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The Dark Eye The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes - real-time co-op isometric dungeon crawler

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
Installing now; with regional pricing its slightly above ten bucks for me. Still pricey considering the exchange rate coupled with what I earn in Pakistani pesos, but it's the Dark Eye, and I can't be arsed to wait for a sale.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Well very very first impressions:

The good:
Its a faithfull adaption of DSA 5 rules
Most of the good stuff is in, dozens of skills, combat and noncombat alike
The characterbuilding with the gypsy cards is very flavorfull (you need to trade in cards and AP to increase your stats. You get one of three cards as a choice from every mission)
There is a pause button!
loot feels rewarding and solo your henchamn dont ninjaloot you

The bad:
You cant control your party members at all, not even give the AI hints
Balance is wonky, in the boss fight my rogue henchman went down and kept getting hacked into unconsciousness. But somehow he kept getting up again and again. Idk if he had 1 million potions in his inventory or the death system in this game is extremely lenient
You cant freely create your character with DSA 5s completely overblown but fun systems. You make a bunch of tarot choices at the gypsy and thats it. At least you see which stats you get from which cards

the ugly:
Your npcs have predetermined AI. Taking aggressive/curious for example means you are fucked as you have to run after a bunch of adhs rats practically.
You cant generate your own henchman afaik

For a full recomendation or not I obviously need more than 30 mins. But runnin after your mediocre AI teammates as a single adventurer probably gets tedious and old very fast. The first level however was a blast. I played an elven grey mage and took a Rondrapriest with a big sword and a dwarven rogue as AI buddys. Authentic to early level DSA 5 you are incredibly low power at the beginning of the game, I failed half of my Axxeleratus (this games haste) casts.
 

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
Got as far as the Gypsy leering at me screen (Char gen) and the game froze, Unity player opened and started downloading some shit, and then crashed to desktop.

Let's try again.
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
Well very very first impressions:
You cant control your party members at all, not even give the AI hints

The developer did tell me "You can use the map to leave markers the AI companions will react to." But I don't have the game so I don't have a clue how you go about that and I assume the control you can exert over them with this is probably very limited.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Well very very first impressions:
You cant control your party members at all, not even give the AI hints

The developer did tell me "You can use the map to leave markers the AI companions will react to." But I don't have the game so I don't have a clue how you go about that and I assume the control you can exert over them with this is probably very limited.
These are very basic options - attack, explore, and two more I don't remember.

In other impressions, for a game that's not terribly pretty, it runs like shit. I'll give it a couple hours to see how good its level generation is, but so far it looks like it's no Unexplored and the puzzles are going to be very simplistic.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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Messages
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Very certain I will refund this now.

The command mechanic exists but it is utterly barebones and half of the commands straight up dont work.

Its a game where 90% of the game is combat, in a system that does not work with that much combat, while being rtwp with randomly generated encounters.

It is incredibly buggy. Pathfinding, level layout, geometry, enemy AI, everything tends to sperg out. As far as I can see the game has no saving function, you need to complete a 40 minute adventure to save your progress. Thats some next level cancer and works very grimly against you when the game bugs out or crashes.

Why do you use DSA 5 when you dont let us make one real character? It gets really frustrating as I cant raise my axxelaratus skill since no cards keep dropping for it. A chance to reroll takes 40 minutes of work.

Mission layouts are terrible. The game randomly bashes tiles together without rhyme or reason, and every mission has one objective tile and one exit tile. You run around randomly murderhoboing stuff until you find both tiles, then you leave the adventure.

What still works really well is the card system. I almost rethought my decision to refund after the adventure dropped a really good card for me, that let me increase my knowledge x2 and my balsam salabunde x1

I was incredibly biased in this games favor and I am the target audience. I will refund this.
Its a super buggy niche product, and judging from the comments even in the domestic german market nobody wants it. It will heavily surprise me if this game doesnt crash down in flames.

