loved Darklands, also enjoyed the blog
I got the game late(around 2002 iirc), and got stuck pretty quick. There was so much seeming complexity that i didn’t really know what i was doing comfortably enough. Then i found this site that had lots of handy explanations and tips and it became one of my favourite crpg’s.
I think one of the things I liked about Darklands too was that it was open world before being open world was fashionable. There was a main quest (a very, very hard main quest), but if you wanted you could totally ignore that and just wander the lands looking for trouble.
There always seemed like there was something new to do… Raubritters to kill, villages of Satan worshipers to purge, dragons to hunt, Citadels of the Apocalypse to destroy, etc.
Ah, Darklands. It was the best of games, and it was the worst of games.
It was horribly buggy at release. Only after the patch was it at all playable (and remember this was before most people could download patches online.)
And it had one of the most incredibly tedious openings of any RPG ever. At the start there was literally nothing to do but kill the same dock thugs and rats over and over again until you have accumulated enough money to get some decent equipment and finally venture out into the rest of the city and the great wide world. I had a very hard time getting over that hump.
But once you got past that point it was glorious. It’s a shame, really, that the text-menu approach wasn’t used in more games, since it allowed for a for a much wider variety of encounters than were found in almost all other RPGs at the time.
Darklands was an epic game. I purchased it directly from MicroProse. Paid a handsome price for it, too–$70 or $80 IIRC–to be sure I was among the first to receive it. Then years later I saw it in the bargain bin at Best Buy for $5. How I wish I had purchased every one of them and passed them along to friends.
I would love to see an updated release improving graphics and fixing all the bugs. I’d pay another $70 or $80 for such a game.
Blog is great, and totally loved Darklands. Thanks for the links!
Didn’t have the horsepower to play it when it first came out, and by the time I did have the machine I had been warned off the bugs.
Years later (which is still years ago) I bought the patched version with the hint book and still had one of the better RPG experiences for me.
Kudo’s to Hendrick for allowing the interview. It’s not just his first video interview, but one of the first interviews he’s done.
Programing an RPG w/out a database? wow.
I still have my copy, it came on CD. It was a revamped version made to be Windows compatible called “Ultimate Darklands.” It came with a printed strategy guide, photocopied, but the rules were on .pdf and there was no printed map. There was, oddly enough, a candy bar.
I was so impressed I bought a used boxed set via Amazon just for the manual and map.
I can’t think of another historical(ish) RPG that comes close to what Darklands was aiming for. It strikes me as the Ars Magica of CRPGs. That much love of history combined with setting/period appropriate fantasy touches. And chargen on a par with Traveller!
I haven’t tried it with Vista yet but maybe I should…
Darklands is one of my all time favorite computer games. I think it still may be in the closet of my old bedroom at my parent’s house. I will have to look the next time I’m visiting.
I had a 286 at the time and Darklands ran just fine on it. Ultima 7, on the other hand, was my preferred purchase but that bastard required at least a 386 processor.
While it definately WAS horribly buggy, it also was definately playable even with the first version. You could play it and have a lot of fun without the game crashing. At least I could.
However, stuff like the large missions without save points and quest bugs etc. would probably have prevented most people from actually finishing it.
Also, I don’t recall there even being rats, and what you had to fight over and over in the early game were lowly bandits and thugs, and finally one of the poorer, less powerful robber knights. Followed by more bandits and eventually another robber night. Etc.
This would improve your reputation, wealth, equipment and combat training and eventually make you ready to face some of the more frightening situatious out there.
Upon setting out to find those you’d of course often run into a band of gargoyles that would shred you to pieces or something equally humbling, but that’s just how Darklands was.
Like with X-Com or Master of Magic, there’s no other game that really has the same “feel” to it. Those days, Microprose was really teh shit.
Also, really a shame none of the remakes that were started over the years has resulted in anything meaningful. There ought to be a huge sequel by now, in which you can become a Viking in Norway or join a Crusade to the holy land. Stuff like that.
At least that’s how I thought gaming would be in twenty years when I played games like Darklands or Ultima 7 back then.
rezaf
Great find. Many thanks for sharing.
In some ways Mount & Blade is an evolution of Darklands. Minus the fantastical elements. (not that Darkland had that much)
Looking it up online, it turns out they were actually spiders. But you know the drill: “Help, help, my house is overrun by vermin, please go kill them. Here’s an insultingly small reward for your trouble.”
Aww, Darklands.
Back in the mid-90’s I ran and wrote about a meg of code for a Darklands-based Mud which was influenced not only by the game setting but by the game mechanics.
The mechanics were crazy complex but quite good. I don’t think a lot of people really understood them though. The only way to really get insight into them was to own the hint book. For example, instead of some of the more simplistic armor implementations that most games use (usually a flat %'age reduction of all damage) the game modeled armor thickness and weapon penetration. Weapons with a low penetration value could do 1/8th or less damage when pitted against good armor. I don’t remember the details but the weapon speed formula was pretty well done as well. The whole real time combat idea was excellent and, as has been pointed out, went on to inform a lot of future game designs like Baldur’s Gate.
I loved the game. I’ve beat 2 or 3 times – my memory’s a bit hazy. It was challenging but understanding the core mechanics helped a lot. For example pick axes and military hammers were actually quite good given that they penetrated most/all armor types. I still remember lots of random trivia like the fact that Paderborn was the place to go get plate armor and that schrat encounters were really good because they were one of the few ways to permanently increase stats.
I can still hum many of the tunes such as the campfire song, the inn song, the cloister song, and the shell game song. And they were all based on real songs from that era which makes it all that much more cool. A friend of mine tracked down MIDI’s of some of the original songs. We thought the disk that came with the hint book was awesome because, not only did it have a working patch for the game, but it had a little utility that would let you browse the ingame music.
Anyway, thanks for finding the interviews. I haven’t had a chance to listen to them yet but I’m excited to do so. I didn’t even realize that the designer who worked on this was still around and working in the industry which is awesome.
Wow, starting watching his intro and thought to myself, “that dude sure looks familiar.” Glanced over at my copy of Dungeons and Desktops and made the connection.
Edit: this guy’s an expert on CRPGs and yet he can’t pronounce Tolkien’s name correctly? Epic failure.
Darklands is my favorite game ever.
All others are #2 or lower.
Hey, Bioware made an entire RPG where “golem” was mispronounced every single time.
love this guys interviews… he did some good interviews with Tim Cain and Avellone of Fallout Interplay fame. also actually he did a good interview with John Romero too! lots of pc gaming love on that you tube channel. Love all the old school developers because I grew up as an Apple II/PC gamer. back when games meant something!!! oh nostalgia!
Maybe their golems were very, very precious.