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The Shadow in the Cathedral

by Ian Finley and Jon Ingold profile

Episode 1 of Klockwerk
Fantasy
2009

Web Site

About the Story

When the monks took me, aged six months, into their care, they named me Wren. Maybe because I was small, insignificant, and happy to eat any crumbs they threw my way. But these days I'm Wren, 2nd Assistant Clock Polisher; and that's a role that's about as important in the workings of the Cathedral of Time as the large deaf man who re-stretches the worn-out springs.

Shadow in the Cathedral takes Wren on a great adventure. What does the shadowy figure want with the Abbott? Why are Calvin and Drake constantly bullying you? Will you ever make it to 1st Assistant Clock Polisher?

These, and many other questions will be answered...soon.


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Adventure Gamers

[...] an extremely enjoyable, bordering on exceptional, adventure game. It's thoughtfully implemented for the most part, and the authors demonstrate deft prose through which they've crafted a rich and highly immersive world dominated by clockwork technology. The puzzles may be considered too easy by some and it is not without its flaws, but these are neither frequent nor pervasive enough to seriously damage the experience. If you at all enjoy steampunk and know your way around a text parser, you should absolutely play this game.
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Play This Thing!
Gears within gears
The Shadow in the Cathedral rarely left me stuck; it did often put me in a position where there was an obvious action, but it looked dangerous and I hesitated before committing.

In a weird way I actually found this far more satisfying than I usually find big action sequences in shooters: admittedly, I'm terrible at twitch-based gaming and tend to have to replay a lot in order to succeed at those. But to some extent the effect also fit the game and the protagonist. Wren is a scrawny kid, not a highly-trained, muscly badass. The daring feats aren't things you necessarily expect to work. They're things you try because you have to, and you're surprised and relieved when they turn out not to be fatal.
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SPAG
The world of Cathedral is at bottom Victorian steam-punk, hardly a setting that has been lacking in fantasy fiction of the last twenty years. It's painted vividly, however, and embellished with some original details, the most obvious of these being the society's obsession with clocks, to the extent that the eponymous cathedral exists essentially to provide a scaffolding for and a place to worship the Cathedral Clock, which hangs "large as the setting sun" in its dome. You play Wren, a young orphan who was taken in by the nearby abbey to serve as a "2nd Assistant Clock Polisher." Shortly after play begins, you witness something you really shouldn't have, and then it's off to the races to foul a Dastardly Plot that reaches right to the top of the church hierarchy. Things don't slow down much at all for the next six to eight hours; the plot just keeps rushing you breathlessly along. You may well feel as out of breath as Wren by the time you get to the end.
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Page Update History

  v.21: 16-Jul-2020 18:32 - Zape (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
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v.20: 16-Jul-2020 18:31 - Zape
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v.18: 22-Jun-2015 17:13 - dutchmule
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v.17: 28-Apr-2015 14:54 - David Cornelson
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v.14: 31-Mar-2015 17:24 - OtisTDog
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v.13: 08-Nov-2014 10:19 - OtisTDog
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v.12: 26-Sep-2013 03:49 - Edward Lacey
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v.11: 25-Mar-2013 09:02 - Edward Lacey
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v.10: 24-Mar-2013 15:25 - Edward Lacey
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v.9: 08-Jun-2010 12:29 - David Cornelson
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v.8: 15-Nov-2009 20:45 - Emily Short
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v.7: 15-Nov-2009 15:04 - David Cornelson
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v.6: 29-Sep-2009 18:39 - GDL
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v.5: 22-Sep-2009 21:15 - David Cornelson
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v.4: 22-Sep-2009 21:14 - David Cornelson
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v.3: 11-Oct-2008 14:23 - jingold
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v.2: 11-Oct-2008 08:58 - Eriorg
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v.1: 10-Oct-2008 22:37 - David Cornelson
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