Roadwarden: So You Want To Be A Hero?

I watched someone stream a bit of Roadwarden, because at first I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it or not. There are very limited graphics, just some small, pixel-art for locations and items, things like that. Most of the game is essentially a text adventure. It didn't take me long to want to buy the game and play it myself.

There's a real charm to this game, and it really captures that RPG-style Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thing. There were these "Fighting Fantasy" books I read as a kid that were kinda like that, like a small adventure, usually in that case there were a bunch of ways you could fail but only really one way to progress all the way to the end.

With Roadwarden, there are three different classes to pick from, each with slightly different equipment and abilities. The minor differences are what sets them apart, giving you a potential option to get past tricky situations. The fighter can use some brute force, the mage can use some basic magic, and the alchemist can read stuff (actually quite important!) as well as make potions.

For my playthrough I picked the mage, as I usually do with RPG style games. I keep saying "RPG style", because the game isn't really much of an RPG, there are quite limited stats and stuff, but what stats, items and character development it does have are super important. Your health, your appearance, your hunger, how much money you have, how much time you have, all this can make a big difference to the choices you want to make or may be able to make.

You also fill in some of your backstory as you progress through the game, when characters ask about you sometimes you'll be given an option to say where you're from, what colour your horse is, or other small details that help your character become your own. There may only be small changes between all of these options, but it really does help for me to be able to inhabit a character as I play.

The Roadwarden of the title is you, and you are tasked with investigating this northern peninsula on behalf of the merchant's guild. The wealthy merchants are from a big city further south, and are looking to expand trade to new areas. The game takes place in a wild corner of the world where people have settled, but they are far from the domain of the cities that the merchants represent, and far from the potential prosperity they might bring.

Alongside this you have a personal goal, do you want to be a hero? become rich? there are a few choices here, and your actions as part of the game will determine if you achieve your goal. I'm not entirely sure I picked a good option, but it was the one my heart desired, and basically in any game like this all I want to do is go around and help people, and so I tried to do so.

Early in the game you'll meet some friendly folks, soldiers from the pass into the peninsula will give you a brief overview of the troubles in the area, and potential risks you might face. This also provides a little tutorial to explain how the basics of the game work. After that first night, you kind of are on your own, free to move in almost any direction from the start. You can take the advice of the soldiers, or completely ignore it.

The game is very good to provide plenty of autosaves, the ability to quicksave, and tons of other save slots, so don't worry about making a short term bad decision, as you can always go back and retry an encounter. Longer term stuff on the other hand... well, if you pick the normal setting at start you get 40 days to complete all your tasks and return to the merchants with your findings. I really found I could do with some extra time by the end, there's just so much packed into this little game! If you're interested in that, you can either choose the unlimited time option at start (also makes some other things slightly easier), or use a console command to just increase the time limit.

In my little adventure I managed to help quite a lot of people around the peninsula, and meet so many wonderful characters. I also managed to seriously piss off three groups of people, to the point where in a couple of cases they threatened to kill me if they ever saw me again. I'm sure there were things I probably could have done to improve situations, but sometimes it does feel like you have to make a hard choice and pick a side. Not everything in the game is an easy choice, but that really makes the impact of those choices stronger.

Early on, by staying on the safer western path, I found a destroyed village. Uncovering its secrets took a long time, winning the trust of many people to uncover the truth. In the end I wanted to make a really tough choice but it didn't exactly go the way I'd hoped. To contrast with that, there was another village on the other side of the map who I kinda wish I could have just stayed with at the end of the game and continued to help them, as they sought to build and improve their small village into a larger and more sustainable place. The writing is so evocative, the music beautiful and the characters so memorable that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

While my playthrough had some great highs, such as dealing with a plague and some undead, it also had some more melancholic lows, especially towards the end of the game. As much as I felt my character had done real good here, in the after game text (similar to what you get in the Fallout games) my character seemingly tried to go on one adventure too many and ended up dying out in the wilderness. I know there are a lot of variations here, depending on what you say to people during your adventures and what state the peninsula is in when you leave. I really enjoy when a game gives you that little bit of post-game text to let you know the consequences of your actions.

