Blacksmith Features
August 15th, 2014 by Lord Basse

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Halfdan and the Inheritance of the Ynglings

By Günther Zengerle

For this fortnight’s feature, we turn to the 2007 Viking-themed campaign Halfdan and the Inheritance of the Ynglings by Günther Zengerle. Set among the fjords of southern Norway, in an era of legends and mystique, this campaign details the struggle between the two sons of Gudrôd Hunting King: Olaf Gudrôdsson, and Halfdan the Black. Olaf, fearing that his brother will topple him and seize the throne of the realm, imprisons Halfdan in the dungeons. Now Halfdan must escape from his chains and take his revenge on Olaf, or die trying and arrive in Valhalla with his head held high.

“Halfdan” presents us with hours and hours of intense, action-packed and varied gameplay: you will find yourself escaping from prisons, micro-managing your small band of soldiers as you sneak through open forests, as well as laying siege to castles and marching your hardened troops all across the country. Every obstacle you come across is a challenge, even on the lower difficulties, and every little base you liberate gives you an enormous sense of satisfaction; or, at least it did for me!

The story is a familiar one, but what sets it apart from almost all other campaigns is the voice acting: every line of dialogue in the entire campaign is spoken by the author himself or another voice actor. Even though it’s in German, the author’s mother tongue, the voice acting combined with the music and sound effects still brings a lot of atmosphere to the story.

Another highlight of this campaign is the absolutely gorgeous map design. The author has somehow managed to make a map that’s simultaneously wintery, lush and vivid, and the open forests are some of the best-looking and most realistic seen in any scenario. It has a cramped feel to it, as each castle and town is packed with houses to make them look more like actual medieval towns; this utility maximization of building space also works perfectly for the build & destroy gameplay, as the close vicinity of towers and military buildings makes each enemy base a true challenge to overtake. At the same time the fjords, the little rivers, waterfalls and mountain ranges all look fantastic, adding to the atmosphere.

The campaign was originally released in 2005 on AgeArena, a German Age of Kings community, home of many great designers, including Ingo van Thiel, aMa and Great Emperor. In contrast to the works of the aforementioned designers, Günther Zengerle’s campaign was never released here at Age of Kings Heaven; but in 2007, it was translated into English and uploaded by AoKH veteran Stephen Richards.

Over the years “Halfdan” has garnered a few thousand downloads and several high-scoring reviews, and even though it has remained a relatively unknown campaign, I know many people who hold it as a personal favourite. Perhaps you will too, after you’ve downloaded it!