After Action Reporter

I’m currently quite addicted to the Song of Ice and Fire series, I’m dreading finishing book 5, which will happen soon, as I won’t know quite how to entertain myself any more! But, one thing I could try perhaps, is this Westeros mod for Crusader Kings. Only problem? Crusader Kings doesn’t really work in Windows 7. So sad. But, I suppose I can live vicariously through AARs until the inevitable Crusader Kings 2 Westeros mod!

Had this AAR recommended to me and I have to say – it’s bloody brilliant. Read the tragic story of Billy, indentured serf to the evil master of camp Animal Crossing. Will he find out what is really going on? Or will a terrible fate await him? Have a read!

Awww, the latest beta patch invalidates my Dredmor save! Oh well. But, if you want to check out some more Dredmor goodness then I recommend these YouTube videos. Paul does a great job of showing off the game and there are plenty more videos on Minecraft and Terraria as well!

After two terrible game failures it is time I really, truly, don’t die and get past the first couple of rooms in this thing! So, with this lofty goal in mind I’m going to roll some kind of wizard. It will be awesome!

I’ve made Gandalf, a character who can use staves, engages in fleshsmithing (no idea!), mathemagic, promethean magic, has good perception, is a lay walker (recovers mana more quickly) and is an alchemist! Sounds super effective if you ask me, and yes, I’ve got no idea what half those skills do.

First thing first – BURNINATION! It seems I have an awesome AOE spell that sets the floor on fire and does some damage to those damn Diggles. I burninate a few, but also catch the damn sickness one of the damn Diggles has. It gives me some negatives and I hope it goes away soon.

I also have a spell to speed up healing and… creepily, add more flesh (for ablative purposes) and a spell that will teleport me, if need be. Handy.

BURN DIGGLE, BURN!

After wandering around bashing Diggles and bats and NOT DYING, something amazing happens! I LEVEL UP!

I CAN HAZ DING!

I decide to level my staves skill (which adds a magical damage component) as I am still dealing most of my damage this way and am too low on mana or mana regen to focus entirely on my spell damage.

Gandalf has a big wand. Get it? Get it?!

The next time I cross a Diggle I decide to try a wand that has been hanging around in my inventory on the thing. ZAP! The Arcane Wand infects it with a magical DOT! Neat! I run away from the Diggle and it dies as it tries to chase me. I then breeze past and…. yes, I step on the infected corpse and pick up the damn infection myself! I eat some food to add some healing and the infection expires before I die, phew.

I also drank from a fountain and gained the Power of Plaid, which provides pretty neato magic and other sorts of protection for a few turns. Handy. I never knew plaid was so potent.

After some more adventures I discover the Goddess of Sidequests who tasks me with, well, finding a magical hammer?

I shall find the Magic Hammer!

A few creatures later I level again! This time I add another level to my mana regen power. I NEED MORE MAGICS!

I just took this shot to show the flames, FLAMES EVERYWHERE!

BURN THEM ALL!

I ding again and level up my fiery skill and get a fiery trap!

Anyway, more exploring and more looting leads me, eventually, to a terrible beast (that leapt out of a box labelled “Evil Chest”, go figure!)

A terrifying beast!

But don’t fear, dear reader, a combination of trap spells, wands and general bad-assery sees the beasty off!

Victollly!

And with the defeat of the evil AI-powered beasty, Level 1 of the dungeon is basically complete! How awesome!

I’ll continue onwards tomorrow in a new blog post.

After my terrible performance in my first run through the Dungeons of Dredmor beta it is time I try again! This time, since it was traps that got me last time, I’m making some sneaky rogue type. I don’t want to die to traps again!

So, Bilbo Baggins is created! He has swords, archery, dual wielding, artful dodger, deadshot, burglary, and finally, perception. I’m not quite sure what all of these will do, but they sound pretty sneaky and that’s what I’m aiming for.

Within seconds the game intrigues. I have a Lutefisk Statue to which I can tithe lutefisk! My first quest shall be to seek and find lutefisk to receive the lutefisk blessing!

Lutefisk for the Lutefisk god!

I open a door to be faced with many nasty Diggles, and a bat-thing!

Die, Diggles, die!

I kill two before my health dips too low and I back out of the room, closing a door behind me giving me time to regen my health.

It is then I realise, after eating all my food, that I’ve got no idea how I can wait around and regen health. Faced with few choices, I open the door and charge the creatures.

I can’t say it ends well.

