Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Dark Souls


Dark Souls: a game for the traditionalist, a game for the rising challenger, a game for the old school and a game for the new.  It is a game with a high bar of entry and an even steeper learning curve.  It is a game that turns away many but is deeply loved by a dedicated few.  It has turned heads for its old school resurgence and commitment to solid design and gameplay without the modern tactic of player handholding.  It makes no claims to be something that it is not, desiring only to be judged on its own merits.  It is a dungeon crawler and a world spanner, a game of survival and a game of frustration, a game of intricacy masked by bare simplicity.  It is also the cleanest adaptation of the spirit of Original D&D that has graced any console of the past; more so than TSR/SSI' offerings.  If you've got the time I'll try to explain why.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

My oh my, the last post was in October of 2012.  An empty promise to return by December at the semesters close of my first foray into Grad school.  As you can imagine, life did not slow down but instead that roller coaster picked up quite a bit of steam.  In addition to the usual trifecta of work, school, and social life some things took a turn for the extreme at the start of the year.  I was preparing for my next career step which involves quite a bit of studying and physical readiness tests where my living situation became most dire, I wish this was my usual flair for exaggeration.  I'll spare you the gory details but it culminated in me having to move in the dead of night.  Fortunately for me I've got some great friends and I've been taken care of till I got back in my feet.  Now I'm settled in with some of my old friends, one of which has pledged to get me gaming again and I admit the siren call of clinking dice has not been far from my mind.

In the meantime I'd like to start posting again.  I've accrued a few posts in my hiatus, most of them dealing with very well done games I had played in my off time whose design decisions bear mentioning.  After that I want to start posting excerpts from the game system I was working on years ago.  As I mentioned earlier I'm preparing for a major career change and it is likely that I will not have the time to devote to this endeavor when I get in, not for perhaps a few years so I'd like to get this off the back burner while I can.  Plus I'd really like to get this out and published before the next rendition of D&D hits shelves.  I've purposefully avoided taking a look at any of the beta material to avoid influencing my work.  This has been quite difficult because I really like the design decisions Monte Cook makes and his reasoning for them.  The way I see it, the faster I get this hammered out the faster I can get back to reading and studying design, my odd hobby of choice.

Expect another post this week, I believe Dark Souls will be on the agenda.