Will the “Real” RPG Please Stand Up…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 9, 2010
Kieron Gillen has a rant.
Just Die: Against “Real” Role-Playing Games
Based on the title, you may get a knee-jerk reaction and you think someone like me, a devotee of dice-and-paper role-playing-games, would immediately attack the famed games-journalist-turned-comic-book-writer.
But two things: #1 -“Just Die” is a play on words for the singular form of dice. And #2 – it’s actually a very reasonable rant against the view of there being any ‘real’ role-playing game form, whether dice-and-paper, MMO, or single-player CRPG. Or as he states:
In other words, this article isn’t about actually preferring one to the other. You can prefer either. It’s the sneer in “real”. The “real” can go f*** itself. For a Fantasy game to come down to a question “real” is openly ludicrous.
Well, okay then. Actually, I’ll enthusiastically support this position. Even if I may have been guilty of said crimes in the past (I don’t know that I have, but jussincase…)
He notes that pen-and-paper (Hey, I use a pencil!) RPGs serve three “urges” in players – the gamist urge (achieving victory through the rules), the simulationist urge (exploration), and the narrativist urge (shared storytelling). Computer RPGs do an admirable job of serving the first two – and arguably a far better job of handling the first than a fallible gamemaster. Gillen argues that it’s more of a tie between PnP and CRPGs on the second, as the loss of the human touch is balanced by the immediacy and decisiveness of the computer’s portrayal of the environment and cause-and-effect. There’s no hunting through rulebooks to figure out what happens when the fireball hits the pitch-filled barrels.
Narrativism – well, I have my own rant there. It ain’t gonna happen. I love Din’s Curse and Depths of Peril and their awesome dynamic storylines, and I’ve played a lot of RPGs with some truly excellent non-dynamic narratives that thrilled me, but none hold a candle to what a halfway competent game master can do. And never will. Besides, most of the narrative is inside the player’s head, anyway.
I have been playing both the dice-and-paper RPGs and CRPGs pretty actively for almost *cough*thirty*cough* years now. The two are not equivalent. Computer RPGs had their origins as attempts by programmers to simulate the experience of being at the table playing Dungeons & Dragons with other players. Maybe these asocial developers thought their creations were improvements, as it got rid of the annoying other humans they otherwise had to play with.
But as a fan of both “kinds” of RPGs, I think the CRPGs were largely a failure in accurately simulating the dice-and-paper experience. At least until I played Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption in Storyteller / multiplayer mode, and multiplayer Nevewinter Nights with a dungeon master. But while I still feel a close relationship between these cousins in the gaming family tree should remain close, they are different beings now. Gillen is right – trying to compare them in a desire to seek superiority or purity of one over the other is silly.
Now excuse me while I go play my jRPG-inspired indie CRPGs and open up a brand new +5 can of worms…
Filed Under: Dice & Paper - Comments: 2 Comments to Read
The Collapse of Complex Video Game Development?
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 8, 2010
A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me this link to an an article entitled, “The Collapse of Complex Business Models.” Deep stuff. I’m not sure I entirely comprehend it. But it made me think about the videogame business.
The article was inspired / based upon the 1988 book by Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies. I’ve never read the book, but it explains the downfall of highly sophisticated civilizations – Roman, Lowlands Maya, etc. – as being inevitable when a society becomes too complex. The levels of specialization – which for a time add value to all processes – eventually become a hindrance to the society’s ability to adapt and grow, or ends up extracting “one tribute too many” and the only real recourse is to hit the reset button – let it all collapse and start over.
The article’s author, Clay Shirky, posits that a similar thing happens to businesses. In general, the added complexity adds value to the process / end product of a business – just as adding an index to a non-fiction book adds value to the book. Or, as he provides in his example, making sure the land-line telephone network runs on its own power grid.
But as things change, it is hard for these layers of complexity to change as a group, simplify, and adapt. Shirky is principally speaking of traditional media industries making the transition to the Internet. The complexities they accrued that served them well in the pre-Internet age impede their ability to make inroads in the modern era. It is true that a new complexity may take over, but it won’t be the same as the old complexity. In other words, a whole new process with new complexities may be what is required. And if that doesn’t make sense, read the article.
So what it boils down to is that, for example, a television network well adapted to producing competitive television in 1970s-era technology will have a very tough time making video for Internet consumption. Because in order to do so in a cost-effective manner, they basically have to give up the competitive advantage that has allowed them to survive and thrive over the decades and effectively start over from scratch. It requires a fundamental change that they, culturally, may not be able to make.