Dead in under 3 minutes. Oops!

Dungeons of Dredmor is a new roguelike currently in development by Gas Lamp Games. If you’re a fan of Dwarf Fortress, or reading this because I’ve written about Dwarf Fortress, you should keep reading as both games share a common heritage and Dredmore is sure to tickle your fancy!

Dredmor, unlike many roguelikes, eschews simple ASCII text representations of stuff for graphics and a good dose of humour. The game still has depth, like a lot of roguelikes, but also has a little of that graphical gravy we’ve all come to love. It’s also lethal, as a good roguelike should be, and I expect to die many times before I get to grips with it.

To share the fun of losing I’m going to liveblog my first game and share with you some observations!

Character Creation

Character creation is relatively simply. Chose seven skills from a list of 36. Being able to mix-and-match interesting combinations should make for a lot of variety. Oh, I’m also playing permadeath!

Dungeons of Dredmore character creation

Since I am made of sex and awesome I chose axes, dual wielding, berserker, master of arms, Viking magic, master of arms, assassination and finally, vampirism. The axes and dual wielding, assassination (crit strike) and berserker should synergize well and make me a killing machine. Viking magic, I don’t know, it sounds great! Who wouldn’t want to be a magical Viking! master of arms gives me some unknown defensive powers and vampirism lets me regain health from sucking on the dead. Hey, I plan for there to be a lot of the dead to suck on! My hero, who I shall name “Erik the Vikin” (not enough characters for a “g”. aww), is going to rock some dungeon!

Game Start

I’m trapped in a jail cell. Oh no! Someone did drop a ring of +a bit of armor (I think). So I add it to my character sheet. There’s a dispenser in the room, but I’m broke. I’m informed that this is the Wizardly Tower of Breakfast Cereals. Looks like I’ve been right all these years to never trust grain-based breakfast products.

Dungeons of Dredmor - the starting jail

I kick down a door to escape because that’s how hard I am. Egad, what is this! Small creatures awake and attack!

Dungeon of Dredmor - exploring

I kick them also!

With these pitiful creatures quickly dispatched I explore the dungeon and continue exploring, dispatching a few more critters before discovering a shop! Pity I am broke. Oh, I also discovered that, as I am a vampire, I can’t eat food to recover health, I can only recover health by bashing creatures. And maybe potions? Oh well. This could be tricky.

RPG fans love to shop!

Continuing onwards I bash another diggle (the creature thing) before something terrible happens! I step on a trap.

And die.

Hmm.

You R Dead

I did wonder why that dungeon tile looked a little different… and I was a bit low on health… Heck, better try again!

But for now, other duties call. Next time I’ll try and survive longer than five minutes.

In the last entry I started exploring Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and managed to acquire many, many bags. This time lets have a look at other bits and pieces of the game. First up, the amazing world of harvesting!

Read more…

A vast, empty landscape stretches before Pus Pus, my Cat-Thing Psionist. Clouds swirl overhead, slipping across a starlit but moonless sky. Sparse trees dot a distant shore. Harmless bug-things scurry about in the brush. Where am I? Playing Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Why am I playing a game that was declared brain dead in December 2009 by the medical experts at Sony Online?

Because I must.

I must explore dying worlds, I must go where no one goes any more and I must bring the story of these empty expanses of crushed developer dreams, of endless fan tears, to you, my dear readers, in the hope that when the money finally runs out and these worlds are switched off for good we may look back fondly on these adventures and say to ourselves “surely that game was worthy of a better write-up than what this hack produced?”.

Read more…

“Someone” has written a nice Baldur’s Gate letsplay! Remember that wonderful RPG from when we were all young and innocent? There are four parts up right now and if you feel like a trip down memory lane then I recommend giving it a read!

If you’ve not heard of Minecraft yet then where have you been? It has rapidly gathered a lot of indie game design love from people around the world, so much so that the developer, Notch, is reportedly having to convince PayPal that $600,000 is really the kind of money a same game developer can earn!

In essence, Minecraft is Dwarf Fortress as a single-player 3D experience (though you can collaboratively build on multiplayer servers as well). It’s very much a sandbox game and one with enough charm and sense of discovery to make the game a real experience, even at this early stage of development (Notch considers it an Alpha).

If you want to learn more than the good folks over at RockPaperShotgun are here to help you. They have started a new player AAR that is well worth the read. Start at the bottom of that page and work your way up. It’s a good read and it’s a great wee game!