About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Immerse yourself in a gorgeous hand-painted world on a search for your true identity. As the mysterious warrior, Dust, your action-packed journey will take you from peaceful glades to snowy mountaintops and beyond. At your disposal is the mythical Blade of Ahrah, capable of turning its wielder into an unstoppable force of nature, and the blade's diminutive guardian, Fidget. Battle dozens of enemies at once with an easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master combat system, take on a variety of quests from friendly villagers, discover ancient secrets and powerful upgrades hidden throughout the massive, open world, and uncover the story of an ancient civilization on the brink of extinction as you fight to uncover your own past.
Previous Playtime
0 hours
Expectations and Prior Experience
I put this game on my wishlist because it looks really pretty. A lot of bright colors and rounded shapes, like a living cartoon. Then one of my readers was generous enough to purchase it for me (thank you, greatly, by the way) and I decided to use it to cleanse my palate between Stronhold games. Because one thing I know for certain is that it's not going to be building and defending castles for hours on end.
It's a platformer, for better or worse. I like the genre as a whole, but it's easy to screw up. Mostly it comes down to subtle things - the length of your jumps, the friction of your running, the inventiveness of the enemies and obstacles. I'm not worried, because I have no particular reason to think this game is bad, but if it is, i will probably take me awhile to realize it.
My big fear is that it might be too short. Running through the same game twice in a row isn't bad, but by the third or fourth time, I really start to question why I'm even here on this planet in the first place.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Stronghold HD - 20/20 hours
I have five more of these to go. Oy.
It wasn't really that bad. It's just not my sort of thing. The best part of the game was commanding the troops, and I'd rather not command troops. Towards the end, I was just looking for things to do that would take a lot of time, but not much effort.
What I eventually settled on was playing individual Siege missions. The fascinating thing about these was that they purported to be based off of real historical castles (with a couple of King Arthur-inspired exceptions). I don't know how historically accurate they were, but I liked looking at the different designs and seeing what worked and what didn't.
The main drawback to the siege missions is that they were basically won or lost before I even started playing them. If a castle was well-designed, it stood up to the enemy. If it was poorly designed, it did not. Or, at least, I couldn't figure out any way to make my personal skill relevant to the proceedings. Moving my troops around inside the castle walls seemed to help, sometimes, but not so much that I felt like it actually changed the course of a battle.
Overall. I would say that Stronghold is fine, but I really shouldn't have bought the whole bundle. Looking at the screenshots for Stronghold Crusader, it looks more like an expansion pack than a sequel. My hope is that somewhere down the line the economic sim gets more rigorous, but taken as a group, it looks like I'm in for a lot of repetition.
But that's what I signed up for, so be prepared for these posts to get short, bitter, and surreal, because we are in for a long ride.
It wasn't really that bad. It's just not my sort of thing. The best part of the game was commanding the troops, and I'd rather not command troops. Towards the end, I was just looking for things to do that would take a lot of time, but not much effort.
What I eventually settled on was playing individual Siege missions. The fascinating thing about these was that they purported to be based off of real historical castles (with a couple of King Arthur-inspired exceptions). I don't know how historically accurate they were, but I liked looking at the different designs and seeing what worked and what didn't.
The main drawback to the siege missions is that they were basically won or lost before I even started playing them. If a castle was well-designed, it stood up to the enemy. If it was poorly designed, it did not. Or, at least, I couldn't figure out any way to make my personal skill relevant to the proceedings. Moving my troops around inside the castle walls seemed to help, sometimes, but not so much that I felt like it actually changed the course of a battle.
Overall. I would say that Stronghold is fine, but I really shouldn't have bought the whole bundle. Looking at the screenshots for Stronghold Crusader, it looks more like an expansion pack than a sequel. My hope is that somewhere down the line the economic sim gets more rigorous, but taken as a group, it looks like I'm in for a lot of repetition.
