Sleepwalker series (1 - Desert Greed, 2 - Breaking and Entering)

As the author of this mod, I still check back in every couple of years to read comments and take a trip down memory lane.  It still makes me laugh a little bit that people take both bugs and decisions I made regarding the creation of this mod as personal insults... As if playing the mod for a couple of hours makes them deserving of having it perfect, after I spent probably a hundred hours agonizing over every decision and attempting to squash dozen of pernicious bugs.  Anyway, perhaps I gotten find an old copy of NWN and load this up and remember when I was in my early 20's and still had unlimited free time.

I did decide to reinstall NWN and try this old module, a walk down memory lane for me.  It is vaguely familiar, but I don't remember the details anymore, so for the first time after spending 100s of hours on it, it is like I am a first player.  Having a blast.

And wouldn't you know it, all those reviewers were right and I did screw up that Chemist Cave logic puzzle.  I don't know if anyone will ever play this again, and if they do, maybe wouldn't read these comments, but I will put a couple more restrictions into that puzzle here to make it possible.  Of course, you can also just skip the puzzle by using the hints in the readme, and I won't be offended.

Add these clues if you want to do the Chemist Cave logic puzzle

1.  Powdered comes before chopped.

2. The last regeant was 7 pieces.

Alright, I'm back after several days of playing these old mods of mine.  I can rightfully give a more balanced review now, after taking a 10+ year break from it.  Perhaps no one will ever play it again, but just in case, here are some thoughts.

The bad

1) There are bugs here on occassion, but at least the ones that I am running into seem like NWN bugs, not mod bugs.  The #1 problem is that clicking on items or rocks or structures to start a dialogue often does not work at the first time, as the PC seems to have to be in a certain proper orientation to make these conversations work.  So you have to move away and approach it from a different direction. That is annoying, but not game breaking.  And it is a NWN issue, not a mod issue, but it crops up quite a bit in the mod because I tended to use this route to interact with objects.

2) Combat is a little uneven. Somethings are crazy hard, somethings are quite easy.  That might have been a concious decision at the time, I can't remember, to favor certain classes at certain times.  But it isn't unusual to beat  something very easily (the Minotaur Caves) only to have the next battle kick your butt.

3) I wish I had finished this.  Only certain classes can play through Sleepwalker 2 entirely.  In hindsight, I wish I had made the main quest beatable by any class, and then slowly added in the prestige class quests as the optional ones.  If I did that, I probably wouldn't have burnt out on the creation of it. Then of course there is no Sleepwater 3, I had simply gotten tired of it.  Sleepwalker 1 and 2 are really long, probably a 25 hour adventure, and I was testing them like crazy with all kinds of class combos, and I think I just got tired of it.

4) The dialogue is often funny and makes me laugh (of course, obviously this is my sense of humor, since I wrote it).  But sometimes the text goes a bit long, and the tiny font with my higher resolution monitor can be hard to read.

5) The provided walkthrough is often needed. I wish I gave a bit more guidance to the player in game. Two or three times, I think I required too much of the player in reading my mind as what to do next. 

The good:

1) Both mods are still, after 12 years (looking back at the old file dates it was finalized May 2005), really fun.  The story line can be meandering, but the NPCs are fun, you get fun in-game options, and funny things happen.  You get to use unusual and different equipment. The equipment crafting or enhancing was pretty advanced for its time.  Sleepwalker 1 in particular really feels like an old adventure game, while Sleepwalker 2 feels like an alive world.

2) Sleepwalker 2's highlight is the snowy area where you control a badger attempting to get up a mountain. Along the way, you are able to transform the badger to other forms, like a wererat, water elemental, and ice giant, which have different abilities and get you to new places.  The whole area is really very clever, the puzzle fun and challenging, and it is unlike anything I've done in a game... ever. 

3) There is a lot of replayability.  At the minimum, you want to play it with a good ranger or druid, and then play it again with an evil figher or cleric.  I just finished the good person run through now, but from what I am remembering, the evil quest is among the best parts of the game, where you get to burn a whole village to the ground and slaughter angels. I definitely will have to replay it to see this part.

4) Neverwinter Nights 2 stole several of my ideas from this mod.  Really, it was strange when first playing Neverwinter Nights 2, and I was like... Huh-- that is familiar. I swear I already did that in my neverwinter nights mod.  For example, the dwarf who wants to become a monk.  The goth teenagers who want to be palemasters/necromancers is another example.  I mean, I guess it is possible that the NWN2 writers came up with that themselves, but it is a little suspicious, and I take it as a compliment that they thought my mod interesting enough to play and copy. (Maybe, who knows.)

5) In conclusion, while there are some annoying aspects to the mods, overall I am having a really fun time with it.  I think any reader here would not be wasting their time in downloading it and giving it a chance. It is definitely a unique experience.