting a job, hugging a loved one, or a complete stranger, getting drunk and buying that full sized bronze-plated limited edition Han Solo in carbonite replica you've had your eye on for the last decade. No, would you want to know? I probably would, especially if there was something I could do about it. And that's the premise of this game. Eleven days from now the Demon Lord is going to cast a spell, ominously entitled Dooms Days, and the world will end. Unless you stop him.

Just why the Demon Lord has chosen 11 days warning isn't ever made really clear in the game, perhaps it will be when there is some sort of planetary conjunction, or it's a really really long spell and will take 11 days to cast, or it was just the next day he had free in his abysmal diary. Irrespective you've got 11 days to save the world, so you'd better get out there and do it.

Things get a little interesting at this point; first of all, whilst the developer has indeed used the standard RTP, he has not used them in a standard way instead producing a series of isometric maps for your characters to move within. Isometric maps can make for some fairly interesting environments, but they also have some problems, the big ones, for me at least are perspective and skyline. In a top down you don't need to worry about horizons and vistas, but when you start playing around with pseudo-3D, things like this become a problem.


Not only that, but someone stole the back of our headquarters!

Whilst being built over and neighbours to the yawning void is a little unfortunate for our brave defenders, Quasi has actually done pretty well with the rest of the look of the maps. Yes there is the blocky nature of it, but that's a feature of the RTP tiles, and he has done some work in combating it where he can. The nature of the maps adds to the tactical battles quite well too, adding an extra dimension (sorry) to movement and strategy. Though it does at times get in the way of seeing where you are going. A prime example of this is one of the later maps aboard a barge, if it wasn't for the thought bubbles above people's heads you wouldn't have any idea where you are supposed to go and who you need to interact with. Other than the obligatory shipboard rat.

The exclusivity of the RTP doesn't stop with the maps; it's the default for everything. The Demon Lord is called Demon Lord, as is his chief henchman, erm woman, erm demon, Succubus and the leader of his armies, Orc. The heroes likewise are the trusty and generic Eric and Natalie, and their friends Ryo and Brenda. Now whilst I have no issue whatsoever with the use of the RTP, in fact I actually find the ways in which it can be presented in the hands of a gifted developer to be intriguing at times, a simple name change would have offered some feeling of individuality to the characters. In this case they are quite literally the stock standard, and come equipped with the same in relation to everything; weapons, armour, spells you name it, it's the default.

What isn't of course are the battles, this is a Tactical Battle System and it's obviously had quite a bit if thought applied to it, because the enemies make smart choices like using the terrain and the age old tactic of hitting someone from behind and then running away before you can hit them back. Sorry, in military terms that's a strategic withdrawal, and they do it a lot. Once you've grasped that concept it becomes decidedly easier to work out just where to place your little heroes to circumvent this strategy. This is where some of the beauty of the map choices comes into effect, for some reason it's simply easier to corner an enemy in a 2.5D map that it is on a flat plane. I have no idea why, it just seems to work out that way.


Brenda's weapon is ranged, trust me, that bat is cornered.

Each of the 7 or 8 battles in the game takes about 6-8 hours, in game time not real time because that would be horrendous, and the passage of time is shown not only in a handy HUD in the corner, but by the shading of the map into crepuscular tones as the light wanes and waxes. Time is important as you do only have 11 days to stop the coming apocalypse, so whilst the tactical system does give you time to consider your moves it's not advisable to ponder overlong.

In between battles you get downtime, where you can rest and recuperate and purchase items for the next battle. Each of these activities also uses up some of your precious 264 hours; hey I'm probably going to say 11 eleven times in this review so, give me a break. Given the time critical nature of the gameplay, the fact that entering the shops takes 40 minutes in game time whether or not you buy anything is a bit of a bugbear, but since the shops add items each time you complete a battle you're probably going to want to visit them anyway.

Scattered throughout the world are a series of hidden bonuses, you guessed it, 11 in number. Which contain everything from healing potions to rare and/or expensive items such as weapons and armour, as well as the equivalent of Hermione's time turner. These bonus items are hidden in some sometimes hard to reach places, but they advertise their existence via a little sparkle, or at least the ones in your downtime areas do, I have no idea if that was because I was playing in Normal mode and if they are harder or easier to find in the other difficult settings you can choose as the game commences. However the ones in the battle screens do not have that handy 'look here' sparkle and they require you to dedicate one of you battlers to go and search for them whilst the rest of your party fight the bad guys. Personally I think that is a bad gameplay decision. Surely the best time to scout out an area is after you've rid it of potential threats, not whilst you are doing so. However after each battle you are automagically whisked away to the next downtime area with no opportunity to search the battlefield for useful items. So your only choices are run the risk of losing some of your members by dedicating one of your players to go on a treasure hunt in the heat of battle, wait until you're down to one enemy and then just prolong the battle indeterminately by having it chase you whilst you search, or give up on getting those bonuses, some of which are very useful in the later conflicts in which you will engage.

To add insult to injury the bonus messages are numbered so you know without a shadow of a doubt when you've missed one.


I am not going back for number 7.

So after fighting your way through a series of tactical battle scenarios and momentary rest stops without much in the way of character exposition or indeed backstory, though you do get joined by the other two standard heroes in the VXA default set Ernest and Naia (the dev obviously had an issue with Isabelle, but then who could blame him) you come to the lair of the Demon Lord and your penultimate foe, Ogre, who is unsurprisingly an Ogre. After watching him dispatch the lesser heroes of VX, Ralph and Ulrika, which I must admit was just a little bit funny though I suspect unintentionally so, you engage in battle and after his defeat are transported to the lair of the Demon Lord ready to foil him once and for all, and that's when you run into the most disappointing glitch ever. The game freezes at this point and there is nothing you can do. So after facing dangers untold and hardships unnumbered and fighting your way to the castle beyond the goblin city Lair of the Demon Lord, you're left very unsatisfied and unrewarded. Especially as I got it done in just under half of the 11 allotted days, and as the last two battles didn't have a save point inbetween, I had to replay the same battles just to make sure it wasn't a momentary glitch. It unfortunately wasn't.

So I have no idea what dire predictions and threats would have issued from our generic bad guy, what foul magics and underhanded tactics he would have employed to defeat the stalwart band of nonspecific good guys I had assembled, but I'm fairly confident given the whitewashing I handed to his henchmen and assorted monsters he would have gone down in the end.

Still it would have been satisfying to actually see it.

In the end 11 days is a mix of interesting ideas and flawed gameplay, with the novelty of isometric maps, but also with the inevitable downsides. With the frequent grammatical errors, no character growth and very little in the way of story this game feels like an experiment on the part of the developer. An opportunity to test out his scripts and mapping techniques, rather than a coherent game, and with the disappointment of a broken ending it really feels very unfinished and unpolished.