King of Dragon Pass

malthaussen · Post by **malthaussen** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:33 am

An excellent and unusual game, King of Dragon Pass, first published in 2000, is still available at its home website: http://www.a-sharp.com/kodp/

In this game, based on the world of Gloriantha, you direct the fortunes of a clan newly moved to Dragon Pass. It is a combination of RPG and 4x game, where your clan has a number (20-odd, usually) of nobles whom you assign to various tasks in the clan's ruling ring, based on their abilities in things like combat, negotiation, animal husbandry, and the like. In the upheavals following the Dragon Wars, your clan has migrated, but lost much of its lore about the ancient gods. Part of your task will be to resurrect this lore, by acting out a number of vision quests in which one of your nobles will take the leading part. Success will gain great reknown and favor for your tribe, and procure the blessings of these gods. Unlike most 4x games, however, you will not be founding cities and directing research. Your clan will always be of a reasonable size -- if it grows too big, it will split. You can take land and goods from other clans to enrich your own, by conducting raids in which your nobles will often have a key role to play. But your objective is to finally unite a group of clans into a tribe, and then have your chief become king. There is also an ongoing back story which will complicate and enhance your task no end.

The story is told in a unique fashion, by a series of richly-illustrated story boards which will contain menus of choices you will have to make. Some of these stories are trivial, and others are quite complex. Decisions you make in one may often come back to haunt you later. As a bonus, your entire "clan saga" is recorded in a text file, so you can review your triumphs and tribulations while the game is underway, and even afterward. There is no flashy animation, and combat is handled very abstractly, but appropriately and in keeping with the story-driven nature of the game. It is quite satisfying, and on a much more present and "human" scale than most games of exploration and tribe-building. I cannot recommend the game highly enough: for only 20 USD you will have an excellent, bug-free game with a lot of replayability, because you can change your tribe's nature each time you play. Admittedly, you will become familiar with many of the incidents and stories after you play a few time, but all games are subject to some degree of repetition. Visit the web site and check it out. It's a lot of fun.

-- Mal

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:25 pm

It looks strangely interesting

. Every new game's screenshots remind me of something: Age of empires, Diablo, Half-Life...but I've never seen anything like this

.

...but I can't get it

. I don't mind buying via internet, but Seattle is too faaaaaaaaaar...amazon.com don't ship to Europe. I always get my games from UK.

malthaussen · Post by **malthaussen** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:53 pm

? You can order the game right from the web site. Don't they deliver to Europe, or do they just charge an arm and a leg?

Mail from Seattle wouldn't take too long to get to Spain. Maybe a week or ten days, I'd bet.

-- Mal

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:37 pm

do they just charge an arm and a leg?

That's the main problem with those trans-atlantic things. And now that the euro is coming down...(it won't be more than 10 ?‚¬, I think, but that's % 50 of the game...)

efthimios · Post by **efthimios** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:55 am

I always wanted this game but never managed to get a copy of it. No shops sell it in the UK or Greece and after buying Space Empires IV directly (when it was only released in the other side of the pond) and paying "customs" a ludicrous (anyone remember "I Ludicrous"?) amount I said "no more".
Perhaps one day I will get it. From what I know it is a great game.

yowatsup · Post by **yowatsup** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 8:41 am

I used to have this game, but I've lost it in a my game folder. I've tried to download it with a minimal cost or even for free but failed. Can anyone kind enough share the files with me? i've been looking for this game for a long time, but couldn't get it.

Please help me! thx