by loafingcoyote » Sun Jan 27, 2013 12:11 pm
Cyberganked (proof of concept) by Robb Sherwin
To prepare for this review I decided to do a quick replay of The Bard's Tale. I've discovered that a quick replay of The Bard's Tale isn't possible and in fact turned into an ordeal that lasted nearly three weeks. Despite the fact that I have a ton of non-Bard's Tale things to do, I couldn't pull myself away from it. I had forgotten how addicting that game is.
You might wonder why, with the huge amount of IF I have to catch up on, all the games I need to update, the several Hugo extensions that I will get ready for the archive this year and the many reviews I still have to write...why would I spend 2+ weeks of precious free time playing a game that I remember more than two decades later as being often frustrating and sometimes tedious?
The answer is that the concept is brilliant. The game is fun and flexible in ways that so many others of the era aren't. Did one of your low level characters get killed and you can't afford to resurrect him? No sweat, just make another one! Do you want to add a monk to your advanced party and need to level him up quickly? There are 396 berserkers in Harkyn's castle that can help with that. Even the combat messages, which are just simplistic so and so hits a hobgoblin for 2 points of damage are entertaining. Don't ask me why, they just are.
Just playing with all the combinations of character race and class is engaging. It was, and still is, a game that's fun to play with. It's not open ended, by any means, but sometimes feels that way since treasures and enemies re-spawn and the player isn't under any particular time constraints.
Of course, not every aspect of The Bard's Tale is positive. Many of the dungeon areas are extremely complex labyrinths. You are very likely to get lost even in areas that you are familiar with and some of the mazes have so many dark areas, blind teleports and other tricks that navigating them is difficult even with a detailed map. They are the embodiment of the phrase "twisty little passages, all alike". I can't tell you how frustrating it is for your party to be wiped out because you've been lost, wandering in the dark for over an hour.
Given this fact. It's remarkable that, as a child, not only did I complete The Bard's Tale, but committed large sections of the nearly-impossible-to-navigate labyrinths to memory. That just shows how compelling the positive aspects of this game are.
Now, this isn't a reveiw of The Bard's Tale; I just wanted to give you an idea why I'm so excited about Cyberganked. I suppose I'm envisioning the final product; a game similar to The Bard's Tale but with great writing, good music, lots of cool skills, abilities and character classes; unique enemies, interesting places to visit and, most importantly, no labyrinths that make me want to stab pencils into my eye sockets.
As to the proof of concept game itself:
I got my ass cyberganked several times trying to level up my characters before deciding that it probably wasn't implemented yet. I'll be interested to see if there's a review board of some sort or if characters level up automatically. I would tend to prefer the automatic option but I could see the need for characters having to visit special locations to improve their programing ability or gain other skills.
I love the fact that this game uses configuration files. This is an aspect of Hugo I've been figuring out lately and, although I think they're really cool, I have a few concerns. As far as I can tell, once you create a configuration file, there is no way to delete that file "in game". Therefore, if the user creates a lot of characters in Cyberganked, the only way to delete them from the roster would be to delete the configuration file manually. That really isn't a big deal and I like the fact that characters will be available for future campaigns. It's just that it would be nice to be able to do that within the game.
The menus in this game are done well, although one thing I would like to see is for menu options to be selectable with a single key press. I think it would save a lot of time over the course of a long rpg campaign and be less tedious than having to select an option, then press enter every time. This would be particularly nice for the combat sequences.
The only thing I'm slightly pessimistic about is the time it may take to make this game. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that ICJ would like to finish it in a year and, although he certainly knows a lot more about finishing big projects than I do, I wonder if this is practical. I hope so, although I suspect that just making the RPG elements(combat, enemies, character advancement, the many skills hinted at by the character classes) may take at least a year. my own experiments with trying to create an interesting and coherent combat system for Hugo have gone well, but it's a very slow process, with lots of backtracking. Of course, it's obvious that a lot of thought has already gone into Cyberganked, so who knows how long this idea has been stewing in his head?
The other thing that may take awhile will be to write room descriptions for all the unique locations. This is an area where the makers of The Bard's Tale had an advantage. They were able to make a few graphics representing walls, doors and building fronts and then they had all they needed to make a huge number of locations with minimal effort. Compare that with the need to write many unique room descriptions for IF. It's a point that illustrates why this project has all the challenges of an RPG and IF.
To say that I'm pessimistic about the time it will take to complete this project isn't a negative thing. As Cryptozookeeper so triumphantly demonstrates, taking extra time with a piece of IF produces fantastic results. True, it's hard on the author but this, like all IF, is a labor of love. And that's the only reason to write it in the first place.
Oh, just in case anyone's interested about my progress through The Bard's Tale; I'm taking a break. I made it through Kylearan's Tower but made a wrong turn and didn't snag the onyx key. I need that key to continue and I'm not eager to reenter Kylearan's tower-maze, for reasons that anyone familiar with the game will understand all too well.
