Curate of Curiosities

Now, at long last, we reach the game that put its creator on the map, what made him a force to be reckoned with among Flash game developers.

Mardek is, bar none, Cornwall's most successful game. It is the spiritual successor to his earlier Deliverance, and attempts to refine many of the ideas introduced there. Gone is the weapon-forging mechanic that served no real purpose, and in come skills that you learn through your equipment, just like in Final Fantasy IX.

As mentioned before, I first played the game when I was in high school, while searching for RPGs to play online, and it utterly blew me away. It felt like a full on console-level experience, but on a browser.

The first chapter of Mardek was initially released in June of 2007, but was re-released in 2010 with a reworked game engine. This is the version that I'll be playing. All three chapters of the game would later be ported to Steam in 2020 as a single unified installment, in part due to Cornwall wanting to preserve his early works following the death of Flash.

Here's chapter 1, "A Fallen Star."

The game opens with two heroes storming a castle to slay a dragon and save a princess. Pretty underwhelming compared to the Star Trek/Warhammer fanfiction that was Deliverance's opening.

Like in Deliverance, the very start of the game is a sequence featuring overleveled heroes mowing down trash mobs, before the protagonists start the real game at level 1. Here, Mardek is accompanied by his best friend Deugan, both of whom are at level 50 with high-level skills and equipment, quite a step above what's-his-name and his crew starting at around level 10 equipped with laser guns and grenades.

Here's the game's first standout mechanic, when attacking or being attacked, you can press the X button at just the right moment to either do more damage (sometimes adding etra effects) or reduce damage from enemy attacks.

As you can see, when you press the button when the cursor is in the highlighted area, you will do more damage to the monster that is so generic, it doesn't even have a proper descriptor.

(In case you haven't figured it out yet, this quest so far isn't actually real; it's just two kids playing around.)

It isn't long before we're face to face with the beast.

Going by pure numbers, the dragon should easily be an endgame-level opponent, but our heroes have endgame level skills, as well as a ten-level advantage, so it all balances out in their favor.

Notice that this area recycles the forest tileset from Deliverance.

Unlike Deliverance's freely traversable world map, the map of Belfan, as shown here, only allows you move between set locations that you have already discovered. The only other RPG that I know of where this is the case is probably Romancing SaGa.

We go to the boys' home town, whose defining landmark is a temple dedicated to Yalort, the same deity worshipped in nearly every one of Cornwall's games thus far. The priest there can heal you, but the fact that the save points can do the same thing, on top of storing your items and, of course, saving, makes him utterly redundant.

We go back home, and tell our mother all about our glorious exploits in playing in some random field.

It's here that we found out that Mardek's dad went out to get some milk years ago and hasn't returned.

Looks like the generic monsters from the intro are real after all. Either that or Mardek's imagining things again.

With that, it's off to bed with us.

But that night, a flying saucer crash-lands near the town.

Well, this is new. While Deliverance started out in a sci-fi setting and then abruptly shifted to medieval fantasy in the first hour, this game starts as a medieval fantasy, then introduces sci-fi elements in its first hour.

Of course this doesn't go unnoticed by our heroes, or anyone else in town for that matter. We are told that the flying saucer landed in the forest west of town.

But before we set out, why not do a sidequest? Meraeador (how don earth do you pronounce that?), the local inventor who lives on the outskirts of town, needs help gathering the parts for his newest invention, and needs two children to go kill rats in the sewers to retrieve them. When you get down to it, it's your typical "collect monster drops and bring them back for a prize" sort of quest.

The monsters you have to slay to grab the pipes, despite looking like the unholy fusion of disease-bearing vermin and gas-powered machinery, aren't anything special; they go down in one solid hit and can barely hurt you.

Our reward is a necklace that he made to pull off all-nighters, but is also apparently useful against the monsters in the woods.

This may not have been immediately clear, but the writing in this game has a very 2000s internet vibe. The first time that I played this, I didn't really notice how it clashed with this grandiose fantasy RPG adventure, but now I'm not sure if it still holds up these days.

You go into the woods, which uses a slightly darker version of the forest tileset from earlier, and mow down a whole bunch of mushroom goblins and flying fish.

Oh no, a mushroom goblin that's a slightly different color. Whatever shall we do?

Well, just hit it with your sticks, of course!

Right up ahead is the crash site, where we encounter the boss of this chapter, the local bully who pops up to vaguely antagonize the party and then never show up again.

One easy boss later, he's left crying for his mommy.

We enter the craft, and find its sole occupant lying dead on the floor. Suddenly, a strange light emerges from the corpse and merges with Mardek.

Mere moments later, Mardek begins speaking in a voice that is not his own. And in an incredibly hard-to-read font at that.

It turns out that the being is a member of a hyper-advanced alien race, evidently one with the ability to cheat death by transfering their souls into another compatible vessel, to which the ordinary humans who inhabit this planet are mere larvae in comparison.

However, this being means no harm, not that he could do much in his current state.

That bit of weirdness aside, it's time to go back home once again.

You heard that right, our very first party member is a healer. That'll definitely save us quite a bit of trouble further down the line.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Rohoph's color-coordinated associates are mulling over the disappearance of one of their own. Also, of course, even in space Yalort is revered, which raises the question of how he came to be worshipped on the planet this game takes place on.

The first three that we meet are named after the Three Wise Men, but I doubt they're here to pay tribute to a newborn Messiah.

Despite the game's overall polish, you tell that the creator was himself still in high school when he wrote this. Perhaps this is part of the reason that it clicked with me way back then.

Anyways, the group wants Rohoph dead, so another one of their number is decides to pursue him to the surface of the planet.

For a game that starts out making fun of typical fantasy plotlines, and that seems to be going a bit out of its way to try to be unique, the villains goal is awfully generic. Again, I didn't mind when I first played this, but now I'm not sure.

To be continued...