Amulets & Armor

[CorpseZeb]

Uhm. Is anyone had a gaming pleasure with that lady:

http://www.pixelships.com/adg/ep0096.html

Video has stated, rather bluntly, about a true but forgotten gem. And, it is a probably an RPG, sort of. Unheard, also.

 

[Luzur]

i heard about it, and i believe i tried it.

 

[CorpseZeb]

That leaves us with question about a pleasure...?

Ps. Game looks sort of Daggerfallish, dungeon part especially.

 

[Luzur]

That leaves us with question about a pleasure...?

...not sure what you mean by that? oh well, i didnt own it, but i abandonwared it some years ago, at the site he linked in his review.

but yeah it is very Daggerfall/Witchhaven like, and is actually pretty bug free if you get the later version.

and i have seen a copy of it on Ebay but it was listed as rare and the price was up in those levels.

 

[Fowyr]

Some time ago I tried to find some pleasure in it, and it was mildly enjoyable. More Witchhaven than Daggerfall, though.
Was stuck on the first level, BTW.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Well, review states that not many copies was sold commercially, so it is rare, indeed. But often, "rare game" simply translates to "crap game", thus my question about "pleasure" - I mean - "an deeper, intimate experience of full game".







Ps. Ah, mildly... I see

 

[Luzur]

Well, review states that not many copies was sold commercially, so it is rare, indeed. But often, "rare game" simply translates to "crap game", thus my question about "pleasure" - I mean - "an deeper, intimate experience of full game".

well if you enjoy Witchhaven you should enjoy Amulets and Armor, i wouldnt mind getting my hands on a copy, but not for those prices they go for.

 

[Fowyr]

Ps. Ah, mildly... I see

Keep in mind, I enjoyed games like Nitemare 3D, Alien Cabal and dreaded Necrotech.

 

[Xi]

I have a copy of it. Cool game, but it's more of an action hack/slash with leveling/stats then an RPG. Still, it's a fun game. Ahead of its time for sure. (Underdogs has it for DL - it's abandoned at this point)

What's funny is that my friend named Johnny is the one who introduced this game to me when I was younger. I wonder if he is the one who put up these images? ;P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPcUHFk8c2w

 

[mondblut]

Crappy Doom clone with a couple of stats hardly affecting anything.

Ps. Game looks sort of Daggerfallish, dungeon part especially.

A game has to be an immense open-ended sandbox to "look sort of Daggerfallish". Take that away, and you end up with a crappy Doom clone.

 

[Suchy]

I had lots of fun playing it in coop back in the days. Looks like shit, gameplay is Heretic/Hexen-like, but with stats and a ton of loot.

 

[Boddler]

The lilting lisp of the commenter in that video carries all the annoyance of effeminate gayness without any of the clever wit that usually goes with it.

 

[Father Walker]

What mondblut said. Got bored with the game pretty quick.

 

[taxalot]

ADG is an alright reviewer, he does make us discover some gems, but most of his reviews are about tips about how to play, at which point nobody has every played the game so nobody gives a shit.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Well, I see him rather as an "historian" than "reviewer". Person with passion about what he's doing, nevertheless.

Ps. Thanks for all opinion about AnA.Looks rather... urm...

 

[Scruffy]

one of my favorite games, i've played it over and over and it's just great. Rationally, it's not that great a game. But to me it's still the game i played as a 16 years old or something, and it was many many nights of exploring and then going back to the tavern to sell shit and rest, and so on.
But yeah i wouldn't really call it a RPG. More like a swords and arrows version of doom.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I was watching Pixelmusement and found out here that Amulets and Armor has been updated and re-released:
http://www.pixelships.com/adg/epf029.html

Upon visiting http://amuletsandarmor.com/ I found the following that there is a download link of the game in its entirety. There is also a link to a wiki, developers blog, and forum. Looks like you also need DOSBox to make it run properly.

The game looks similar to the older Elder Scrolls games.

Amulets & Armor is a arcade RPG that takes you through a fantasy world full of elves, wolves, warriors, mages, and mythical creatures as you go on quests. Level up your character and become more powerful as you learn more spells, find more items, and reap the many rewards of the adventures.

Pics from Abandonia and DRQZone:

Edit for Those That Don't Like Links, A&A was updated thusly:

