#oneaday, Day 316: Pity The Poor Shopkeeper

The poor shopkeeper doesn’t have it easy, whatever form they take. If they’re a retail monkey working for minimum wage in some sweaty hell-hole where chavs repeatedly come up and ask if the nearly-black garment they have in their hands is available in black, then they’re probably losing the will to live by the second. If they’re working in a, shall we say, “premium” retail environment they’re probably having a better time but rapidly growing sick of the fixed grins they’re forced to wear, not to mention the stock phrases that spew forth from their mouths like some form of verbal effluvia.

And then there’s the poor, downtrodden RPG merchant, forced to sell all manner of crap, apparently only to adventurers, who then helpfully restock them with an endless supply of boar intestines, bits of wood, crystal chippings and used swords that they don’t need any more. It must be a difficult life. And frequently a tedious one, as anyone who entered the online world of Ultima Online with lofty ambitions of owning a huge retail empire will attest.

It’s this odd premise that quirky Japanese indie game Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (available on Steam, as well as directly from the distributor’s website) decides to explore in great depth. Playing the role of Recette, an adorable young girl with an absentee father, it’s the player’s job to help her run a successful RPG item store and make enough money to pay off the debt her father left her with. She’s not in it alone, of course. She has a fairy assistant named Tear. Tear works for the financial institution with which Recette’s father took out the loan, “because fairies are good at administration” and is there to help Recette pay off the debt she’s been saddled with. The two become friends quickly, but should Recette be unable to make any of the weekly payments she’s required to, Tear will quickly repossess her house and leave the poor girl living in a box.

So far, so Animal Crossing, you might say. And you’d kind of be right. Except not. There really isn’t another game quite like Recettear out there. There are games which focus on individual elements of the game, sure. But none which blend together such peculiar and diverse elements with such successful results.

The game is split into three main sections. Firstly, there’s the item shop itself. Recette can dump anything from her inventory onto the shelves in the store. Stuff in the window is likely to attract customers. If she chooses to open the shop, she has to deal with a flow of customers coming in and asking for things. If they’re on display, all she has to do is agree a suitable price with the customer. If they agree, cha-ching. If they disagree, Recette has one chance to make a more reasonable offer before they leave.

Simple enough. As the game progresses, though, more elements are added to this formula. For starters, in true RPG tradition, people start selling stuff to Recette, too. This can be a good way for her to build up stock, as she can often get stuff for knock-down prices with a bit of shrewd haggling. Then people will place special orders, requesting that she deliver, say, three hats in two days’ time. Recette has to not only make sure she has the hats in stock but also remember to have the store open when the customer plans to return. And finally, some customers will come in not quite sure of what they want, and Recette will have to make recommendations from the stock she has on display and in her inventory.

It’s a straightforward mechanic, and you soon get to know how much certain customers are willing to pay over base prices. A few twists come in later with a news ticker informing Recette of increased or decreased prices in the market, but it’s mostly a case of buy low, sell high.

If Recette chooses to leave the store, she can wander around town and occasionally bump into the people who frequent her store. These come in the form of random townsfolk and adventurers. Completing requests for adventurers will sometimes net her their Guild Card, which enables her to make use of them for expeditions to the local dungeons.

Yes, there are dungeons. Because sometimes the local markets just don’t have the things people want to buy. When that’s the case, Recette is free to pop down to the local Adventurers’ Guild and hire one of the guildies she’s made friends with. It’s then into an action-RPG dungeon crawler to kick monster booty and gather lots of crap that people might want to buy.

It works, brilliantly well. The item shop stuff occurs quickly enough that it never gets tiresome. The storytelling scenes feature attractive artwork and a truly excellent localisation from the Japanese. And the dungeon-crawling, while simplistic, is fun and satisfying, broken up by regular boss battles and in-dungeon special events.

The whole game is distinctly adorable, but deceptive. The artwork, music and squeaky-voiced Japanese girls make it look like something which should be incredibly embarrassing and cringeworthy to play. But in fact, there’s a distinctly acidic sense of humour underneath all the sweetness, and a large number of the dialogue exchanges are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. The kawaii presentation coupled with fairly sophisticated, intelligent humour and a wonderfully self-aware nature reminds me a lot of the Disgaea series.

I’m probably about halfway through the game now, having made two of Recette’s repayments successfully. There’s the hints of a bigger plot at work, and a bunch of new characters have been introduced, most of whom will presumably end up being playable adventurers for the dungeoneering sections.

If you’re after something that is both comfortably familiar and quite different to any JRPG you’ve ever played, then Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is well worth checking out. I fully intend on posting a full review somewhere once I’ve beaten it.

#oneaday, Day 181: Vampire: Bloodlines

Body clock buggered up today. After getting to bed late last night, I slept solidly until about lunchtime. Nice, but ultimately unproductive, as it means here I am at 3AM in the morning.

Actually, there’s another reason I stayed up so late, and that is Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

This is a game I’ve been meaning to play for absolutely ages. I’m a big fan of the White Wolf interpretation of vampirism and, to be honest, vampires in general. Just not the Twilight variety. Granted, I have never read or seen Twilight beyond reading a two-chapter preview on iBooks on my phone, but already both Bella and Edward seemed to be some of the most unsympathetic arseholes I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across in a book.

But that’s beside the point.

