Castle Ravenloft - Klak's Infernal Artifact

Haven't played Castle Ravenloft in a while but an upcoming game night put me in the mood for a dungeon crawl so I whipped it out recently to have a quick play.  And promptly got my ass handed to me by Klak and his infernal artifact.
>:(

Clearly, this was unacceptable and there was only one recourse.  Revenge!

Naturally, if this was going to be revenge, I had to use the same team as last time.

A fighter, a mage and a cleric walk into a dungeon

Things started out fairly innocuously with just a simple wolf threatening us as we entered the dungeon.

Pah - puny wolf

Naturally, the wolf tried to flank the fighter but its fangs proved no match for his strong armour.  Our cleric was then able to get the drop on it and take it out.

Flank attack!

As we moved deeper into the dungeon, we adopted standard PC marching order.  Fighter in front with the mage bringing up the rear.

Little did we know that the dastardly monsters had anticipated such a strategy!

Behind you!

Our first real test was a stone gargoyle.  No matter what we tried, we just weren't able to penetrate its defence.

Fighter needs food!

Ultimately, our pitiful attempts to deface the gargoyle were laughed off with ease.  And things really took a turn for the worse when the gargoyles mate showed up and wasn't appreciative of our attempts to deface the original.  Alas, this proved too much for the poor cleric who promptly keeled over with fright.

Alas poor cleric, we hardly knew ye

Nevertheless, one healing surge later and the cleric was back in action.  Not just back in action but also venturing further into the dungeon.  At least, that is how he described it. At the time, it looked like he was running for his life.

Nevertheless, progress was made. More importantly, the laboratory was found! Klak and his infernal artifact finally making its appearance. Which can only mean one thing.

Cue dramatic dungeon lighting!

The fighter charged forward and, using his Brute Force power, dealt a devastatiing blow to Klak which left him at deaths door!

Take that!

It didn't take much longer for Klak to fall as the fighter pressed his advantage.

And that!

At this point, despite our best efforts to roll poorly when attacking the artifact, we were able to hold out to get the win.

Final board position

Tabletop Simulator

Surprisingly, I fell into a trap which I have previously always avoided.  Early Access.

Buying games in early access always seemed like an odd idea to me.  Why would you buy a half-completed game at full price?  Never seemed to make sense.

However, as you probably guessed from the title, I actually purchased Tabletop Simulator despite it being an early access title.

I've been aware of this title for a long time now - ever since it first got kickstarted.  However, in line with my general policy for games (ie wait until the game gets finished and released), I passed and kept moving.  However, I recently got reintroduced to it when I say a couple of people on Youtube using the game to play board games remotely.

And, despite it looking a little finicky, the software looked really impressive.

In brief, the "game" is really just a physics simulator.  It gives you lots of different pieces, as well as the ability to create mods for other pieces, which you can use in board games.  The amazing thing is the amount of mods which have already been created for various different games.

The nature of the game - it being a physics simulator - is really what overcame the early access label for me.  The game was stable and the physics seemed to work such that you could easily use it to play various different board games.

What is also cool about Tabletop Simulator is that, once you spend a bit of time learning how, its actually fairly easy to create your own mods.

By way of proof - Imperial Battle Line.

Battle Line is a great little card game by Reiner Knizia.  There is already a mod for the original game on Steam Workshop but there wasn't a mod for the Star Wars retheme of the game.  Seeing as I always played with the Star Wars retheme - it was a no-brainer for me to create my own mod.

I'm also pretty chuffed that, after being uploaded on 18 March, I currently have 61 subscribers.  Taking out my brother and myself, that still gives me 59 strangers playing that mod.

Cool!

Star Wars: Dark Forces II

This is almost going to be a repeat of last weeks post.

As part of the Star Wars humble bundle, I also got Dark Forces II.  After giving up on Dark Forces, I decided to try out Dark Forces II to see what that was like.  However, unlike Dark Forces, I have never played Dark Forces II before.

The first thing which hit me when I loaded up DF2 was how old the game looks.  Specifically, this came out during the period when CD-ROMs first started to gain popularity in the PC gaming market.  In particular, during the period when every game came out with filmed cutscenes with bad actors and cheap sets.  And boy oh boy, does this apply to DF2!

Here - check out the opening cutscene for yourself!



In terms of the game itself, I didn't get very far.  Unfortunately, it suffers from many of the same problems as Dark Forces in terms of the mechanics feeling very old and dated.  With that said, even from the little I played, I can see how it evolved the formula from the original Dark Forces.

Star Wars:Dark Forces

I picked up Star Wars: Dark Forces recently as part of the Star Wars humble bundle.  I actually remember playing this game when it first came out.

In brief, it was one of the better Doom clones.  Not that it was better than Doom but because it tried to do something different with the Doom formula.  Rather than just running around a map killing everything, you actually had specific missions that you needed to complete.

Despite this, I never actually finished the game so I was fairly excited to load it up so I could give it another run through.

The game itself was first released in 1995.  And unfortunately, it shows.

Playing this game really shows how far FPS games have developed over the last 2 decades.  Possibly, if I had completed the game in the past, the nostalgia value may have been enough to make me keep playing.  Unfortunately, I got bored of the game really quickly and uninstalled it after two levels.

Worth mentioning though that I did enjoy the game when it first came out.

Also makes me wonder - would I enjoy Doom if I played it now?