#oneaday, Day 66: The Time Has Come

I'm going to write this in something of a rush because I need to go to bed. But I'm not going to default on my blogging just for pesky tiredness' sake! No, it might be a short, crap entry, but dammit if I'm not going to write on right now.

Anyway.

Tomorrow, I fly to Boston for PAX East. It's strange to think that this time has finally come. When I think back to early in this whole "one a day" experiment and the things I said, wondering whether or not I'd be able to go, wondering whether I'd be able to get out of my job, wondering if I'd ever make it to the States to see my friends whom I only know by their Twitter avatars and occasional glimpses of embarrassing photos on Facebook.

Now, that fantasy is a reality. Well, it will be very soon, anyway.

There are two emotions in my head right now. Immense excitement… and nerves. Almost like stage fright.

Anyone who's ever met anyone they've talked to online for a long period of time will know that the first face-to-face meeting is always the hardest. People are different online to how they are in reality, and however much you can protest that the way you write or chat online is your "true self", the fact is that people will judge you when they meet you for the first time – subconsciously in most cases, but they're doing it all the same. It's that that always unnerves me – whenever I'm meeting new people for the first time, not just trusted and beloved online friends, but anyone. It's a side-effect of the social anxiety that I've suffered for as long as I can remember, but I'm determined not to let it get in the way of an awesome time. And it doesn't have to. I met my wife face-to-face long after we met online, after all. And yes, I probably was an awkward twat – still am – but that one worked out just fine.

The fact I've met some members of the Squadron of Shame before will help – especially given the fact that we got on well the last time we met and didn't (to my knowledge, anyway) want to tear each others' throats out with hammers by the end of our time together. I feel like I know a lot of the others very well already thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts and all manner of other media that makes "Internet gurus" and "online entrepreneurs" drool with glee. So I think it's going to be just fine.

Doesn't stop me feeling nervous, but it's not a sense of crippling anxiety. It's more a state of wanting the "introductions" phase to be over so we can kick back with some beers and then hit the show floor of PAX East running. Because there's an asston of stuff to see, and there's a bundle of people I want to meet. Quite how everything will fit into those few short days I'm in Boston is anyone's guess – but I'm going to make a damn good try of it.

So tomorrow morning at 8:40, I board a coach bound for DESTINY. That's right: DESTINY. (Then I catch a plane which will take me the rest of the way to DESTINY. But the coach trip comes first.)

I'm clearly getting delirious. Time for bed, I think. Good night!

#oneaday, Day 65: Step into my Game Room

This post makes me sad, because I can't help thinking a lot of people on that thread are missing the point somewhat. I'm hugely excited for Game Room. I wasn't at first, but since hearing that there are not only arcade treasures in there but also Atari 2600 and Intellivision games too, my interest has been steadily growing until now I'm at the stage where it's just after midnight and moments ago, I switched on my Xbox just to see if they released things at midnight, or in the morning. (It's in the morning, for those who were curious.)

The arguments made in the first post are ones that we're hearing a lot – not just in the context of Game Room, but also in the context of digital distribution in general. The biggest concern people have with digital distribution is that one day, your content will be switched off and, despite having paid for it, you'll no longer be able to use it. This is a fair concern, as no-one likes splashing the cash on things that they won't be able to use at some point in the future – but when you think about it, in the world of tech, this is nothing unusual. Products come and go, specifications increase, chipsets change – and at some point it's necessary to leave the old behind. Did people complain that the Amiga wasn't backwards-compatible with the Commodore 64? Do music enthusiasts complain that it's getting harder and harder to find a cassette deck to play those old albums that you only bought on cassette because they were cheaper?