White Wolf’s interpretation of vampirism focuses much more on clan-based political intrigue, with each clan having its own unique outlook on life, special abilities and, in some cases, quirks. Part of the reason for this is for gameplay balancing in the pen-and-paper RPG. Instead of picking a character class, you pick a clan, and that determines your specialisms. But the pen-and-paper Vampire RPG is heavily focused on the RP bit as opposed to the G bit, meaning that these character backgrounds are hugely important from the perspective of actually playing your character in a realistic manner.

Bloodlines was the second Vampire game to hit the PC. The first, Redemption, was a mixed bag. It was notable for having a pretty good script, solid voice acting and (at the time) quite nice graphics. But the Diablo-style clicky-clicky combat really didn’t work from the close-up over-the-shoulder camera view adopted. The AI of party members was beyond “dumbass”. And there were lots of monumentally irritating bits where you had to sneak a four-person party through areas of sunlight. I never finished it as it got a bit frustrating, though I would like to return to it one day.

Bloodlines took a different approach. Based on an early version of the Source engine, it plays more like Deus Ex than anything else. You walk around LA from a first- or third-person perspective, meet people, talk to them, possibly suck their blood, fight them, complete quests in a variety of different ways and get involved in all the point-toothed intrigue you could shake a stake at.

The game was renowned for being hugely buggy on its original release. I haven’t noticed any showstopping bugs since I’ve been playing this evening—one or two minor graphical glitches, sure, but that’s more the old Source engine than the game itself I think. What I have noticed, though, is that it’s an utterly fantastic game. While it appears that the overarching narrative takes a while to get going—I played several hours tonight and couldn’t tell you what the “main” plot thread was—one of the best things the game does, much like Deus Ex, is immerse you in the game world. There are people in this world going about their business, and they are genuine characters whom you get to know and recognise.

One of the most compelling, immersive things about playing as a White Wolf vampire is the idea of the “Masquerade”, where vampires must hide their true nature from humans. In game terms, this means that you mustn’t let people see you feeding, using any obviously supernatural abilities or doing anything “vampirey”. There are get-out clauses to this, though; seduce a human using your vampiric seduction skills and they won’t mind you biting them, for example. But if anyone sees you doing that, you’re in trouble.

So far I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve played. The balance between the RPG stat-building and the action-based combat is good, and some of the dialogue is genuinely well-written. The World of Darkness is introduced gradually in such a way that isn’t daunting to new players but isn’t patronising to those who know the lore.

In short, then, I can highly recommend the game from what I’ve seen so far. It’s currently available on Steam and via Direct2Drive. Good luck finding a physical copy if that’s your thing.

#oneaday, Day 172: Epic Win

This is the best. Idea. EVAR.

Video game nerds like to think about things in terms of video games. It’s part of what we do. RPG nerds are the same. And when you get a video game nerd who also likes RPGs? Well, that’s it, really. Everything degenerates into jokes about gaining XP for changing lightbulbs and the like.

Epic Win looks set to allow people to do just that. At last! This is the To Do list I’ve been waiting for.

I have no shame in admitting that I’ve named projects in OmniFocus for the iPhone so that they look more like quests, or chapters from a story. And I’d love a Deus Ex-style nanomachine HUD that allowed me to track my objectives from inside my own head. So long as you could turn the damn thing off. Trying to sleep with a waypoint tracker would probably be difficult.

And gaining experience points is cool, as everyone knows. Experience points are even cool for non-nerds now, as anyone who wastes hours of their life playing Farmville will attest. Experience points give us something to focus on. They give us a sort-of-tangible reward for achieving something, even if that thing is mundane. They offer a recognisable, attainable goal in the form of the next level. And they encourage competition with friends.

So why not apply them to your personal life? That seems to be the exact approach that Epic Win is taking, and I love love love it. The app may not be out yet, but for the simple reason that it aims to get nerds organised, it’s a day-one purchase for me.

And you just know there’ll be Achievements in there too. And probably some means of comparing said Achievements with friends. Who knows? Maybe it’ll turn a generation of slovenly geeks into houseproud types.

Perhaps not. But it’s a noble goal, at least, and a nice way to make the mundane and boring into a game, something which products like EA Sports Active have done with some success with other activities in the past.

Check out the app’s official site here.

The Adventures of Count Kurt von Hellstrom and Company, Part The First

[Note of explanation: I recently acquired a copy of Games Workshop’s classic dungeon-crawler Warhammer Quest, which is notoriously brutal on its players – though not quite so much as their earlier title Dungeonquest. What follows is a report of our first adventure together as a party – myself as the Elf, my friend Sam as the Dwarf, my friend Tom as the Wizard and my friend Tim as the Imperial Noble.]

“You must defeat the demon in the temple before it escapes and wreaks havoc across the land!”

The situation sounded serious. Count Kurt von Hellstrom stroked his beard absently, looking at the writ which had been pushed into his hand some hours earlier. He was expecting some companions to join him, but wasn’t sure what to expect. This was, after all, the first time he’d been out adventuring properly. It was time to see if those years of rapier training and pistol-shooting were good for anything.

An Elf was the first to arrive, hooded and mysterious.

“Hello,” said the Elf bluntly. “You’re Kurt?”

“I am, my good Sir!” said the Count with a flourish. “Count Kurt von Hellstrom, at your service!”

“Good,” said the Elf, then looked around him without another word.

There was an awkward silence. The people of Marienburg went about their business as usual, and here, in this alley behind the Beer and Boar Tavern, the two strangers eyed each other up.