I would definitely recommend this game, it really hit the mark for me (melancholy ending aside!). It's really cheap on Steam (I got it for £6.21 in the January sale), and gives you a bit of replayability with the choices you make. I also really like that there is an unlimited time mode for those that get very anxious about tough time limits!

Quest for Glory 3: It's A Kind Of Magic

There's a point in every Wizard's life, that they really want to get their hands on a nice bit of magic wood. I'm no exception, and previously I had been told by a sparkly orb that I needed to go find a special flower in the jungle. It's time to head further east, towards the darkness and the danger.

I wandered for a while in the jungle, a few fights against flying snakes and some sort of prehistoric hominid slowing me down a little. It didn't take me too long to find the flower, this azure orchid was growing up high in the trees, but any Wizard without a "fetch" to hand is a poor magician indeed. First part down, I needed to get out of here and back to the Pool of Peace.

Stopping me before I could leave though was a trapped creature, upon inspection, a monkey. The poor thing looked pretty scared so I sprung him out and he thanked me. I guess a talking monkey shouldn't be too surprising in this magical, mysterious and magnificent world, so I took it all in my stride.

Greeting the monkey, he told me his name was Manu and he thanked me for freeing him. It seems he lives in the jungle and prefers to hide out of sight, up a height, where the monsters can't see or eat him. Lured down by tasty fruit he was trapped, until I chanced upon him. I guess it's his lucky day! With a brief chat out of the way, we parted company and I made my way back west.

The flower needed dipping in the pool of peace under the light of a full moon, and it also allowed me to refill my waterskins. Hero business is thirsty work, after all. Wandering back to the tree took me a little while thanks to some pesky wildlife, but once I'd thinned out the local fauna I finally got my hands on a staff!

Well, not quite, as it would need a special ritual first. So, time to head all the way back to Tarna (my feet hurt, does anyone else's feet hurt?). A little detour via the Simbani village brought a new challenge, it turns out they'd captured a Leopardperson, and to cut a long story short, this new furry friend turned out to be a rather upset Leopardwoman. It's amazing what a dispel potion can do, isn't it? To try and dispel her displeasure, I figured I'd need to release her from captivity.

Easier said than done, as I'd need to buy her as a wife. Not an ideal situation, but it would at least only be a temporary one. As a fellow magic user, perhaps she'd lead me to her people if I didn't come across as a total creep. The bride price was high, and I'd need to head back to Tarna's market to get what I needed. Good thing I was heading that way anyway.

The rest of the journey was relatively incident free, save for a visit by an particularly talkative aardvark. Given the rest of what I've seen so far, such things are a normal part of life now, so I sat around the campfire and traded some stories. He gave me a few hints about what I might find further into the jungle, and we parted ways as I wanted to sleep, and he wanted to go catch some more giant ants.

After that, Tarna beckoned to me. It's grand architecture was a pleasant sight, and I made my way to Kreesha's house to get my staff ritual sorted. She had everything prepared, and in the ritual I had to bind all of my spells to the staff. All except the Trigger spell, which could trigger a release of magical energy that would be severely hazardous to the health of anyone in the vicinity.

Now I truly feel like a Wizard worthy of the name, and nothing can get in my way! Well, except for needing a lot more money to buy all these bridal gifts. A fine spear, fine robes and zebra skins are required, and I can't quite afford them all. Guess I should have stored up more cash from Shapeir.

Quest for Glory 3: Around Eastern Fricana in 8 days

Travel is a huge part of this game, with places to visit spread across vast swathes of savanna and jungle. Each area has locations of interest, but often there's not a huge amount to do there. I found myself having to backtrack a bit for some quests.

