🌊

[This is a blog I wrote in 2010 for a short-lived tumblr.]

I am running through the sewers in panties, my pants but a memory. Rats swarm and bite my ankles while slimes blow chunder in my face. I chug healing potions as if... well, actually my life does depend on it. Soon a mob of leering goblins joins the chase; if I stop, I'm dead. That’s when I notice my boots have gone missing, too. There’s a word for this scenario: absurd.

A strangely vivid dream? No, I am playing 2005’s Dungeon Lords, a third-person action/RPG that got dumped into retail long before it was ready. It was widely regarded as a disaster, and rightfully so. Zillions of spells and skills that didn't work, quest bugs galore, glitchy everything... there wasn't even furniture in the NPCs' houses. Several patches addressed the worst deficiencies, but publisher Dreamcatcher added insult to injury by reserving the final, most sweeping patch for Dungeon Lords: Collector's Edition, a new $40 product (which also didn't fix the game). If ever there was a reason for Gamers to take to forums and rage, that was it.

So why am I playing a five year-old game with a Metacritic rating of 45? Because it's the brainchild of a guy named D.W. Bradley. He was the creative force behind the very strange, dark, compelling scenario of Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. My father's friend pirated that for us when I was 13, and I spent many a basement hour puzzling through the dusky world of Lost Guardia. I was so intrigued by it I bought the hint book, and read it more as an interesting narrative than as a guide through that notoriously difficult game. I never even got to Wiz 7's halfway point, but have a lingering fondness for its incredibly dense, oddball atmosphere.

In the late '90s Bradley founded a developer called Heuristic Park, which resulted in the 2000 Wiz clone Wizards & Warriors. Buggy but worthwhile by some accounts, I haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Then Dungeon Lords came in 2005, and despite some brave words about a 2009 sequel (whoa, screenshots!), that was it for Heuristic Park.

I can't believe how big this fucking dungeon is; first one in the damn game and it's massive. Three times now I've thought that “this must be it, this has to be the exit to the town.” Nope. More sewers. More rambling, constantly spawning mobs of goblins, slimes, and rats. This is harsh. I'm glad I frickin' power-leveled for a few hours in the starting area. If I'm barely dealing with it now, I can't imagine the mess it would have been if I'd plunged in at level two... yikes.

The starting zone teaches me many things.

somewhere, deep in the depths of his most dismal oubliette, D.W. Bradley smiles

[This is a blog I wrote in 2010 for a short-lived tumblr.]

I am running through the sewers in panties, my pants but a memory. Rats swarm and bite my ankles while slimes blow chunder in my face. I chug healing potions as if... well, actually my life does depend on it. Soon a mob of leering goblins joins the chase; if I stop, I'm dead. That’s when I notice my boots have gone missing, too. There’s a word for this scenario: absurd.

A strangely vivid dream? No, I am playing 2005’s Dungeon Lords, a third-person action/RPG that got dumped into retail long before it was ready. It was widely regarded as a disaster, and rightfully so. Zillions of spells and skills that didn't work, quest bugs galore, glitchy everything... there wasn't even furniture in the NPCs' houses. Several patches addressed the worst deficiencies, but publisher Dreamcatcher added insult to injury by reserving the final, most sweeping patch for Dungeon Lords: Collector's Edition, a new $40 product (which also didn't fix the game). If ever there was a reason for Gamers to take to forums and rage, that was it.

So why am I playing a five year-old game with a Metacritic rating of 45? Because it's the brainchild of a guy named D.W. Bradley. He was the creative force behind the very strange, dark, compelling scenario of Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. My father's friend pirated that for us when I was 13, and I spent many a basement hour puzzling through the dusky world of Lost Guardia. I was so intrigued by it I bought the hint book, and read it more as an interesting narrative than as a guide through that notoriously difficult game. I never even got to Wiz 7's halfway point, but have a lingering fondness for its incredibly dense, oddball atmosphere.

In the late '90s Bradley founded a developer called Heuristic Park, which resulted in the 2000 Wiz clone Wizards & Warriors. Buggy but worthwhile by some accounts, I haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Then Dungeon Lords came in 2005, and despite some brave words about a 2009 sequel (whoa, screenshots!), that was it for Heuristic Park.

I can't believe how big this fucking dungeon is; first one in the damn game and it's massive. Three times now I've thought that “this must be it, this has to be the exit to the town.” Nope. More sewers. More rambling, constantly spawning mobs of goblins, slimes, and rats. This is harsh. I'm glad I frickin' power-leveled for a few hours in the starting area. If I'm barely dealing with it now, I can't imagine the mess it would have been if I'd plunged in at level two... yikes.

The starting zone teaches me many things.