“Might I know your name, my good sir?” asked Kurt finally, twiddling his beard around his fingertip.

“I’d… really rather not,” said the elf.

“Now come, come, sir,” said Kurt with a wry smile. “One should never be embarrassed about one’s heritage.” He flashed a sparkling medallion around his neck. “This has been in my family for generations. It gives me strength.”

The elf sighed and dropped his hood. Beneath it was a mane of long, blond hair.

“All right,” he said. “But if you laugh, I promise I’ll run you through.”

I’d like to see you try, thought Kurt, his hand instinctively moving to his rapier and the muscles in his legs tensing, but then he realised this was probably what passed for elven humour.

“I’ll be careful,” he said with a grin. “Now come on man, spit it out!”

“Tinkleblossom,” the elf replied, grimacing. “Tinkleblossom Feypants.”

There was another awkward silence. This time, the elf was the one to break it.

“I know, right?” he said. “You can just call me ‘elf’ if it’s easier for you to deal with.”

“No, no,” said Kurt. “Tinkleblossom is just fine.”

Tinkleblossom muttered something under his breath and raised his hood again – a clear signal that this conversation was, for now, over.

At that point, there was a raucous shout from around the corner and the sound of clattering metal.

“Ach!” cried a gruff voice. “Ye’d think ye’d never seen a chap who wanted tae defend his family honour before! Well sod ye, buddy!”

Tinkleblossom and Kurt both peered around the corner curiously, only to see a short, stout figure staggering up the alleyway towards them.

“Ach. Just on time. Ye’d be th’ adventurin’ types, aye?”

“Yes,” said Kurt. “I am Kurt von Hellstrom. This is… an elf. Who might you be?”

“Jizzmatron Drizzlecock at yer service, laddie.” He belched thunderously, then hiccuped, sneezed and wiped the snot which had escaped from his nose on the back of his hand. It was lost somewhere in his beard. Kurt grimaced. Tinkleblossom just shrugged and made a noise that sounded distinctly like “Meh.”

“Well, pleased to meet you,” said Kurt, regaining his composure quickly. “I believe we’re expecting one more.”

A booming voice echoed around the alleyway and smoke appeared as if from nowhere.

“That would be me!” thundered the voice, though there was apparently no-one else in the alley save the strange, wispy smoke. Suddenly, in a flash of light, another figure appeared and the smoke was gone.

“I’m Marlon,” said a somewhat less thunderous voice which came from an old-looking man with a lengthy white beard. “Scholar of magic. I believe you were looking for someone with my talents.”

“Aye,” said Kurt, smiling. “That I was. Now that we’re all here, I believe you should all take a look at this.” He brandished the writ.

“Ach,” grunted Jizzmatron. “Readin’s fer sissies. Just give us th’ short version, laddie.”

“Oh,” said Kurt, then shrugged. “All right then. Demon. Sealed in dragon statue. Deep in a dungeon. Protective magics weakening. Destroy it or die.”

“Aye! Now that sounds like some fun!” cried Jizzmatron.

Tinkleblossom glowered at the writ for a moment before handing it back to Kurt.

“We should get moving,” Kurt said. “It’s quite a trek.”

Four weeks passed as the adventurers picked their way to the abandoned Dwarven temple. It was an uneventful journey – led there by a local who knew the land well, the journey passed without incident. It was when the party descended the steps into the darkness that things began to get a little less straightforward.

“This is as far as I go. Oh, and you’ll need these,” said their guide, tossing a bundle of four dully-glowing swords to the floor. “They should make short shrift of that demon. Apparently. I don’t know. Good luck.”

The guide tossed his torch onto the cold flagstones at the bottom of the stairs and left the bewildered-looking party to their fate.

“So, err,” began Jizzmatron. “What now?”

“We explore, of course!” cried Kurt. “Riches await!” He pulled out a lantern from his pack and lit it.

“You’ve got the light,” said Tinkleblossom. “That means you get to go up front.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way!” said Kurt, spinning around to face the corridor into the blackness with an overdramatic flourish. He was about to step forward, when Marlon spoke up.

“Wait,” he said. “I feel the winds of magic. I should draw upon their power in case we need some… firepower.”

Marlon closed his eyes and grimaced. Jizzmatron stifled a snigger and whispered “He looks like ‘e’s shittin’ ‘imself!” to Tinkleblossom. The elf ignored him.

As suddenly as he had closed them, Marlon opened his eyes again and looked at Kurt. He looked a little concerned.

“Um,” he said. “I have a bad feeling.”

“What do you mean, a bad fe-”

At that moment, a stone block started sliding across the archway at the bottom of the stairs. Tinkleblossom and Kurt both lunged for it to try and brace it with something, but it was too late. Now they were trapped.

“Oh well,” said Kurt, unconcerned. “I’m sure there’ll be another way out.”

“Ye don’t know Dwarven construction, clearly, lad,” muttered Jizzmatron, but it was true – there wasn’t much option for the adventurers but to go onward.

“Let’s investigate this room a little,” said Kurt, holding up the lantern. “It’s… oh my.”

As the adventurers’ eyes slowly became accustomed to the gloom, they saw by the dim light of the lantern that the walls of this first chamber were lined with chests, suits of armour and piles of gems.

“We’ve hit gold!” yelled Jizzmatron. “Treasure!”