-lc
[b]Cyberganked[/b] (proof of concept) by Robb Sherwin
To prepare for this review I decided to do a quick replay of The Bard's Tale. I've discovered that a quick replay of The Bard's Tale isn't possible and in fact turned into an ordeal that lasted nearly three weeks. Despite the fact that I have a ton of non-Bard's Tale things to do, I couldn't pull myself away from it. I had forgotten how addicting that game is.
You might wonder why, with the huge amount of IF I have to catch up on, all the games I need to update, the several Hugo extensions that I [b]will[/b] get ready for the archive this year and the many reviews I still have to write...why would I spend 2+ weeks of precious free time playing a game that I remember more than two decades later as being often frustrating and sometimes tedious?
The answer is that the concept is brilliant. The game is fun and flexible in ways that so many others of the era aren't. Did one of your low level characters get killed and you can't afford to resurrect him? No sweat, just make another one! Do you want to add a monk to your advanced party and need to level him up quickly? There are 396 berserkers in Harkyn's castle that can help with that. Even the combat messages, which are just simplistic [i]so and so hits a hobgoblin for 2 points of damage[/i] are entertaining. Don't ask me why, they just are.
Just playing with all the combinations of character race and class is engaging. It was, and still is, a game that's fun to play with. It's not open ended, by any means, but sometimes feels that way since treasures and enemies re-spawn and the player isn't under any particular time constraints.
Of course, not every aspect of The Bard's Tale is positive. Many of the dungeon areas are extremely complex labyrinths. You are very likely to get lost even in areas that you are familiar with and some of the mazes have so many dark areas, blind teleports and other tricks that navigating them is difficult even with a detailed map. They are the embodiment of the phrase "twisty little passages, all alike". I can't tell you how frustrating it is for your party to be wiped out because you've been lost, wandering in the dark for over an hour.
Given this fact. It's remarkable that, as a child, not only did I complete The Bard's Tale, but committed large sections of the nearly-impossible-to-navigate labyrinths to memory. That just shows how compelling the positive aspects of this game are.
Now, this isn't a reveiw of The Bard's Tale; I just wanted to give you an idea why I'm so excited about Cyberganked. I suppose I'm envisioning the final product; a game similar to The Bard's Tale but with great writing, good music, lots of cool skills, abilities and character classes; unique enemies, interesting places to visit and, most importantly, no labyrinths that make me want to stab pencils into my eye sockets.
As to the proof of concept game itself:
I got my ass cyberganked several times trying to level up my characters before deciding that it probably wasn't implemented yet. I'll be interested to see if there's a review board of some sort or if characters level up automatically. I would tend to prefer the automatic option but I could see the need for characters having to visit special locations to improve their programing ability or gain other skills.
I love the fact that this game uses configuration files. This is an aspect of Hugo I've been figuring out lately and, although I think they're really cool, I have a few concerns. As far as I can tell, once you create a configuration file, there is no way to delete that file "in game". Therefore, if the user creates a lot of characters in Cyberganked, the only way to delete them from the roster would be to delete the configuration file manually. That really isn't a big deal and I like the fact that characters will be available for future campaigns. It's just that it would be nice to be able to do that within the game.
The menus in this game are done well, although one thing I would like to see is for menu options to be selectable with a single key press. I think it would save a lot of time over the course of a long rpg campaign and be less tedious than having to select an option, then press enter every time. This would be particularly nice for the combat sequences.
The only thing I'm slightly pessimistic about is the time it may take to make this game. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that ICJ would like to finish it in a year and, although he certainly knows a lot more about finishing big projects than I do, I wonder if this is practical. I hope so, although I suspect that just making the RPG elements(combat, enemies, character advancement, the many skills hinted at by the character classes) may take at least a year. my own experiments with trying to create an interesting and coherent combat system for Hugo have gone well, but it's a very slow process, with lots of backtracking. Of course, it's obvious that a lot of thought has already gone into Cyberganked, so who knows how long this idea has been stewing in his head?
The other thing that may take awhile will be to write room descriptions for all the unique locations. This is an area where the makers of The Bard's Tale had an advantage. They were able to make a few graphics representing walls, doors and building fronts and then they had all they needed to make a huge number of locations with minimal effort. Compare that with the need to write many unique room descriptions for IF. It's a point that illustrates why this project has all the challenges of an RPG [i]and[/i] IF.
To say that I'm pessimistic about the time it will take to complete this project isn't a negative thing. As Cryptozookeeper so triumphantly demonstrates, taking extra time with a piece of IF produces fantastic results. True, it's hard on the author but this, like all IF, is a labor of love. And that's the only reason to write it in the first place.
Oh, just in case anyone's interested about my progress through The Bard's Tale; I'm taking a break. I made it through Kylearan's Tower but made a wrong turn and didn't snag the onyx key. I need that key to continue and I'm not eager to reenter Kylearan's tower-maze, for reasons that anyone familiar with the game will understand all too well.
-lc