Open Call for Reviews

[Don Peste]

Just in case you're interested, felipepepe

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gridder#announcements/detail/121959095684550742

The Digital Antiquarian has published the first part of their retrospective on Dungeon Master, detailing the background and making of the game. An interesting read for all fans of this classic, as well for those who came to real-time gridders via DM clones like Eye of the Beholder and Legend of Grimrock.

Dungeon Master, Part 1: The Making of
http://www.filfre.net/2015/12/dungeon-master-part-1-the-making-of/

 

[Lord Azlan]

Just in case you're interested, felipepepe

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gridder#announcements/detail/121959095684550742

The Digital Antiquarian has published the first part of their retrospective on Dungeon Master, detailing the background and making of the game. An interesting read for all fans of this classic, as well for those who came to real-time gridders via DM clones like Eye of the Beholder and Legend of Grimrock.

Dungeon Master, Part 1: The Making of
http://www.filfre.net/2015/12/dungeon-master-part-1-the-making-of/

Bravo to the poster. A very enjoyable read and I will keep an eye out for that blog in the future.

Interesting to also link back to Faery Tale Adventure - I loved this game on the Amiga. One of my all time fav games. The authors comments about "breadcrumbs" and how hard it was in this game to follow the main story makes me thing about the recent Bethesda games with quest and map markers. I think having less markers would certainly improve the adventure/ exploration aspect of these games.

The other thing I noted was how these developers were unable to fulfill their ambitions on the early Apples due to hardware and memory. That got me thinking about the original Elite and how magnificent it was.

Final point - I bought an Amiga to play Dungeon Master and then upgraded to a PC to play Ultima Underworld.

I think DM had a unique charm that has never been beaten - even by the Grims.

The what the heck was coming around the next corner, having to eat and drink. Shutting doors on enemies. Unsurpassed.

 

[felipepepe]

I used one quote in the book that the Antiquarian didn't use, but that IMHO shows how unique the concept was at the time:

“We had a ‘hunch’ that Dungeon Master would do OK. I guess because we felt we were trying to do a type of game that had never been done before. That is a game that blends real-time action with a rich environment to play in. I guess the closest analog to what we were trying to do was to create the dungeon equivalent of a ‘flight simulator’.” - Wayne Holder, Dungeon Master’s Producer

Source

 

[LESS T_T]

I think this will certainly be of interest to you, felipepepe:

“Playing at the World”, Jon’s book about the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, is a fascinating and comprehensive dive into one of the most important and influential games of all time. In this talk, Jon will examine how D&D and other tabletop role-playing games informed the design of the earliest computer games.

 

[felipepepe]

Thanks for the link, haven't seen that speech. I actually own his book, and whenever I think I'm spending too much time writing about CRPGs I look at the book and feel like a fucking casual n00b.

Seriously, this man is a historian. A proper one. His book is 700 pages long and borderline autistic in the amount of details and research. Like, his SELECTED bibliography is over 20 pages long and, honestly, his research about early CRPGs is way more in depth than anything Matt Barton ever did - as in "YO, here's a 1975 fan letter to a hobby fanzine where a guy talks about playing pedit5 on his college". And CRPGs are only a small side-subject in his book....

 

[Infinitron]

 

[J_C]

I only realized now that a new preview is out. The book is shaping to be awesome. I found a small problem with my description at the contributor section however (top of 8. page). My last line is cut in half, probably because I provided a too long of an introduction. You could safely delete the last sentence starting with "I enjoy most genres".

 

[felipepepe]

My bad J_C , fixed it to - Gabor “J_C” Domjan (JC) I was fortunate enough to grow up in the 1990s, so I was part of the golden age of gaming. CRPGs and flight simulators are my real love.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Thanks for the link, haven't seen that speech. I actually own his book, and whenever I think I'm spending too much time writing about CRPGs I look at the book and feel like a fucking casual n00b.

Seriously, this man is a historian. A proper one. His book is 700 pages long and borderline autistic in the amount of details and research. Like, his SELECTED bibliography is over 20 pages long and, honestly, his research about early CRPGs is way more in depth than anything Matt Barton ever did - as in "YO, here's a 1975 fan letter to a hobby fanzine where a guy talks about playing pedit5 on his college". And CRPGs are only a small side-subject in his book....