Well, yes, they probably do, but that's beside the point. What I guess I'm trying to say is this: isn't the "built-in obsolescence" of digital distribution the same thing? I have a stack of PC games in a box here, some of which it isn't possible to run any more. Okay, maybe with some tweaking and playing with software like DOSBox it's possible to get it going – but to a (for want of a better word) "casual" user, they're defunct and obsolete. The only difference with potentially-expiring digitally distributed products is that there's no workaround like DOSBox. Once the content's gone, it's gone. And yes, that's not a great thing, but it's not something to be surprised about.

The other objection people have is that Game Room will charge you again to play titles you already own Xbox Live Arcade versions of – titles like Gauntlet, Smash TV and the like. The simple solution to this is, of course, to not buy them again – but there's also the fact that the Arcade and Game Room versions are actually rather different beasts. The Arcade editions of the games are generally enhanced with leaderboards, online play and in some cases, new graphics. The Game Room versions are exactly as they were all those years ago. It may be that some people will be more than happy to buy a game again for the sake of having a completely authentic experience – others should simply avoid those games that they have already purchased.

I think the most exciting thing that a lot of people are missing, though, is that Game Room represents possibly the first fully-legal console-based multiplatform emulator out there. The constantly-rehashed argument from Game Room objectors is that "you can get all those games for free online". Yes, sure you can, but via means of questionable legality. Downloading a ROM for an arcade title is, legally speaking, only allowed if you actually own another copy of the game in question. Of course, people ignore this rule all the time – especially for the sake of hard-to-find games – but I for one think that it will be pretty neat to have these games available legally and without having to do any command-line or front-end faffing like you have to do with emulators like MAME. Again, it's a point in favour of the casual users, many of whom probably haven't even heard of an "emulator". Let's not kid around, either – it's also going to be nice to play some of these from the comfort of the sofa rather than the computer desk.

So I for one am firmly in favour of Game Room, particularly if the rumours of there being over a thousand games set for release in it over the next few years have any truth. Yes, it is a means for Microsoft to make money – but this is just the same as a whole lot of things on Xbox Live already are, much as a lot of things on PSN make money for Sony, and the Wii Shop Channel makes money for Nintendo.

What do you think? Are you going to be downloading Game Room and any games? Or are you going to be leaving the past in the past?

#oneaday, Day 64: Act Your Age, Fanboys

Why does the phenomenon of fanboyism still exist? And more to the point, why does it exist amongst men (and it pretty much is always men) who are old enough to know better?

The simple and easy answer is, of course, that it's always been around. I remember growing up as an Atari-based family and all of the Atari magazines at the time belittling the competition with stupid names like Spectrash (Spectrum) and Crappydore (Commodore 64). Then came the schoolyard arguments – SEGA vs Nintendo. Sonic vs Mario. "We've got Street Fighter II! Hah! …Oh wait, now you have, too." It got pretty silly.

Once the Dreamcast came out, it was hard to justify fanboyism because, certainly once SEGA's wondermachine came out, it was so far ahead of its competition – the 64-bit Nintendo 64 and the 32-bit PlayStation – that half-hearted attempts to call it things like "Dreampants" always came across as more than a little desperate.

Things then kicked off again with Sony vs Microsoft, with Nintendo kind of relegated to "background observer" by this point. The PS2 and the original Xbox both had fiercely loyal supporters when, in fact, you'd have a far better experience if you bought both systems, played the relevant exclusives on their respective platforms and played multiplatform titles on the Xbox. That's what I did, and I never felt the need to slag off any of the systems.

And it still goes on today, despite each of the consoles arguably offering a more distinct and unique experience from each other than ever before. The Xbox 360 offers its legendary ease of online play, the PS3 is home to a variety of unusual and interesting games (like Flower, flOw, Linger in Shadows, the Pixeljunk games) and the Wii is the family-friendly bundle of fun.

Still the hating goes on, though.

But nowhere is it more apparent than in the world of smartphones, particularly between the owners of iPhones, BlackBerries (let's pluralise it properly, please) and Android-based phones. iPhone owners are either Apple fanboys who bang on about how great Apple is all the time or jailbreakers who bang on about which ludicrously-named hack they're installing this week – and, of course, which apps they could get for free rather than paying for them on the App Store. BlackBerry owners seem to be updating their OS every night. And Android owners seem to be particularly sore about the iPhone for some inexplicable reason.