But that's what I signed up for, so be prepared for these posts to get short, bitter, and surreal, because we are in for a long ride.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Stronghold HD - 10/20 hours
Time has ceased to exist. I'll play a mission or two of Stronghold and, subjectively, it will feel like an hour has passed, but when I exit the program and check the time counter, I'll see that it was only 20 minutes. Normally, a game will begin to engross me the more I play it. But this one, it's like throwing my consciousness into an ocean - instead of coming together, it just diffuses outwards and I become aware of each second passing.
I think it's because a lot of this game is waiting for things to happen. You can't construct a new building until your workers gather wood. You can't recruit a new soldier until your forges churn out some new weapons. You can't achieve the mission objectives before a certain amount of time has passed.
Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a problem for me. It's just that I feel guilty about letting time go by passively. I feel like I should be playing the game instead of just watching it. But Stronghold is an rts, not a city-builder, and thus playing it is a major chore.
It's always been a mystery to me why I like the one genre, but not the other (aside from, you know, all the grudging exceptions I've admitted to over the years). They seem very similar in many respects. They both involve building and resource management in real time, and the controls are quit often identical. Then you have things like tech-trees and sometimes even units to control (more in the games that blur the line, but still).
Yet I think I've narrowed down the key difference. An RTS tests your creation against external threats and a city-builder tests your creation against internal threats. Something like Stronghold, you have to worry about enemy soldiers and artillery tearing down your walls and razing your economic buildings. In something like SimCity, you have to worry about the unintended consequences of growth - traffic, crime, public health, and whatnot. There is some overlap with things like fires or natural disasters, but generally, in an RTS, a larger base is always better and in a city builder, a larger base is only stable after you've solved the problems created by having a larger base.
Stronghold has elements of a city-builder, but now that I've gotten up to population 250 in Free-play mode, I can say definitively that there is no special challenge in having a larger base. Population morale is trivial to manage and is only really affected by natural disasters and tax levels. Income is useless for anything besides recruiting troops. And food surplus is purely a point of pride.
I guess that means that my time of dithering is over. I have to actually commit to playing the game right. On the upside, maybe constant warfare will make the time pass faster.
I think it's because a lot of this game is waiting for things to happen. You can't construct a new building until your workers gather wood. You can't recruit a new soldier until your forges churn out some new weapons. You can't achieve the mission objectives before a certain amount of time has passed.
Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a problem for me. It's just that I feel guilty about letting time go by passively. I feel like I should be playing the game instead of just watching it. But Stronghold is an rts, not a city-builder, and thus playing it is a major chore.
It's always been a mystery to me why I like the one genre, but not the other (aside from, you know, all the grudging exceptions I've admitted to over the years). They seem very similar in many respects. They both involve building and resource management in real time, and the controls are quit often identical. Then you have things like tech-trees and sometimes even units to control (more in the games that blur the line, but still).
Yet I think I've narrowed down the key difference. An RTS tests your creation against external threats and a city-builder tests your creation against internal threats. Something like Stronghold, you have to worry about enemy soldiers and artillery tearing down your walls and razing your economic buildings. In something like SimCity, you have to worry about the unintended consequences of growth - traffic, crime, public health, and whatnot. There is some overlap with things like fires or natural disasters, but generally, in an RTS, a larger base is always better and in a city builder, a larger base is only stable after you've solved the problems created by having a larger base.
Stronghold has elements of a city-builder, but now that I've gotten up to population 250 in Free-play mode, I can say definitively that there is no special challenge in having a larger base. Population morale is trivial to manage and is only really affected by natural disasters and tax levels. Income is useless for anything besides recruiting troops. And food surplus is purely a point of pride.
I guess that means that my time of dithering is over. I have to actually commit to playing the game right. On the upside, maybe constant warfare will make the time pass faster.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Stronghold HD - 5/20 hours
Weirdly, I am enjoying the military campaign more than the economic campaign. Call it a case of managing expectations. On an economic map, I am expecting to have to build up my economy, and thus I get quite upset when enemies come around and wreck my shit. On a military map, I am expecting to fight enemies, and thus am pleasantly surprised when doing so requires me to build up my economy. In practice, though, the two mission types are basically indistinguishable.
