Deadly Rooms of Death
Oct. 27th, 2008 01:06 amDROD is a tile-based puzzle game I've mentioned before. Now I'm playing the second sequel, and closing in on the end of the official story arc.
It started in game #1 with Beethro performing his normal job: clearing out the dungeons of the castle of giant vermin that infest them. Starting with giant roaches, and working the way down to deeper levels with creepier things.
Games #2 and #3 take the story to more complex places, often going to places other than "down to the next level", and with different friends and allies. Only looking back have I seen how a carefree start has become rather more grim: I love background story evolution!
One nuance which really struck me is that in the first game, everything is just game mechanics: dialogue appears only at the very climax. Goblins are portrayed as more intelligent than roaches -- they avoid your sword -- but that's all. But by the second and third game, you notice that goblins and several other things have their own society of some sort, but Beethro just doesn't care. He's capable of talking to them when he has to, but by default, they're just vermin. Which is a more disturbing insight than I normally expect from a puzzle game. It's almost opposite my instinctive worldview, but taking on that role, you can see how it comes about (compare how we treat, eg. dogs: to most people, a dog you know is a friend, nearly human, but a dog you don't know is just a nice animal).
It started in game #1 with Beethro performing his normal job: clearing out the dungeons of the castle of giant vermin that infest them. Starting with giant roaches, and working the way down to deeper levels with creepier things.
Games #2 and #3 take the story to more complex places, often going to places other than "down to the next level", and with different friends and allies. Only looking back have I seen how a carefree start has become rather more grim: I love background story evolution!
One nuance which really struck me is that in the first game, everything is just game mechanics: dialogue appears only at the very climax. Goblins are portrayed as more intelligent than roaches -- they avoid your sword -- but that's all. But by the second and third game, you notice that goblins and several other things have their own society of some sort, but Beethro just doesn't care. He's capable of talking to them when he has to, but by default, they're just vermin. Which is a more disturbing insight than I normally expect from a puzzle game. It's almost opposite my instinctive worldview, but taking on that role, you can see how it comes about (compare how we treat, eg. dogs: to most people, a dog you know is a friend, nearly human, but a dog you don't know is just a nice animal).