The question is: why? When it came to the early console wars, slagging off the systems your friends had was just schoolyard banter. You didn't really think that the systems were inferior, otherwise you wouldn't have gone around to their houses and played those games with them. The fact that this juvenile banter has grown up with people who have been using gaming and other consumer electronics for years is utterly baffling. Even people who started gaming at the same time as me – or before – are still bitching and moaning about how much better their handset is that [x]'s handset, and blahblahblah open source, blahblahblah build quality, blahblahblah BlackBerry Messenger, blahblahblah… You get the picture.

Am I alone in thinking that all of this stuff, without exception, is seven degrees of awesome and we should appreciate the brilliant things we have? Yes, some of them have more features. Yes, some of them are objectively "better" in terms of capabilities, power and technical specifications. But is that really any reason to act like 5-year olds telling each other that their respective Mums smell of wee?

No, it's not. So why does it still go on?

#oneaday, Day 63: Act Your Age, Joanna

Late again. And I hold one thing entirely responsible for this: Perfect Dark. Actually, two things. Perfect Dark and Cody "NintendoTheory" Winn.

I know I wrote about Perfect Dark the other day but I feel I should enthuse a little more about it because my experiences with it over the past few days have been highly entertaining. First up, I played some online co-op with Calin Grajko (who was brave enough to interview several members of the Squadron of Shame a while back and has stayed in touch since) – specifically, through the first few levels on Perfect Agent difficulty. This was great fun, as Perfect Agent difficulty is pretty brutal in its difficulty – you don't get much in the way of life, there are lots of (failable) objectives to complete and there are tough enemies all over the place. The best thing about playing co-op, though, is that it gives you the opportunity to have a laugh along with the game. Perfect Dark may appear at first glance to be taking itself rather seriously, but you only need to jump into a co-op game to see that really isn't the case. This is a game that shines when played with friends, be it co-operatively or competitively.

Which brings me to the next point – Counter-Operative mode. This is possibly the most broken game mode I've ever played, but it's brilliant in its stupidity. One player controls Joanna Dark, just as in single-player, and has to complete the missions. The other player, on the other hand, repeatedly respawns as random enemies around the level. Jo has one life. The Counter-Operative can keep coming back over and over again, and it's their job to make life a pain for Jo.

It's tempting for the Counter-Operative to rush in and confront Jo as soon as possible, of course, but if this happens the match can be over rather quickly. What is far more entertaining is when the Counter-Operative decides to play mind games with Jo's player, as Calin did to me.

As I made my way down the dataDyne building, I noticed it was oddly quiet, and there seemed to be something of a trail of destruction, like someone had got there first. The building was completely devoid of enemies, until I got to the bottom floor. I stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the level's exit when suddenly…

BIFF!

Jo's vision blurred and I whirled her round to discover an incompetent-looking guard in spectacles punching me repeatedly. It was Calin. He punched me again and knocked my gun out of my hand and suddenly, we were engaged in the sort of cack-handed fistfight that only ever happens in first-person shooters. As Calin realised that the enemy characters weren't capable of picking up weapons that had dropped to the floor, I seized my opportunity and grabbed my dropped pistol, shooting him in the head and escaping the level.

It's not entirely clear whether or not anyone bothered to playtest or balance Counter-Operative mode, but one thing's for sure – it's so ridiculous it is one hell of a lot of fun.

The thing that's kept me up tonight, though, is something which is always dear to my heart in online gaming: leaderboards. As anyone who battled against me in the Geometry Wars 2, err, Wars of last year will attest, leaderboards inspire great competition. And it so happens that Mission 1 of Perfect Dark on its easiest difficulty level provides an ideal arena for bitter competition to see who can clear it the fastest. Cody and I were ping-ponging times back and forth earlier until, as of this time of writing, I sit on the top spot of my friends leaderboard with a time of 40.95 seconds. I invite any of you to try and beat that – without using the apparently-infamous glitch that I'd never heard of before today which allows you to beat the level in 6 seconds flat. Challenge set!