Shame, its interesting as a proof of concept.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
If they wanted coop, they should have developed a module for DOS. Actually I think there's a TDE fan module for DOS.
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,676
Location
Core City
I don't care much for the fact that the game doesn't have a single grand story behind it all, but I think 8 missions is too little. If the game had several missions, you might have the feeling that you are in fact controlling a group of adventurers who are gradually making a name for themselves, conquering increasingly dangerous missions. We can hope that they will later publish packages with extra missions at an acceptable value (or maybe, who knows, patches with extra missions), but I don't bet on it.

But not being able to control the other characters/NPCs is too stupid for any game based on tabletop RPGs. I'm not very optimistic about the future of this game.
 

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
Will post my more opinions later but right now I mostly agree with Thac0 except that I will likely not refund this. This isn't Drakensang I & II or Blackguards but even then there is a lot of potential here BUT:

-Not well optimized. Unity strikes again, may it burn in hell. I had to turn down settings to lowest allowed (there are only 3 graphic settings available). Hopefully this will be patched.
-Character generation is a lot of fun. The background 'cards' are quite flavorful and seem like they will affect your gameplay (I had one trigger in my first mission after the tutorial, The Changeling background for my Black Mage) But then again it could just be a line of text and not really matter much...
-Despite being fun the char gen in many ways is barebones. But if you don't play the tabletop you really won't feel it much. Still, it bothers me I can't choose more special abilities/advantages/spells, etc.
-Despite making good use of a stripped down TDE 5e ruleset (there are constant perception checks, herb lore checks, treat wound checks etc and they matter. If you fail you have to wait on a cool down before using them again and I do believe you can fumble which can make checks like Treat Wounds risky to spam) there are too many limitations. Like Thac0 said the Card system can be frustrating, you cannot manually grow your character the way you want, you will have to wait for the card that will affect the stats you want to grow drop. This sucks.
-Way too few spells. A starting TDE Guild Mage can have up to 12 spells. Here you can start out with a max of 4 (and that's IF you choose an additional background that grants you 2 more spells to add to your start of 2)
-Priests have too few Chants. Rondra priests only start with one fricking chant, and it's not the one that summons lightning (I doubt that's even in the game)
-Lot of bugs though not game breaking as of yet. Still one card has no descriptive text at char gen, there are typos (disadvantages are listed as advantages on cards for ex) Blood & Red spell for Black Mage doesn't work.
-You can't control companions (sorry: Henchmen), but their AI works as their desciptor says. As you get more money you can hire better, smarter companions. Still, would be 1000% better if you could control them like real companions. This really needs to be patched in, screw co-op with other humans.

Still, despite that there is a LOT of potential here. I was in some ways impressed by the implementation of TDE ruleset; it was more than I was expecting looking at the videos and screenshots. Its pared down a LOT ofcourse compared to tabletop, but still lots of skill checls. Music is good, interface and presentation is charming.

I will hold onto it to support the Dev (well the TDE system anyway) and in the hopes they will improve the game. If you have money to burn I would say buy it to support them, and have some fun with it and hope they greatly improve it.

We need more spells, special abilities, advantages & equipment, a much better method of improving characters, a way to more fine tune your PC at char gen. It's too much to hope they will revamp char gen (one would hope they would keep the cards as a 'normal char gen method and add in manual generation as an advanced option like the RoA trilogy) but they could add in more options to improve characters rather than use card drops.
 
Last edited:

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
I don't care much for the fact that the game doesn't have a single grand story behind it all, but I think 8 missions is too little. If the game had several missions, you might have the feeling that you are in fact controlling a group of adventurers who are gradually making a name for themselves, conquering increasingly dangerous missions. We can hope that they will later publish packages with extra missions at an acceptable value (or maybe, who knows, patches with extra missions), but I don't bet on it.

But not being able to control the other characters/NPCs is too stupid for any game based on tabletop RPGs. I'm not very optimistic about the future of this game.

