Status Update: October 2024
RPGs
Old-School Essentials
For the first time in probably half a decade, I have news on this front!
Thanks to some work colleagues, we have just begun playing Old-School Essentials, a reinvention of the original Dungeons & Dragons rules, brought from the dead to take dungeon crawling adventures back to the old days of storytelling and exploration, instead of all being so driven by rules, and tiles (and miniatures).
It is called "0ed" and, while I have only read the basic free rules so far, I can clearly see why. They try very strongly replicate the old first edition of D&D/DnD, making everything quite simple and approachable to insist and focus a lot on the "this is an adventure, improvise!" take.
But damn, it is also very challenging! Level 1 characters are so fragile; my lawful cleric almost died on our first encounter... And I don't even have any spells other than "turn undead"!
But what I'm most happy about is the fact that after so long, I'm back into some roleplaying. We're doing it online, so it is a new and different experience, but I'd rather meet virtually than not meet at all!
Videogames - Finished
XCom: Enemy Unknown
I got a brand new iPad, and when I saw that the game is available there (expansion included), couldn't resist. I finished a full ironman mode walkthrough, with many augmented soldiers but no MEC.
Videogames - Ongoing
Zelda(s)
I decided to do another run of both Breath of the Wild, and then Tears of the Kingdom, and I began, but Echoes of Wisdom just came out! So it really should be in the postponed section, but as I switched a Zelda game with another Zelda game, it's kind of even.
Dwarf Fortress
Really not advanced much, the game is as good as deep and complex, so I have it kind of on hold until I have enough time to properly immerse on its mechanics. Still, by far the best and most complete game of its kind.
KeeperRL
I decided to buy this roguelite mix of Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, and so far so good. While not as deep as DF, it is also much easier to begin playing, and I like the dual real-time-for-building and turn-based-for-fighting approach.
I must confess that the Dwarf Fortress-like graphics and building/crafting were what sold me in the first place. It is also quite cool that it features multiple game mode variants: being a knight, an adventurer, a dungeon keeper but themed to a necromancer... Looks like highly replayable.
Ancient Domains of Mystery
I'm slowly trying to play more old-school kind of roguelites, but the user interfaces are often really complex. I don't mind the ASCII graphics, but relying more on keyboard shortcuts than on menus requires some investment. ADOM provides a nice graphical UI and mouse support over (most of) its game, and has very good critics, so I also began playing it.
So far I merely finished the tutorial and some initial quests, but looks very promising.
XCom 2
After playing again the first one, I am eager for more turn-based stragegy, so I just began a new game. Of course in ironman mode, I love the thrill of not being able to go back after any mistake or bad luck.
Videogames - Postponed / Discarded
Diablo 4
I got my necromancer to level 100, played a bit more, but got tired. The expansion just came out, but they redesigned the crafting and levelling for the 4th or 5th time, so I'm going to pass for now. When they make up their minds and stop to properly think what and how they want the game progression to be, then I'll consider coming back.
Also, the expansion is way overpriced for the small chunk of new stuff it brings, so I'll wait for some sale if I decide to play the game again.
Diablo 2: Resurrected
After dismissing Diablo 4, I wanted more, so switched to D2R. I got my necromancer there to level 73, just after unlocking the Hell difficulty level. But I need to grind quite a bit for better equipment and runes, as even the starting enemies are such a challenge.
Parked the game for now, but I'll probably come back in the future.
Oxygen Not Included
While not an RPG per-se, it is one of those base-building games in which the characters and the world feels so alive that I'm treating it almost as if it were one. An adventure of a group of interstellar travellers that got stuck in an alien planet, and now struggle to build a habitable underground base? station? city maybe?
I think I am in the middle stages of the game, where you can sustain your colony almost without issues, and I have plenty of resources and they deplete slowly; I can recycle water, I generate some food, and I generate some oxygen and recycle/clean more. It is never a long-term sustainable scenario, but I'm happy to have learned the ropes of the game without having to sacrifice any colony and start over again.
Let's see if I manage to finish it (I think you can build a rocket and fly away from the planet).
Dungeons & Dragons Beholder Jigsaw Puzzle
I had in mind posting a book review, but instead prefer to first share a photo of a recent new hobby, doing jigsaw puzzles... but not due to their complexity, instead based on the illustration. The first one was pretty low on pieces count (not even 150!), but I loved the image and couldn't resist. Behold, a Dungeons & Dragons Beholder!
Next will be a 1000 pieces puzzle based on the Zelda videogame series, but I also plan to paint a Wizkids DnD Beholder miniature with the same color schema. We'll see which one I finish first.
