I Cast Magic Missile: An Introduction (Part 1)

                When critics and even gamers look at games today, they base much of their judgment on how free their gameplay style is – how many options there are available for them to customize their character, where they can go, what they can do, and so on. Most games are limited by the development team’s size, time allotment, and the style of game they’re producing. But there is one game out there that has only one limit: the imagination of its players. A group of five people can sit down for a couple hours and come up with a game that has never been conceived before, all the while having loads of fun, and not even noticing the time passing.

                What is this miracle game, some may ask?

                Well, it is known by many names. Some call it stupid, nerdy, and a waste of time; others refer to it as the greatest game ever devised; most, however, know it only as Dungeons and Dragons (or DnD for short).

                Once one can make it around the negative social stigmas associated with DnD, it is truly the most enormous game playable. To begin, one simply needs an imaginative mind and a group of friends. While guidebooks are available for purchase, they are known as guidebooks for a reason: they serve only to give players ideas as to what they could do in the game. But before a prospective player can dive into even the simplest game, they must first know the basics.

                Present in every session of Dungeons and Dragons are the players – they are, after all, the center of the storyline. They generally number from two to six (though this limitation can be expanded if they are experienced), and fall within one of two categories: the adventurers and the Dungeon Master (DM). Adventurers are the most numerous of the group, making up the majority of those at the table, as they play the characters that the story generally revolves around. They can come from any walk of life, and have any amount of experience (or a lack thereof). However, the Dungeon Master fills a very important role: s/he is the one that controls the world surrounding the adventurers, from plot to geography and everything in between. Dungeon Masters are generally very experienced players that have been gaming DnD and know its subtleties well, though there are exceptions (such as myself) that jump into the role with no prior knowledge to fill a hole in a gaming group.

[Note: I've decided to divide this blog up into many separate parts, as it will be incredibly lengthy. So watch for the next part as it is released!]

(Blogging week 2)

Free Download of the Month: Cave Story

A while back, a friend of mine, Danny Davies, brought up the Japanese game Cave Story in casual conversation. I was intrigued, and thought that because it was a free download, it could do no harm, and I tried it out. I expected a meager, hand-crafted game with a few bugs and slightly choppy or unbalanced gameplay; I received quite the opposite. The original developer, Studio Pixel, had crafted a masterpiece in 8-bit, and didn't even set a price - though many players (myself included) would've been glad to pay, if only to support the creator.
How was this homemade game a masterpiece, you might ask?

Well, it all boils down to a couple of things: what makes 8-bit shooter games endearing - simple beginning controls with a learning curve easy enough to follow but also challenging enough to be interesting, fast-paced gameplay, and intense music (which I was delightfully surprised by - but this I'll return to later). Yet it also brings back an element many modern games lack that was generally present on the true 8- and 16-bit systems: a full-fledged plotline with twists and turns. All of these elements combined to make a wonderful game that I was drawn to complete in my first sit-down of 7 hours.

 After a cutscene showing a man in distress attempting to contact his sister, you awaken abruptly in a cave with no idea what to do or where to go. There’s no tutorial because the controls are so simple: the arrow keys move you, and Z makes you jump. As you explore the cavern you’re trapped in, you steal your first weapon from a smith you find asleep in his room, and you quickly learn that X fires the meager pistol of yours. Your first shots are taken at the bats that chip 1 of your 3 health away, and you eventually end up in a small city of humanoid animals. As the story progresses, you discover that your character is a soldier with amnesia, sent from the surface with a group of humans to explore the island floating in the sky that you’re on. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but the conflict is interesting, and there are many choices that affect gameplay and the storyline immensely. The music is interesting from the start, and completely 8-bit, which I adore – it sounds as though Studio Pixel even routed an original NES soundcard for the audio bits. Using a hand-crafted editing program, Studio Pixel produced tunes that fit each and every scene in the game, ranging from ambient cave percussion to intense boss battle themes.

 Cave Story found its way into my heart within the first forty minutes after I started it up, and I’m sure that if you give it a shot, you’ll love it as well.

English Cave Story Site

Final note: remember that this game was produced originally in Japanese, and that you must install a patch to play it through with its English translation. Both the original download and said patch can be found at the site above.

Have fun, good gaming, and remember - don't feed the trolls.
-Toast

(Blogging Week 1)