As you can tell, I'm smitten with Joanna's adventures. I was back in the N64 days and I am again now. Perfect Dark is such a complete package that it is almost without a doubt one of the best uses of 800 Microsoft Points on XBLA. There is so much to do besides the basic single-player missions. There are the various multiplayer modes. There is co-op. There is counter-op. There are tons of secrets to discover in the Carrington Institute that forms the backdrop to the main menu. There are challenges. There are leaderboards. There are Achievements. It's a game that will keep you busy for a very, very long time.

The thing I'm most impressed by, though, is the fact that as a game it still plays brilliantly today – ten years later – with no modifications besides the resolution and framerate upgrades. It takes some adjusting to playing a game which doesn't point out your objectives in gigantic neon-coloured HUD arrows, but I find it far more satisfying than any shooter I remember playing in recent memory – both in single-player and multiplayer.

So if you haven't bought it yet, stop bitching about the N64, stop moaning about the framerate on the old version, stop complaining that it gave you motion sickness (at least until you've turned off "Head Roll" in the options to see if that makes you feel better), stop whingeing that the characters' mouths don't move when they talk… look, just buy it and enjoy it, okay?

Act your age, Joanna.

#oneaday, Day 60: Perfection

Downloaded Perfect Dark on XBLA today. I've been waiting for this for a while, seeing as how I had some very fond memories of late-night multiplayer sessions on the original. Funny thing was, once it actually came out, I found myself hesitating a bit, wondering if it was still good.

I didn't need to worry. It is still good. Really good. Once you get over the N64-era level design, physics, character models and textures you'll realise there's still an incredibly solid game there, only uprezzed to HD and running at a frame rate the N64 could only dream of. I played a bit of the first level single player earlier and then went over to a buddy's house to play some multiplayer. The single player is good, and it's nice to play a Rare FPS again. They always were a pretty unique experience, with much more in the way of stealth elements and creative objectives than many other titles. But that's not what I remember Perfect Dark most fondly for. It's the multiplayer that I have the best memories of.

My God. How good is local multiplayer? It's easy to forget in this online age that one time, the only way to play games multiplayer was to bundle around the house of whoever had the biggest TV, take your N64 controllers and try and shotgun the top-left corner of the screen. I always prefer local multiplayer, as there's something about being in the same room with your opponents – who, by the very nature of the fact you're playing locally with them, are people you know well – that takes it from a fun but ironically solitary experience to a proper social event.

I ranted about the "social gaming" phenomenon yesterday in terms of how it really wasn't "social" at all, but this experience is true social gaming. Playing Perfect Dark on the Facility… sorry, Felicity level with remote explosives, rocket launchers and four FistSims on their hardest difficulty, and being surprised when the hand-to-hand only bots end up winning as a result of our collective ineptitude with anything vaguely explosive – priceless. Still fun, nearly ten years after we first did it.

So if you're umming and ahhing about getting Perfect Dark and you're the right age to appreciate it – i.e. you played and enjoyed it first time around – then stop hesitating and just get it. If you've been raised on Call of Duty you might be a bit shocked at the primitive graphics and seemingly simplistic gameplay, but give it a shot. You might just be surprised.

#oneaday, Day 59: Social Mobility

So social games are here to stay. So say the people in the know, particularly the outspoken Brian Reynolds from Zynga who has commented on the subject at great length. Understandable, really, given that his company are behind some of the most successful social games in history.

