–I’ve written a review of Emily Short’s new work Blood and Laurels for Storycade. Check it out. I liked it very much–some quirks with the engine but otherwise an excellently written work. Hell, it’s about intrigue and stuff in Ancient Rome–what could be better?
–How about…The Future? I’ve contributed a passage to a collaborative Twine thing called You Were Made For Loneliness. A bunch of people contributed to this Thing, and you may enjoy it! If you can guess which passage is mine, you will get a free copy of Zest when it’s done!
(Zest is, incidentally, going to be PWYW, so there was a good chance you could have gotten it for free anyway, but come on, it’s a contest, have fun with it.)
–The most experience I’ve had with RTS is a few abortive attempts at StarCraft, which while undoubtedly an excellent experience, didn’t particularly seem geared towards the novice who sucks at videogames–all right, fine, I just plain sucked at it. It wasn’t the kind of game I was into at the time anyway.
Spellforce is one of those GoG summer sale impulse purchases–a $5 bundle. I actually bought it half by mistake–I was confusing it for Sacrifice, which I’ve always had a mild interest in. Both games focus on their “hybrid RTS/RPG” nature, and since that’s where my main interest was, it wasn’t a problematic mistake at all.
I’m not sure quite why I’m so into Spellforce–the pack I bought includes the original and all expansions, as well as the second one and its first expansion and I’m playing the first. I can see some issues–the graphics aren’t always the most distinct, there’s no way of selecting units of a particular type beyond the basic worker units–you can’t select all melee units, for example–and probably plenty of other issues that hardcore fans of the genre would point out, but I think it’s pitched at exactly the right level for me.
I’m about a quarter of the way through the first campaign, playing on normal difficulty, and while it’s not a breeze I’m getting the handle of the basic techniques. It’s always a fun thing getting into a genre for the first time. There’s things that I’m finding extremely charming about it–I really *like* that there’s a degree to which I can set my little dudes out to do whatever little resource gathering thing I need them to do, grab a cup of coffee, and come back to Progress. I am, of course, playing on Easy Mode.
Which, that’s of course part of why I’m finding Spellforce more accessible–it’s not as dicky. One of the reasons I don’t play multiplayer stuff is because I’m actually fairly bad at most videogames. Single player modes don’t make me feel that way–I am perfectly content to run up against a wall chipping away at a level until it’s done–Spellforce has been particularly forgiving in this regard and does allow for some do-0vers–you can escape to another map, which wipes away any buildings and units you’ve created, but enemy bases stay destroyed and any gear or experience you’ve gained stay with your character. Even when I’m playing with someone with the best of intentions, I feel like I suck way too much in multiplayer to a degree that just isn’t fun.
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