mrimer
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http://www.gamecyte.com/review-drod-rpg-tendrys-tale

Here's a link to a love-hate review of DROD RPG by Jesse Henning on GameCyte. He says this game is good, but much harder than the other DROD games, and basically rants about how hard it is for him.

I personally don't think DROD RPG is harder than the other DROD games, but that's just me. One comment that caught my attention is "I would go so far as to suggest that it is impossible to beat on the first playthrough". This is an interesting remark, ripe for discussion, because I'm not sure I know of *any* recent game I've been able to beat on the first playthrough (which I interpret as meaning without restoring or having to reload on death). Except possibly "Dora the Explorer". Not that I've actually played that, mind you.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 09-25-2008 03:59 AM]

NiroZ
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That was a very good review, IMHO. Only thing he overlooked was that the game was that although it is theoretically possible to complete every official DROD room on fight sight, has anyone managed it?

Furthermore, how many games recently have you managed to complete with only saving for breaks? Everyone needs to restore at some point, its just that the RPG makes it more obvious than most.

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 09-25-2008 08:12 AM]

Rabscuttle
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Not finishing it on the first play, reminds me of the IF games 'Lock and Key' and 'Varicella' (both by Adam Cadre). (Also maybe the eyemaze Grow games). D:RPG is certainly more lenient than all of these (just the official hold, I'm sure there will be holds that have a tighter solutions.)

Playing/Solving them means the following: exploring/experimenting -> theorising a solution -> testing the theory. Repeat if you are wrong.

The difference between restoring in one of these games and restoring in another game (in most cases) is that in other games there is a definite restore point to restore to. In the games above, you don't necessarily know how far back to restore to in order to leave the game winnable. In my first playthrough of Rule 8, what I thought was the last enemy turned out not to be the last enemy. I'm not sure how far back I would have had to have gone in order to finish, but I ended up restarting (for that and other reasons).

That's not a bad thing, but it takes a little adjusting to if you you are used to other games.

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 09-25-2008 08:10 AM]

mrimer
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Yes, that makes sense.

(And I was hoping you would post here, Rab, so that I can still be somewhat on topic when I say, "Swiper! No swiping!" )

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 09-25-2008 08:19 AM]

LeJerque
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Hello, gentlemen! I'm the author of that review, and I'm delighted that you read it.

I'm happy to discuss any of the points that I asserted in the article -- I can see the "one playthrough" thing is a matter of contention. That may be my fault; perhaps I phrased it poorly. I think what I meant to say is that a puzzle game where the playing pieces are initially hidden from you is necessarily an impossible task.

The major point I wanted to make was the one about the "progression stoppers." It's like Rabscuttle said -- in most other games, when you fail, you're restored back to a definite pre-screwup point. The player always knows that, from his point of restoration, he can give it another try, and that, going forward, success should be possible. This is even true in the other DROD games; barring in-room save points, dying in DROD puts you back to the start of the room, which 9 out of 10 times, is a point from which said room can be beaten.

DROD RPG also puts you back to the start of the room, which is very seldom enough. My point about publisher rejection should point out how jarring this can be to unprepared gamers: In modern game development for, say, a console game, this is a hard rule. If a player is stuck in a situation where he cannot progress further in the game, but the game provides no indication of this (through, say, a game over screen), it's considered a design flaw. DROD RPG's dead ends would be given the same treatment as an FPS character clipping through the landscape and falling through the void for all eternity. The latter is a bug and the former is by design, but in the end, both require a player-prompted restore as the only option. As such, DROD RPG is the kind of game that would really throw someone who was used to the typical game experience.

You're different, of course. You're DROD players. You're the type of gamers who can accept a game which requires you to define your own "Game Overs" and adapt accordingly.

On another topic, I can think of a couple of fairly recent games I was able to complete while saving and restoring only for breaks, but you're right; that's not typical. Normally I die a lot.

Someone Else
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I loved "DROD RPG will take new players and eat them alive." That made me laugh.

Beef Row
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LeJerque wrote:
You're different, of course. You're DROD players. You're the type of gamers who can accept a game which requires you to define your own "Game Overs" and adapt accordingly.

On another topic, I can think of a couple of fairly recent games I was able to complete while saving and restoring only for breaks, but you're right; that's not typical. Normally I die a lot.

Two commercial games that seem to have a similar trait would be Dead Rising and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, both of which center around completing as much of the game as you can, then reverting with abilities and knowledge of the game that you have gained to try again. Of course in RPG it is ONLY knowledge that you are carrying back, but this is a bit similar of a system.

EDIT: The Civilization series and other such games also would have many hopeless situations where it's unclear how far you need to revert to recover. But it's also difficult to determine with certainty a situation is actually hopeless.

____________________________
"Now I will repeatedly apply the happy-face rule"

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[Last edited by Beef Row at 09-26-2008 12:43 AM]

Znirk
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Beef Row wrote:
The Civilization series and other such games also would have many hopeless situations where it's unclear how far you need to revert to recover.

There are two big differences, one in terms of random vs. designed maps and the other (related) one about learning from mistakes.

In Civ, with its endless supply of random maps, you lose nothing by abandoning a planet where you're clearly getting clobbered. You can just restart the game and hope to do better on a different map by using the general game-skills you have learned from your earlier mistakes. You can restore to an earlier save to exploit e.g. knowledge about what is where, but it's kind of pointless: it's more interesting and more fun to learn the general stuff which transfers to other maps, and there's an imperial half-zillion of them -- some you win, some you lose.

In DRODPG, which has fixed, architect-designed holds, you do in principle want to finish each one because the supply is so limited. Thus, restarting means restarting the same map, so that you will face the same decisions again. Learning from mistakes happens at a far more specific and boring level -- the second or fifth time through you will know that "the leftmost moster in quarce north isn't worth attacking before you have the shield", but that knowledge is useless in other holds. 'Course, you can establish more general knowledge than that (e.g. that roach queens should be left alone until you have a certain attack/defense level), but there again the fixed rather than random levels of DRODPG come back to bite you: any such clear-cut rule will be deliberately designed against by the architects.