Driftmoon - Preview @ Indiestatik

IndieStatik informs us in a preview of the upcoming release of Driftmoon on the 26th of this month and that it also will be available from Good Old Games. Besides that they also have a look into the game.

Gibberish is what is going on here – absolutely full of it. But you better get used to it because Driftmoon is a game that thrives on the art of nonsense at times. Take the main crew of the game, those who are fated to save the word from the evil King Ixal – there’s a hyperactive firefly, a queen panther with a moon whale-sized ego, and a determined fellow who’s lost everything but his bones and still refuses to give up. Have you ever heard of a more perfect main character lineup than that? You’ll be playing the part of a young man accompanying these loons as set off on an adventure to bring light back to the world.
Yeah, admittedly it’s pretty standard stuff for an RPG story-wise, but this cake is decorated with some really quirky humor and diverse characters. And sometimes that’s enough to make a game easily recommendable to the right people. One thing that you can rely on is familiarity with RPGs, and that is definitely the case with Driftmoon – quests, treasures, dungeons, forests, magical artefacts, secret doors, puzzles, powerups. It’s all in there, and that means to most people it’s going to be easy to pick up and understand. Perhaps “understand” isn’t the best word, actually, considering it’s a game that thrives on being peculiar and witty through its many humorous and odd characters. But you know what I mean.

More information.

A Day 1 purchase for me. Very happy about the GoG partnership.

Yup, bought this a while ago and ready to play the full game when it's released!



-Carn

Can't quite get over the top down view. I think looking straight down only really works well for games like chess or rogue likes that don't need a Z axis to represent the units. Have only seen the demos, but I get a feeling of claustrophobia whenever I look down on them.

It now allows you to tilt the camera away from the purely top down view and it is a definite improvement.

looks interesting. As long as we can move the camera around a little, I'm on board

I played through the demo in about 2 hours and while it was kinda fun it was a little too simple for my tastes. I saw with the coupon that it's 11.99 in foreign money but I didn't look up how much it was in American. I might pick it up if it hits one of those indie bundles someday. I had taken the bow skill, which was nearly useless in the dungeons as most monsters are very close. It didn't matter though. I never really needed to use any type of tactics in the demo portion. Just bash till they're dead. I'm not much into short games and there wasn't really a magic system with lots of fun spells to use, so I knew this game wasn't really my type.

My wife, who loves facebook games seems to like it and she actually downloaded the demo to her laptop. She likes the little cutesy monsters and music and she is playing it. She can't stand most crpgs as they are too complicated for her tastes. I was thinking this game would be right up Alrik's alley.

I'm playing it again to help my wife. Together the game is a joy, because I'm getting to explain crpg concepts to her and the game is easy enough she doesn't get frustrated. I also found a quest with her that I missed on my first playthrough. Let's say that it is related to the bogeyman and leave it at that. This is probably a good game to introduce the genre to.

Don't forget that there are difficulty levels to make the combat more challenging. With discount, you're probably looking at $10 US, or thereabouts. Not sure how the Euro translates.

Corwin, does the difficulty change anything but how many skill points you get at the beginning of the game? I couldn't see much different between the levels other than you get either 1, 2, 3, or 4 skill points at 1st level up. I only have the demo portion though and it's very short.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Corwin, does the difficulty change anything but how many skill points you get at the beginning of the game? I couldn't see much different between the levels other than you get either 1, 2, 3, or 4 skill points at 1st level up. I only have the demo portion though and it's very short.

First of all, glad to hear you've enjoyed playing with your wife! We've been hoping Driftmoon could become the sort of a game that could also be enjoyed together with a friend.

The difficulty levels in Driftmoon do have various differences. We've wanted to keep the two first levels very easy to approach, so that also people not quite familiar with RPGs could enjoy the adventure. In the easy and default settings, Driftmoon is definitely not combat-heavy, and we've wanted to keep it that way. For the same reason, the combat is also very simple in the beginning, but it gets much more complex later on in the game. Still, on the easy (and maybe default) setting, even the novice players should be able to get through the combat situations, without necessarily realizing the best strategies.

The most notable difference with the easier and the higher difficulty levels is that you encounter bigger numbers of more challenging opponents, and in formations that will require you to use some of the more advanced strategies available. That also has a direct influence to how many levels you can gain during the demo. There are also other differences: To put it generally, gaining resources, and keeping your health up is clearly more difficult.

Originally Posted by anne.monkkonen
First of all, glad to hear you've enjoyed playing with your wife! We've been hoping Driftmoon could become the sort of a game that could also be enjoyed together with a friend.

The difficulty levels in Driftmoon do have various differences. We've wanted to keep the two first levels very easy to approach, so that also people not quite familiar with RPGs could enjoy the adventure. In the easy and default settings, Driftmoon is definitely not combat-heavy, and we've wanted to keep it that way. For the same reason, the combat is also very simple in the beginning, but it gets much more complex later on in the game. Still, on the easy (and maybe default) setting, even the novice players should be able to get through the combat situations, without necessarily realizing the best strategies.

The most notable difference with the easier and the higher difficulty levels is that you encounter bigger numbers of more challenging opponents, and in formations that will require you to use some of the more advanced strategies available. That also has a direct influence to how many levels you can gain during the demo. There are also other differences: To put it generally, gaining resources, and keeping your health up is clearly more difficult.

This is good to know. I need to replay it one more time at a higher difficulty to see if it gets a little more interesting. I play mages nearly 100% of the time, so the lack of spells, outside of bless, was a major downer. Do spells ever come into play?

Spells really don't come into play very much, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the game and like you a mage is all I usually play. You do get a useful summons fairly early on in the game though.

It was interesting to find the in the game. It surprised me that the whole thing was actually in the book you find.

Originally Posted by Corwin
Don't forget that there are difficulty levels to make the combat more challenging. With discount, you're probably looking at $10 US, or thereabouts. Not sure how the Euro translates.

Corwin, the dollar isn't equal to the Euro so the $11.99 with 20% discount makes the game around $17. What I saw from the demo wasn't worth that much, in my opinion, but maybe with other sales I might pick it up someday. My wife didn't finish the demo but liked the first town. Once we got to the 2nd location she quickly got bored. I played through on a higher difficulty, which does allow you to get to level 9 or 10, but I'm still not seeing anything deep here, which I kinda need to stay interested. It's cute though. I would definitely suggest it for young gamers or beginners or folks who prefer adventure games.

1€ = $1.35 currently so that's about $16 prior to discount and $13 with 20% off.