“Be careful,” said Tinkleblossom quietly. “It could be a-”

Sure enough, it was. Just as the dwarf was about to reach for the nearest pile of gold, there was a scuttling sound and suddenly a huge number of giant spiders dropped from the ceiling. The adventurers gave a shout as one, but they were too late to react and were soon engulfed in sticky webbing. Tinkleblossom, Marlon and Kurt managed to break free but Jizzmatron remained stuck. The others drew their swords and made short work of the spiders just as the dwarf managed to extricate himself from the sticky threads that bound him.

“Ach,” he spat. “Ye could have saved me one.”

“I’m sure there’ll be more,” muttered Tinkleblossom, wiping spider ichor from his blade and replacing it in his scabbard. “For now, we should search this room and see if there is anything useful.”

Ten minutes later, the adventurers stood up, covered with dust and a few last sticky bits of webbing.

“This ain’t no soddin’ treasure!” bellowed Jizzmatron. “It’s all fake!”

“What did you expect?” said Kurt. “Would you store your riches just inside the entrance?”

“Well, lad, ye coulda said somethin’ sooner if ye thought that!”

Kurt twiddled his beard a moment, then looked at the dwarf with a smile.

“Well,” he said, “There might have been something!”

Tinkleblossom sighed.

“Let’s move on,” said Kurt, brushing himself off and gesturing to the archway which was now visible.

The adventurers made their way onward into the darkness, slowly and carefully. Just as they were about to step through the archway, though, there was a gibbering sound and some knee-high green things skittered out of the inky blackness.

“Snotlings!” yelled Tinkleblossom, drawing his sword again. “This should be easy.”

Sure enough, the adventurers made short work of the greenskins thanks to some fancy swordplay from Kurt and some lightning magic from Marlon.

“Now,” said Marlon, “May we please move on?”

The adventurers stepped forward. Beyond the archway, the corridor they were in continued into darkness.

“What’s that sound?” asked Kurt, holding up the lantern. “Uhoh.”

There were tiny holes lining the walls of the corridor, and a soft swishing sound was slowly getting louder, until sand started seeping out and over the floor. It kept coming until it covered the floor. The section of corridor was completely covered with undulating sand. Jizzmatron slipped over and landed flat on his face just as a low gurgle announced the arrival of more guards – this time, orcs. The battle was made much more difficult by the undulating, shifting sands of the floor, with Jizzmatron and Tinkleblossom spending much of the fight face-down on the floor cursing and, on one occasion, at the bottom of a spike-filled pit which had managed to conceal itself beneath the sands.

The orcs were soon joined by some goblin spearmen – practically as soon as the first wave was dispatched, Marlon gave another “Uhoh” and the creatures leapt out from whatever shadows they were hiding in. Eventually, the party picked their way carefully away from the shifting sands, with Tinkleblossom dragging himself along the floor to get the last few feet, the number of times he had fallen over not doing wonders for his temper.

The corridor continued further and curved around to the left. With a roar, yet another band of orcs burst out of the shadows and attacked the party, this time accompanied by a small group of archers. One of them knocked Kurt to the floor, causing the rest of the party some concern, but Kurt managed to knock back a swig of a strange blue potion he’d found on the body of one of the goblins before he passed out. He immediately started to feel better – even more so once Marlon muttered an incantation and a strange green light enveloped him, knitting his wounds together and rejuvenating him.

“Aha!” cried Kurt. “A second wind! Take this!”

Kurt leapt to his feet, jumped back, drew his dueling pistol and fired a shot at a nearby orc, hitting it square between the eyes. Spurred on by the rejuvenation of their companion, the others made short work of the remaining greenskins and looked around the room.

“Do ye smell something?” asked Jizzmatron. “And it ain’t me farts. Not this time.”

“Mm,” said Tinkleblossom. “Sulphur. Certainly smells like them.”

“Was that a joke from ye, elf? Ah didnae expect that outta you.”

“I’m full of surprises,” muttered the elf. “This way.”

Tinkleblossom led the party through another archway where the corridor split in half.

“Which way?” said Kurt. Jizzmatron sniffed the air, and pointed to the left branch of the passageway.

Sure enough, the corridor opened out into a huge chamber filled with a dull red light that was coming from a huge crack in the floor. At the far end of the chamber was an enormous statue of a dragon. It wasn’t moving, but it almost seemed to be watching the warriors as they peered into the room.

Then, there was a roar, and a wall burst open. A huge brown shape charged into the room accompanied by a horde of greenskins.

“Minotaur!” yelled Jizzmatron. “Get back!”

The party steeled itself for what was likely to be a tough battle. Jizzmatron flung himself into the fray with aplomb, taking down orc after orc with his great axe. Tinkleblossom stood back and fired arrows into the fray accurately and carefully, eventually felling the minotaur with a lucky shot between the eyes. Marlon muttered incantations and lightning flashed through the air, striking orcs down left, right and centre.

Eventually, the bodies piled up and the warriors were victorious. But there was one thing left to do – and it was on the other side of a rickety-looking rope bridge.

Jizzmatron bravely volunteered to go first and stepped carefully onto the bridge. It wobbled under the weight of him and his equipment, but it held firm and he made it across, only to be face-to-face with the dragon statue. He drew the faintly-glowing sword that the guide had left the party with at the entrance of the dungeon and squared up to the statue.