• Escape Menu — The above “escape” menu is fairly customizable so when new additions are added, it’ll be fairly easy to add.
• Collision detection — The Windows version had a problem with colliding with walls. Or, more importantly, sliding against walls. Before, if a player touched a wall, they would immediately stop instead of sliding. Sliding is now working again.
• Shaky walls — One of the more interesting problems that the Look Mode introduced is a slight mathematically error when drawing calls. Strangely, this problem would NEVER appear when turning and looking up/down using the keyboard controls. BUT, when the Look Mode was enabled the textures on the walls would shift just slightly.
• Flowing Down a Stream — I fixed the water flow rates. Come to find out they were never setup to work properly on high speed computers. The faster your computer, the faster the water (or even lava) pushed you around. Ooops. So, some 15 years laters on computers a zillion times faster, poor characters were being pushed to the limits and getting stuck. And the Windows version made this even worse. Get stuck down stream on the first level and you can never get out! Yeah, I nipped that one.
• Buttons with text — I have to give my partner programmer credit for creating the user interface system in the game. I did not realize how much work he did until I had to go make changes to it. One of the features we ended up starting but never using or finishing was buttons with text on it. In the end, it was decided that using pictures on buttons was enough. With the Keyboard Configuration user interface, I either needed to creature over 100 pictures for all the possible keystrokes that an action can be assigned, or finish the unfinished text on button code. I’m glad to say that after some learning of the code, I got it working. Text on buttons now works and may be useful in other ways down the road.
• Thanks to JossiRossi, he made the music loop much nicer. Nothing jars me more than to have music just stop and immediately replay. He figured out the proper break spots and made them loop much nicer.
• By popular demand, there is now a Mouse Invert Y command in the menus to allow those who think the world is upside-down to use a mouse again.
• Quest 7 Level 1 now let’s you continue. Imagine that. You get to this level and the exit takes you … nowhere. Embarrassing. I think whoever pirated A&A on the abandonware sites gave it some love and fixed some of the original levels.
• The Multiplayer Guild now correctly shows the list of adventures and descriptions. An old set of text was used and needed to be updated to the proper ones.
• The system now can play 32 simultaneous sounds at 16-bit 44 kHz.
• WASD with mouse commands.
• Frame Rates improved

 

[Luzur]

updated? how, better GFX and HD?

 

[Kahlis]

I always thought that game had an interesting look to it. The world justs look all sleepy and expansive and shit. Comments on the game itself tend to be less than flattering, save for the occasional Doomworld modder who decides to rip some medieval weapon view sprites from it.

 

[7hm]

This is pretty cool of the developer to do this. Less than 100 copies sold, Jesus. It must suck to have something you spent so much time and energy on flop that badly. Direct from him:

Why are you here now?
Here is where the story gets interesting. A&A has been available on various sites for a while now and has garnered a small underground following. In October of 2012 Bacter and Mzbundifund began a Let's Play to show off this little-known game. Bacter reached out and contacted me to join in the discussion.

I was pleased to see the growing interest in the Let's Play and the game itself. Mzbundifund and Bacter were doing an excellent job of showing off the game in all its glory (and its many flaws). There were bugs and I winced at each and everyone, but behind it all, they showed the game really has a charm to it that had been forgotten. Because the game had been sold incorrectly, I had always felt it never quite got its day in the sun. I have always desired to bring it out again, but due to its aged graphics, legal issues, and general obscurity, never thought there would be a platform where it would take off.

However, after some rights-wrangling, and some work on my part to bring the aged beast into the new millennium, I am ecstatic to be able to release the game for free.

For Free?
Yup! Now this is good for a few reasons. One is that I can port the game properly to Windows and add a number of bug fixes. These bug fixes and enhancements make the game much more playable than the current "abandoned" versions. It also means that we have the potential to be able to continue development and expand upon the base of the game. It is our hope to add new content sometime down the line, dependent on community interest. For now though, the game is going to be released in as strong a state as possible for everyone to enjoy, with updates as they are found.

 

[mondblut]

Amulets & Armor is a arcade RPG

Less than 100 copies sold, Jesus.

The god of RPGs rarely deigns to strike down the unfaithful, but when he does, it hurts indeed.

The game looks similar to the older Elder Scrolls games.

And Grimrock looks similar to Wizardry 7, amirite?

 

[Crooked Bee]

The Let's Play was really great, and it was cool of the devs to take part in the discussion and update the game like that.

 

[Fens]

gave it a try and here's a lil' list i wrote, might want to read it note for note:
- moving around feels like you're on roller skates, possibly because of the sliding feature, that has been added/repaired
- mouse movement gets into the way of picking stuff up, which is annoying
- ingame journal keyboard list is out of date, if you want the real key, look up the key configuration in the menu (opening doors is 'e', you're welcome)
- if you want to use something (banana, health potion, scroll, sword), drag it to the use box and click on use (no slight click either, you must mean it)... alt+click didn't work for me
- you get to kill elves, which is always nice
- item descriptions are minimal
- puzzles happen
- enemies move around in a twitchy way, so they often end up being half inside and half outside your line of sight... sometimes still being in the range of your weapon, sometimes not (didn't try ranged / magic combat... assume it gets rather tedious)
- UI is serviceable
- sounds are ok'ish, music is decent, graphics are not that good, voice acting (oh yes, there is voice acting) is pretty bad/funny

not bad, just not for me... turn based would have been a lot better

 

[Fowyr]

I remember playing it. It was shit even for my pretty low FPS standarts. And I was graced with seeing and finishing Bram Stoker`s Dracula, Alien Cabal and, curse my eyes, Wrath of Darkness.
It don't have a bad UI per se, it don't have an abysmal graphic, it don't have a very buggy engine, no. It was just an interwoven fabric of pure and exemplary shit.
Still, I probably play it again some time. After finishing Immoral Cumbat.

 

[Suchy]

I had tons of fun with it in coop mode, back in the days.