Latest Boardgames: DnDs and Gears of War
I am lately lacking enough time for properly testing (playing few games of each) three out of the four products... So I decided this time to go for existing reviews as I cannot provide a decent opinion yet.
I bought "blind" Wrath of Ashardalon and Gears of War just based on what I read about them, and preordered The Legend of Drizzt after playing Ravenloft.
 
As I said, I have only played the first one, Castle Ravenloft. I´ve played the first missions, both solo and 5 players.
The game employs a really good dungeon crawling tiled-based system, with random tiles (in a stack containing special ones) and continuous monster spawning, which combined with the automatic monster logic provides a smooth and challenging gameplay.
I like that it is not an easy game. Many things are finally dependant on luck with your dice throws, but the spawning mechanic and event cards make all player turns dramatic and tense. And it ramps up the difficulty accordingly to the number of players (at least in theory, once again depends a bit on luck).
The missions are varied and Wizards of the Coast has already published some bonus extra ones for the first two DnD products.
 
I hope to test the rest of them soon, but anyway the reviews I've linked are very detailed, so go read them!
Deathwatch, Deathangel and Castle Ravenloft
Finally, a long awaited order arrived with some interesting new games:
- Deathwatch: A Warhammer 40.000 book RPG. Being able to roleplay individual Space Marines (as alien-hunters instead of mere army soldiers), looked too appealing to let it pass. As far as I've read it is not a substitute for Rogue Trader but a newer version of the rules focusing on SMs. The book looks awesome but I have almost 400 pages to read!
- Death Angel: A card game version of Space Hulk that can be played from solo to 6 players (all with Terminator Squads, Genestealers are played automatically). I'm still reading the instructions and the system is quite clever and seems to have ported the basic feeling of Space Hulk battles.
- Castle Ravenloft: A module I didn't ever played on the old D&D converted into a boardgame full of miniatures, random maps and that also can be played solo or up to 5 people (with automatic rules for foes). I just assembled the contents and gave a quick look to the instructions (quite small, but the maps are random and there are lots of encounter cards).
I definetly want to prepare a Deathwatch campaign to play with my friends, but if I hadn't already too much to read, more stuff...
Been busy lately...
I've been quite busy lately, with my change of job, some "hardware work" on my house and having small holidays. But now that everything is getting normal again, I hope to be back posting frecuently.
This past weeks I've been reading a lot of comic books, some old ones I already had, some bought either in comic stores or in my small trip to Barcelona.
The three most interesting comic books I've read are this:
A world in which mouses live in a medieval society in hidden cities, guarded from cats and other dangers. A group of guardians, seeking trails of a traitor. A DnD-like adventure, with beautiful drawings.
It was a bit short but I liked it anyway.
Warhammer 40.000: Damnation Crusade
My first introduction to Warhammer 40k novels, in this case a graphic novel. It narrates some battles of the Dark Templars Space Marine Chapter against Orcs and Chaos (mostly, few other races appear).
Drawings are ok (but not incredible), but it reminded me of my childhood painting my Dark Angels miniatures. Narrative is "a-la-Warhammer 40k", super-humans blindly fighting for the Emperor with unbreakable faith and courage.
Comic book adaptation of the great novel. I was impressed of how exact text were. Drawings are in black&white but not bad, and help to transmit the fear and hopeless atmosphere of the story.
Recommended if you liked the novel.
Also, this weekend I took from my mother's house my old Gameboy and all the games I had with it. Among them, was one RPG I started but never finished, The Sword of Hope.
The game is a typical turn based, static screen RPG, with battles like Final Fantasy games. Story is typical, enemies are typical and battles are (typically) a bit too often and boring; You either die almost 100% sure or crush the enemies, depending on your level.
The interesting part is, being as limited as the original gameboy was, how developers put on the game a full RPG. I'm finishing it to see how big it is, but right now this are my thoughts:
- Combat is too simple: Attack or use spells (each level you gain more, usually more powerfull ones), or use healing items.
- Enemies are dumb: Sometimes they fight each other, sometimes they even hit themselves with spells, and there is few variety of them.
- Inventory is quite limited too: Just a maximum of 7 of each item (3 bits of data ;), just 255 gold (8 bits of data ;), you can only buy better armor (and I hope swords too later...), and you usually carry at most 2 or 3 special items.
- Level cap is 31 from what I've seen in the www, and you only have dex., stam. hits, mana and resistance points/variables.
Here are some screenshots:
As I said, the game is a bit limited, but excepting the tiring leveling up, fun to play.
Extra: Just released, the Wow Talent Calculator for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion
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