“Make that hit count!” cried Kurt. “People are depending on-”

Jizzmatron didn’t need telling twice. He swung the sword in a wide arc at the statue’s head. The sword shattered, but not before the blade had struck true. There was a loud rumble and the whole room shook, but then the statue broke into pieces. Flames blew across the room, lighting a tapestry on fire and allowing the heroes an escape route. They ran through the dark tunnels as the rumbling grew louder and louder and escaped just as the “back entrance” to the dungeon collapsed behind them.

But now where were they? The landscape was unfamiliar. Kurt pulled out a pocket compass and pointed.

“That way,” he said. “If my calculations are correct, that way should get us back to civilisation.”

“Ach, let’s hope they are,” said Jizzmatron.

A week later, the adventurers were lost. Eventually, they came to a small village that wasn’t on their map and stopped for the night, deciding to continue on their way in the morning.

It wasn’t an easy journey. Marlon got struck by lightning on top of a mountain, meaning he spent the remainder of the journey naked, which certainly got him some funny looks from passing travellers. Tinkleblossom got swept off a cliff by a tornado and broke both his legs, but survived. Jizzmatron broke his ankle. And they got lost not once, but twice more.

Eventually, they made it back to a populous-looking town, with a wandering minstrel that they’d picked up along the way in tow. The guards were unimpressed with the minstrel’s performance at the gates, but they allowed the ragtag band of adventurers in to the town. Before they sorted out accommodations, they decided to fix the various problems that they had encountered on the journey, fixing Tinkleblossom’s broken legs, Jizzmatron’s broken ankle and Marlon’s singed robes. This ate into a considerable portion of the profits from their adventure, but by the time all was as it should be, the adventurers realised that they had enough to pay for some training.

Marlon, Jizzmatron and Kurt locked themselves away in the training camp for a week while Tinkleblossom went into the wilderness to be amongst nature for a while. Not one of them could possibly imagine where their adventures would take them next…

[So there you have it. A lengthy description of our first game of Warhammer Quest. All of the above events were randomly generated – as if that wasn’t already obvious! But the real strength of the game is that it keeps up its “theme” and “feeling” throughout. Two of the three people I was playing with aren’t big roleplayers, but the disaster-after-disaster thing that went on in the dungeon and on the subsequent journey home made it feel like the whole expedition had a real “story”, however nonsensical.]

What is Your Alternate Reality?

I’ve been banging on about ancient 8-bit RPG Alternate Reality since the last SquadCast now and am finding the process of revisiting it with an adult’s mind (i.e. one that understands what an RPG is) equal parts addictive and frustrating. The reason for this is that Alternate Reality itself is an incredibly ambitious game with very grand designs… yet its difficulty level at the outset is absolutely maddening… and yet (again) this difficulty level makes it incredibly addictive. You start think that if you could just get a little further… or if you hadn’t tried to punch that knight in the face while not wearing any armour… things would be better.

At this point, let’s pause for a typical playthrough from beginning to inevitable early death. Strap yourself in, we’re going to another world.

It’s a typical day in the city. Perhaps I’m on the way to work, or on my way to meet a friend. But disaster is waiting just around the corner, because…

Holy shit! Aliens! AAAAHHH!!

And now they’re abducting people! Interestingly, I’m not the only one abducted… it looks like the ship picks up three others. (I’m not sure if these other three people are ever mentioned… or perhaps it’s a reference to the fact you have four “save slots” on your character disk)

Uh-oh… we’re leaving. But where are we going…?

Ah, yes, space. Of course. They are aliens, after all. Wait a minute, I know how we can lift our spirits…

A little sing-song! Maybe this won’t be so bad…

As the song ends, two sets of big scary doors slam shut and I’m locked in a green room where I am invited to “become a new person”.

When the doors slide open again, I’m in front of a gate with a force field over it. Numbers rotate over the gate. As soon as I step through the force field, the numbers freeze in place, defining who I am to be in this new world.

There’s a flash of… lightning? Static? Something, and then…

Apparently I am “joined”, and ready to enter an alternate reality.

(In the subsequent loading break, you have to swap disks twice unless you have more than one drive. You thought you had it rough with JRPGs.)

And here I am at the Floating Gate, ready to begin my adventure. You’ll notice my statistics are distinctly average. From left to right, we have Stamina, Charisma/Charm, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom and Skill/Dexterity. These have a potential initial maximum of 21, so Stamina, Charisma and Skill are pretty good, but Strength, Intelligence and Wisdom are pretty feeble. Fortunately, Skill is probably one of the most helpful stats early in the game, as it allows you sufficient mobility to avoid attacks from early enemies.

So, first job? Find a weapon. You begin your adventure in the city of Xebec’s Demise with only the money given to you by the strange portal at the beginning, no equipment and only some basic clothing. Fortunately, your starting area is the City Square, with the Floating Gate in the middle and shops all around. So, let’s take a look.

A smithy, huh? This sounds promising. I know he’s in at the moment, too, because I can hear him hammering away inside. (And yes, you actually can. This is just one of the cool “environmental effects” that you hear throughout your travels). So, let’s pay him a visit.

(Single-drive users can expect a disk swap at this point.)

The Best Armorers, huh? Sounds expensive. However, as the smith seems quite happy to stand there singing while I browse his wares, I take my time and consider my options carefully.

7,424 coppers? I was right, this place is expensive. In fact, there’s nothing I can even nearly afford in here. I tell him to forget it rather than risk offending him by making him a paltry offer (which might make the smith reluctant to deal with you in the future, when you could potentially afford his wares – one of the many things that AR keeps track of in the background). I step back onto the windy streets, still distinctly lacking in equipment. Time to explore.