I have to say, though, that I don't understand them. And it's not through lack of trying. I've played Mafia Wars. I've played Epic Pet Wars. I've fired up Farmville a couple of times. But the elephant in the room seems to be that these games are dull, uninspiring and boring. People used to joke that Championship Manager on the PC looked (and played) like a spreadsheet. Mafia Wars looks like an Access database – and plays like one too. I haven't done much with Farmville but from what I've seen (and heard from others) it's not much better, just a little more "visual".

These games market themselves on their "social" capabilities. They call themselves "MMORPGs" and they clog up the iTunes App Store RPG section something chronic with their various denominations of microtransaction space dollar bundles. But, from what I've seen, there is little to no socialising involved. You add people to your friends list to let them "be in your mafia" or "be your neighbour", but besides increasing your stats or occasionally sending you an item they can't use (not one that they don't want, it's always one that they can't use because it's set aside as a special "gift" item) there is no interaction with others. Sure, in Mafia Wars you can attack another player but there's no strategy or interaction there, either – whoever has the best stats wins.

Brian Reynolds commented to developers at the GamesBeat summit that "shame" is a powerful motivating factor for players. "No one wants to be caught letting their crops wither and die," he says. But does it really matter when you have four thousand people on your friends list, none of whom you've ever spoken to? That's not socialising, that's MySpace-style "friend" collecting. It doesn't help that anything even vaguely related to these games – iTunes reviews, Facebook reviews, Facebook groups, comment threads, blog posts – always degenerates into a swarm of several hundred people all going "ADD ME! 9932569!" with absolutely no conversation going on whatsoever. I would mind it less if the "social" aspect of these games was something more of a metagame, where people actually talked to each other and then added each other. But the amount of friend-whoring that goes on by people is just ridiculous, and it strikes me as completely against the spirit of what these games are supposedly trying to achieve – bring people together to play.

Maybe I'm missing the point somewhere. Maybe these social games really are the next big thing. It's true that some games get the whole thing absolutely right – PopCap's wonderful Bejeweled Blitz is a fine example – but for every little gem (no pun intended) there's a billion and one identikit Mafia Wars clones. And they're all devoid of any gameplay whatsoever.

Games for people who don't like games. I guess that's something – bringing the medium to the masses and all that. But is someone reared on Mafia Wars and Farmville ever really going to graduate to games that are actually, you know, good? I'm not so sure.

#oneaday, Day 54: End of another week

It's that time again. Friday night. I chose not to listen to Radio 1 on the way home tonight, which means I didn't want to throw things at Annie Mac and her stupid jingles. Whoever decided the airhorn should be the iconic sound of "I Think This Is A Fine Piece Of Music And No Mistake" should be punched in the testicles or lady-equivalents. But no matter, because I didn't actually hear it tonight. I drove home listening to, of all things, The Sims 3 soundtrack. What? It's cheery and relaxing, and after the day I had, I needed cheery and relaxing. It was that or whack on Bayonetta's soundtrack and freak people out with either J-pop or epic scary choirs blasting out of my car.

This weekend I will be editing the next SquadCast on the subject of Machinarium, an endearing little adventure/puzzle hybrid available for PC and Mac. I will refrain from talking about it too much here as we discuss it at great length on the SquadCast which should, barring disasters of unforeseen proportions, be available by the end of the weekend.

Other plans for the weekend include Final Fantasy XIII, which I'm enjoying a great deal so far, and maybe a bit more of the Blur beta, which I've been playing a little bit of this evening – check out my thoughts here.

I'm actually looking forward to being unemployed as I'll have time to do lots of things I've been meaning to for ages but have usually been too exhausted to. Sitting on my imaginary To-Do list is the production of a website for my potential computer tuition services, some more writing for here, pJedi and BitMob, some chasing of potential sources of freelance writing work and, of course, some time to actually wind down. After the week I have coming up, I will probably need it, but the less said about that, the better.

Then there's PAX. I can't wait. It's going to be an awesome time when I get the chance to see some very dear friends – some for the first time, others for the second. After that, who knows where things will lead?

