Project Nineveh is a Fan Sequel of the MARDEK series. Developed by a group of dedicated fans, it seeks to complete MARDEK by expanding and improving upon the three chapters released by Tobias Cornwall and developing the remaining five chapters, which never made it past the drawing board before the series in its original form was officially cancelled. The new additions seek to improve the player experience, while maintaining the original series' identity.
Not to be confused with Taming Dreams and Atonal Dreams, which are Continuity Reboots made by Tobias Cornwall himself.
The mod can be downloaded from its Discord server here
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As a Game Mod for MARDEK, the same tropes in the parent game apply. Tropes unique to Project Nineveh itself include:
- Adaptational Badass: Many bosses have been buffed to provide a greater challenge to the player, especially those that were deemed too easy in the original version.
- Adaptational Costume Change: Most characters retain their original appearances. One of the biggest exceptions is Gloria, who upon becoming shaman becomes a bit Darker and Edgier. Her hair grows out wildly in all directions, and she now wears indigo instead of brown and green.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the original game, Gallovar, the Yalortian Priest of Goznor, had brown hair. Here, his hair has been dyed to white. Additionally, many characters' eye colors have been changed, including Mardek, Deugan, Lilanea, Enki, and Donovan.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: A few enemies that originally debuted in Chapter 3 were pushed to Chapter 2, including Moonstones, Cavefish, Sekils, Rot Rats and Posh Gruuls.
- Adaptation Expansion: The original series has been expanded with new graphics, music, dialogue and areas to explore. Existing characters are given additional skills and unique items.
- Adaptation Name Change: The minibosses in the Dark Temple were renamed from Molestors to Tormentors, and the Golems who guard treasure chests in the Earth Temple from Niggardly Golems to Miserly Golems. The centaurs inhabiting Lifewood referred to both male and female centaurs in the original game whereas here, female centaurs are now named centaurides. The Invisible Announcer of the Cambria Arena, having been given a dialogue sprite, is renamed to Visible Announcer.
- Art Evolution: Numerous art assets, including treasure chests, terrain, medals, encyclopaedia, skill and enemy icons and all items have been updated to higher standards.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Jack O' Booms have a lot of hit points and their only attack is a One-Hit Kill that takes several rounds to charge and wipes out your entire party.
- Bowdlerize:
- In the original game, female centaurs were depicted being topless without any clothing. Here, these centaurs, or centaurides, are now wearing bras made of leaves.
- When the player visits the Gem Mine in Chapter 3, they will find the right path has been blocked off by a miner who explains him and his co-workers have captured a bandit and are having fun bashing the outlaw's skull with a rock. In the original version, the path was blocked off because the miners were having a bukkake with a woman.
- Debug Room: Each chapter (other than chapter 1) has a 'cheat' room, located in the Guardpost (chapter 2) and Sun Temple (chapter 3) and only accessible by using the console to give yourself the Alexandrite Key. Inside each room is a book containing a list of console commands, non-canon party members who can be recruited into the party, and four treasure chests containing two Alexandrites (an accessory with blatantly overpowered stats and skills), a Holy Hand Grenade (deals 999999 Divine damage to any enemy) and an Unlucky Coin (which serves to ensure that the wielder will quickly get KO'd).
- Degraded Boss: The first Fairy-class enemy that can be fought by the player is the Pumpkafae, a mini-boss that was added in the mod and guards the Fire Wand in the Canonia Woods, a Chapter 2 location (non-boss enemies of this class, the Rogue Fairy and Pixie, remain exclusive to Chapter 3 as they were in the original game).
- Door to Before: One addition to the Goznor Sewer-Catacombs complex is a door that leads from the first floor of the Sewer to the fourth floor of the Catacombs, whose key is dropped by the Zombie Locksmith midway through the Catacombs. Just like in the original game, defeating the boss of the dungeon will automatically return you to Castle Goznor; the door is still useful in that you won't need to cross the second floor of the Sewer and the first four floors of the Catacombs again in order to access the optional fifth floor, especially after the addition of gemstone switches and bridges in the first two floors of the Catacombs.
- Dual Boss: The Zombie Locksmith, a boss fought alone in the original game, is now accompanied by the Zombie Maid, another miniboss, when fought in the Catacombs (the fight in the Arena remains unchanged).
- Fan Sequel: One goal of Project Nineveh is to finish the original MARDEK series by developing the five remaining chapters, which were planned but never made by Tobias Cornwall.
- Foregone Victory: Gryystal is a crystallized Gruul with no attacks or elemental resistances. Lampshaded in its description:It can't attack, so if you need help defeating it, only YALORT can save you.
- Flunky Boss: Whereas the original Lake Hag and Canonia Shaman bosses have no minions, here they are accompanied by two Puckerfish and two Flyeballs respectively. Antares, another boss whose original game counterpart is fought alone, now can summon two Light Elementals once.
- King Mook: Ignatz, a mini-boss in the second floor of the Goznor Sewer, is a stronger version of the Miasmurine, a standard enemy found in this area, with an abnormally high level (26).
- Level Limiter: The No Experience passive skill, unlocked by the Letter from Mum (which is found inside Mardek's bedroom and is thus one of the very first items obtainable in the game), disables all experience gain when turned on.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Canonia Shaman was given the name Sylvia, which is the name of the Goznor Shaman's Taming Dreams counterpart.
- At the entrance to the Dreamshrine in Dreamwood, you meet Clavis, who upon giving you the Ballad of Balance sheet music, references the original developer's 2019 title "Memody: Sindrel Song".
Clavis: "Melodies are uniquely potent at preserving memories, after all." - Named by the Adaptation: All shamans, the Guard Captain of Canonia, and the Serpent have now been given personal names instead of simply being called by their job or species: the Goznor Shaman is Graham, the Canonia Shaman is Sylvia, the Aeropolis Shaman is Samir, the Lifewood Shaman is Josephine, the Guard Captain is Banquo, and the Serpent is Reginald.
- Non-Standard Skill Learning: Expanded from the original game (where this mechanic is only used by Meraeador's inventions), some unique skills cannot be mastered and are only available while the item is equipped.
- Optional Party Member: Non-canon party members play no role in the main story and are only recruitable in the Debug Room. Despite this status, they all have fully developed skillsets, exclusive items and, for the Chapter 3 ones, solo Survival Tournaments.
- Poison Mushroom: The Unlucky Coin, an item used for debugging that is nonetheless obtainable by regular players, inflicts Perma-Poison and Perma-Bleed and massively reduces the equipped character's stats (except for a boost to AGL, ensuring that the wielder will quickly get KO'd).This coin is unlucky! The last 578 owners of this coin have all perished in horrible ways, but you know what they say... 579th try's a charm! Useful for solo runs, or other such situations when your party members should just get out of your way and DIE.
- Stats-Tradeoff Equipment: The Toxic Skull and Blood Skull empower Earth and Dark (respectively) and provides substantial stat boosts and a pair of attack reactions (one physical, one magical) that have a chance of inflicting Poison (for the Toxic Skull) and drain HP (for the Blood Skull). In exchange, they apply Perma-Poison and Perma-Bleed on the user, and since these reactions cannot be mastered, you must equip the items to make use of them.
- Super Boss: Mimameith and Laeradr, two aspects of the World Tree, are even more powerful than the existing Superbosses in the original version and completely optional to fight.
- Talking Animal: One of the new additions in this mod are the talking frogs that inhabit the Canonia region such as one who claims to be the true prince of Goznor that was cursed by an evil wizard and the spell can be broken by true love's kiss much to Emela's annoyance.