Rampant Gaming!

Coyote · Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject: Indie RPGs Eating My Time!

*Finally* bought Knights of the Chalice (time + budget constraints made it take a bit). So I've been going through the full campaign. It's definitely got the power to suck up the time FAST. That's usually a good sign for a game for me.

Another one I'm getting into a lot which is more fun and involving as I keep playing is Deadly Sin. It's been growing on me. I still have a long way to go on it, but I'm enjoying it.
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cowgod · Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject:

You can get the entire Geneforge saga (5 games) on 1 CD for $75, and it's 10% off for the month of October. At present, I only own the first game, but I plan to eventually buy the entire saga.

I'm trying to decide whether to buy it now or postpone it until next October. I'm not buying a new computer until December and likely won't install any new games before then. My 5-year-old laptop has been suffering from severe Windows rot for the last year or so.

In any case, the next indie games I buy will probably be Kudos 2 (not an RPG) and the Geneforge series. I also want to play some games that I already have but can't reasonably run on my current computer any more.

The Knights of the Chalice website makes it sound really cool, but the graphics repel me a little bit. I'm not too interested in console-ish game like Deadly Sin, which is weird because I'm programming a console-ish game now. (Ok, I admit that I wanted to work on a more PC-ish game, but certain difficulties are forcing it to be more console-ish.)

I've been playing a "free" Flash RPG called Dragon Fable. It's a little bit under-featured, but it actually runs on my computer. It has a couple of cool features, but it's basically a repetitive dungeon crawl. It makes an effort to annoy you by causing you some minor nuisances unless you spend real money to buy a dragon amulet, which I'm not going to do.

Anyway, that's just my 2.5 cents.

Coyote · Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:18 pm Post subject:

So I take it you weren't a fan of Ultima VI and VII? They had pretty similar graphics (at least perspective-wise).
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cowgod · Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:01 pm Post subject:

Not really.

But it's not the perspective I don't like. Or, at least, I don't think it is. I just think the artwork is poorly drawn in all 3 cases.

I liked the artwork in Ultima 8, though that was a different perspective. I use to actually own Ultima 8, though I didn't enjoy it at all. I haven't liked any Ultima game I've played all that much.

Bad Sector · Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:34 pm Post subject:

Coyote · Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject:

That's kinda the issue with the "fake 3D" viewpoints. Because the artwork doesn't recede properly with perspective as it should, it always looks askew and incorrect.

The thing with the Ultima VI, Ultima VII, and Knights of the Chalice perspective is that it makes a straight line "up" be a perfect diagonal from upper-left to lower right. So an object occupying the same X, Y position but up 1 unit vector will be positioned at (x-1, y-1) in screen-space.

Makes the math easy for positioning stuff, but yeah - some people don't like the perspective. It makes everybody and everything all diagonal-looking.

I like it, but probably more because I'm used to it and it brings back fond memories of old games.

And from my playing around with some U7 images with the Torque 2D engine:

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cowgod · Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:43 am Post subject:

I have now purchased the entire Geneforge Saga on 1 CD.

I don't actually have it yet, but I will most likely get it in the mail next week.

There was also an offer to buy Nethergate: Ressurection for $15 that came up when I was trying to finish my order, so I bought that too.

I'm probably set game-wise for at least a year.

I'm playing Geneforge 1 (which I already owned) right now. Having played the game several times previously, I'm pretty much mopping the floor with all the in-game enemies. It's a simple matter of figuring which areas have enemies I can beat, killing them all, and collecting all the canisters.

Coyote · Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:45 am Post subject:

Only one year?

I think my current back-log could take me two years. And will probably take me more, since I try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to limit my time playing them. Laughing

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cowgod · Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:02 am Post subject:

I don't have that much time to play games, but I've found that I'm making time to play Geneforge. I'm also moving through the game at a breakneck pace because I've played it enough times to know where to go and what to do.

I might play the game 2 hours in a day, but I beat 6 areas during that time.

I don't think I'm ever going to finish Arcanum. Even when I get my new computer, I don't think I'm going to play it that much. It just isn't as fun as Geneforge.

I am eventually going to play Heroes of Might & Magic V again. I could only play up to a certain point on the computer I have now. The computer I'm getting this year should be able to handle just about anything (except possibly Spiderman Web of Shadows).

My game programming isn't coming along half so well as my game playing though. Sad