It was with this idea in mind that I saw this Buzz by Jeff Tunnell, commenting on the estimated value of the young “Social Gaming” emperor, Zynga, at $5 Billion. Is that actually possible? No wonder there’s such a gold rush fever about Social Gaming. (Personally, I believe that’s a massively over-valuation based on hype, but that’s not to say they aren’t phenomenally profitable and successful). This same principle applies to the video game business model.
Times have changed a lot in the last five years, since EA VP for Corporate Communications Jeff Brown bragged that the era of the small developers was officially over, and that “it is now impossible to ‘Blair Witch’ this business.” That’s gotta go down with classic misstatements like Bill Gates “640K ought to be enough for anybody” and IBM President Tom Watson’s 1943 comment, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Except that those latter two statements are apocryphal, and Jeff Brown’s was quoted for posterity in the New York Times.
While the new market may peacefully coexist with the old one for a while, there’s no doubt that times are a-changin’. The video game business had to adapt quickly, borrowing from legacy media business models just in time for the rules of the entire game to change underneath it. I almost feel sorry for it. It had maybe a decade and a half to enjoy its hard-learned business model.
So the question is – how to adapt? Zynga isn’t the model I would like to use for being a young turk kicking butt in the new world – they’ve admitted to doing some pretty unethical things to get their company started. Sorry, but I place a higher value on my soul. But even being a small indie game company doesn’t mean you’ll survive the changes. It just means that there’s enough of us that are nimble enough to form an interesting experiment in Darwinism.
Right now, the “social gaming” phenomenon has everyone rushing to it. But I tend to side with the belief that social gaming is merely one aspect of a broader evolution in the business. It’s frustrating to me in some ways because I really like my big, deep games full of value-added complexity – whether they are “big” indie games like Din’s Curse or Eschalon: Book 1, or big AAA games like, uh, well, all of ’em). I think there’s still a market for them. Maybe only a market of one, but it’s there.
The market may be there, and these kinds of games probably will continue to be made. But I think the current business model that has evolved to support the production and distribution of these games – the old mainstream studio / publisher / distributor model – is seriously going to go the way of the dodo. It’s going to collapse – the complexity built into the system supports an old way of doing things, and may not survive the transition. Things like Steam and the new Indie Fund and small third-party marketers may very well be aspects of the new complexity that goes into the process.
I think even how indies traditionally do things may have to change. But at least for these tiny development shops, there are not a lot of layers of complexity gumming up the works. Collapse may not be necessary.
Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
Dr. Horrible – The 8-Bit Video Game
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 7, 2010
It’s just… wrong. In a cool way. Though I imagine Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion might get a kick out of seeing themselves rendered as characters in an NES game.
Okay, so I wouldn’t expect to see this as an actual playable game anytime soon. But it’s cool.
And if you have absolutely no clue what this is about…
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was produced during the Hollywood writer’s strike a couple of years back. It was an experiment by Joss Whedon & friends to produce a high-quality made-for-Internet mini-series that bypassed the traditional studios completely. Yeah, an indie production. It won the 2009 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), and has also won a People’s Choice award and a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy. And apparently it made enough money through in DVD, iTunes, and other merchandise sales to warrant a sequel, which is in the works.
You can watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog from Netflix Instant-Play, or buy the DVD / Blu-Ray, or you can watch a low quality version of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3.
Filed Under: Geek Life, Movies - Comments: Comments are off for this article
Ron Gilbert Leaves Hothead
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
DeathSpank is practically done, but Ron Gilbert has announced that he’s left Hothead Games. Conjecture as to why he has done this is pretty much useless as it could be anything.
The sad part for me – as I kinda follow what he’s been doing – is realizing that this entire phase of his career has begun and reached it’s conclusion all while Frayed Knights has been in development.
Filed Under: Biz - Comments: Comments are off for this article
An Example of Evolution of Software Architecture
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 6, 2010
Me, many moons ago: Hah! This is genius! I am a genius. This inventory system is a model of efficiency and utility – elegant yet flexible. Years of software development experience distilled into the architecture of a subsystem that I can be truly proud of. Having this foundation to build on will really help smooth development going forward.
Me, this evening, looking at the same code: What’s this? WTF was I thinking? Was I on drugs? Shoot. Do I have to refactor this crap again?!?!
Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 8 Comments to Read
Frayed Knights – Chapel of Anarchy
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
A quickie update on Frayed Knights… ‘cuz it looks cool. A little dark here, but cool. It was originally posted in the forums.
This should really be the climax of Act 1, but it’s … not. It’s close, though.
Somehow what my level designers are doing seems a lot cooler than what I’m working on. I thought rank was supposed to have its privileges?
