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The Treasured Medallion

A list of things I forgot to do yesterday:

1. Take a bag of presents to a family gathering so that most people only got half their presents;
2. Submit a pick for Goalscorer Challenge;
3. Post AGSOTD.

Ah well…

Personally, I’m back at work now, but somewhere in the vestiges of my memory exists a time where the period between Christmas and New Year was a long, relaxing, meandering nothing of a time where I had more time to play games than I knew what to do with (…well, sort of!). What better, in a time like that, to play a seriously long game that you can’t blast through in an afternoon/evening.

To give some idea of the scale of this game, the unzipped folder containing the game is over 1gb (although the download compresses nicely to a shade over 370 mb so it won’t take you all night even with a rubbish connection. We are talking about 350+ rooms to explore and 60+ characters to interact with, that’s pretty serious business, considering that the game is not voiced.

I find it a little difficult to explain why I like The Treasured Medallion as it does quite a lot of the things that annoy me in other games. For instance, there are a Syberia like amount of empty screens (i.e. nothing to interact with) throughout the game. Also, the pre-rendered 3D modelled graphics are… well… they’re not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The characters and dialogue are a bit varied, some of the characters being pretty wooden and some of the dialogue being a bit banal. Even the title of the game is just a bit… I don’t know… second rate sounding?

However, the scope and attention to detail of this game are incredible - especially for a one woman effort, which is what this is. You (Debbie) start under water in diving gear with your sister and swim down. A shoal of fish swim past, other fish dart around, there are various sea creatures moving around, a shipwreck, but this isn’t a cutscene, you are playing the game.

Once back on shore you walk along the street, a cyclist goes past, then a dog runs by, then a car goes past as you progress through the different screens. Your hotel is there, a few shops…

Storywise, the introduction shows the loss of a medallion, and of the lives of young lovers, at sea in times past. Guess what Debbie turns up while diving!

I think that the main strength of the game is in the exploration. If you’re in the mood for a fast paced whirlwind ride of a time then you’ll give up on this pretty quickly. However, if you fancy taking time to explore and discover as well as solve puzzles etc. then this game is a grower that does a surprisingly good job of taking you away somewhere else for a good while. Great for a “Christmas/New Year lull” experience, if you are lucky enough to have a good amount of gaming time.

The original version was updated a few years ago to iron out a few things and now hotspot names are displayed when you mouse over them, there are restore points saved automatically when you die (and you will die if you’re not careful!) and - best of all - you can double click on exits to teleport to the next room.

I won’t lie, this game won’t be for everyone and most people’s response to it seems to have been to greatly enjoy it, or to completely ignore it. Either way, hope you’re all having/had a great Christmas time.

Intense Degree - 29 December 2015 05:09 AM

To give some idea of the scale of this game, the unzipped folder containing the game is over 1gb

Wow, that is actually quite big for a game with no voice files, especially considering it is a freeware game.