Really Obscure RPGs

[CryptRat]

There's a specific English version of Walls of Illusion, I assume it's the only translated one.

 

[JarlFrank]

I could not run the most promising one, the Dark Side, on my laptop with windows xp. I guess I may have to give it one more try...

Darkside of the Sun is for DOS, so try DOS Box.

Are they all German-only ?

Yes, because as you can see from the English version of the website, the creator(s) of these games are absolutely abysmal at English.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Clive Blakemore, learn

Does not compute.

 

[thesheeep]

So I recently discovered one of the most obscure game devs ever, apparently.

Pure insanity. Who is this guy and why is he not our god?

He also makes weird 3D comics:

Toni Rocos erotische Abenteuer.

And on the Website:
"You use as Browser Netscape."

 

[vorvek]

Is Rol Crusaders (1995) considered obscure? I remember seeing it in quite a few magazines in the old days, but being a Spanish game I don't know what kind of release it got outside.
PD: It's a boring piece of shit.



I'd also consider Magic & Mayhem pretty obscure, even considering it was made by Mythos. At least, I never heard it mentioned

 

[V_K]

PD: It's a boring piece of shit.

Could you elaborate? I never saw the English version, all the abandonware places only had the Spanish one (back when I bothered to look that is, which is some years ago), and I don't know the language.
EDIT: looked at the video. I'm pretty sure google translate wasn't a thing in 1995, yet the English translation looks like it was made by it.

I'd also consider Magic & Mayhem pretty obscure, even considering it was made by Mythos. At least, I never heard it mentioned

Magic and Mayhem
I might be wrong on the obscurity of that one - it's a Julian Gollop game after all - but I don't see it being talked about all that much here.

Right there on the 4th page and almost verbatim

 

[vorvek]

Could you elaborate? I never saw the English version, all the abandonware places only had the Spanish one (back when I bothered to look that is, which is some years ago), and I don't know the language.
EDIT: looked at the video. I'm pretty sure google translate wasn't a thing in 1995, yet the English translation looks like it was made by it.

I never played it back in the day, when I tried it a few years ago I got bored during the first area. It's just very repetitive. However, I recall something that's no in the video; every time you kill an enemy, you get a cool rotoscoped animation of their death that stops the action and takes the whole screen. There didn't seem to be a lot more to the game; stats wise it looked like a mess when creating the characters, as if not a lot of thought was put into the character system itself.

I'd also consider Magic & Mayhem pretty obscure, even considering it was made by Mythos. At least, I never heard it mentioned

Magic and Mayhem
I might be wrong on the obscurity of that one - it's a Julian Gollop game after all - but I don't see it being talked about all that much here.

Right there on the 4th page and almost verbatim

Fek, I went through the whole thread before posting. Must have skipped a page.

Wanted to post The Fall: Last Days of Gaia, but somebody had posted it already. However, nobody posted THE GREATEST MAIN THEME IN THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMS.

 

[CyberWhale]

Is that wannabe-Fallout any good?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Is that wannabe-Fallout any good?

Eh, I'd say it's mediocre at best. RTwP combat is p bad, but some of the quests are p nice and the music is good.
Includes hilarous lines like 'Fine, give me that theolibido... thedildo... uh, theodolite!'

 

[Lurker47]

Fallout 3 has a pretty obscure RPG. I mean, I think there's an RPG in there somewhere....

 

[Ranarama]

Pure insanity. Who is this guy and why is he not our god?

He also makes weird 3D comics:

A true man of the Renaissance.

 

[jhanson]

Hey, I saw The Scent of War I. - Damn Those Demons mentioned on here so I thought I'd sign up so I could comment. I wrote that game with a friend of mine when I was in high school. The download link on my website has been busted for a while, but I just fixed it. No guarantees that it will run, or be fun even if it does. Anyway, the website is jhanson.com.

If you have any questions about the game or anything, I'd be happy to answer them. In short, I made it for a school project in 1995/1996 and ended up uploading it to a bunch of BBSes (because I'm old) and eventually some early gaming websites as shareware. It sold a few hundred copies and paid for our beer in college.

