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Humble Daily 11 of 14: Dungeon Crawling RPGs
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Humble Daily 11 of 14: Dungeon Crawling RPGs

We’re nearing the end of the two weeks of daily Humble Bundles; so far we’ve had a couple bundles that were repeats, with most of the bundles being smaller bundles of indie games. Today’s update consists of three RPGs, two that are a bit more in-depth and one that’s a shorter rogue-like game that can be played in approximate 10-minute intervals. Here’s the quick summary:

  • Paper Sorcerer (74%, 11/2013): a first-person turn-based RPG similar to the old Wizardry and Might and Magic games, this is a true retro RPG that began life as a Kickstarter. The graphics are black-and-white (think pages in a book), which is part of the story line. If you like old-school RPGs, there’s plenty of that here.
  • Legend of Grimock (82%, 04/2012): similar in many ways to Paper Sorcerer in that this is another old-school RPG in the vein of Might and Magic, with death being an early companion – so save often! Graphics are nice, though movement is in 90-degree increments. Donations that beat the current average ($3.57) will unlock this game.
  • Desktop Dungeons (82%, 10/2010, 11/2013): the final game is a rogue-like puzzle game of dungeon crawling, with each session giving you a dungeon to explore. In some ways it seems similar to Paper Dungeons, but there are plenty of differences. The game initially launched as a free game way back in 2010, but it has since been updated in a variety of ways and is now a fancier – and pricier – game. A minimum donation of $10 is required to unlock.

As a long-time RPG player (yes, I actually played the original Wizardry and Might and Magic games), this bundle is more my style than some of the other bundles, so this is one I’m planning to buy. All of the games have received decent reviews, and while the total bundle value is “only” around $35, that’s still one third the price for three games I’d like to play. If you have a similar hankering for classic RPGs, there are far worse ways you could spend $10. And I’m sorry if this is a bit late, but there are still 14 hours remaining; happy dungeoneering!

Update #12:

I’m not going to do a separate post on this one, as it’s not something I’m particularly interested in promoting, but the 12th Daily Bundle is for Eve Online. You get the Amarr Arms Dealer Starter Pack that includes some starting items and 30 days of game time (only usable with new accounts), and if you beat the average you receive the Vanity Pack with a custom skin for the Punisher Frigate and some additional apparel for your character. And if you want to go all-in, $20 or more will also net you a PLEX (Pilot’s License Extension).good for another 30 days of game play. After your trial period, your account will convert to a standard paid account, which you can then cancel at any time. And that’s the reason I don’t particularly care for this bundle, as I’m simply not a fan of any of the MMOs. YMMV.

Humble Daily 11 of 14: Dungeon Crawling RPGs
  • Comments are Closed

Humble Daily 11 of 14: Dungeon Crawling RPGs

We’re nearing the end of the two weeks of daily Humble Bundles; so far we’ve had a couple bundles that were repeats, with most of the bundles being smaller bundles of indie games. Today’s update consists of three RPGs, two that are a bit more in-depth and one that’s a shorter rogue-like game that can be played in approximate 10-minute intervals. Here’s the quick summary:

  • Paper Sorcerer (74%, 11/2013): a first-person turn-based RPG similar to the old Wizardry and Might and Magic games, this is a true retro RPG that began life as a Kickstarter. The graphics are black-and-white (think pages in a book), which is part of the story line. If you like old-school RPGs, there’s plenty of that here.
  • Legend of Grimock (82%, 04/2012): similar in many ways to Paper Sorcerer in that this is another old-school RPG in the vein of Might and Magic, with death being an early companion – so save often! Graphics are nice, though movement is in 90-degree increments. Donations that beat the current average ($3.57) will unlock this game.
  • Desktop Dungeons (82%, 10/2010, 11/2013): the final game is a rogue-like puzzle game of dungeon crawling, with each session giving you a dungeon to explore. In some ways it seems similar to Paper Dungeons, but there are plenty of differences. The game initially launched as a free game way back in 2010, but it has since been updated in a variety of ways and is now a fancier – and pricier – game. A minimum donation of $10 is required to unlock.