I somehow don't understand why you are impressed. Collecting sources is the the first thing a historian does. I takes time and often you find nothing, but the fun starts when you have to analyze sources. This is actually a difficult part! You may get a wrong results from analyzing it in an anachronistic manner or don't take into an account any kind of (self)censhoship or a profile of people a text was aimed to or made by.

 

[felipepepe]

I am impressed because this is vidya gaems and of the 30+ books I read on the subject, very few do that, and none at the degree he does. I.e., "High Score" is one of the best books on gaming history out there, but doesn't have A SINGLE reference or source.

Is like everyone else is a game journos and enthusiasts, while Peterson is an actual historian showing how it's done.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[felipepepe]

Well, since you're posting them here, here's a few of new articles that we've finished since the 300-page preview:

Spoiler

10 pages... do this 9 more times and we got the 400-page preview.

 

[J_C]

The question is, will you finish it before Grimoire?

 

[V_K]

Well, since you're posting them here, here's a few of new articles that we've finished since the 300-page preview:

Spoiler

10 pages... do this 9 more times and we got the 400-page preview.

Just to be sure - you did get the second version of The Summoning review?

 

[Jaesun]

The question is, will you finish it before Grimoire?

Felipepepe has done more work, and released more stuff on this project than Cleve has in over 20 years.

 

[felipepepe]

Doing this kind of work is easy. The problem is when you're 99,999999999% done, with just a few nano-issues remaining, but your Neanderthal blood keeps you from delivering.

And yeah, I got the new texts from you V_K and from Deuce Traveler , I'm just finishing some other stuff first.

 

[Explorerbc]

What happened to the Two Worlds games ? I seem to remember at least the first one was on the list.

 

[felipepepe]

What happened to the Two Worlds games ? I seem to remember at least the first one was on the list.

There were too many games, I removed some of the most generic ones... do you have a good reason why Two Worlds should be in?

 

[Explorerbc]

What happened to the Two Worlds games ? I seem to remember at least the first one was on the list.

There were too many games, I removed some of the most generic ones... do you have a good reason why Two Worlds should be in?

Well, I always had a soft spot for them in my heart and I think they definitely deserve a mention. By the time the first one got released there weren't that many open world 3rd person sandbox rpgs out there. Everyone called it "a poor man's oblivion" although as I said in other threads I had a lot more fun with it than with Bethesda's borefest. The animations were crappy, the voice acting horrible, but if you gave the game a chance, you got to realize that there was a lot of ambition behind it. There is a huge world they tried to fill with interesting locations and quests, it had an alchemy system (which I did not use ) and I guess enough stats and items to qualify as an rpg even if it was of the popamole kind.

Spoiler

Yeah the combat and story was mediocre, but overall every little element (like that horse you could ride but glitched everywhere and was worthless) made me feel that they had a lot of good ideas the foundations of which were there, but they couldn't implement due to time/budget/inexperience. I guess my expectations were pretty low and it always managed to surprise me by how even if it was obviously very rough around the edges, it worked and was a pleasant experience. It wasn't as impressive of an attempt as the Witcher, but it made me have a lot of faith in Reality Pump and I always followed their games hopeful they will improve on their formula and achieve greatness (Well that was before all their talent got recruited by CDProjekt and they shoved unfinished projects down their throat but that's another story). I know the codex consensus is "everything is shit", but I wouldn't call it a generic game. It is definitely more interesting than stuff like Kingdoms of Amalur: the single player MMO and more rpg than stuff like Borderlands.

 

[felipepepe]

Explorerbc have you played both games? Would you like to write a short review of them?

 

[Explorerbc]

Explorerbc have you played both games? Would you like to write a short review of them?

Heh, I knew you'd ask. I have indeed played both of them a few years ago. To be honest I am not a very experienced crpg player compared to other people on these forums, so I usually can't really offer in-depth analysis of combat systems, stats, comparisons to other titles etc. plus I've never written a review before. However I guess I could try and write two or three paragraphs in the "this game is kinda cool" spirit. I'll give the first game a try and get back to you once I have something.

 

[GarfunkeL]

And he was never heard of again.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Do I simply email the Faery Tale Adventure review when I'm finished with it? I've completed a rough draft, but I'll need to trim it down to meet space constraints. And figure out which screenshots to include.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I tried emailing the review to the address in the first post of this thread, but apparently couldn't get through. Is there a new email address felipepepe?

 

[felipepepe]

It's the same, crpgbook@gmail.com

Just PM me the review if it doesn't work.