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 9 Comments to Read
Game Announcement: Asguaard
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 5, 2010
Still dealing with a back-log of indie games here. I won’t be doing one-a-day anymore, but I’m still going to have a lot of ’em that I want to make sure you are aware of. It’s kinda funny to me how indie RPGs were all but non-existent when I started Rampant Games. You had Spiderweb’s games, roguelikes, and a handful of little-known games that were usually incomplete. Now everything has changed. RPG Maker is certainly responsible for empowering a lot of game fans to become game makers, but it’s not solely responsible for this renaissance of quality homebrew computer RPGing.
And it is allowing developers to see some of their truly ginormous epic dreams come to reality.
Asguaard seems to be one of this ginormous, epic ideas. It came out at the end of last year, and I believe it is the largest game French indie developer Aldorlea Games has ever produced. It boasts over 100 hours of gameplay, over 100 skills for your characters, over 500 locations and more than 150 “secret” rooms hidden in the game. It’s BIG. You won’t be finishing it up in just a couple of weekends.
Asguaard takes place in a world of mythical creatures – Dwarves, faeries, and other legendary creatures. The Pandora Box has been opened, and has released a series of increasingly devastating plagues upon the world. The committee of Faeries assemble at Asguaard’s highest village, and exercise a desperate bid to summon a legendary being capable of saving the entire world – a being with the miraculous possession of a soul.
The being they summon is a human teenager from earth.
Check out the free trial of Asguaard:
Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: Read the First Comment
103 Reasons Indie Games Rock! (April Fools Contest)
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 2, 2010
The April Fools Contest worked out great – so great, I may consider making some kind of contest an annual event. (It’s secretly a birthday event, actually, but don’t tell anybody…)
Without further ado (we’ll leave all the doo at the end) – here are…
103 Reasons Indie Games Rock!
1. “Because even famous archeologists are Indie!” (And their dogs, too)
2. Are you “indie” game? Cause we are!
3. Price is small, play is big. It’s better than the other way around
4. Where micro-transactions mean you buy many games, not many parts of one.
5. Independent Studios, Independent games, independent ideas, not dependent on mass produced sequels. How can this go wrong?
6. Indie means we spend more on the game and less on the marketing. How does that strike you?
7. Indie’s gaming laws: The amount of freedom in a game is inversely proportional to the amount of money spent marketing it.
8. Indie Spendence day: The day you splurge and buy those indie games you’ve wanted.
—- G Kemble
9. Why do indie games rock? Hey: INDIE DON’T NEED NO REASON TO ROCK.
— Cameron Goble
10. I spent most of my game money on booze and only have $10 this month.
11. My attention span, unlike my girlfriend, only enjoys things that can be finished in under 10 minutes.
12. 2D is the new 3D.
13. I am too lazy to drive to the store to purchase AAA games.
14. My laptop can run flash better than directx10.
15. My server has a terminal but not a graphics card.
16. They have cured my fear of caves.
17. I am a professional parkour athlete and I only enjoy platformers.
18. They are made out of the souls of melted down guitars.
19. I am getting too old for real-time.
20. I am an asshole and like to steal games via torrents and indie game makers and publishers do not have the resources to sue me. (Uh, oh, that one oughta disqualify you! *g* — Jay)
21. Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie Unicorns never get old.
22. Hipsters are slightly less soulless than corporations.
23. We got to the moon on 8-bit.
24. Gouraud shading.
— devon
25. ‘Because you can feel the love.’ (Yes, it is meant to be just a tad creepy.)
— Aelfric
26. Nudity doesn’t need censoring, it’s already pixelated!
27. Not affected by piracy, the torrent file is bigger than the game file. (If only the first part were true… — Jay)
28. If the game sucks you can hate a real person and not a company.
— wolfing
29. Even when they suck, they suck in unique and interesting ways mainstream games couldn’t dream of.
30. The developers can argue with fans without getting Marketing upset.
31. Indie RPGs aren’t contractually obliged to include the Towers of Hanoi.
32. They give ordinary people hope that they can release an actual game that sells and has fans.
33. Weird games about obscure topics rule.
34. They can still rip off that old game you like that history forgot.
35. When you give the devs your email address, they probably won’t spam the hell out of it. (Muhahahahah! — Jay)
— user@example.com
36. Indie games are developed by people who love games, not by soulless multinational corporations.
— Cowgod
37. They’re created to be actually fun instead of to maximize a corporation’s return on investment.
38. Indie developers pour their heart and soul into the game instead of simply collecting a paycheck. (Whaddaya mean ‘simply’? You mean some of us DO collect paychecks? — Jay)
39. I can find something completely innovative, comfortingly familiar, and shockingly fun all in one convenient game.
40. I don’t have to listen to months (and months and months) of mainstream hype (and, sometimes, outright lies) before the game comes out.
41. I can support the little guy’s ramen budget directly instead of lining the pockets of a giant, faceless publisher.
42. The voices in my head are less violent when I’m playing indie games than when playing mainstream games with realistic blood splatters.