The main problem I've been having is that I keep overestimating the strength of my castles. I'll have this wooden gate, with five archers on top and then four guys will come to the gate, smash their way through, and slaughter my entire force . . . all without losing a single member. I'd have thought that the combination of fortifications and ranged weapons would be an insurmountable advantage against foe that did not greatly outnumber me, but I'm coming to learn that if I don't outnumber the enemy at least 3 to 1, I might as well not bother showing up, castle or no.
The other problem I've had is a sillier one. It's not always apparent to me which terrain is passable and which is not, so when I build my walls, I'll think I have them abutted against a natural barrier, and then the enemy will beeline for the one diagonal tile between them and just slip through as if there were nothing there. I've started to compensate by over-fortifying, building 2 or 3 layers of walls where 1 would look better.
Free build mode is everything I said I wanted in my last post, though once I got a chance to build without interference from wolves or bandits, I discovered that there is no depth whatsoever to the game's economic system. You can precisely control your population growth by building hovels, and then, after the fact, build the production buildings necessary to utilize and support that population. Without the threat of invasion, there's no challenge at all.
I guess that makes sense. The game is called Stronghold, not "Medieval Village Simulator." But I can't deny that this has become something of a contest of wills. Either I will bend the game to my will, or it will bend me to its, but one way or another, I am not getting through 20 hours of this without some form of creative destruction.
The main problem I've been having is that I keep overestimating the strength of my castles. I'll have this wooden gate, with five archers on top and then four guys will come to the gate, smash their way through, and slaughter my entire force . . . all without losing a single member. I'd have thought that the combination of fortifications and ranged weapons would be an insurmountable advantage against foe that did not greatly outnumber me, but I'm coming to learn that if I don't outnumber the enemy at least 3 to 1, I might as well not bother showing up, castle or no.
The other problem I've had is a sillier one. It's not always apparent to me which terrain is passable and which is not, so when I build my walls, I'll think I have them abutted against a natural barrier, and then the enemy will beeline for the one diagonal tile between them and just slip through as if there were nothing there. I've started to compensate by over-fortifying, building 2 or 3 layers of walls where 1 would look better.
Free build mode is everything I said I wanted in my last post, though once I got a chance to build without interference from wolves or bandits, I discovered that there is no depth whatsoever to the game's economic system. You can precisely control your population growth by building hovels, and then, after the fact, build the production buildings necessary to utilize and support that population. Without the threat of invasion, there's no challenge at all.
I guess that makes sense. The game is called Stronghold, not "Medieval Village Simulator." But I can't deny that this has become something of a contest of wills. Either I will bend the game to my will, or it will bend me to its, but one way or another, I am not getting through 20 hours of this without some form of creative destruction.
Monday, January 1, 2018
Stronghold HD - 2/20 hours
I had such high hopes when I saw that there was an economic campaign. I thought for sure that I could focus purely on building up my town's economy and leave all that tedious siege warfare stuff to the military campaign. And for the first mission,it seemed like that was exactly the case. But then I loaded up the second mission and wolves slaughtered all of my workers!
Apparently these are the fearless video game sort of wolves that will just attack a populated human settlement en masse. So I reloaded and tried again, and this time I was killed by bears. Then later bandits. I must have gotten to my fourth or fifth time through before I gave up in disgust.
And now, here I am. Frankly, if Stronghold is going to treat me this way, I may just have to do the military campaign after all.
I'm afraid the next 18 hours are going to be rough either way. This game really shows its age. The RTS controls are imprecise and the economy (such as I can tell between wolf attacks) is shallow. All I really want to do is build castles and their surrounding villages. I know that the whole purpose of a castle is to defend against attacks, but I don't want a real castle, I want a toy one.
Maybe there's some way I can fiddle with the settings to get a game I want to play, but I'm not optimistic. I don't think this is the sort of game that takes it easy on people.
Apparently these are the fearless video game sort of wolves that will just attack a populated human settlement en masse. So I reloaded and tried again, and this time I was killed by bears. Then later bandits. I must have gotten to my fourth or fifth time through before I gave up in disgust.
And now, here I am. Frankly, if Stronghold is going to treat me this way, I may just have to do the military campaign after all.