With the quest for peace on the back burner, I began by exploring the local surroundings and trying to find the ingredients I needed for Salim, and the gem I needed to be judged by Sekmet. I'd already got the feather from the honey bird on my way here, so I could at least get more healing pills when I got back to Tarna.

The other ingredients were needed for dispel potions: something that will surely come in handy as I had found out in my previous adventures in Spielburg and Shapeir. Three items were on my list: Fruit from the Venomous Vines; Water from the Pool of Peace and a Gift from the Heart of the World.

The vines were easy enough for a magic user, a quick "fetch" and a fruit was in my possession. I returned a little later for a bonus gift, aiding a young meerbat that got caught by the vines. In return for my help, a fruit and a fire opal - an extra fruit was unnecessary, and I'm not sure I can remember what the opal is for, but helping others is a hero's job.

Next up was the Pool of Peace, which I'd already visited. The waters refill your stamina, so it's always worth stocking up (and thankfully I'd remembered to buy extra waterskins at the Tarna bazaar. The peacefulness was surely magical, as a quick "detect magic" proved. Erana's symbol appeared shimmering, a reminder that other heroes exist.

Finally it was time to take a trip to a tree so big it looks like it could hold up the sky. This vast vision of vertical vegetation was easy to spot from the map, and like the Pool of Peace it was tranquil and safe. I made my way up into it's branches, to meet the Guardian, a sparkling orb of light not entirely dissimilar from ones found in a certain cavern in Kyrandia.

The Guardian could sense I spoke the truth when I sought peace, and aided me not only by creating a gem for use in my upcoming judgement, but also told me how to get the Gift from the Heart of the World but also how I might be able to get some magic wood for a Wizard's Staff. Further up the tree is a bright glade withing the tree, and on a platform in the centre I poured out some water from the pool of peace to gain my gift.

No time to wait around, it's time to go back to Tarna. It's a long way to walk though, so a little rest at the Simbani village was called for. While there, I played some Awari with Yesufu, threw spears with Uhura and spoke with the Storyteller. The storyteller is a great character, and works well in the game to highlight parts of the story and certain characters.

From there, it's a long trip back to the big city, and one that seemed to be constantly hampered by attacks from dinosaurs and giant ants. I'm not fond of the combat at all, and while in the previous two games a good wizard could kill things from afar, here the need to constantly re-select the spell you're using means you can usually only get three or four attacks in before they close in on you. My spell skills with Force Bolt and Flame Dart are well over 200 by now, but they don't do nearly enough damage (or maybe I'm missing? It's a little hard to tell).

Anyway, after a brief visit with Salim to get the potion-making underway, I decide it's time to be judged. This sequence, which is reminiscent of the fortune telling sequence that begins some of the Ultima games (another favourite series of mine), asks you to pick from a bunch of symbols and answer questions vaguely relating to them. It's a fun little part of the game, but not quite as involved as I'd like. If I were remaking this, I'd probably have this whole sequence be a dream sequence referencing the previous games and involving old and current characters, and rather than simple questions actually have control of your character in a new location with some puzzles to solve.

Finally to finish the day, I spend a little time at the inn in the evening, chatting with the survivor of the peace mission. He seems in a pretty bad way, so I try not to question him too hard. After hearing his terrifying tale, I decide to go find my old buddy Honourless Harami. He's in a bad way, finding out that not only is he stuck in the city but nobody will even so much as acknowledge his existence. I offer him some food and a little chat, and while he still thinks you should only look out for number one, he seems to be pretty remorseful (although this method of punishment seems very harsh when you consider that he's unable to find work, get food or find a safe place to sleep).

Next time: Try and make a magic staff, and explore the jungle!

Quest For Glory 3: Liaison with the Laibon

Last time we had barely made it into the city of Tarna and had only just begun to take a look around. There's so many people to meet and so little time before I have to make the journey to the Simbani village to the east. The city is comprised of three sections: the upper with the temple, throne room and council chambers; the middle with the inn, the apothecary and Kreesha's house; the lower level has the market.

