The Entropy Pump

Rather old demo for an abandoned RPGMaker game. This one has roughly 40 to 50 minutes gameplay, but none of it really exiting. The story is generic fantasy, the set-up a small isle where a hero has to clean out some local dungeons and this sets in motion events against the bigger evil (the Profound Shadow, as far as cliches go this one doesn’t sound too bad). The writing ranges from weak to average, but it’s not bad in an overt way that makes it cringe-inducing. Once you’ve done everything on the small island, you leave and the whole demo finishes.

Overall, nothing really outstanding, only RTP-graphics, the level design is a bit on the blocky side and the random battle encounter rate can drive you mad. A perfect example for what the RPGMaker was initially intended, creating amateurish games that still manage some level of entertainment.

The demo can be downloaded here.

The RPGMaker scene is littered with failed and abandoned projects, some of them quite interesting. Fallenwood feels like someone played Baldur’s Gate and then tried to recreate his experience with the RPGMaker engine. The Fallenwood demo, which amounts to roughly 20 to 30 minutes of gameplay, has a similar setup to Baldur’s Gate, even your mentor has a similar sounding name. Some of character pictures look like they were actually taken from BG, but I’m not completely sure. Fallenwood comes as close to a western cRPG experience you’ll likely get with the RPGMaker engine. There are optional side-quest, dialog-trees and the feel of the demo reminds me of old AD&D cRPGs. There are no random battle encounters, the bane of most jRPGs, and the whole thing has a very polished feel. Sadly, after you leave the first village and the woods there’s not much you can do anymore and you’ll get stuck.

The demo can be downloaded here.

Spelunky by Derek Yu is another hard platformer. It’s not in the same category as MoneySeize or I Wanna Be The Guy, but it’ll be challenging enough for most players who have grown up with instant save and health items being freely distributed. In Spelunky you’ll play a Indiana Jones-lookalike (or someone who looks like the main character from La-Mulana, which was an inspiration for Spelunky) who has to explore randomly-generated levels. While pretty common in RPGs (roguelikes, Diablo-clones), it’s pretty rare in platformers.

The main gameplay consists of going through four levels of a set (a typical cave, a jungle environment and so on), collecting money and trying not to die. Dying is easy. Not only are there monsters around trying to kill you, you can easily kill yourself by falling from heights, jumping on spikes or by playing with bombs. Even stuff you throw against a wall, a stone or a dart, can knock down your limited number of hit points. So why play the game? It’s very, very addictive. The randomly generated levels make each descent different, the gameplay never becomes boring and once you’ve played a bit the difficulty becomes much more manageable. Did I already say it’s addictive. Pure digital crack. I wager it’ll be one of the few games I can still play in a decade without getting bored. Real staying power and limitless fun.

While commercial games have been getting easier with each new generation, fans of older games lament the absence of real challenge; games that make you haul your keyboard against the wall in frustration. Fortunately the freeware scene has filled that gap, as far as platformers are concerned (RPGs always had the sprawling, if pretty contained, roguelikes scene). Some of these fiendishly difficult platformers come from Matt Thorson.

His latest is MoneySeize, where you have to collect coins in each level to make a tower grow. Some of the later levels can only be assessed if your tower has grown high enough. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds. If you’ve played any of Thorson’s earlier games, you’ll know what to expect. Make one mistake and you’re dead. And there’s plenty of dying, before you get a modicum of success. While the first few levels are pretty easy, most of the later ones are anything but. I haven’t finished the game and I have no idea if I ever will (not that I had much success with other games by Matt, the only one I managed to beat was Jumper 3). You have to spend a long time until the controls of the game become second nature. Only then you have a chance of getting anywhere. The game can be daunting, but it’s never impossible, even if it looks like. And despite being highly frustrating it’s also highly addictive, making you come back again and again.

YouTube: Level 1-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-34, 35, 36-40, Secret Levels

I’ve planned to complete Baldur’s Gate for some time now. Actually, since it was first published. I’ve started it a few times since then, but never managed to come far and finish it. That had less to do with the game itself than real life (work especially) taking over. This time I managed to push through and finish it.

First overall impression: not exactly fulfilling my expectations, but a good game, if not a great game, in its own right. While I generally say that Planescape Torment is my favourite RPG, that only applies for strongly narrative-driven RPG. As far as gameplay in a CRPG is concerned, my hat would go to Fallout. When Fallout was published I was completely overwhelmed by the game. Fallout had brilliant game mechanics, among them a near-perfect skill system, an unmatched round-based battle system with targeted hits and a true choice & consequence system with excellent dialog options that impacted the finish of each play.

