Ceremorphed is an RPG dungeon where you play as a hapless adventurer captured by Mind Flayers. Thankfully, they keep you alive. The catch? You're chosen to host the next Mind Flayer birth. Your brain is implanted with a baby Mind Flayer tadpole that will slowly turn you into one of the Mind Flayers. Use the Deurgar raid as a distraction to explore the strange encounters of the Underdark, escape from captivity, and get the brain eating tadpole out of your head before it kills you!
Posted by Spidercat at 2011-06-30 06:48:21 Voted 9.25 on 06/29/11
Forgot to say: I don't have a problem with respawn. Actually I hate it when I have to redo everything from the beginning. Those who don't want the respawn have no obligation to use it, while those who want the option can't use it if it's not there. So I don't see how this is a problem ;)
Posted by Spidercat at 2011-06-29 09:03:30 Voted 9.25 on 06/29/11
This module may be short but also incredibly innovative and well polished too. The extensive use of fx makes it a feast for the eye. I haven't had that much fun with a NWN1 module for a long time. Thanks for sharing this with us =)
Posted by cariban at 2010-10-13 09:07:50 Voted 9.00 on 10/13/10
Fun adventure, short and sweet. It's an Adventure rather than Hack&Slash, RP or Tricks&Traps. I won't give it a 10 because it is so small that it can't really be compared to a longer module in the amount of effort. But for the size that it is, which is very short, it is excellent.
Effects:10
Cutscenes:10
Ideas:10
Characters:8.5 (but there was only one)
Minor problems: I believe some of the events can happen out of order which would confuse things. I didn't really realize how much damage the tadpole was doing. Making that more obvious would help.
Posted by imposis at 2010-09-29 00:22:14 Voted 7.50 on 09/29/10
A neat little module to pass the time, well conceived for what it is. However, as a fighter I found the combat to be far far too easy, even on the highest difficulty setting I probably lost life all of about once or twice. No major bugs and some quite pretty graphics.
Posted by olivier_leroux at 2010-08-10 14:51:12 Voted 9.00 on 08/10/10
Interesting concept and setting, nice area design, pretty cool and original effects - a short but very entertaining dungeon crawl. Thank you! :)
Posted by olivier_leroux at 2010-08-10 14:41:55 Voted 9.00 on 08/10/10
Okay, after the first quick glimpse I started to play seriously tonight and this time I managed to get the tadpole out of my head without dying. So I guess the time limit is not too hard but just about right. I think anyone should be able to accomplish the task at least on the second or third try (and if they die on the first try that only makes the threat more substantial). Still, the option to respawn kind of subverts the whole concept of the module, without it the game would be more consistent and even better than it already is.
I also found a few typos you might want to correct with the next update:
***** SPOILERS!!! *******
Ilithene, Drow Priestess:
"If we the brain were active, it would simply erase the minds of every sentient being who got too close to it" -> "If the brain"
Mischefero Wallace:
"Oh. Oops, silly me, I almost forgot about the disguse." -> "disguise"
"I was on one of my underground expiditions to collect some magical mushrooms" -> "expeditions"
PC: "I had a smiliar experience" -> "similar experience"
"Oh, I do hope so, but it looks like we're not home free just yet" -> "not home"? "not free"?
Hope that helps! :)
Posted by olivier_leroux at 2010-08-10 04:48:02 Voted 9.00 on 08/10/10
So far I've only had the chance to take a short glimpse at it but it gets on top of my list and I'm looking forward to play it.
From what I've seen I agree with the other comments. Seeing that the main challenge of the module is to get the tadpole out of your head in time before you die, you should make dying a real threat (permadeath, no respawning allowed) and see to it that the player has a chance to avoid it by playing quick and clever. You could also consider adding some interesting effects to the death by ceremorphing if possible. For example, when the drow in the other cell dies in the ceremorphing process IIRC his corpse just vanishes while he should transform into an illithid or at least his body should remain on the floor if the transformation is slow.
Another tip: I went straight to the library and ask the golem about a machine my character hadn't even seen yet. If you want to make it more realistic, you could set a variable that determines if the PC has already examined the machine or at least entered the room where its located.
