Planet Bob

Selling into slavery kinda worked. It actually got me into some slavery mines, but at least I managed to escape from there, then I was able to freely roam the continent.

 

I made my way through two more smaller areas (dungeons?), one refugee camp and some ruins from a city that was apparently completely destroyed by a dragon

 

I also had two more people joining my party, two guys named Ulrick and Louie, both welcome additions to our small group.

 

So much for the first island on this continent, I'm more than ready now to advance to the next tomorrow!

Not much to report tonight. I made it through another ruins dungeon and am halfway through a magic forest.

 

I started to specialize my characters some, making one of them an axe master, another a swords master, etc.

 

One thing I wanted to mention is how complicated the game is controlled. E.g. if you want to heal someone with a bandage skill you need 6 keystrokes:

 

U - Use something

5 - Select Player with Bandage Skill

S - Use a Skill

A - An Abillity Skill to be more precise

B - Bandage actually

1 - On Player 1

 

If your whole party is hurt, repeat 6 more such sequences.

 

Same goes for magic and combat. After a while you learn to type those sequences pretty fast, but convenient it's not...

Oh, all the ups and downs of an adventurers life!

 

Today I gave up on completing the magic forest, the southern half just had too difficult battles for my party.

 

I went on to explore a nearby town, only to get trapped there, ending in jail!

 

And when I thought it couldn't get any worse, right after fighting my way out of jail again I somehow managed to get enlisted in the army, where I'm currently supposed to help besiege a castle.

 

Here's where things get pretty interesting, since I'm actually stuck in the army of the bad guy, so I hope I'll figure out how to swap sides tomorrow

Wow, this sounds really cool! I just bought Dungeons and Desktops by Armchari Arcade's Matt Barton and am starting to feel my love of RPGs creep back into my soul and get a good grip. Nice entry on this game, really made me interested in it.

That book sure must be interesting to read!

 

If you per chance liked the Bard's Tale games back in the day, I'm very positive you'd like Dragon Wars too. It pretty much is Bard's Tale 4, evolving some of the series concepts a bit further. The story telling is better and the auto-mapping and skill system are great, just like the improved graphics.

 

In fact I read in an interview with the programmer that it was supposed to be Bard's Tale 4, until a few months before the release Interplay decided to become independent from EA and so they released it on their own. I think it really suffered from lacking the big name and from being still created on 8-Bit computers first.

 

If you try it, for an advice: Stay clear off the Army! While it isn't a total dead end to the game, I definitely entered that part much too soon.

 

The story continues somehow, but I think I lost quite some important battles along the way.

 

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Anyway, I had a fun 5th and final night with the game. It's definitely an okay game worth a look

 

Watch this space for "Star Trek: 25th Anniversary", the next game I'll be Interplaying!