As a long-time RPG player (yes, I actually played the original Wizardry and Might and Magic games), this bundle is more my style than some of the other bundles, so this is one I’m planning to buy. All of the games have received decent reviews, and while the total bundle value is “only” around $35, that’s still one third the price for three games I’d like to play. If you have a similar hankering for classic RPGs, there are far worse ways you could spend $10. And I’m sorry if this is a bit late, but there are still 14 hours remaining; happy dungeoneering!

Update #12:

I’m not going to do a separate post on this one, as it’s not something I’m particularly interested in promoting, but the 12th Daily Bundle is for Eve Online. You get the Amarr Arms Dealer Starter Pack that includes some starting items and 30 days of game time (only usable with new accounts), and if you beat the average you receive the Vanity Pack with a custom skin for the Punisher Frigate and some additional apparel for your character. And if you want to go all-in, $20 or more will also net you a PLEX (Pilot’s License Extension).good for another 30 days of game play. After your trial period, your account will convert to a standard paid account, which you can then cancel at any time. And that’s the reason I don’t particularly care for this bundle, as I’m simply not a fan of any of the MMOs. YMMV.

Some Thoughts on Half-Life 2 and Portal on Shield
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Some Thoughts on Half-Life 2 and Portal on Shield

If you talked to me seven years ago, the concept of phone games beyond Snake and basic flash games would’ve been beyond me. That wasn’t really on my mind, especially because playing games like Battlefield 2 effectively required a desktop. I did try it on a Dell XPS M170, with an Nvidia 7800 GTX graphics card, 1 GB of RAM, and a Pentium M processor, but even then, it was no guarantee that it would load the game consistently. Crashes to desktop were common because of the RAM requirements, and hitting the page file would cause frustrating freezes. Of course, things have completely changed since then. Mobile became one of the fastest growing sectors in the tech industry, 40-60mm thick, 14 pound laptops were no longer necessary to play  games at acceptable IQ/FPS levels, and the slate-style smartphone has gone from distant curiosity to everyday necessity.

So the port of Half-Life 2 and Portal to the Shield was interesting, because I’ve seen the sheer breadth of experiences that Source can provide, from Resistance and Liberation to Nightmare House 2. Nvidia has stated that Half Life 2 on Android is a port of the Linux version with OpenGL support to OpenGL ES, and based upon a casual playthrough of both Half Life 2 and Portal, it’s not immediately obvious that there are any issues with the engine port itself. In fact, it runs quite well. When immersed in playing the game, the experience is incredible, especially compared to the experience that one usually gets on handheld consoles like the PS Vita and 3DS. While I was concerned that the control scheme would be difficult to adapt to as a PC gamer, it turns out that with auto-aim and some other compensation mechanisms that gameplay is perfectly workable. The one issue that I did have was targeting things like headcrabs in mid-air, as pixel-precise pointing still isn’t quite there for joystick control systems. Battery life was also great. I managed to go around four hours of nonstop gaming at a mid-level of brightness, although this is an extremely rough rule and can vary greatly. I hope to get more precise data on this soon.

Of course, the bigger question is how well it actually performs. While timedemo functionality can’t be accessed, video settings are locked out, and there’s no console access like in the PC versions, it’s still possible to gauge the approximate experience. Based upon a quick playthrough of Ravenholm, I managed to take a closer look at the FPS instead of relying purely upon subjective judgment. It turns out that there’s a pretty even distribution of FPS across the board from 20 FPS to 60 FPS. The median FPS was 43, and overall I’d say that it’s quite accurate, as in less intensive scenes it will stay capped at 60 but anything with effects such as fire and explosions will often cause the gameplay to stutter noticeably, as in the scene above. Portal was similar, but due to the relatively simple level design FPS remained higher in general. Overall, it appears that the CPU usually is only at around 50% utilization throughout the game, which is indicative that either the GPU is the limiting factor in performance of this game or that the engine is not well-threaded for the port. There was the possibility of thermal throttling, but unlikely because exhaust air temperatures weren’t hot enough for concern. Unfortunately, no data on battery voltage nor temperature is given by the Shield. Ultimately, while this is helpful information for someone that wants to buy the game, the real question is how well IQ and performance compare to PCs, and will require further investigation to get a rough idea of how well modern ARM SoCs compare with CPUs and GPUs from the 65-90nm era.