- I dedicate this post to the two brave souls who helps me defeat the Belfry Gargoyles for the very first time last night. You will never be forgotten, though I've already forgotten your Xbox user names.
- Dark Souls has occupied an inordinate amount of my attention lately. It started last week when Vinny Caravella from Giant Bomb decided to stream his return to the game. (I would embed them, but the videos are subscriber only.) That got me looking for speed runs on YouTube. That video got me looking for Let's Play videos.
- And that led to me playing Dark Souls Sunday night. I looked at my achievements. It has been nearly two years since I last played the game. Even after watching the videos, I couldn't remember how to control or play my character, so it was time to roll up someone new. Instead of playing it by ear, I followed the bog standard recommended build a rolled a pyromancer with the master key.
- Wow, those Let's Play people make this game look easy. I played through the Undead Asylum pretty quickly since it is straightforward once you know the layout. Even with all of the video training, the Asylum Demon killed me on my first attempt. But, practice make perfect, right?
- On my first character, those two years ago, I ended up spending a lot of time farming the Undead Burg for souls. This time, since I was more confident in what I was doing, I moved through the zone with greater speed. After clearing the zone to the best of my abilities, charged right in to take on the Taurus Demon.
- And he killed me. Over and over again. I swear, they make it look so easy in the videos! But down he went down eventually. One of the things they don't tell you about Dark Souls is that death is actually liberating. Once you've been killed and you've lost your souls on hand (souls are currency and experience all rolled into one), you are free to just pile your enemies under your corpses until they no longer stand. As long as you can persevere, you can find a way to defeat your enemies.
- I wasn't about to end there. In my prior attempt, I never got very far into the Undead Parish. But I was confident that I could do better. I continued on. Past the rats, past hollows of all sorts, past the fang boar. Finally, I ascended the church and, with the two other players I mentioned earlier, I defeated the Gargoyles. Ringing the first Bell of Awakening was a huge achievement for me, something that seemed like a distant goal when I first started playing.
- When I turned off my Xbox for the night, I compared my save games. My new character was level 22 in under four hours. My old character was level 25 in over ten hours. I had accomplished more in one night than I ever did when I played back in 2011. No, I did not do it the right way. I watched all the videos and I followed the wikis. But I had fun doing it. Don't let the perceived difficulty dissuade you. If I can get this far in Dark Souls, I suspect anyone can.
© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- Mythic announced today that they will be shutting down Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning effective December 18, 2013. In three months time, one of the premier MMO punching bags will be consigned to that great server in the sky.
- I was caught up in the madness of Warhammer blogging. I was already too established for that. But even my aloofness was not enough to keep me away from the maelstrom that was the game's launch. WAR was going to be all things to all people. It ended up being some things for some people, some times.
- There are lessons to be had, of course. And I may even, take the time to write some down. But until then, we should say a fond farewell to a game that has given us very much, and everyone who worked so hard on it.
- Hat tip to Syp for the news.
© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- I'm going to tell you a secret. If you want to sell me something, magically make it appear when I ask about it. I went to the local game store Friday just to see what was new. I didn't expect to actually buy anything, an issue of White Dwarf at most. But then I made an offhand comment that it looked like the Pathfinder game must be hard to keep on the shelf. She said that it was, but that she'd received another shipment today. She walked over to a cardboard box, cut it opened, and pulled the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game from the packing peanuts. Once I had it in my hands, it was very hard to say no. It was also hard to say no to the Character Add-On Deck, because dumber isn't much different from dumb, right?
- Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is an RPG boiled down into card form. You, as the player, choose a character, build a starting card deck of weapons, armor, and the like (the types and amounts based on the character), and select a scenario to play. The base game allows one to four players, but you can go up to six with the add-on. Each scenario lists the villains and the locations for each quest, and each location lists the amount of each card type in its deck. On your turn, flip the top card of the blessing deck (which acts as a doomsday clock), decide whether to move your character to a new location, and then encounter the top card of the location deck. The goal of most of the scenarios is to corner the main villain by cutting off avenues of escape and defeating them.
- One of the main reasons I bought PACG is that it was supposed to play well as a single player game. So after I cracked open the box, read the rules, and sorted the cards (which I actually did in that order), I started my first adventure. Then the next day I played my second. Then the next day I played the third. And now, like my favorite video games, I can't get it out of my head.
- For such a stripped down system, I love how the card interactions evoke fantasy adventure so well. In the final basic scenario, Black Fang's Dungeon, the three locations are Shrine of Lamashtu, Temple, and Desecrated Vault. The order could have been chosen haphazardly, but I don't think so. In my mind, the Shrine, though some distance away, sits in opposition to the Temple. And through its dark magics, the denizens of the Shrine have desecrated the Vault under the shrine, causing all manor of evil to rise from its bowels.
- And then there are the character powers. Without any amount of description, the basis of the powers is immediately evident. My rogue has two primary powers. First, the ability to evade any encounter is a perfect implementation of a rogue's stealth capability. Second, the ability to add an extra die to combat checks when your character is alone at a location is obviously a sneak attack. I'm all for better story telling in games, but sometimes mechanics tell the best stories on their own.
- Because each character deck is really a resource management system, making decisions about how and when to use your cards is vital. That is why the one thing I really like is the various card use mechanics: Reveal, Recharge, Discard, Bury, and Banish. Reveal just means to show that the card is in your hand. Recharge means to play it face down under your draw pile, so that it may come up again. Discard means to place in the discard pile, though various cards (i.e. healing) allow you access to these. Bury means to discard under your character card, putting them out of play for the rest of the game. Banish means to discard to the box, leaving your deck permenantly. Such a wide range of options makes each card play a strategic choice.
- Here is my rogue. She fought off the bandits, she saved the city from a mad alchemist, and she slew the dragon, Black Fang. And yet, the most difficult choice of the game to make: which skill do I chose for her new feat? It has been a couple days now and I still don't know!
© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
- It's that time of year (again). Voting for the 2013 Windhammer Prize for Short Gamebook Fiction has started.
- This year there are fourteen entries. One of them, The Independence Job, is mine. It's a pulp crime novel set in the 1950's and I'm very proud of it. (With a hearty thanks to Blue Kae for helping out.) Once again, I would love your vote, but so would the thirteen others. You have to vote for three entries this year, so mine and two others wouldn't be that bad, right?
- Above all, I want to invite you to check out some great writing and play some fun gamebooks. They're all short, but you are likely to find one/a few/several that you will enjoy.
© 2013 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