The conversations with the citizens of Tarna mainly lead me to more quests, after all being on a quest for peace is not enough to keep a true hero busy. The trip to the Temple leads to a call for judgement, but that requires a Gem of the Guardian. The Apothecary needs reagents to help me out, but at least the inn is a place of calm to which I can retreat at night.

The only other place to venture is to the market, but to actually buy anything I'll need to get my money changed. Trouble is, there's a hold-up going on! The thief tries to run off, but a quick "Calm" gets him to stop. Isn't being a Wizard useful? Of course the Liontaur guards are less than pleased about my use of magic, even if they do appreciate my help in apprehending the thief.

A quick trial leaves the thief, Harami, "Honorless". This seems like an easy deal to him, and I get told to keep my magic using to authorised locations (or outside the city). Such minor heroics can't get in the way of a shopping trip, so I return to the marketplace to get some local currency and meet the various traders.

One pair that attracts attention to themselves are the junk dealers, a comedic duo from whom you can buy a tinderbox. Their double-act is a reference to Sandford & Son, a U.S. sitcom itself based on a UK one called Steptoe & Son. I can't hang around with these two jokers, so I also help myself to some food, some beads, and some extra waterskins. Of special extra note is the honey seller, who gives me a hint on how to acquire the feather needed for healing pills, and the Katta woodcarver.

This Katta is related to Shema, one of my Katta friends from the previous two games. Talking to him about Shapeir and giving him a letter from Shema gets me a free leopard carving. I'm sure this will come in handy in future. After giving a few coins to the drummer, I decide to take a bit of time to practice my magic in an appropriate location.

A little trip out of the city helps, and I begin to see the sort of fauna I'll have to deal with during my stay. Giant Ants, Dinosaurs... how much worse can it get? What's worse, neither of these carries anything of value. At least I'm honing my skills (slowly), and thanks to importing my character from a previous game I pack a lot of a punch.

I can't tarry too long, because I have to meet the council and talk about war and peace. After a good nights sleep, I stand before the council and pledge my honour to bring peace to this land. What sort of a hero would I be if I didn't? And with that, our whistle-stop tour heads to the Simbani. The trip takes the best part of two days, with Rakeesh telling me about being a Paladin, and warning me again about my use of magic. It seems everyone here apart from the Leopardmen hates magic, and they're considered enemy number one.

The Simbani have set up a village in the plains for the dry season, but fear the Leopardmen hiding in the jungles to the east. After a quick chat with Uhura, we have a little chat with the Laibon. The ruler of the Simbani has had enough of peace, and is quick to talk about war. He talks about how the Spear of Death has been stolen, and how the Leopardmen can't be trusted. Nothing I say makes much of an impression. It seems actions will have to speak louder than words.

After a grand meal, a final chat with Uhura and Rakeesh, I sleep for the night. In the morning, Rakeesh has gone back to Tarna, and left me seemingly in charge. Well, this isn't my first rodeo, and I know with a little exploration and persistence I'll be unlocking all the secrets this land has to hold, and bring a little peace to the party.

Quest For Glory 3: Wages of War - A Trip to Tarna

My previous posts on Quest For Glory were some time ago now (and I'm not great at keeping on writing on this blog), but it's time for the third part of this epic saga! To recap, our hero, the Hero who saved Spielburg and Shapeir, is now Prince of Shapeir. Our newly acquired title does not affect our ongoing quest to be the best hero we can be though, and after a wonderful introduction which recaps the second game we get our setup for QFG3.

There's trouble brewing in the land of Tarna, where there are talks of war between the Simbani and the mysterious Leopardmen. A peace envoy to seek out the Leopardmen was attacked, and what's more, the leader of the expedition was our friend Rakeesh's daughter. As he is from Tarna, a paladin, and a hero in his own right, he must go back home.