My new life may not be easy all the time, but I'm certainly looking forward to taking control and doing things for myself.

#oneaday, Day 51: Final Fantasies

Picked up Final Fantasy XIII today, but I'm not going to talk about it too much just yet. I want to do a proper "first impressions" post. Suffice to say, though, I'm enjoying it so far. It has been extremely linear so far, as people have been saying, but it's certainly not a worse game for this fact. So far all the characters seem appealing, and the dynamic between them, now they've all met each other, is shaping up to be interesting. I look forward to seeing what happens.

I wanted to talk about my memories of the Final Fantasy series generally, as it's a series that will always be close to my heart for a variety of reasons. I'd never even heard of it prior to Final Fantasy VII's release, but I was intrigued when I heard my brother discussing it and he mentioned the oft-quoted fact that it was "one of the only games that had ever made anyone cry". It sounds trite now, of course, as everyone knows what FFVII's "big shock" was, and the moment has lost its emotional impact. But I remember playing that game for the first time and not knowing what was going to happen – so when that moment at the end of Disc 1 came, I genuinely felt something. It hadn't been spoiled for me. I knew something tragic happened at some point in the game, but that was it. I wasn't prepared for them to kill off a main character like that. It was, of course, even more traumatic for the fact you could rename every party member in FFVII, so it was like someone I actually knew died. (Shush. I was young and stupid.)

Of course, killing off main characters isn't something that FF has traditionally shied away from, but being unfamiliar with the series prior to that moment, I wasn't to know. In fact, not only was I unfamiliar with the FF series, I was unfamiliar with the RPG genre in general, my only real experiences with it having been Alternate Reality on the Atari 8-bit (which, when I played it as a young child, I really didn't understand) and the dreadful Times of Lore by Origin on the Atari ST. Neither of them had gripped me, perhaps because of the deficiencies these games held in the narrative department. Alternate Reality just didn't have a story full stop (besides that which you made for yourself) and Times of Lore was just… well, crap. So, suffice to say I hadn't felt particularly inspired to pursue an interest in the RPG genre – not until FFVII turned up, anyway.

A particularly fond memory of VII comes from one long summer when my folks were away in America for a few weeks. It was the first time I'd been left home alone and, among other things best left for discussion another day, my friend Woody and I spent a lot of time playing Final Fantasy VII. At one point, we played it for thirty-six hours continuously, whacking each other over the head with couch cushions when the other looked like they were falling asleep. Eventually, we did pretty much both pass out, with some peculiar dreams and talking-in-sleep going on. The tequila probably didn't help matters.

We fell asleep as we were in FFVII's Ancient Forest looking for the Apocalypse Sword prior to the endgame. I remember falling asleep to the music there and it infecting my brain. I can't hear that track these days without thinking of the peculiar sensations of sleep deprivation, slight drunkenness and square eyes from staring at the TV for too long.

It was some time after discovering FFVII that I decided to explore the rest of the series and uncovered the world of the music of FF. I managed to track down some scans of the elusive "Piano Collections" books for FFIV, V and VI online and tried playing them. They're wonderful arrangements – actually properly written for the piano, rather than simply transcribed – so the performance of them has become something of a trademark of mine over the years. Hearing any of those tracks always fills me with a sense of deep joy and nostalgia – not necessarily for the games as such, but because they remind me of times past – of good times with friends, of things that happened around the same time as me playing them – all sorts. Playing the games themselves has much the same effect. It's actually been many years now since I played FFVII, VIII or IX. Although they are now somewhat aged, I don't think the soft spot I have for them will ever leave me, and I'll always carry the memories of what I was doing when I played them. (FFVII – that long summer. FFVIII – first year at university. FFIX – visiting my bro in America one Christmas.)

Yeah, I know. How lame to tell a Final Fantasy story. But I don't care. 🙂

One A Day, Day 47: And... Collapse

How I made it through this week without suffering a complete nervous breakdown I'll never know, but here I am. I am exhausted though, so this entry is going to be rather short.