43. I can enjoy convenient downloads instead of buying a single-player game that requires me to be connected to the internet all the time to make sure I’m not a dirty pirate.
44. If I want to play games on the cheap, saving the world in an indie RPG is better than taking care of a virtual farm on a social network.
45. I can vote with my dollars and support games I like instead of being forced to only buy games that are marketed to me.
46. I can look cool to my friends by recommending some obscure game they’ve never heard of. Well, it works like that for music, why not games?
47. The games are designed by a small team of passionate developers, not thought up by a egotistical CEO then have any traces of fun designed out by committee.
48. Indie developers are too busy to withhold some of the content as DLC available at launch that requires an additional purchase; they make real sequels if the game does well.
49. The game was built first and foremost to be a fun game, not part of a giant franchise including movies, TV shows, dog sweaters, and lunchboxes.
50. Successful indie developers are happy to give back to the community and share with others instead of simply squeezing more and more money out of gamers.
51. Indie games focus on fun and interesting mechanics instead of using the latest graphical tricks to make the screenshots look good.
— Psychochild
52. Indie games ROCK because crossing the line is a good thing
53. Indie games ROCK because a $15 box of brain breaking platforming is better than a $60 FPS
54. Indie games ROCK because ASCII graphics are still cool
55. Indie games ROCK because crazy people make better games
56. Indie games ROCK because I’m cheap
57. Indie games ROCK because SOME money might go to the developer (instead of the publisher)
58. Indie games ROCK because risky ideas might be more fun
59. Indie games ROCK because a safety net is a joke
60. Indie games ROCK because commercial developers aren’t bastards enough
61. Indie games ROCK because Chuck Norris said so
62. Indie games ROCK because Linus Torvalds said so
63. Indie games ROCK because manipulating the flow of time is actually cooler than portal technology
64. Indie games ROCK because command lines are FUN
65. Indie games ROCK because Linux builds are epic
66. Indie games ROCK because I now hit shift in any platformer when I make a bad jump
67. Indie games ROCK because my mind is now broken in the fourth dimension
— HiddenSpartan
68. You can feel the code eating your keyboard
69. You can feel the love eating your keyboard
70. Duke Nukem Forever would have been done in 48 hours
71. When you want to kill a terrorist, you play triple A, when you want to understand the quantum mechanics, you play Indie.
72. Sometimes there’s even a last level
73. They’re always free except when they’re 10 dollars (Or 15, or 20, or 24.99, or… — Jay)
74. When else do you get the chance to finish the developers’ code?
75. All they require to make is one person without friends
76. All that test code and prototypes you did at school are full working games!
77. The devs do anything just to get you to buy their games. Humiliation is always entertaining.
78. tHis sentnc4 is just aSAs pol*ishe-d:
79. Made for fun, not for money
80. If it’s not controversial, it’s AAA.
81. There’s no studio to layoff workers.
82. It’s the new Dungeons & Dragons.
83. Too much HDR burns your eyes
84. Development blogs work like sing-along songs
85. Developers don’t like driving Ferraris
86. 2 squares and one colour is life changing
— Stringycustard
87. NO DRM.
88. Innovate on existing gameplay mechanics.
89. NO STINKING DRM.
90. Spends more time on polishing gameplay than polishing graphics.
91. NO OBNOXIOUS DRM.
92. Usually cross platform; game is on both Windows and Mac, and sometimes Linux.
93. NEED NOT BE CONSTANTLY ONLINE TO PLAY SINGLE PLAYER GAMES.
94. Able to pester the developer directly for an OSX version after making the switch to Mac. (translated: done it before!) (D’oh! — Jay)
95. NO DRM AS THERE’S NOT MANY CROSS-PLATFORM DRM TECHNOLOGY OUT THERE.
96. Costs much less than popular titles.
97. DRM COSTS NOT PASSED ON TO PAYING CUSTOMERS.
98. Able to converse directly with developers, not some PR person, via official forums or blog.
99. PAYING CUSTOMERS GET BETTER VALUE THAN PIRATES.
100. Usually low on system resources, doesn’t require a top-of-the-line PC. Playable while alt-tabbing out to other apps
101. I CAN PLAY ON MY WORKSTATION WITHOUT INFECTING IT WITH STINKING DRM.
102. Feels like I’m contributing to the health of PC gaming when I purchase an indie game.
103. DOESN’T FEEL LIKE I’M SUPPORTING INVASIVE TECHNOLOGY.
— Muhammad
And now for the contest part of things.
In all honesty, I didn’t expect it to be so hard. There were a lot of good ones – some that made me wince and say, “Yeah, kinda true,” a lot that made me laugh, and a whole bunch that made me pump my fist in the air and say, “Damn straight!”
