It's on sale on GOG for $1.49 (usually it's $5.99). Is it worth it?
It sounds pretty awesome, but it also sounds like a massive time sink, too. I'm curious if it's worth getting for some play and what I might pick up out of it more than "play dawn to dusk until completion." That might happen too, of course.
I dont recommend. It is a massive time sink. Played it back in the 90s and it was awesome for its time. If you want it for material for your game its dated and too many other opportunities that are better in games depending on all the aspects the game can offer you are looking for.
ReplyDeleteExample - campaign material I would recommend getting CK2 instead if you want to run 15C german campaign since it will give you all the campaign relevant data you would need: NPCs, Org Charts of Fealty, Family trees, Armies and muster sizes, Economies, etc... Plus the flexibility generate any campaign material from 8C to 15C. I would recommend CK2 without the erasing the serial numbers of Historical Figures in any campaign for quick material creation.
I was looking more for steal-able bits within a general RPG, not the basis for a historical game. CK2 seems interesting but very, very different!
DeleteIt might be my favorite game of all time, it's certainly in the running. It had a great influence on my worldbuilding and I still have some of the potions in my GURPS game world to this day. If you can get over the clunky interface and dated graphics it's a real gem.
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned 90s clunkiness will drive me off. But it seems amazingly detailed for all of that.
DeleteI recently re-played Sword of the Samurai and remembered a) why I liked it and b) that's it's full of mini-games with wildly different keys needed to play, which pretty much killed my enthusiasm. Is Darklands like that - rich game, but a high effort to learn to play in terms of keys, commands, etc.?
It takes time to learn, but you can get the basics down pretty quickly. There are some tricks you have to learn for making money, party composition, and stuff like that but it's not that difficult in my opinion. It can be time consuming, but in a "want-to" way rather than a "must-do" way.
DeleteI don't play a lot of computer games, but I've always found Darklands to be easy to play. Since it's also one of the best sandbox games with a central quest (you can ignore the quest and still play the game; you can also keep playing after completing the central quest), I've always thought that it's one of the best computer RPGs I've played. That just leaves the early-'90s graphics and primitive GUI. Still, it does have a GUI, making it a lot easier to play than you might think.
ReplyDeleteFor $2, it's worth taking a look at least.
is my favorite game and last time i started to play realized was a big waste of time to get good enough to do anything by modern standards
ReplyDeletei have the box set with maps and book which make a great rpg source
uses BRP mechanics - there are sites that pull out all the info and i last ran as a call of cthlhu game
I'd be interested in those info-dump links if you have them still.
DeleteWhat steal-able bits are you looking for?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't know until I played it, but sometimes games have excellent material in them that I just don't know about.
DeleteIt's a good game - as mentioned, it's quite a bit different than today's stuff. You'll have fun making a party with the life-path system to see them slain in an alley in the first five minutes.
ReplyDeleteGood times.
It is a time investment, though, to see it through to the end; I don't know if I've got the time or the mental space anymore. I'm keeping my GOG install of it in my Google Drive to sync it between computers just in case I get the urge.
Controls are OK - mouse-driven target selection with keyboard commands. I'd bought it just a couple weeks ago on a nostalgic whim - I still have the box, disks, and manuals. Big Microprose fan - had Sword of the Samurai as well...may have to go ahead and pull the trigger on that one too, looks like it's on sale as well.
I think I might pass on it this time, if only because everyone says it takes a lot of time. I won't be able to play it for a while. I'll leave it on my "eventually" list, though, and pick it up when it's on sale and I'm not currently playing through a CRPG.
DeleteSword of the Samurai is great, but like I said, full of mini-games. I forgot how many different games, too. Still, it's a challenging game. I found it kind of a nice spin off of the Koei "Nobunaga's Ambition" games that got me hooked on Japanese historical video gaming.