Dark Souls is incredible

Yes, I've just posted about how I want time to design Wastelands and now I'm writing again, straight away, to rave about a game I've been playing in free time. Well let me make my excuses first:

- Dark Souls in the only game I've played in a good few weeks and I've only just about clocked up 20 hours, which is less than 1 hour a day.
- Like when I got addicted to FTL, Dark Souls takes up short time slots just before I hit-the-sack, or when I'm waiting to do something or for someone or something. Basically, not properly constructive time.

With that out of the way I'll continue...

I just read when I previously posted about Dark Souls a couple of years ago and it pretty much sums it up:

http://musingsofagamefanatic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/dark-souls-brutal.html

But, I will now like to talk about it a little more, because I've got a lot better at the game, I've progressed a lot further and I've been able to appreciate a great deal more.

It really started to come together after I killed the Gargoyles - the big boss monsters guarding the first bell. It probably took me about 2 hours to finally learn how to kill them and pull it off. Honestly, if you asked me to kill them again I seriously doubt I'd do it the first 5 times - they were so hard! But after I managed it I felt the learning curve stopped being quite so steep, I found myself starting to be able to cope with changes in the environment, new enemies and mentally I felt the Gargoyles had been such a strong training tool, that I was more adaptable from then onwards. And I needed to be.

Dark Souls is a beautifully crafted game. Graphically there are a few frame rate issues and it doesn't look AAA, as I said in my previous post, but the game design is nearly flawless.

The world in Dark Souls all fits together beautifully. One area will fit into the next and then you realise that doors open into other areas, which become short cuts to others. At first this is confusing, but then you realise how this builds a wonderful world where you can explore and find short cuts and areas completely irrelevant to completing the main quest. The game really encourages exploration.

Also, at least at the point I am still at, there's no easy teleporting from one area to another. As I descended into the Depths and then further down into Blight Town, where I am now, a dark feeling came across me as I realised, "Once I'm finished down here, I've got to go up again..." No easy quick travel or teleportation, just a maze like slog up through dangerous enemies and traps, desperately finding one bonfire after another to rest at.

I was chatting to the friend who originally lent me Dark Souls 2 years back and we agreed that Dark Souls is so well designed that each area feels like a hurdle, which is hard to get over, not just another chapter in a story. Each area brings new enemies, which are nearly also very different from the previous area, the lighting will be totally different, the style of combat and things to look out for will change and the bosses guarding the key points will all require new tactics and things to consider. Even a veteran player will struggle to name all the bosses and mini bosses and how to kill them - and even if they can, I'll bet they can't actually do it all without a great deal of re-learning.

I hope I've not bored people who mind read this too much. Dark Souls is a truly great game and one which people should put time in to learn and appreciate. It's hard, very hard, but so rewarding.

And after 20 hours of gameplay I've rung the second bell and my friends say I've just got past the "easy bit"...

Just one month please!

I've had a lot of ideas running around in my head recently for game design and in particular Wastelands.

When I last left Wastelands I knew the game wasn't perfect, but I was in a pretty happy place knowing that it was fairly stable and very playable. In the last few weeks however I've had a few revelations, which I think will tweak the game in such a way as to be able to run even closer to my design brief and prevent even more of the, "what do I do?", syndrome which is caused when an aspect of the game just doesn't sink into a new player's mind.

Now, as of the beginning of February I've got a 4 month overlap between my Open Uni modules and consequently Wastelands will have to sit quietly and wait it's turn. Maybe if there's a gap between deadlines I'll give it a weekend. I have still not even sent a trial copy to my friend's down south, and they have been waiting for well over a year now! Probably more like 18 months...

I'm really excited for that time when I can really put time into Wastelands, and then the games that surround it - which are just quiet whispers at the moment.