Darklands - CRPG Addict Retrospective

[Silver]

The CRPG Addict took a look back at Darklands and found it a highly-original and innovative game.

Well, what a ride. Darklands offers perhaps the most original approach to role-playing that we've seen since the inception of the genre, and in several dimensions. The experience wasn't always a joy, but I never stopped admiring what the developers were trying to accomplish. In this case, the primary developer ("original concept" and "project leader" in the credits) is Arnold Hendrick. It was his only RPG. Hendrick wrote responses to 13 pages of questions on Steam between 2016 and 2018, participated in a three-part interview with Matt Barton in 2010, and submitted to a long interview on RPG Codex in 2012. Thus, I was able to pepper my summary below with many of his recollections.

(Hendrick, I should add, is a fairly unique game designer in that he came from a background of board and tabletop gaming and never learned programming. It reminds me of how Irving Berlin became immortal writing hundreds of hit songs while never actually learning how to read, write, or play music. I sometimes wonder if I could make a go as a game designer or a composer with a similar lack of foundational skills. Perhaps--but I don't think I'd ever have the gall to put myself out there as such.)

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More information.

 

[GabrielMP_19]

Always wanted to play this game but I was quickly bored the only time I tried it. Will still try it again someday. It's a shame that I simply don't have the patience to play most of these old games anymore.

 

[JFarrell71]

I loved Darklands. Played through it multiple times.

 

[joxer]

Always wanted to play this game but I was quickly bored the only time I tried it. Will still try it again someday. It's a shame that I simply don't have the patience to play most of these old games anymore.

It's not about patience. Ask kids to try it they'll ditch it instantly and think there is something seriously wrong with you.

 

[Hastar]

Kids are morons

 

[joxer]

LOL
Well… Are they really (and were we at a time), or we make them morons? There is this "overlooked" research:
https://www.medindia.net/news/elect...unication-of-parents-and-infants-156449-1.htm

In a recent study published in the JAMA Pediatrics researcher Anna V. Sosa and colleagues from Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, conducted a controlled experiment involving 26 parent-infant pairs with children who were 10 to 16 months old.

‘Conversational turns during play teach children language. Therefore, parents much engage themselves during playtime with infants to develop the child’s verbal skills.’

Participants were given three sets of toys: electronic toys (a baby laptop, a talking farm and a baby cell phone); traditional toys (chunky wooden puzzle, shape-sorter and rubber blocks with pictures); and five board books with farm animal, shape or color themes.

They found that while playing with electronic toys there were fewer adult words used, fewer conversational turns with verbal back-and-forth, fewer parental responses and less production of content-specific words than when playing with traditional toys or books.

The study showed that parents also produced fewer words during play with traditional toys than while playing with books with infants. Parents also used less content-specific words when playing with traditional toys with their infants than when playing with books.

Researchers concluded, "Any digital enhancement should serve a clear purpose to engage the child not only with the toy/app, but also transfer that engagement to others and the world around them to make what they learned meaningful and generalizable. Digital features have enormous potential to engage children in play - particularly children with a higher sensory threshold - but it is important the child not get stuck in the toy/app's closed loop to the exclusion of real-world engagement. Bells and whistles may sell toys, but they also can detract value."

The whole Research in PDF if you want to study it:
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ty_and_Quality_of_Parent-Infant_Communication

I know this should go into "things you don't need to know" thread, but… Regardless of how many researchers repeat this test, noone on this planet but me will hate Nintendo.

 

[Carnifex]

What a great game!!! Seriously, if you've not played Darklands as of yet, treat yourself and make it so!

 

[BlackVoid]

It's fatally out of date.

it's like your first love from high school. Good memories about good times.

Then 20 years later you come for a reunion and it's a 300lb stranger with 4 kids. yea, you can talk and reminiscent, but you are not going to "do it" anymore.

 

[Lucky Day]

The Reunion

"Oh, wow. BlackVoid," the large woman sighs and she squeezes her husband's hand tightly. Briefly she wonders if the kids are doing okay with their grandmother and then remembers what her mother said about BlackVoid 20 years ago. "That boy is going to be living in his parents' basement collecting government cheques and playing video games the rest of his life. You need a good man that can support a family." As BlackVoid wipes the potato chips off his greasy sweater and stuffs it in his unshaven face, she thinks to herself, "My God mother, you were so right." Avoiding any embarrassing re-introduction, she holds her husband's elbow and steers them to the buffet table.

 

[TmpDArt]

I was a big Amiga fanboi at the time, but this is one of those games I really wish I'd played upon release.

 

[Pladio]

I tried this a while ago when it was on one of those abandonware sites.
I simply didn't manage to get into it. I think I liked the setting and it looked like it had potential, but I didn't read the manual, so I had no clue what I was doing

 

[Carnifex]

That manual is pretty much essential to not only understanding the game, but actually playing it as well. In some ways I'm glad times have changed to the point that the manuals aren't important anymore, yet at the same time I think perhaps we lost something.