Joining him are Uhura, keen to return to her homeland with the Simbani to raise her son, and of course ourselves, always eager to insert ourselves into a mystery and be a hero. A new land, full of new challenges and experiences awaits. Perhaps somewhere along the way we will save the day, broker peace between warring peoples, discover evils and defeat them and make a bunch of cool new friends.

As before, my personal challenge is to get all my stats to 300 (the max. for this game). I return with a character who has 200 in all stats thanks to my previous work in the past game (having had 100 in all stats in that game because of the first game, you get the picture!). Certain events happen at certain times, but there's plenty of time to practice and make myself a super-hero!

The opening section involves a lot of talking, as we explore the city of Tarna and find out about the various people and places we might be visiting. In three days, Rakeesh and I will head out to visit Uhura at the Simbani village and then things will get a bit more open for me.

My first quests: Talk to absolutely everyone, stick my nose in to other people's business and generally be an adventure game protagonist. As part of this, I'll need to change all my money into the local currency (as is now normal for this series), as well as explore the city and surrounding area. I even have a little present from one of the wizards of Shapeir, although with Keapon Laffin it's more of a gag than a gift, as it explodes in my face.

Discussions on Definitions: The Rogue-like

Words can be flexible, they can be changed. Language is dependant upon usage, and so new words can crop up or old ones can be co-opted to new meanings. With games, a new language had to be created from scratch once those first games appeared. As they became more popular, the language evolved and terms were borrowed or created from wherever was required.

Dark Souls 3: Design, Difficulty and Me

I am not a man who likes difficult games. I grew up in a time where it seemed like many games deliberately wanted to punish the player, with too many mistakes meaning a total game over. They were borne of the arcade mentality, where a new life would mean more money in the slot. Being good at a game meant you could play for longer on whatever meagre allowance you had. I was never good enough, so arcade machines just seemed far too expensive.

The games I grew to love took a more relaxed view of difficulty, a different approach. Sierra adventure games may have many ways for the player character to be killed, but they also allowed liberal use of save games and were relatively short. Ultima RPGs would usually freely resurrect the player character and party if you were defeated. Many games allowed for cheating, or had in-built cheats to give you access to almost everything will little or no skill required.

Pillars of Eternity: The Heir Apparent to Baldur's Gate

I've been playing Pillars of Eternity for over 30 hours, and have completed Chapter 2 and have progressed into Chapter 3. I backed the game quite a long time ago on Kickstarter, but had a terrible time getting into the game. I couldn't decide what sort of character I wanted to be, I didn't know the mechanics, I didn't know the setting, I didn't know anything about what I needed and yet I had to make significant choices.

I felt a bit paralysed by this choice early on. I experimented with several different ones, and found nothing to be a good fit. Even now, I don't feel like I made a great choice. Thankfully, I'm playing with the newly added lowest difficulty setting: Story Time. This patronisingly named option is from a recent patch, and drastically reduces the difficulty of combat.

Fallout 4 - Plotting it's own downfall

picture from http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/fallout_4

The game begins with a lengthy introduction sequence, in which your chosen character and their partner and child are home on a sunny and pleasant day. No time for relaxation, household chores or bringing up baby, as you soon have to make your way to the local Vault to hide from the oncoming nuclear apocalypse.

There's no need to acclimatise to the vault and underground living, because you are all to be kept in suspended animation until the situation above-ground improves. At some point, mysterious people invade the facility, kill everyone except you and your son, and kidnap your son, leaving you back on ice.

You wake up an undetermined amount of time later, with a singular quest: to find your son. You have very little clue on how to do this, and as you awaken into a horrific and ruined country, scarred by war and still in a state of chaos after 200 years, the trail seems quite cold.

Home sweet hoome

As an opening, this is actually rather good. It gives you a clear objective, and good motivation. What parent wouldn't want to find their son? Unfortunately it quickly breaks down, as you get drawn into a world filled with needy people and flawed factions vying for control of the region.