As I leave the Best Armorers, it starts raining, which makes it difficult to see where I’m going and slows me down. Thunder crashes and lightning flashes. But at least I haven’t run into any ne’er-do-wells as yet.

Spoke too soon. A wandering zombie notices me but doesn’t have time to act. I don’t fancy taking it on in my current state, so I run for it. Fortunately, I managed to get away before it was able to do anything unpleasant to me.

A little further down the road, I surprised a rabid-looking Giant Rat. I elect to leave it alone as I don’t fancy adding a disease to the list of my woes. It’s still early days in this strange place.

After a little exploring (and a Hobbit surprising me, then running away without saying a word) I hear the sound of a smithy again… but there’s no doors in this building. Curious. I press against a wall and find myself slipping straight through it. A secret door!

Sure enough, it’s another smithy. Occums Weaponsmiths, to be precise. It’s cheaper… but still way out of my price range. Curses.

Outside, it’s still raining, and worse, I run into a Goblin. Desperate, I try and sweet-talk it into stepping down and maybe giving me some of its treasure and equipment. The conversation doesn’t go well, with the Goblin responding to my polite request by trying to stab me. This place is just like Southampton. Maybe I haven’t gone anywhere at all.

I respond in kind to the Goblin by punching it in the face. It’s a feeble attack, but at least it connects, which is more than can be said for the Goblin’s attacks. With my high Skill, I nimbly avoid and parry all of his blows and manage to knock the foe to the ground without sustaining any injuries myself. Unfortunately, the Goblin doesn’t seem to be carrying anything of value. I do, however, gain a total of 59 experience points from the whole encounter.

Night falls, and it’s still raining. I surprise a Fighter in the street, but he looks tough so I decide to avoid him while he’s still surprised. I begin to think it might be an idea to try and find somewhere to spend the night. It’s clear the City is an inhospitable place, but I imagine this becomes even more apparent in the night-time.

In search of an inn, I get mugged by a Skeleton. What a bastard. Fortunately, I manage to get away before he can attack properly. But how much did he steal…?

I check my pockets. Fortunately, I don’t seem to have lost anything irreplaceable, and I still have a few copper coins to my name. Enough to spend the night somewhere, hopefully.

I encounter a Dwarf a little further down the road. I’m not sure if he’s friendly or unfriendly, so I decide to turn on the Charm and see what he has to say about that. Bizarrely, he dies. I think this is AR’s way of telling me that this was a successful encounter, not that my tongue was so silver he simply collapsed and died in wonderment at my words. Possibly. Whatever actually happened (and I guess we’ll never know), I now have 205 experience points. Not yet enough to reach level 1 (You have to earn level 1! The indignity!) but a step closer, nonetheless.

A Troll shows its face next. It looks scary, so I try and disengage from it and escape. I do so, but not before it steals some of my water and food. This isn’t going well.

picture-33 For a worrying moment, despite working with a map (an absolute necessity, as this was, of course, the days long before automapping) I think I’m lost, and I haven’t bought a compass yet. Fortunately, I get my bearings shortly afterwards and manage to stumble my way to the doorway of Mom’s Bar, where the giant rat I ran away from earlier (possibly) is waiting for me. The rat tries to steal some more of my food and water then tries to bite me, but I dodge it and duck into the bar to get out of the rain.

picture-35 The bartender informs me that the band are on a break, but invites me to watch a dwarf dancing. Since I’m hungry and thirsty, I decide to take him up on his offer and sit at the bar watching the dwarf and listening to his quirky music.

picture-36 I order some water and a food packet to take with me. This only costs me a few coppers, fortunately, and should give me enough sustenance to get through the night… I hope. I step back out of the door. I wonder if it’s stopped raining yet…

picture-37 It has. But it’s still dark and I need a place to sleep. I stumble through the city streets some more, pausing only for another giant rat (the same one again?) to steal the food packet I just bought.

picture-38 Eventually I come across a welcome sight – a door marked “Inn”. Unfortunately, as I reach for the handle, I’m attacked by a Gremlin. I ask it very politely if it wouldn’t mind awfully stepping aside if it would be so kind, and it dies at my words, finally giving me enough experience to reach level 1. Not only that…

picture-411 TREASURE! The Gremlin drops a potion. I can’t work out what it is, but it tastes dry and is red in colour. I decide not to quaff it right now just in case it is deadly poison, which is entirely possible in this harsh world. The Gremlin also drops a shield, which looks “mundane”, apparently. I pick it up and wield it on my off-hand, not caring that I look ridiculous wielding a shield but not a sword. Cutting a rain-drenched yet distinctly self-satisfied figure, I barge into the Green Boar Inn.

picture-481 I elect to spend the night on the common room floor as despite having my first taste of acquiring treasure, I’m not exactly flush with cash. I hand over 10 coppers and spend the night on the floor, asking to be woken at 9am the next day.