You guys rock.
I ended up not trusting my judgment and went to several friends and associates with a list of my favorites, and asked them to pick their top three. That was little help, as they all chose different answers. I was about to resort to random dice-rolling, but eventually I had a few responses that garnered two votes. And finally two of them garnered three votes – but both were from Devon. I stopped while I was ahead:
“Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie Unicorns never get old.” and
“We got to the moon on 8-bit.”
Devon, to prevent you from becoming an asshole who steals from torrents (#20), you can pick any game from RampantGames.com and I’ll pick up the bill for ya! I’ll email you with details. Take some time to play some demos and decide!
Because we had a lot of entries from the same people, and to encourage participation in the future, and especially to weasel out of having to pick runners-up from such a great list, I’m going to go ahead and make ALL PARTICIPANTS runners-up and give everybody who participated in the contest a free license for Void War. Just ‘cuz I can – and so there’ll be other people around with the game with whom you can maybe play multiplayer with. 🙂 Expect an email from me over the weekend.
The contest is over, but that shouldn’t stop anyone. What are YOUR reasons why indie games rock? Or what are your favorites from the list? Let’s add 103 more reasons!
Filed Under: Rampant Games - Comments: 9 Comments to Read
Game Announcement: Vastar
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
Well, if I count the “week” as only a work-week, then today’s my final commitment to adding a game each day to the Rampant Games store. But I still have a backlog, so I will be continuing to add more games through next week. Just maybe not at the same pace. It’s taken its toll. Wanna know how much work got done on Frayed Knights this week? Not very much!
But this was important.
Today’s addition is also an honest-to-goodness new release, from Exodus Studios:
Vastar is an RPG Maker title based on the comic series that (I am told) appeared at Drunk Duck from 2002-2006, created by Rebecca Long – who has since become the founder and owner of Exodus Studios. This is their first commercial release, and to their credit they chose a fairly novel approach to set their game apart from the pack.
In Vastar, you play one of three young siblings — of the Vastar family, natch! The nifty thing here is that each character has their own storyline – at least for a good part of the game, before they come together to stop a vengeful renegade wizard from completing a ritual that will threaten them all. It’s an interesting touch that I haven’t seen in an indie game before (I technically haven’t seen it in a mainstream game before, though I have heard that Dragon Age: Origins has at least a brief segment like that based on character choice).
Another thing I’ve liked about the game thus far (no, I haven’t had the chance to play a lot of it yet) is that many items in the world have actual descriptions (and many are interactive, too). So many games using the RPG Maker engine throw in a bunch of interesting-looking scenery that serves as nothing but obstacles. This little touch really helps flesh out the world, and I hope to see more games following this example.
So check out Vastar! I know there’s been a lot of games introduced this week, all of them worthy of checking out – but hey, these are worth canceling your weekend plans over, aren’t they? 🙂 The demo version of Vastar lets you play the introductory chapter for each of the three Vastar siblings. It’s short, but I like that it gives you a chance to play each of the main playable characters.
Download the free Vastar trial version!
And have fun!
Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 3 Comments to Read
HTML5 + WebGL = Quake 2 In Browser, No Plugin?
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
Seeing is kinda believing…
It’ll take a little bit of time for the transition to become complete but… this is very impressive.
Scary impressive.
As in a bunch of standard technologies suddenly going obsolete impressive. It has the potential to be a game-changer. There’s a lot still that would have to come together for that to happen.
We’ll see.
Hat tip to Jeff Tunnell for the link.
Filed Under: General - Comments: Read the First Comment
Game Announcement: Din’s Curse
Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 1, 2010
Okay, ladies and gentlemen — this is the one I’ve been waiting for. Big time. Din’s Curse is now available!
I’d say quit reading and hit the above link and download the free trial version RIGHT NOW, but considering how many people read this blog from work, I will suggest you bookmark it, email yourself the link, and remind you to download it as soon as you get home tonight. You are going to be having some fun this weekend!
So going back in time a bit – I have made no secret of my love for Depths of Peril, the first game in this series (if you can call three very different but connected games a “series”). It was partly because it was such a pleasant surprise. I saw the previews, originally, and thought, “Ugh! Diablo clone! Do we need another of those?” I heard Steven Peeler’s contention that the thing that would be cool would be that the player choices mattered. Bah, hasn’t everybody said that of their RPGs? I’d heard the term, “dynamically generated content” enough to automatically translate it to “randomly generated content.” Ho-hum!
While it wasn’t the holy grail, it far surpassed my expectations and became one of my favorite RPGs. When people ask, “What’s the big deal with indie RPGs?”, I have pointed them to Depths of Peril. While the game wasn’t for everyone, nobody could deny it blazed some new territory.
