Jason
chasing a bee
Emily Short penned a slightly (though unintentionally) goofy <a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/09/column_homer_in_silicon_the_cu_1.php">article</a> for GameSetWatch on how narrative can fit in even a very basic dungeon crawler, such as <b><a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/garin/monsters-den-book-of-dread/">Monster's Den</a></b>.
<blockquote>So I soon found -- especially in survival mode, but even during the regular scenarios -- that it was most efficient to play against a group of enemies until the last enemy was essentially harmless but not dead: weak enough to be killed with a single blow, and maybe blind and poisoned as well.
Then I'd have my characters pass for turn after turn while their health and power stats rebuilt themselves. Sometimes the remaining character dies on his own, of poison inflicted earlier in the battle. Sometimes one of the party executes him when they have no further use for him.
There could be a scene there. Not a pretty one, either. My party of hard-fighting adventurers becomes much less admirable when they are essentially standing around smoking cigarettes while their dwarf maniac opponent -- wounded, blinded, poisoned -- slowly dies in the corner. We could put him out of his misery with a single blow of our Vampiric Mithril Longsword of Insight. But we choose not to.</blockquote>
Maybe I lack imagination, but trying to turn a gameplay mechanic (or more likely exploit) into a moral conundrum seems a bit silly. Like pulling enemies so you only have to fight them one at a time and pretending that your character is an honorable samurai who will only challenge opponents to one-on-one duels, as he was taught by the great master swordsman Usagi Yojimbo.
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/">GameSetWatch</A>
<blockquote>So I soon found -- especially in survival mode, but even during the regular scenarios -- that it was most efficient to play against a group of enemies until the last enemy was essentially harmless but not dead: weak enough to be killed with a single blow, and maybe blind and poisoned as well.
Then I'd have my characters pass for turn after turn while their health and power stats rebuilt themselves. Sometimes the remaining character dies on his own, of poison inflicted earlier in the battle. Sometimes one of the party executes him when they have no further use for him.
There could be a scene there. Not a pretty one, either. My party of hard-fighting adventurers becomes much less admirable when they are essentially standing around smoking cigarettes while their dwarf maniac opponent -- wounded, blinded, poisoned -- slowly dies in the corner. We could put him out of his misery with a single blow of our Vampiric Mithril Longsword of Insight. But we choose not to.</blockquote>
Maybe I lack imagination, but trying to turn a gameplay mechanic (or more likely exploit) into a moral conundrum seems a bit silly. Like pulling enemies so you only have to fight them one at a time and pretending that your character is an honorable samurai who will only challenge opponents to one-on-one duels, as he was taught by the great master swordsman Usagi Yojimbo.
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/">GameSetWatch</A>