I somehow got the impression that Baldur’s Gate was something similar in a fantasy environment (Arcanum better fits that bill) and even my few tries at playing the game did not completely strip me off that illusion. Sure, the battle system was real-time and the skill system only combat-related, but the dialog could have allowed the same freedom that Fallout did. Well, let’s go into each aspect of the game. I have nothing per se against real-time battles, but Baldur’s Gate made me really wish it had a round-based system. I went through the game rarely using magic, since giving anyone a melee weapon easily killed of most of the enemies (a simple tactic I learned from, of all games, Dungeon Siege). The few spells I actually used were healing and some entangling spells.

When I lost battles, it had often more to do with horrible pathfinding of the game than actually with my characters not up to the challenge. The pathfinding in Baldur’s Gate is an especially sore spot that more than once managed to make me quit in frustration. Very badly done and often with devastating effects in battles, the worse when you were constrained by tight corridors. The dungeons were another sore spot. Combined with the pathfinding issues traversing them was a pain in the ass. Most of the dungeons in Baldur’s Gate gave me the impression that they were designed not for a party of characters, but for a single character. I can’t remember any other RPG with a similar design (the two Fallouts, Arcanum, not even Planescape) that gave me any of the problems I had in Baldur’s Gate.

There are some other problems with the game, especially how the story unfolds. There’s a long, slow crawl through countless minor regions, until the plot really takes off when you reach the city of Baldur’s Gate. All of that gives the impression that I really disliked the game, which isn’t actually true. It’s just a typical case of wrong expectations. The game can’t hold a candle to Fallout; it’s more conservative and old-school than that. But compared to older CRPGs, like the Gold Box games or similar titles, it has a superior interface which really makes this one more fun to play in comparison. That it also looks much better helped too. While far from being perfect, it’s a fine game, as long as you don’t expect some masterwork.

Tales of the Sword Coast (1999)

TotSC is a neat addition to the main game, adding a few more areas (a small hamlet east of Baldur’s Gate, Durlag’s Tower far to the south-east and an island with werewolves). Especially Durlag’s Tower is a real challenge, full of traps, puzzles and neat enemies. If you don’t have a thief in your party, the tower will be especially formidable. While none of the new areas is truly essential, it’s a good expansion. You even learn something about what happened to the founder of Baldur’s Gate, which is really nifty.

This is actually the fusion of two games: Might & Magic 4: Clouds of Xeen (1992) and Might & Magic 5: Darkside of Xeen (1993) enhanced with digital speech and published together on a CD (although that was not needed, fusing the disk versions of the two games was also possible; I just like the CD version of the game). Both games use the engine of the third part Isle of Terra and have a lot in common with that and the two earlier games. World of Xeen is the conclusion of the Corak/Sheltem storyline, that began with the first Might & Magic. While fantasy games on the surface, underneath it’s all science fiction. The real story is that of Sheltem, a rogue creation of the Ancient creating trouble on a number of Worlds, all of them artificial (which is something you’ll only realize in hindsight, not something that is obvious from the game start).

A short look at the game(s) gives the impression of playing a real time block-mode game like Eye of the Beholder: enemies can be seen from afar and come slowly closer. Once you get the hang of the game you’ll realize that this impression was wrong. Enemies only react to what you’re doing and the whole combat is round-based. Combat, as you’ll find out, is a major part of the whole Might & Magic experience. This is something of a refined old-school PC RPG. Most of the time, while exploring the overworld or the dungeons of the game, you’re fighting countless number of enemies (no respawning, which is always nice) and collect clues for a number of (partly inane) puzzles. There’s no dialog system nor do you have much choice and consequences. Fight, groom your characters, solve puzzles, and find the bad, big boss.

The most distinctive element of the game is the art direction. Some enemies look quite well designed while others are plain ridiculous. If your characters are poisoned or otherwise inflicted, their faces show a grimace that is hard to take seriously. If you hit enemies they likewise show a pained face that’s more fun than gore. The world in Might & Magic has nothing of the complex and rich history of other RPGs; it’s all about covering the basics: a fire dungeon, an ice dungeon, a desert, a dungeon with dragons and so on. Despite the lack of depth, the games are pure fun if you manage to appreciate the light hearted atmosphere. And the challenge of the game is quite modest and there’s countless stuff to do (the fusion of part four and five adds even some dungeons and another final ending). Overall World of Xeen is my favorite Might & Magic (with the third one a close second).