 

[CryptRat]

Thanks.

Note - There is a known bug that causes some save files to not load correctly on certain non-US systems. This was present in the original game, and is probably still there now.

I get this error, but manually replacing the ","s by "."s in the save file seems to make it load fine.

 

[octavius]

What's the combat like in Scent of War?
If it's blobber style, Ultima V style, or better, it sounds worth a try. I assume it's turn based?

 

[CryptRat]

It's blobber style.

 

[Grauken]

The Freak Farm, I got this from here http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/pc/freakfarm/index.shtml, it's a very short, jRPG-like game with CGA graphics and 50ties mad science vibe. Somewhat amusing

 

[CryptRat]

(The Scent of War I. - Damn Those Demons)

The game is basic but somewhat fun. More screenshots :

Spoiler

 

[lightbane]

That looks like the typical shareware trash from the 90s. Also, some of the pics are repeated.

 

[CryptRat]

Also, some of the pics are repeated.

Thanks, edited.

 

[jhanson]

That looks like the typical shareware trash from the 90s.

What can I say? I wasn't even old enough to buy lottery tickets yet.

 

[CryptRat]

Let me relay Enrymion 's suggestion for The Earth Lords ("registered" version available here) because after exploring around the first town and some part of the first dungeon I think it's a good game.

Encounter rate is high but you can flee. As a warrior combat is not that much to talk about, it's not particularly bad nor good.
Battlefields can be interesting. In the second one here I can't reach the enemies, a good architect skill (some points + the good tool) could probably do the trick, in the first one I can use missile weapons (actually my magical wand) to target creatures upside the hole that can't fight back.

I think you can stumble upon battles with enemies fighting each others.

The reason why I like the game is that it's heavy on stats. You've got freedom about allocating your points (you can buy spells, although I'm playing as a warrior, there are 9 races and classes to choose from) :

You've got 40 equipment slot that you'll especially fill with various utility items which will help you swim, climb...

And those various stats are used.
In the first dungeon there's what appears to be a shortcut to the upper floor via climbing, my climbing skill is to low despite owning claws so I needed to use a jump book (single used jump spell) to jump upside a hole further. You may notice that there's also a note I cannot read there.

There are also place I can't go to outdoor, I can now swim due to my flippers but I can't cross the forest, and the map I found seems to lead into the mountain that I can't climb because of my poor mountaineering score.

Also got my first magical sword, up to there I needed to use a rechargeable wand to attack creatures immuned to non-magical damage.

There's ton of stuff to spend your gold on, including levelling-up whose cost significantly increases and recharing various tools.

The game is hard. There's an undergroung floor in the first dungeon with ghosts which currently are too hard for me. The world appears to be big. Monsters on the map to the east of the first town aren't that hard, but the ones in the castle there are strong. My character is currently at level 10 and the trainers in the first town can't get me higher, but I can't reach a next town without dying (nor fleeing).

 

[jhanson]

There are a few cheats build into Scent of War if anyone is interested. i used to send these to anyone who registered. There might be more but these are all I can remember.

1. When you create a character, enter the name as "AURA OF PROTECTION" There will be a Hit Points button available on the stat rolling screen that lets you set your HP up to 255.
2. Also on character creation, there are two red ovals near the top of the race selection screen. If you click one of them (I can't remember which one) it'll give you a special race and allow you to choose a special class that only goes along with that race.
3. On the main menu, if you highlight the Exit button and hit Ctrl+Alt+F1, it'll open a cheat menu that lets you start at different points in the game and play as special characters, one of which is me.

 

[octavius]

Let me relay Enrymion 's suggestion for The Earth Lords ("registered" version available here) because after exploring around the first town and some part of the first dungeon I think it's a good game.

Anyone know the release date?
It's not listed on Mobygames, but the FAQ is from 2002.

 

[Grauken]

https://warosu.org/vr/thread/1845053

says 2001, not sure how reliable

 

[Enrymion]

Anyone know the release date?

Version 1.01 [07/26/2001] according to archive of the devs website
https://web.archive.org/web/20040414073623/http://earthlords.com:80/