(Aside: This is, I think, the longest I’ve ever survived. It figures that the one time I decide to show you a “typical playthrough” and make reference to “inevitable early death” I’m here for ages.)

picture-51 I step outside the door and give a charming greeting to a passing commoner. The commoner is obviously in a bad mood and promptly stabs me in the stomach. I try and apologise, but he stabs me again, so I run away, bleeding a bit. I’m also now very hungry and very thirsty. Time to pay that tavern another visit.

picture-52 Seriously hungry and thirsty now, and my stats now starting to drop from thirst, I impulsively spent my remaining coins on food and drink – some grape juice, a couple of food packets and some chocolate cake. When I leave a few hours later, I’m still thirsty but I’m not hungry any more. Plus I enjoyed the band’s song.

picture-531 Back on the street, the sun is setting (Already? I must have been in that tavern longer than I thought) and I encounter a Thief. I charm him successfully and take his two pieces of silver that he was carrying – this equates to twenty copper pieces. It paid for the chocolate cake if nothing else.

Incidentally, reading the official guidebooks and cluebooks for The City indicate that successfully Charming someone is indeed killing them – you pretend to be their friend then stab them in the back. So to the Dwarf I met earlier… uhh… sorry! This is something you have to be careful of in your time in the City. Encounters fall into three categories – Good, Neutral and Evil. You can safely do whatever you like to Evil creatures. Attacking a Neutral creature (and these include most of the humanoid ne’er-do-wells such as thieves and fighters) first before they do anything to you is considered an evil act… and tricking or charming a Good creature is a very evil act. As you might expect, dropping your reputation in this way is a sure-fire way to get the whole city pissed at you.

In a case of art mirroring life, I find myself “very thirsty” again, much as I am feeling now, sitting here writing this with a sore throat. Keen to prevent my already feeble statistics (in-game) from dropping any further, I head back to Mom’s Bar to rehydrate myself.

picture-54

I order three glasses of water and sit at the table for a while, sipping them. It’ll be time to sleep again soon, which should help me recover the injuries I sustained with my ill-advised encounter with the Commoner earlier. The band sings an entertaining if unnerving song about not going into bad parts of town at night for fear of being set on fire.

I stagger out of the tavern and head back towards the inn. Perhaps tomorrow will be a more productive day.

picture-55 I wake up and, once again, I’m hungry and thirsty. Time for breakfast at Mom’s Bar.

picture-56 Unfortunately, I get jumped by a Swordsman outside the inn. The swordsman steals all my coppers then cuts me up with his sword. Fortunately, he proves easy to Charm. I hold my hands up in truce until he comes over, then I snap his neck. Unfortunately, he seems to have eaten my coins, so I’m now penniless, hungry and thirsty.

picture-58 I’m not proud of what I do next. I use my not-inconsiderable skills of persuasion to “convince” a passing Courier to part with what he was carrying. Unfortunately, he was the walking equivalent of a white van with a “NO TOOLS ARE KEPT IN THIS VAN OVERNIGHT” sign posted on the back, as he is carrying nothing but a bitter-tasting potion which disappears in a puff of smoke when I attempt to quaff it.

I do hit level 2, though, so it’s not all bad news.

picture-59 I’m reaching desperation point now. I come across a Fighter and attempt to sweet-talk him out of some coins. This fails and I get hit again. I manage to run away before too much injury is done to me, but things are starting to go downhill.

picture-60 Saved! I find another tavern – this one called the Misty Mountain. But they want three thousand copper coins before they’ll let me in. Given that I don’t have any copper coins whatsoever, I am quickly ejected from the premises.

I begin to feel that my demise might be on its way. Death is peering over my shoulder. I slink back onto the street, dejected, weary and very thirsty. I manage to dredge up a food packet from my pocket to satiate my hunger for the moment, but there’s no water anywhere to be seen.

picture-61 Unable to help myself, I stumble into the path of a robber and attempt to beat him back, but I fail. He takes my last remaining possessions and runs away. By now I’m parched and starving, and I can feel myself weakening moment by moment. I must cut a pitiful sight.

picture-64 I collapse somewhere around the city’s walls and am confronted by a guard. My attempts to mug the populace out of desperation have not gone unnoticed, it seems, as he attacks me without warning. By now, I am grateful for the attention. I put up some meager resistance but secretly, within, am hoping for the sweet release of death as this existence has become too difficult.

I am slain by his greatsword and crumple to the ground, never to be heard from again.

picture-65 Alas, I am dead.

So there you go – in slightly longer format than I anticipated, but never mind.

Alternate Reality: The City is one of those games that is infinitely better when you treat it much as I did above – as a “playground” where you make your own story. This is largely because the game has no aim as such – partly due to its design, and also partly due to the fact that the whole series was never finished – a crying shame, as the whole series had a huge amount of potential.

For the unfamiliar, the series was originally planned to be split into several interconnected volumes – The City (and the Dungeon beneath its streets), The Wilderness, The Palace, The Arena, Revelation and Destiny. Only The Dungeon ever made it out onto shop shelves – as a separate game rather than part of the original City package. The Dungeon had much more structure and actually had an “end” too – or more specifically, a point that clearly led onto the final two chapters, Revelation and Destiny.

Revelation and Destiny were the interesting-sounding ones. Towards the end of The Dungeon, the player character was supposed to acquire a keycard, which could be used to enter the Revelation area where everything suddenly became a bit more futuristic. The player would find themselves walking the corridors of an alien spacecraft, looking out through windows into a dramatic spacescape, while Destiny would allow the player to finally discover the truth – that abducted humans had been placed into a form of suspended animation within “cocoons”, each living out their own parallel life in the city of Xebec’s Demise and its surroundings.

