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Finals week
Looks like I’m going to be a 3.8 student. Not sure how I feel about that…
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Lord…
…but not of time, that’s for sure.
I just played five straight hours of Lords of Magic, which is a Sierra fantasy RPG/strategy game from 2000. I had a great time with it in middle school, and I’ve been wanting to play it again recently…so I did. That was the first time in a LONG time that I’ve played a single game with such devotion for that length of time. As much as it made me “waste time” not working on homework, it was extremely refreshing, a trip down memory lane…
I always find it fun to replay games that I played in my youth because my perception of the game is so different now that I’m more “grown up.” I’m able to leverage a much more intelligent and holistic view of gaming and the games that I played; why they succeeded; why they failed; why I loved them so much. I’ve also learned much more about game and narrative design since then, and deconstructing those elements within single games is nigh endlessly fascinating.
I’m always looking for the quality of the narrative and the verisimilitude of the world. In the case of Lords of Magic, the story is really nothing special: the Dark God Golgoth summoned a vile necromancer to terrorize the land of Urak after one thousand years of dormancy. But the story is waterproof, to a fault. The developers really went balls-out (not normally something I’d say, but I’ve been hanging around jazz musicians all weekend (take it or leave it :P)) and covered every aspect. It seems like they all got together and brainstormed every question that someone might ask about their world, and then answered it. I don’t wish to go into detail, but suffice to say that there is quite a lot.
Another thing that’s really great about Lords (as I’ve come to call it) is its presentation. It’s full of cheesy late-nineties animations and cutscenes (think Starcraft, but with terrible voice acting and a flair for lightning). Clouds gather as a dark mass of arms and nonspecific moving parts courses over the foothills. Illustrated pages within a wizard’s tome crackle as the wind flips them to reveal the backstory. Each unit has two or three unique phrases that it repeats every time you select it or make it do something (it gets endearing as quickly as it gets old); the character portraits are black and white sketches on yellowed parchment; the battle and parley invitations cause you to reach for your dictionary. The game exudes the sort of gravity that only comes from being extremely cheesy, nerdy, and picky, and not only acknowledging it but loving it. The whole thing reeks of first edition D&D.
I’d like to talk about the gameplay, and how it strikes almost the perfect balance between depth and captiousness, but I have some counterpoint to write before the day is done (and for me, it’s getting pretty close). If you are a fan of the Sierra era, fantasy in general, or of the sort of computer games that cropped up in the late nineties, you owe it to yourself to check out Lords of Magic. Brought to me (and possibly to you) by the $9.99 aisle in Fred Meyer electronics!
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A good bit of prose
Here is my Facebook rant describing my first (and last) shopping trip to IKEA (in response to the statement that cheap prices make it worth it to shop there):
Yes, that is their cost in money. But it is nothing compared to the terrible toll that journeying into IKEA’s dark caverns takes upon the journeyer’s soul! It is rumored that those who spend too much time in that labyrinthine shrine of merchandise are doomed to forever wander within its immaculate halls, eternally crying out in remembrance of the succor is now so far out of their reach.
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Cantor
“You know, suitcases rank pretty low in terms of volition.”
It’s been so busy recently that when I get a spare moment to think, sometimes I realize with a sudden flash of insight that all I really want to do it sit down and cry. It’s abuse, you know: a busy schedule is abuse of the soul. It’s a hijacking of time, energy, and life—because let’s face it, no one wants to be Busy. busy, yes…but not soul-crushingly Busy.
I’m not a crying person, though. Often when I want to cry I simply find that I can’t. So for now I just endure and try to make it through the thick slime of action, constant constant action.
Your mind has walls, you know. There is an end to what we conceive of as our minds, our selves. But those are just walls, just like the ones in your house. Some people think their mind is a prison; others, a fortress. But it’s neither. It’s a place enclosed by walls. What those walls symbolize is up to you.
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On Mistakes
As I progress farther into what I would tentatively call “wisdom,” I make fewer mistakes. The ones I do make are more egregious, and yet I find that I care even less.
Tonight I dropped my entire washbasin onto the floor, spilling water, soap, dishes, and bits of food all over and into the carpet. It made quite a mess…yet I seemed not to even care. Surprise has remained surprising but has not become disheartening.
I remember a time when I would have flown into a rage over a much smaller error. Yesterday I broke one of my cherished Boy Scout mugs (previously the last remaining after my freshman year of college). It was too bad. But not anything more than that.
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PAX Cosplay
Made it onto the Sega site for our Typing of the Dead cosplay! http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2010/09/09/sega-pax-2010/
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Lords of the Pit
Near-TPK today. David’s Alchemist convinced the party to go down a corridor clearly marked “Danger.” Then, Sai’s Rogue bluffed them (with a 26) into thinking that there was a gelatinous cube chasing them. They had already fought one that session, and it was a dreadful ordeal. The party ran madly down the corridor, into a 40-foot pit lined with 5-foot spikes at the bottom. The Cleric and Rogue died instantly; the wizard and alchemist barley survived. RIP Saleous; you were a good man. And Telvenier…you were a…man. Or, at least, half of one.
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I write like Raymond Chandler →