Fallout 4 - Frankenstein's Monster

Image created using Bethesda promotional media (http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/fallout_4)

I have abandoned Skyrim for Fallout 4, perhaps only temporarily, but there is a chance I'll never go back. That's not to say I'll stick with Fallout 4 forever, just that the games are so similar in nature and Fallout 4 has a bit more fun to it, and so going back to the lesser of the two seems pointless.

Fallout 4 is the latest gargantuan open-world RPG from Bethesda. It's look and feel can be traced back to Oblivion, continued through Fallout 3 and Skyrim. They are related in terms of the engine (whatever you want to call it), the animations, the world creation, the quests, obnoxious UI... and so on. Each new game brings it's own improvements, changes, additions and subtractions, but to a certain extent I always feel like they're built upon the same foundations.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - Introduction

The title screen, sans title for some reason

Ah, Skyrim. This is a game I've been putting off for a very long time. After playing my way through Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, I was very tired of the entire style of these games. I can appreciate their broad appeal though, as each world is crammed with interesting characters and quests that will take you dozens, if not hundreds, of hours to complete.

You can find salmon jumping in rivers

Skyrim is no different, and this time its world is a land of ice and snow, mountains and monsters all inspired by Scandinavian and Nordic mythology. It's a huge world, and certainly feels like the largest of the modern Bethesda games (the older ones having been procedurally-generated). I've barely scratched the surface but it certainly has a lot to offer so far.

Dark Souls: The Celestial City

Anor Londo is truly a city of gods compared to where I had been previously. Saved from ruin and decay, travelling through it makes you feel quite small. I do wish this was the hub area, rather than firelink. The crumbling ruins of that shrine felt very appropriate for the undead labouring on their journey, but now that I'm becoming the Chosen Undead, I feel like I should have a better base of operations.

Praise the sun!

Anyway, the opening moments of Anor Londo were quite tense. I expected something to come out and smash me around each corner, and was surprised the big guardian knights stood silent. I made my way across a large courtyard which looked like a boss area, and headed down into a bonfire room.

Dark Souls: Marble Madness

So I rang the two bells of awakening, and now some toothy serpent has given me a quest to get the Lordvessel from Anor Londo. Of course you can't just walk into Anor Londo...

Inside the entrance, after killing two snakemen

So here's the tale about Sen's fortress. It's a series of terrible traps, large lizardmen and dangerous drops. The enemies are tough, the ledges narrow and the only bonfire is hidden near the top. This was never going to be easy, and since I had based my character around being a walking tank, the nimbleness required for some of the sections was not good for me.

Swinging blades over every narrow walkway

I had a few runs at it blind, and managed to get about a third of the way through. I navigated past the first set of swinging blades, and got past the first rolling boulder section. After that things got a little dicey, and I ended up repeating this section a couple of times. This is one of the more annoying parts of the game. There's no real way to know where you're supposed to go, except trial and error. Unfortunately, such trial and error can lead to death very quickly.

Dark Souls: Journey Into Darkness

Sometimes in Dark Souls, things just click into place. On this such occasion, I had vanquished two long-term foes. My progress, once stymied by demons and death, could proceed again. As usual, the game would put far darker foes in my future.

First to be swept aside was the Gaping Demon, the fang-mouthed abomination that lay at the base of the Depths. I sought others to defeat it, and helpful people who had passed this point before gave good advice. The pattern of its attacks are not so hard to predict, once you know what to look for, and so I was able to slowly chip at its health and finally triumph.

Being a phantom is rather fun

In celebration, I utilised the White Soapstone, and was summoned as a helpful phantom to assist others in defeating the beast. Helping others succeed where I had struggled was immensely satisfying. If this was not enough of a reward, I also received thousands of souls and some Humanity.

Dark Souls: Caught at a Crossroads

Once again, it is exploiting the game that brings reward rather than any feeling that I'm getting appreciably better at it. I really enjoy the fights against the lesser enemies, even some of the mini-bosses, but a lot of the more difficult mini-bosses and bosses seem to be beyond my skills.

