Game 327: Darkwood (1992)

               
Darkwood
United States
Published as shareware in 1992 for the Macintosh
Date Started: 15 May 2019
Date Finished: 16 May 2019
Total Hours: 4
Difficulty: Easy (2/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)
               
You are an orphan named Derek who wants to join the elite city guard of Darkwood, the safest city in the kingdom. Anyone who defeats the toughest creature in the arena will become Captain of the Guard. You start at Level 1 with no experience, a dagger, and 10 gold pieces. In front of you lies a town with a weapon shop, an armor shop, a magic shop, an inn, and an arena.
           
Starting the game. You click on buildings to enter them.
           
Because it's all you can afford, you buy some leather armor for 5 gold pieces before heading into the arena. You are offered battles against 20 creatures, listed in order of difficulty from a giant rat to a red dragon. You choose the giant rat. You defeat him in a few rounds of combat and get 10 gold pieces and 75 experience points. You rest up at the inn, and with your newfound wealth, you upgrade your weapon to a short sword. Back you go to the arena to face the next monster.
                   
Over the next several hours, you kill successively harder monsters, buy successively better equipment, and level up. You can save at any time, so death is not permanent. Eventually, you make your way to the arena wielding a Sword +5 Holy Avenger and wearing Full Plate +4, and you defeat the red dragon. Then the game is over.
         
Battering away at an enemy.
         
As tempting as it is to go immediately to GIMLET and make this the shortest entry of all time, there are a few more things to talk about. The first is that I've played this game before, when it was new. Someone had loaded it onto one of the lab computers at my university, and I copied it to floppy disk and brought it home. (This would have been around 1993, in my only Mac-owning period.) The entire time I played, I assumed I was playing a prologue, and once I was named Captain of the Guard, the game would open up and I'd perform a bunch of quests in my new role. I couldn't believe that it was over when it was over.
                                                            
Dad would be so proud.
          
I mis-remembered a few things about the game. I thought I remembered that you could only fight each creature once, but not only would this make for a 10-minute game, it would be impossible. You need to grind relentlessly against low-level creatures to survive and build wealth. The game doesn't really encourage you to test your limits. Even with reloading, if a goblin gives you 25 gold pieces and 110 experience points, and you can kill him 100% of the time (which you can after Level 2), what is your incentive to move up to a bugbear, which offers 40 gold pieces and 250 experience points but a 50% chance of death? Just fight the goblin twice. It only takes a few seconds.

You have to be careful not to be lured by the ghoul (400 gold, 500 experience) or the wight (500 gold, 700 experience). They can drain levels, so their rewards aren't worth it. If you can get to the point that you can defeat the troll, he's a reliably rewarding enemy, offering 1500 gold and 1800 experience. He's the third-to-last enemy, so he should be a lot harder, but something isn't programmed properly. He almost never hits you.
       
Grind all those experience points again? Or just reload?
        
I bought the best weapon and armor in the game, as well as a ring of protection +3, before purchasing any healing potions (easier just to reload than chug a 1000-gold-piece potion) or tomes. The tomes cost 2,000 gold pieces each and allow you to increase your dexterity and constitution to 18 and your strength to 18/100. (I don't think intelligence, wisdom, or charisma do anything. They can't be improved.) After that, the only things to spend money on are wands and potions.
          
Using a tome.
           
I made it to Level 8. It was taking too long to grind to Level 9. I found that the red dragon was unconquerable with melee weapons, even with a full stock of healing potions. But it was vulnerable to the lightning wand that you can buy in the magic shop. Four or five blasts and I was Captain of the Guard.
          
I don't want to accuse the author of anything, but our past experience with shareware titles makes me suspicious of the provenance of these graphics.
         
In a GIMLET, it earns:
           
  • 2 points for the game world, featuring a basic backstory commensurate with the scope of the game.
  • 1 point for character creation and development. There's no creation, and leveling doesn't seem to do much more than confer extra hit points.
  • 0 points for no NPC interaction.
  • 1 point for encounters and foes. The bestiary is Dungeons and Dragons standard, and the level-draining attacks of the undead are the only special attacks programmed in.
                 
A few statistics help you determine what foe you'll want to defeat next.

              
  • 1 point for magic and combat. Your options are only to attack, use an item, or surrender.
                     
Using the Wand of Lightning in the final battle.
          
  • 3 points for equipment. Only one weapon and armor slot, but the magic item selection is decent.
  • 4 points for the economy. It lacks any complexity, but it remains relevant until the end.
  • 2 points for a main quest.
  • 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. There are only a couple of sounds: hit, miss, and "you won!" Graphics are sparse enough that it might as well have been a text game. It's disappointing how all the monsters are represented by the same helmeted figure. I found the all-mouse interface annoying, as I do all all-mouse interfaces, but it was easy enough to determine what to click on.
  • 2 points for gameplay. Too easy, too limited, and not replayable, it's at least short.
              
That gives us a final score of 18. It's about as minor as you can get and still qualify as an RPG at all. Author Robert Chancellor returned to the setting with Siege of Darkwood (1993), a light strategy game that he published through Pointware. Based in La Verne, California, Chancellor would later go on to work for Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios.
              
He sure got a lot of mileage out of that graphic.
             
What Darkwood does best is raise uncomfortable questions about what makes it a "lesser" RPG. Imagine that it is the menu town of something like a Gold Box game. Instead of leveling up and gaining wealth by fighting monsters in the arena in 30 seconds, you have to spend hours questing in dungeons, only to ultimately return to the city to spend your money and level up. What have all those extra hours gained you? Are they anything more than sound and fury? In stripping away the frills of typical, more elaborate RPGs, does Darkwood also strip illusions about the value of time spent playing those games? Can I honestly say that the endgame screen is less satisfying than a typical era title that takes 5 times as long but introduces no extra plot?