Peeler’s second indie title, Kivi’s Underworld, was a radical departure to make a more casual-friendly game. Because, frankly, Depths of Peril could be pretty intimidating. Maybe it pushed too many boundaries and drove too far from the comfort zone for people. So Kivi’s Underworld was an effort to re-tool the same engine to make a fun, fast-paced dungeon crawler that could be played in short sessions. With Kivi’s Underworld Peeler showed that he was willing to experiment with the genre / category and do something unique and different with it.
Now Steven Peeler and his one-man-plus-contractors indie game studio, Soldak Entertainment, have come out with the third game set in the same world, using the same engine: Din’s Curse. According to this excellent preview at RPGWatch, Peeler has described it as “Depths of Peril – factions + way more dynamic stuff + lots of world interaction + more random features + prettier + 141 class combinations + co-op multiplayer.” I see it as the best ideas from Depths of Peril, Kivi’s Underworld, and roguelikes.
So setting aside the pedigree, what is Din’s Curse?
In Din’s Curse, you play an adventurer who – in a previous life – was kind of a selfish jerk. So now you are cursed to be the pawn of the god Din, earning back your freedom by being taken from town to town across the world to make amends for your previously down-and-dirty ways. What this means, in practical purposes, is that you get whisked from dynamic adventuring world (a town and dungeon) to another once your job is concluded (one way or the other).
It’s a Diablo-style action-RPG Dungeon-Crawler with unique and dynamically changing environments, strong roguelike influences, and a highly dynamic story / event / quest system.
A “highly dynamic story / event / quest system?” What the heck does that mean?
Okay, in a normal RPG, you might have quests. These may either be designer-created tasks that you need to complete, or sometimes randomly generated tasks like, “Go out and kill ten rats.”
In Din’s Curse, you have some of those randomly generated quests, too. But what really drives the game is events. Quests are based on events, an underlying plotline, and can change and evolve during the course of play. The big bad boss isn’t content to stay down in his lair at the bottom of the dungeon or whatever and wait for you to defeat his plans. His plans roll forward with or without you. And those little side-quests to help the town build up their defenses or whatnot? They aren’t just fooling around. Those come in real handy if you aren’t johnny-on-the-spot in saving the town from it’s upcoming doom. They really can buy you some more time (or at least make your job easier).
The story advances – with or without you. The city is always in one peril or another – from doomsday machines to assassins to plagues to zombification to… well, there’s a lot of disasters to remedy or evil plots to foil. Fail the main storyline, and the town is destroyed and you will be whisked off to another city. Succeed – and you will get to choose when to be whisked off to another city.
But the destruction of a town can come in stages – I’ve found myself in situations where all the merchants of the town had been killed early in the game (by plague or something, I can’t remember) and I had no place to trade gear. I ended up leaving a lot of loot on the ground, intending to choose the best (and most expensive) stuff to the next town when I was done. Unfortunately, I failed – the big bad set an assassin loose on the remaining citizens of the town, and I was still too weak and too slow to stop it. The town was lost, and I was taken to a new city without having a chance to pick up my old gear. That’s just how it goes.
Din was not pleased.
But aside from this, yet more “side events” seem to happen either from your quests or to create your quests. Other adventurers / characters may be down in the dungeon, too, trying to solve the same quests as you. The monsters don’t all get along either – the dungeons of Din’s Curse seem like warzones, as monsters of different kinds battle each other and human victims for supremacy. The good news is that you can take advantage of this and often have to fight wounded opponents. The bad news is that quest NPCs can be killed. Yet more bad news is that the monsters “level up” too from all this combat, becoming more powerful champions and boss-monsters over time.
The entire game-world – quests and everything – evolves as you play. This was a hallmark of Depths of Peril, and it has been improved tenfold in Din’s Curse.
All that, by itself, would make it pretty clear that Din’s Curse has replayability in spades.”But wait!” I say in my best TV Pitch Guy voice, “There’s more!”
There are six full classes that you can play… plus 18 specialties … and 141 different class combinations that you can try. Plus a very flat skill system that allows even further specialization of your character. And you can put literally dozens of hours into every single character as they advance through the game and dozens of towns.
Oh, and there are some additional options. You can set the difficulty level by setting a faster or slower-paced game, and setting the starting level of the monsters relative to your own. And there are two special game modes available as well: Cursed, and Hardcore. In cursed mode, your character is only allowed to use cursed magic items. This isn’t as bad as it seems – cursed items are generally pretty nice magic items, but saddled with some kind of limitation. Then there’s hardcore mode – where you aren’t allowed to use any shared “common” items from your other characters, and perma-death.