Thanks for sharing this, I hope you're going to update it soon with the changes you mentioned (more time etc.). :)
Posted by JM Scion at 2010-07-26 10:11:26 Voted 8.75 on 07/26/10
First of all, let me say the effects in this game are amazing! I was particularly surprised at the intricacy of the energy rays surrounding the Brain room. The story was surprisingly charming and one character I was sure I was going to hate grew on me in a matter of minutes.
My only gripe isn't that the tadpole kills you too fast (actually it killed me just seconds before I got it out), it's that there is no death penalty, so there's really no tension in getting the tadpole out. Adding a death penalty or even removing the respawn ability entirely would add a huge layer of tension to the tadpole aspect and made for a truly memorable sequence.
All in all, very well designed game and I enjoyed the adventure. Ahmed, if you haven't already, I suggest you try the old adventure game "Dark Seed" sometime. It has a very similar mechanic to your tadpole concept and is just a great creepy adventure.
Sounds like the tadpole death and the combat is a common theme with the feedback. I think I'll double the time for the tadpole and start iterating on the combat. Much appreciated guys :)
Posted by Sleepy at 2010-07-18 09:04:42 Voted 9.00 on 07/18/10
Very good, like the scripted scenes v. pretty and the basic idea of getting the tadpole out in time is excellent it just happens too quickly. I died the first time just after exiting the jail.
Make the time longer and scale up the mod for mid to high level characters and it'll be excellent.
Posted by _six_six_six_ at 2010-07-17 17:44:54 Voted 9.00 on 07/17/10
Posted by _six_six_six_ at 2010-07-17 17:44:20 Voted 9.00 on 07/17/10
Really neat short adventure, which I thoroughly enjoyed playing through. The beholder scene with the targeting eye beams was AWESOME, though it would've been nice if it had been longer and somehow had been made to have more challenge to it. My only other comment is that the tadpole death proved more of an annoyance than a serious worry as it killed me a couple of times in succession - if you had made it take ten a lot longer, and maybe made it an effective permadeath to force players to hurry along it might've made more of an impact on the drive to finish the module.
Posted by boodah at 2010-07-16 07:59:19 Voted 8.25 on 07/15/10
Ah, okay, so it WAS the tadpole. I saw the float messages and I felt the urgency to remove the thing as quick as possible or I would die, but the death happened 5 minutes in the game and after respawning I got a lot more of these messages and they started to warn me about my impeding doom only after maybe 5 to 10 minutes further into the game... so I thought it might have been something different that killed me there.
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback. I didn't know about the first bug, and the second bug is actually a feature-- if you don't get the tadpole out in time, it will kill you. There are broadcast strings that communicate your nearing demise, but it's my fault for not making it obvious enough. As for the rest, I'll have to look into scaling the combat. My own personal critique is that the boss fights needed to be better as well, so my next iteration will definitely focus on the combat. Thanks! And keep the comments coming. Feel free to rip it apart. You can check out the rest of my portfolio at Link
Posted by boodah at 2010-07-15 05:31:16 Voted 8.25 on 07/15/10
This module is expertly crafted, uses scripts in creative ways, has some really cool visual effects and is just plain fun to play.
The first time I played through it, all scripts fired and I encountered no problems, but the second time I started the module, the first cut-scene froze after the Mindflayer died - I think it might be because I clicked on the cell door right after the module started, which somehow screwed up the angle of the scene, so maybe disabling player control right from the start could solve this lil' bug. Also, once I just simply died (with the massage 'Someone killed player_name' appearing in the chat window) and I don't think it was the tadpole, because that thing continued to torment me after respawning.
But these two 'bugs' are no show stoppers and the module has an overall very polished feel to it. My only real point of critic is that there was no real challenge involved in this. The enemies only damaged me for maybe 2 or 3 hitpoints in the whole module (to be fair, I played with a fighter, so yeah) and the 'puzzles' were all no-brainers.
All in all, I can only recommend to everyone to check this module out, it's definitely worth your time and you wont regret it. If the author would decide to up the difficulty of the battles (maybe scale the whole thing for level 10+ characters) then it would become even more awesome.
Posted by JM Scion at 2010-07-14 16:31:47 Voted 8.75 on 07/26/10
Cool, sounds kinda like Dark Seed. I'll give it a shot.
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