Those questions might be more worth thinking about if the combat in Darkwood were a bit more elaborate, a bit more tactical. I feel like if you're going to set your title entirely in the confines of an arena, combat needs to offer something more than clicking the icon of a sword until someone is dead. (Has any good RPG been set entirely in an arena? I'm open to the possibility.) Perhaps an action-oriented approach drawing upon the underlying attributes. Perhaps the ability to team up with other NPCs. As it is, Darkwood leaves me uncomfortable and unsatisfied. Perhaps I can pretend it's a prologue to Darklands.


****

I've removed Dragons Shard from the list after playing it for a while, then realizing that the shareware version caps character development at Level 5. This is my third half-hearted attempt to play a Bit Brothers game, all of which seem to feature the same engine. Until I can somehow obtain a full-featured copy of the game, I can't get far enough to bother writing about it.

Also gone is Mission: Thunderbolt, which it turns out is not really a 1992 game but a 1991 Macintosh release of a single mission of a mainframe game called Doomsday 2000 (1987). The game has been moved to re-consideration in its appropriate year.

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14.6.2014 draw 297/14 19 Mei 2013 23 Jun 2013 24.04.2013 25 Jun 2013 4 mei 2014 - draw 278/14 6 mei 2014 Adakah anda bersetuju dengan pernyataan tentang zakar ini? BERIKUT MERUPAKAN NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 30 OGOS 2014 draw 143/13 draw 279/14 DRAW ID 098/13. DRAW ID 099/13: NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 4 MEI 2013 DRAW ID 139/13. DRAW ID 141/13. DRAW ID 142/13 DRAW ID 142/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 3 AUGUST 2013 ID CABUTAN 098/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 1 MAY 2013 ID CABUTAN 099/13 / ID CABUTAN 139/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 27 JULY 2013 ID CABUTAN 141/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 31 JULY 2013 Keputusan dan perbandingan antara nombor ramalan dan result Magnum 4D pada 31 Julai 2013 Keputusan Magnum 4D Kerja part time/ sambilan : Peluang tambah pendapatan Magnum 4d result 1 May 2013 Draw 098/13 Magnum draw 094/13 nombor 4d 6.7.2014 308/14 Nombor 4d untuk hari ini : 21/04/2013 nombor magnum 4d draw 107/13 ; Ahad nombor magnum 4d untuk draw 101/13: 7 mei 2013 ( magnum 4d prediction number for draw 101/13 : 7 may 2013 Nombor ramalan 4d : 24.04.2013 Nombor ramalan dan keputusan Magnum 4D draw 119/13 pada 15 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D 4 Ogos 2013 draw 143/13 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D 7 Ogos 2013 draw 144/13 nombor ramalan Magnum 4D dan result pada 4 Ogos 2013 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d draw 112/13 29 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D pada 1 Jun 2013 draw 113/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 14.6.2014 draw 297/14 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D pada 2 Jun 2013 Draw 114/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 23 ogos 2014 draw 329/14 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 26.05.2015 draw 467/15 - special draw Nombor Ramalan Magnum 4D pada 30 April 2014 draw 276/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 30 ogos 2014 draw 333/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 4 mei 2014 - draw 278/14 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 5 julai 2014 hari sabtu draw 307/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 7 september 2014 draw 338/14 ( 7.9.2014/338/14) nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 8 Februari 2014 (8/2/2014) draw 235/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari ahad nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari ahad 6 julai 2014 draw 308/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari rabu 25 september 2013 draw 168/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari rabu 9 julai 2014 draw 309/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu 13.9.2014 draw 340/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu 26 oktober 2013 draw 182/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari selasa Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 118/13 pada hari Rabu 12 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 119/13 pada hari Sabtu 16 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 120/13 pada hari Ahad 16 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 121/13 pada hari Rabu 19 Jun 2013. Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 123/13 pada hari Ahad Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 124/13 pada hari Selasa (special draw) Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 231/14 pada hari Sabtu 1 Februari 2014 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk hari Sabtu 7 Ogos 2013 draw 149/13 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk hari Selasa 3 September 2013 draw 158/13 | SPECIAL DRAW Nombor ramalan MAGNUM 4D untuk special draw 111/13 28 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan untuk hari Rabu nombor ramalan untuk MAGNUM 4D Nombor ramalan untuk magnum 4d draw 105/13: 15 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan untuk magnum 4d draw 120/13 dan keputusan/result magnum 4d pada 16 Jun 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 1 MEI 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 27 JULAI 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 3 OGOS 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 31 JULAI 2013 nombor ramalan untuk magnun 4d pada 3 mei 2014-277/14 nombor untuk magnum 4d draw 095/13 : 27 April 2013 PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D ON 4 MAY 2013 ramalan magnum 4d 9.7.14 309/14 Ramalan pada 12 Jun 2013 dan keputusan Magnum 4D Result 21.4.2013 Cash Sweep Result 21.4.2013 DaMaCai Result 21.4.2013 Magnum Result 21.4.2013 Toto special draw 28 Mei 2013 special draw pada 28 MEI 2013. TERKINI| TERBARU: nombor magnum 4d 7 mei 2013; 101/13 ; special draw Toto draw 3871/13

**Penafian**

Nombor ramalan hanyalah sebagai panduan dan dicadangkan untuk MAGNUM SAHAJA (atau kaunter lain sekiranya sesuai) . Segala pertaruhan adalah atas risiko anda sendiri.