I'm afraid the next 18 hours are going to be rough either way. This game really shows its age. The RTS controls are imprecise and the economy (such as I can tell between wolf attacks) is shallow. All I really want to do is build castles and their surrounding villages. I know that the whole purpose of a castle is to defend against attacks, but I don't want a real castle, I want a toy one.
Maybe there's some way I can fiddle with the settings to get a game I want to play, but I'm not optimistic. I don't think this is the sort of game that takes it easy on people.
Stronghold Series - Initial thoughts
When I was a child, I had this book. I can't remember its author or title, but it was a remarkable illustrated guide to the construction and daily life of a castle. I can't say why (other than the obvious overlap in subject matter), but something about one of the screenshots to one of the stronghold games reminded me of that book and the good feelings I had flipping through it. So, of course, I bought the whole series in a bundle because it was only $7.50.
2014 was a confusing year for me, okay.
Anyway, I've been dreading this series for awhile. Not because I think they're going to be especially bad, but because there are six of them. How the hell am I going to be able to come up with new and interesting things to say after playing six, presumably near-identical games? If I'd had any sense at all, I'd have spread them out, so that it might be less obvious, but even then, six is a lot. I distinctly remember running out of things to say about the Mount & Blade series, and there were only three of them.
That's a meta-concern, though. As far as the games themselves go, they look okay. It really depends on the balance of gameplay factors. If there's a lot of castle-building and only a little bit of rts sieges, I'll probably like them quite a bit. If I'm constantly having to defend my half-built castles from aggressive enemy hordes, I'll probably be pretty miserable.
The plan here is to do what I did with Civilization IV - alternate between a Stronghold game and something else, going back and forth for the next three months until they are all finished. Even writing it out, it sounds like a terrible chore. At least I'll be able to breathe a massive sigh of relief when it's all done.
2014 was a confusing year for me, okay.
Anyway, I've been dreading this series for awhile. Not because I think they're going to be especially bad, but because there are six of them. How the hell am I going to be able to come up with new and interesting things to say after playing six, presumably near-identical games? If I'd had any sense at all, I'd have spread them out, so that it might be less obvious, but even then, six is a lot. I distinctly remember running out of things to say about the Mount & Blade series, and there were only three of them.
That's a meta-concern, though. As far as the games themselves go, they look okay. It really depends on the balance of gameplay factors. If there's a lot of castle-building and only a little bit of rts sieges, I'll probably like them quite a bit. If I'm constantly having to defend my half-built castles from aggressive enemy hordes, I'll probably be pretty miserable.
The plan here is to do what I did with Civilization IV - alternate between a Stronghold game and something else, going back and forth for the next three months until they are all finished. Even writing it out, it sounds like a terrible chore. At least I'll be able to breathe a massive sigh of relief when it's all done.
End of Year Retrospective - 2017
I made a deliberate choice to slow my pace for 2017. It was my hope that by being less single-minded about playing video games, I'd have more time to focus on my other hobbies. And to some degree, it worked. I read a few books this year. I did some Exalted homebrew stuff that was fairly well received. I wrote about 40% of a tabletop rpg. But to be totally honest, most of my extra time was spent goofing off and watching youtube videos.
Nonetheless, I accomplished three significant blog goals this year. I finished all the games on my original list. I finally polished off the last of that Star Wars bundle. And I got down to 24 games remaining before the end of the year (though this achievement was almost immediately undone by a couple of gifts and rash purchases on my part).
My goal for 2018 is to get down to 0 remaining games. My secondary goal is to do so by June 21st. That will be the four year anniversary of the blog, and a nice place to wrap things up.
Which raises the question - why do I want to stop doing the blog? Truthfully, I don't want to stop, I just want to finish . . . if that makes any sense. I started this thing with a clear goal in mind and for much of its history, that goal has gotten farther and farther away. The idea that I could actually reach it has filled me with a kind of desperate focus - it resembles hope, but it's probably a little too furious for that.
I've started fantasizing about what life will be like when I no longer have a Steam backlog. I could go back to playing games like a normal human being. If I enjoyed a game, I could play it for as long as I wanted, even if that was hundreds of hours. And if I didn't enjoy a game, or if I enjoyed it, but only took 8 hours to get through the whole thing, I could stop.
