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