There are all kinds of traps. Lots of them, in some dungeons. Secret areas. Intelligent weapons with egos that hinder their use in some situations. Cave-ins. All kinds of dynamic stuff in dungeons… which sometimes the smarter monsters know how to use to their advantage. While variety is nothing new in these kinds of games – it’s actually critical to their success – Din’s Curse often goes just a step or two further.
Oh, and remember – while whacking on destroyable items is a lot of fun, don’t try and destroy a support column with a melee weapon. It will only lead to tears.
And then there’s cooperative multiplayer. I haven’t even tried this one yet. I want to. Everything is more fun with friends, and this was the missing ingredient in Depths of Peril.
I’ve put several hours into this game over the beta (carefully rationed, as I totally realize that it’s actually a secret weapon to eliminate their indie competition by addicting them to this game so they can’t finish their own…), but I still haven’t come close to seeing everything. Sure, by this time the monsters are pretty familiar (as they have been since Depths of Peril), and I’ve seen several basic plots and dungeon styles revisited. But so far, the feel and development of every adventure has been different. I’m constantly amused finding something else new, some new wrinkle that appears as either a carefully placed situation in the design, or as some kind of emergent gameplay element that resulted from all these things acting and being acted upon.
Part of me is worried now about somehow over-hyping Din’s Curse. It’s still not the holy grail. It’s not perfect. And it definitely won’t appeal to everyone. But another part of me is just gobsmacked by its awesomeness. It’s fun. It’s original. It’s exciting. It feels like it was written just for me – as though Soldak Entertainment trolled through my old emails and blog posts and compiled a shopping list of all the things I’d wished this type of game would do, and used that for a design doc. Maybe in another twenty or thirty hours of play I’ll come up with some more harsh criticisms of the game – but this ain’t a review, and I’ve gone on way too long as it is.
But for now, I’m entirely serious when I say that Diablo III has its work cut out for it to top this game. It will likely be cleaner, prettier, and more streamlined, with more environments. But more entertaining? That’s a tall order. I can only hope. But there’s no rush. I think I’m going to be playing Din’s Curse for quite a while.
Download Din’s Curse and try it for free today!
Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: Read the First Comment
April Fools Contest Reminder
Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 31, 2010
Want some free games? You still have until tomorrow night to get in your one-liner entries for “Why Indie Games Rock.” Technically, the game ends at midnight mountain time – but why wait until the last second?
April Fools Game Giveaway – No Joke!
I have been loving the entries into the contest so far – they’ve ranged from hilarious to saddening to astute to droll. I’m gonna have a tough time choosing already, but there’s plenty of room for more competition! There’s no limit to the number of entries you can provide.
Filed Under: Free Games - Comments: Comments are off for this article
Game Announcement: Millennium 2 – Take Me Higher
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
One of the problems with sequestering myself for about three months or so to focus on Frayed Knights and not adding any new games to the Rampant Games store is that I miss about five hundred releases from Aldorlea Games. Like the second game in their popular Millennium series. The new one is entitled, “Millennium 2 – Take Me Higher.” It continues the story of young Marine’s political career, in a world in which politics is almost entirely about epic adventuring and kicking butt than about backroom deals and posturing to the public and muckraking. Huh. I like that idea! I would totally take a career in politics in the real world if that was what it was about!
Marine must continue her race against time to gather the thirteen warriors – and also find her mother, aid her father, and defeat eight animal kings. The new game features forty quests, thirty-two secret rooms, four difficulty levels, nine playable characters, and beautiful artwork and music.
Now, I had a minor nitpick or two with the first game. But a more important problem is the title. I can never remember how many ‘n’s to put in the word, “Millennium.” This has haunted me for years, and it is a serious issue when I’m trying to coordinate screenshots and stuff, because I may spell ‘millennium’ differently every single time. But I think I may have grown as a person because of it.
Anyway, the game includes all kinds of improvements – like mouse control – as Aldorlea Games is turning into a pretty powerful RPG shop and refining their work. Their quality and polish has increased with every game. It makes me wonder “how?!?!?!?” Besides the fact that they are starting with RPG Maker – while it no doubt eases the burden significantly, that’s still a lot of game to write.
One thing about indie RPG “series” that always causes me to hesitate is the concern about whether or not the series will actually reach its conclusion. That’s not a given with indie developers. Actually, that’s not a given with mainstream developers, either — I have more than one mainstream game that promised to be part of a series that never materialized. But with a more mature company like Aldorlea, there’s really not much risk of ending on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved.
Millennium 2 – Take Me Higher can be played by itself, but I’d recommend starting with the first game for maximum enjoyment. And – as in the new Aveyond series, you can import your equipment over from the first game for more of a true carry-over in this direct sequel.
Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: Read the First Comment
Game Announcement: Slay
Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 30, 2010
Wow. Now I remember why I keep slacking off when it comes to putting new games up on the website. It’s a lot of work! But I’m still trucking along, trying to get a new game up there each day this week. Today’s game is not in any way “new.” In fact, it’s a classic – the turn-based strategy game Slay.
I discovered Slay a few years ago as a recommendation from Steve Taylor of NinjaBee Games. At first, I wasn’t impressed – the graphics looked like they belonged in the 8-bit world (and indeed: The game first appeared back in the 8-bit era as an Atari ST game called “Battle Hex.”
The rules seemed ridiculously straightforward. A collection of hexes under your control generate income. With it you buy (and maintain) a soldier unit. A soldier unit protects the hexes it is near from another soldier unit of equal or less strength. The more powerful soldiers cost more upkeep, and any unit dies if their upkeep demands are not maintained. So lesser units can defeat a stronger unit by cutting off their territory. Throw in castles, capitals, and a rule that ruined capitals and dead units eventually become undergrowth (trees) that will spread and reduce your income from those hexes unless controlled, and that’s pretty much the whole game.
I thought it would hold my attention for… what? Maybe an hour? Hah! Silly me. I should have known better.
The latest version of the game includes tools to create new islands, easily add themes (if you get tired of the standard graphics), and to play against other players over the Internet. Just in case the AI on the hardest difficulty level isn’t hard enough for you (it clobbers me!).
If you are at all interested in turn-based strategy games, I recommend downloading a copy of Slay and giving it a try. I think, like me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised…
Filed Under: Strategy Games - Comments: Comments are off for this article
Game Announcement – Lilly and Sasha: Curse of the Immortals
Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 29, 2010
Okay, the first “game of the day” this week is John Wizard Games’ Lilly and Sasha: Curse of the Immortals. This is the first of a planned three-part “Lilly and Sasha” series of indie RPGs. You may remember John Wizard Games’ first release, Dawn’s Light, which I thought was all kinds of awesome based on it’s very comfortable, approachable style and snarky humor.
Lilly and Sasha offers even more polish, improvements, and humor.
And lots and lots of puzzles:
Check it out – download the free trial today.
Lilly and Sasha: Curse of the Immortals
Filed Under: General - Comments: Read the First Comment
April Fool’s Game Giveaway – No Joke!
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
Okay. It’s the week of April Fool’s Day, which normally means really obnoxious blog jokes that usually drive me crazy. It’s also the week of my birthday (this coming Friday, if’n you must know, and I’ll be old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway…), which is probably why I have a low patience for April Fool’s Day.
So to break with tradition, I’m offering a game give-away contest. Finally, something to look forward to this week! I will buy the contest-winner a game of their choice which I affiliate at Rampant Games.
So here’s the contest. I’d like to do a post with people’s silly little ideas of “X Reasons Why Indie Games Rock.” 101 reasons, if we can swing it. I’d like you guys to help come up with that list. I’m looking for little one liners that may be pithy, poignant, silly, sarcastic, but most of all entertaining. From your perspective. Stuff like:
Indie Games Rock Because:
- Big Pixels are Sexy!
- They aren’t afraid of letting you play it before deciding to pay for it.
- The next time I’m locked inside somebody’s hotel room, I’ll be fully trained on how to escape!
Please include your alias / nickname (I’ll be attributing each one, if I can), and your email address so I can contact you if you win. Submissions must be received by the end of the day on April 1st, and I’ll announce the winner the next day. And – naturally – anything you submit to me comes with the implicit permission to post it on a blog post. Address emails to me (I’m jayb and can be accessed via rampantgames.com) with the subject “Contest Entry”, and feel free to include more than one entry in a single email. Alternately, you can PM me on the Rampant Games Forums.
The winner will chosen by an entirely partial and opinionated and unfair judge – ME. In the case of duplicate (or extremely similar) submissions, I’ll go with whichever one I received first.
I will buy the winner any digital download from the Rampant Games website. (Yes, I’m just an affiliate, so I do have to buy ’em too…) Plus I’ll throw in a couple of licenses of Void War, because I can. Plus a copy each for two runners-up. If any other game devs wish to contribute additional prizes or something, feel free. But this isn’t a big, formal contest – just something fun and goofy I came up with this weekend.
In addition – I’ve fallen WAY behind in getting games up on the website. I’ve been focused on Frayed Knights development and neglecting my other duties. So — all this week (and possibly beyond) I will be putting up a new indie game up on the website. They won’t necessarily be brand new ones, just ones that fell through the cracks. And no, this has almost nothing to do with the contest, other than there being more to choose from as the days go by…
So – send me your one-liners on why indie games rock! I may buy you an indie game of your choice!
Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 7 Comments to Read
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