Exploiting the Undead Dragon's lack of ranged attack

Sometimes, as I found with the Capra Demon and some others, the game makes things unfathomably difficult unless you're using some sort of cheap tactic or exploit to defeat them. Case in point, the Valley of Drakes was far beyond my ability as a melee character. Loaded up with poison arrows though, I could pick the Drakes off one at a time and clear the area.

Shortcut ahead, and not before time!

After that, the Undead Dragon mini-boss was easy prey as I could stay out of range of his attacks but slowly kill him with the bow. It was at this point that I really wished I'd made a dexterity focused character, as the damage scaling with the longbow is very impressive.

Dark Souls: A Dance With Drakes

Some of the locations in Dark Souls are full of wonderful architecture, huge sprawling ruins all interconnected and filled with nasty surprises. Undead Burg and Undead Parish are such locations, as is Firelink Shrine. These interlinking areas are full of twisty passages and interesting nooks and crannies, but they also have large, looming structures that seem almost within reach (and of course many of them do become reachable later in the game).

New Londo Ruins

That's why it's so disappointing to find those badly-made sections, such as Lower Undead Burg. It's almost like it's from a different game, or a bad fan-creation. A small, mostly linear section, few enemies and not much in the way of challenge. It contains a boss (Capra Demon), and scarce few other things. Thankfully after you've defeated the Capra Demon you only have to pass through it briefly to reach other areas.

Dark Souls: The Gargoyle Situation

I have made such progress since last time I posted, and perhaps even have enough for two posts but I'll try and be concise and keep it short. Last time, I was suffering from the ill-effects of poisoning and a few cheap deaths. It can be easy to get frustrated in Dark Souls, but once you overcome that obstacle it is a relief bordering on elation.

Beneath Firelink Shrine lies this spooky old ruin

Before the infamous rats, there's a shortcut back to Undead Burg. From there, it's a trivial matter to reach the Firelink Shrine again (enemies that were once tough, are now walkovers). So I could stock up on 10 estus and use that as a launchpad back past those rats. That way, even if I got poisoned, I could heal myself enough to progress on and hopefully make it to the next bonfire.

Dark Souls: The Demon, The Drake and the Deaths

Today has been a lesson in frustration, with moments of progress in between. Some people suggest that the deaths in Dark Souls are always fair, that in dying you learn how to do better next time. I would definitely say that's not always true. There are only so many times you can succumb to a similar death without thinking that there's not a lot of ways you could have done things differently.

Undead Burg (This spot has three bastards with firebombs)

Anyway, I had spent a little time in the Undead Burg, gathering a few levels and some equipment (box of holding for spare items, repair box to fix my weapons, that sort of thing, from a strange merchant hidden away). There were a couple of areas I just couldn't go, one which required a jump that I couldn't make (even with no armour, I didn't seem able to get across the gap). The other was an item guarded by a rather large armoured knight, to whom I could only do 14 damage. I think it's best to come back to him later, when I've progressed a bit more (much like the graveyard back in the opening area).

Dark Souls: Late To The Party

So I picked up this game the other day, you might not have heard of it, it's a sort of action-RPG. It's called Dark Souls and I've died a few times already, but that's not really anything to worry about.

The game and fans love to talk about death, but death is not a permanent condition in Dark Souls

My previous knowledge of Dark Souls was when it became that super popular game that everyone was talking about, a console RPG at a time when I didn't have a console, it was then ported to the PC and I still didn't really get it. I'm still not entirely sure I get it, but at least I've seen enough to give it a shot and see how I do.

One of the guys from the intro, which no doubt will be a boss

My interest was piqued by a video series from the Extra Credits guys, where they're playing through Dark Souls and giving an overview of the design and various interesting bits of information. Not a classic LP by any means, but one that is far more interesting to me than any proper LP could be. Seeing the game in action, and having two people with a design background and an easy-going demeanour narrating it, made the game much more appealing to me.