And yet, I will miss doing this. I like collecting my thoughts about the games I play. Some moreso than others, admittedly. But overall, this blog has been a source of pride and satisfaction for me. So I don't want to think of my June 21st deadline as me committing to a retirement. Rather, I've been thinking of it as an opportunity to try something new.
The most obvious direction would be to only buy games I intended to play, and then play them right after I bought them (I know - a shocking suggestion in this day and age). It would mean the blog would stay alive in diminished form - a new game every month or two, more or less forever.
Alternately, I've been toying with the idea of keeping my challenge list open indefinitely. As much as I'm loathe to admit it, I was actually amused by being forced to play Ride to Hell: Retribution or Ship Simulator Extremes. I don't necessarily want you all to take this as an invitation to drown me in 1-star games, but know that, taken sparingly, I may grumble about having to play them, but it's a good- natured grumbling.
The final idea I've had is the most radical, and I'm hesitant to bring it up because it's a huge commitment, but it's also possible that I may change gears after the blog is finished and start tackling my tabletop rpg collection. I've been collecting rpg books for 20 years, and I have about 300 volumes. I've already read about 90% of them, but it might be kind of fun to go through my whole collection and systematically review each and every book. That might be too great a change, though.
It's still too early to lay any concrete plans, though I will make this promise - any game I purchase or receive before June 21st, 2018, I will play and blog about, even if it takes me another 5 years. I'm hoping it won't come to that, of course, but that's what I signed on for, and I intend to see it through.
Nonetheless, I accomplished three significant blog goals this year. I finished all the games on my original list. I finally polished off the last of that Star Wars bundle. And I got down to 24 games remaining before the end of the year (though this achievement was almost immediately undone by a couple of gifts and rash purchases on my part).
My goal for 2018 is to get down to 0 remaining games. My secondary goal is to do so by June 21st. That will be the four year anniversary of the blog, and a nice place to wrap things up.
Which raises the question - why do I want to stop doing the blog? Truthfully, I don't want to stop, I just want to finish . . . if that makes any sense. I started this thing with a clear goal in mind and for much of its history, that goal has gotten farther and farther away. The idea that I could actually reach it has filled me with a kind of desperate focus - it resembles hope, but it's probably a little too furious for that.
I've started fantasizing about what life will be like when I no longer have a Steam backlog. I could go back to playing games like a normal human being. If I enjoyed a game, I could play it for as long as I wanted, even if that was hundreds of hours. And if I didn't enjoy a game, or if I enjoyed it, but only took 8 hours to get through the whole thing, I could stop.
And yet, I will miss doing this. I like collecting my thoughts about the games I play. Some moreso than others, admittedly. But overall, this blog has been a source of pride and satisfaction for me. So I don't want to think of my June 21st deadline as me committing to a retirement. Rather, I've been thinking of it as an opportunity to try something new.
The most obvious direction would be to only buy games I intended to play, and then play them right after I bought them (I know - a shocking suggestion in this day and age). It would mean the blog would stay alive in diminished form - a new game every month or two, more or less forever.
Alternately, I've been toying with the idea of keeping my challenge list open indefinitely. As much as I'm loathe to admit it, I was actually amused by being forced to play Ride to Hell: Retribution or Ship Simulator Extremes. I don't necessarily want you all to take this as an invitation to drown me in 1-star games, but know that, taken sparingly, I may grumble about having to play them, but it's a good- natured grumbling.
The final idea I've had is the most radical, and I'm hesitant to bring it up because it's a huge commitment, but it's also possible that I may change gears after the blog is finished and start tackling my tabletop rpg collection. I've been collecting rpg books for 20 years, and I have about 300 volumes. I've already read about 90% of them, but it might be kind of fun to go through my whole collection and systematically review each and every book. That might be too great a change, though.
It's still too early to lay any concrete plans, though I will make this promise - any game I purchase or receive before June 21st, 2018, I will play and blog about, even if it takes me another 5 years. I'm hoping it won't come to that, of course, but that's what I signed on for, and I intend to see it through.
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