Its more than 8 missions, 15-20 in total in the base game. The 8 missions are your PCs unique missions, you only get one depending on what background you pick but you follow it throughout the game.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
-Despite making good use of a stripped down TDE 5e ruleset (there are constant perception checks, herb lore checks, treat wound checks etc and they matter. If you fail you have to wait on a cool down before using them again and I do believe you can fumble which can make checks like Treat Wounds risky to spam) there are too many limitations. Like Thac0 said the Card system can be frustrating, you cannot manually grow your character the way you want, you will have to wait for the card that will affect the stats you want to grow drop. This sucks.

Co-op and grind2W / P2W mechanics were a mistake.
 

Kruno

Arcane
Patron
Village Idiot Zionist Agent Shitposter
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
11,478
Pathfinder Kingmaker has a dungeon delving mode that is actually good. Why anyone would play this :popamole: is beyond me.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Oh it climbed to 32 reviews over night, which is a lot for a German game in this style, this fast. Seems like there was real interest and passion in the market.

40% positive was to be expected, steam ratings are mercyless when it comes to bugs and general spergyness. Pathfinder Kingmaker took ages to recover to that 70% hurdle due to the initial buggyness.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Refunding it for now, will check back in a few months if they have solved the technical issues and improved level generation. Not hopeful though.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Jan 4, 2007
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Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
But not being able to control the other characters/NPCs is too stupid for any game based on tabletop RPGs. I'm not very optimistic about the future of this game.

I guess it fell into the same trap as NWN: focus on the multiplayer experience and tack on single player as an afterthought, to the detriment of the single player. But at least NWN had user modules and a DM mode for online play to redeem itself.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
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KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
But at least NWN had user modules and a DM mode for online play to redeem itself.

Did anyone has chance to rate NWN so badly in system like steam? I'm not saying NWN was bad game, just that it might not be ranked by users so highly either.

I mean I rate NWN 3/10, so... :M

But no, back when it was released there was no user review system like the ones on Steam and GoG. Only forums like the Codex where people could talk shit about the game. No metacritic yet either.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
But at least NWN had user modules and a DM mode for online play to redeem itself.

Did anyone has chance to rate NWN so badly in system like steam? I'm not saying NWN was bad game, just that it might not be ranked by users so highly either.

I mean I rate NWN 3/10, so... :M

But no, back when it was released there was no user review system like the ones on Steam and GoG. Only forums like the Codex where people could talk shit about the game. No metacritic yet either.

NWN Metacritic page from 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/2002080...itic.com/games/platforms/pc/neverwinternights

You also had GameFAQS, MobyGames, etc. But yes, I think after digital distribution became widespread, it became more natural for people to also seek a review aggregation online.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
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Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
But at least NWN had user modules and a DM mode for online play to redeem itself.

Did anyone has chance to rate NWN so badly in system like steam? I'm not saying NWN was bad game, just that it might not be ranked by users so highly either.

I mean I rate NWN 3/10, so... :M

But no, back when it was released there was no user review system like the ones on Steam and GoG. Only forums like the Codex where people could talk shit about the game. No metacritic yet either.

NWN Metacritic page from 2002: https://web.archive.org/web/2002080...itic.com/games/platforms/pc/neverwinternights

You also had GameFAQS, MobyGames, etc. But yes, I think after digital distribution became widespread, it became more natural for people to also seek a review aggregation online.

Didn't know Metacritic existed yet, interesting. Sure, GameFAQs existed but I always used them for walkthroughs back in the day. User reviews were a secondary function of it.

And there's a big difference between seeking out/writing reviews on review sites, and having a review function directly on the storefront.
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,676
Location
Core City
soooo is it ok ?

Well, I mean:

QnVRHfJ.jpg
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Someone seems to be really interested in only releasing shit tier games for TDE without trying to do a real rpg like the RoA trilogy again. Maybe they think this way they can keep their playerbase glued to the pnp version?
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
Someone seems to be really interested in only releasing shit tier games for TDE without trying to do a real rpg like the RoA trilogy again. Maybe they think this way they can keep their playerbase glued to the pnp version?
They are mimicking wizard of the coast, we got ton of shit tier d&d games, it was only fair the same happen to the german most played system. Could be worse, the aventure games were fine , black guard was ok . If critical role start dark eye someday only then you will get an AAA game.
 

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