Just got back from another game of Dungeon Lords. Fun game, but we're clearly still learning the ropes. Like Space Alert, though, it remains quite entertaining even when things are going horribly wrong. And that's good – games where you get behind and are then stuck there are less fun. To me anyway. Probably because I'm usually the one in last place!

I'm so knackered I can barely keep my eyes open. Time for bed now I feel, and a well-earned lie-in tomorrow morning.

One A Day, Day 46: Dungeon Lords

One of the group of friends I semi-regularly play board games with shared a new acquisition tonight – a game called Dungeon Lords. It's a fairly lengthy game to play, but it's bursting with character and fun, despite it being a self-confessed game for "hardcore gamers".

Dungeon Lords casts you in the role of one of the titular evil overlords. It's your job to build a dungeon, populate it with monsters and traps and then settle down to watch the heroes try their hand at fighting their way through it. If it sounds like Bullfrog's ageing PC game Dungeon Keeper to you, you'd be about right.

The game is split into two phases, each of which you play through twice. The premise is that you have two years to prove yourself as a Dungeon Lord and acquire your Dungeon License. To do this, you spend each year building and populating your dungeon, followed by a period of defending it against a party of adventurers who have gathered to face your challenges. In the second year, the adventurers are tougher, but you have slightly different options at your disposal for building.

Gameplay is based on players simultaneously choosing actions by laying cards face down. Two of your possible actions per round are laid face up as "forbidden" actions that you can't do. At the end of each turn, two of your actions that you took become next turn's "forbidden" actions, meaning a degree of forward planning is required for success. The actions allow you to do a number of things – collect resources, manage your reputation, hire imps (who are used for building the dungeon, mining gold and staffing the various rooms in the dungeon), hiring monsters or building rooms. All of these things are important – resources are needed to extend your dungeon and hire creatures, your reputation affects how powerful the adventurers who attack you are (a more evil reputation leads to tougher adversaries, leading up to an almost-invincible paladin as the ultimate challenge) and everything has the potential to score you points.

Once actions have been chosen, they are resolved in turn order. Up to three players can take the same action in a round, but the precise nature of the action varies slightly depending on who gets there first. Sometimes it's the cost of things that vary according to turn order, sometimes it's how effective the action is. It's an interesting system that forces you to consider what your opponents are likely to do carefully, as well as prioritising your own needs for victory.

Eventually, you'll have a "working" dungeon featuring a collection of corridors and rooms, and some monsters and traps to put in them. At that point, combat starts. Adventurers attack you as a traditional RPG party, with a tanking warrior at the front and rogues, wizards and priests at the back. Each type of adventurer has a particular special ability – warriors always go at the front, rogues reduce damage from traps, wizards can cast rather inconvenient spells and priests can heal the damage you've caused to the party. It's up to you to carefully use the monsters and traps you've collected to try and slow their progress through your dungeon. It's pretty much impossible to halt their progress altogether, but it is possible, with careful planning, to minimise the damage they cause. The game has some excellent tutorial scenarios to play through that are more like logic puzzles, and these give you an opportunity to see the sort of tactics you should be considering in the game proper.

Similar to farming sim Agricola, Dungeon Lords is a game where you mostly focus on your own efforts, but have to pay attention to what others are doing. There's no direct interaction with other players, but your own actions can indirectly influence their success. For example, carefully managing your reputation to ensure you always get weak adventurers attacking can cause other players to take a beating. After one game, it's clear that there are a lot of tactical considerations to learn.

It's a really interesting game, and I'm looking forward to giving it another shot. It took a good few hours to play, but it didn't drag – while actions are resolved one player at a time, there's not much downtime before someone else gets a chance to do something. Plus the theme of the game coupled with the excellent artwork gives it a huge amount of character, encouraging a bit of improvisatory storytelling about what's going on in the players' respective dungeons. Check it out if you're looking for something a little bit different.