Hold on a minute, you might think. This all sounds a little bit familiar. A bit Matrix-y if you will. And you’d be right.

Philip Price, author of the series, claims he once met a pair of movie directors who wanted to discuss Alternate Reality. It’s never been verified whether or not this was the Wachowski brothers, but there are certainly plenty of similarities between the two series, and it makes a nice story for geek folklore nonetheless. It’s a crying shame that Price never got to realise his ambition, however, as the whole thing would have been a magnificent achievement had it come to fruition.

As it is, The City and The Dungeon stand as two extremely interesting (not to mention playable and addictive) curios – role-playing games that were many, many years ahead of their time that arguably could finally have their original intentions fulfilled nowadays. It would certainly be interesting to see Bethesda working on a re-imagining of the series. But I guess we’ll never know.

Some great info and links on Alternate Reality can be found here and here. Check it out. Oh, and here’s that glorious intro sequence in full – a five-minute long intro on a 48k machine isn’t bad going, is it?

On Evil

After completing Fallout 3 recently, I suddenly had a hankering to return to Oblivion, a game I hadn’t played for well over a year. Fallout had tickled my free-roaming Western RPG bone (if there is such a thing, and I don’t invite you to postulate where it might be in the comments) and I wanted more.

Oblivion is one of those RPGs I’ve started at least ten times with different characters to experiment with different things. The thing I’ve really liked about it every time I’ve played it is that each time I emerge from those Imperial sewers I can wander off in a different direction and do something completely different. One time I went straight for the main quest (and didn’t finish it). One time I headed straight for the Arena in the Imperial City to kick some ass (bare-handed on that occasion, that was an entertaining challenge). One time I headed for the Mages’ Guild and took that questline to its conclusion. Yet another time I decided to explore the dungeons scattered around the landscape, simply to acquire as much loot as possible.

But there’s one thing that all these trips into the wilderness had in common – they all involved me being “good”. Not once did I veer towards the dark side, bad Jedi, Renegade, negative reputation, whatever you want to call it. I always do this. In any game that promises “moral choices” I inevitably end up playing the “good guy” because, at heart, despite my grumpy old man persona, I’m a good guy. I even did this in Fallout 3, where it’s kind of “all right” to be a bit of a bastard because, well, everyone else is.

Not this time, though. I decided that this time was going to be the time I went very, very bad in Oblivion.

I started by hunting down the Gray Fox to start the Thieves’ Guild questline, which I promptly made my way through. For those of you unfamiliar with it (and be aware there are spoilers ahead) this sequence of quests takes you from lowly burglar up to an extremely high-profile thief, culminating in you stealing one of the series’ titual Elder Scrolls from the Imperial Palace. By the time you’ve pulled this off, if you’re anything like me, you feel like you’re a badass thief, but you also feel faintly bad for taking advantage of the blind monks you stole it from.

This is nothing – nothing – compared to how sullied you feel after completing the Dark Brotherhood questline, however.

The Dark Brotherhood come to you in your sleep after you commit your first unprovoked murder in the game. In my case, this happened as part of a sidequest I happened to be completing at the time. I had two possible solutions to the quest, which essentially revolved around a captured bandit and his lover having a disagreement. My choices were to either betray the bandit or his lover. I elected to betray his lover, who had put across the impression of being something of a heartless bitch anyway, and after all, honour among thieves and all that.

Actually, “betray” doesn’t quite sum up what I did to her. I broke back into her house while she was sleeping and shot her in the head with a magic arrow, which exploded and sent her flying, smacking straight into her ceiling before collapsing in a crumpled heap in front of her fireplace. This spectacle was faintly amusing, as ragdoll physics deaths are often wont to be, but the ominous words across the top of the screen “Your murder has been witnessed by forces unknown…” sent a slight chill down my spine. Sure, I’d stolen stuff before, but the Thieves’ Guild questline had felt faintly “Robin Hood”-ish. This was getting into full-on evil territory now, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I also wasn’t sure I liked it when a mysterious robed gentleman visited me while I was sleeping off a level gain and offering me membership in the Dark Brotherhood conditional on my murdering an old, helpless man named Rufio.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I killed Rufio and thus began my run through what many believe to be Oblivion’s best questline. The Dark Brotherhood storyline is a tale of murder, betrayal and vengeance filled with a lot of violence and some excellent plot twists, some of which are left for the player to interpret themselves, which is a touch I really liked. For example, one late quest in the sequence has you picking up a series of “dead drop” orders containing the names and locations of people for you to assassinate. Now, you can blindly continue through this sequence of assassinations by simply following your quest log’s instructions – but if you actually look at the dead drop items in your inventory, you may spot that at a certain point, the “handwriting” that the notes are written in changes. At the time, I simply figured this to be some variation or inconsistency in the presentation but it actually turned out to be an extremely pertinent piece of information.

I had a massive amount of fun with the Dark Brotherhood questline but, as I say, it left me feeling faintly soiled. The experience I had, though, plus the fact that it had an actual emotional impact on me – arguably a more powerful emotional impact than a “good” questline – makes me more inclined to check out more “evil” options in other games from the outset. I know I’m certainly keen to try Fallout again as a more “evil” character in the future, if only because Fallout makes a big deal of the fact that your choices are supposed to have pretty major consequences later in the game. I’m yet to see if this actually is the case, but I’m certainly interested to find out.

Now, of course, my Oblivion character is on a quest for redemption. Wish her luck.