Shaneplays discusses Darklands and talks about the influence it still has on CRPGs.

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Darklands! The cult classic open-world Middle Ages RPG from 1992 that lets you adventure in the Holy Roman Empire during the 15th century… or rather, 15th Century Europe as people believed it to be at the time! Darklands broke a lot of CRPG ground, still has fans, and influenced games like Baldur’s Gate and the Elder Scrolls. Fellow fans Matt Wirkkala and Keith Hiorns join.

Darklands creator Arnold Hendrick passed away on Monday on May 25. So let's look back at one of the most innovative RPGs of the early 90s (RetrospectiveGaming in 2017):

Darklands Review

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The CRPG Addict took a look back at Darklands and found it a highly-original and innovative game.

Well, what a ride. Darklands offers perhaps the most original approach to role-playing that we've seen since the inception of the genre, and in several dimensions. The experience wasn't always a joy, but I never stopped admiring what the developers were trying to accomplish. In this case, the primary developer ("original concept" and "project leader" in the credits) is Arnold Hendrick. It was his only RPG. Hendrick wrote responses to 13 pages of questions on Steam between 2016 and 2018, participated in a three-part interview with Matt Barton in 2010, and submitted to a long interview on RPG Codex in 2012. Thus, I was able to pepper my summary below with many of his recollections.
      
(Hendrick, I should add, is a fairly unique game designer in that he came from a background of board and tabletop gaming and never learned programming. It reminds me of how Irving Berlin became immortal writing hundreds of hit songs while never actually learning how to read, write, or play music. I sometimes wonder if I could make a go as a game designer or a composer with a similar lack of foundational skills. Perhaps--but I don't think I'd ever have the gall to put myself out there as such.)

[...]

The Digital Antiquarian looked back at Darklands:

Darklands

Darklands may well have been the most original single CRPG of the 1990s, but its box art was planted firmly in the tacky CRPG tradition. I’m not sure that anyone in Medieval Germany really looked much like these two…

Throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, the genres of the adventure game and the CRPG tended to blend together, in magazine columns as well as in the minds of ordinary gamers. I thus considered it an early point of order for this history project to attempt to identify the precise differences between the genres. Rather than addressing typical surface attributes — a CRPG, many a gamer has said over the years, is an adventure game where you also have to kill monsters — I tried to peek under the hood and identify what really makes the two genres tick. At bottom, I decided, the difference was one of design philosophy. The adventure game focuses on set-piece, handcrafted puzzles and other unique interactions, simulating the world that houses them only to the degree that is absolutely necessary. (This latter is especially true of the point-and-click graphic adventures that came to dominate the field after the 1980s; indeed, throughout gaming history, the trend in adventure games has been to become less rather than more ambitious in terms of simulation.) The CRPG, meanwhile, goes in much more for simulation, to a large degree replacing set-piece behaviors with systems of rules which give scope for truly emergent experiences that were never hard-coded into the design.

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Thanks henriquejr!

Arnold Hendrick posted this to the Darklands Yahoo group.

Hello, I'm Arnold Hendrick, designer and producer of the original Darklands game from MicroProse in 1992.

We're at the 25th anniversary of the game's publication, and there is STILL interest! Geesh! Now that I've retired from 50-70 hr weeks in the game industry, I actually have the opportunity to consider projects that would have been impossible earlier.

To be specific, I am looking into the possibility of using volunteer labor from game industry professionals to redo Darklands for current generation PCs. There are no Angel investors involved, so this is NOT a paying proposition. If you need a job, look elsewhere. I am also trying to contact current rights-holders to see what is and is not possible. Without legal rights to a rework or sequel, the project would need to morph into a different sandbox-style CRPG based somewhere else in late medieval Europe.

If you are a industry veteran computer programmer or artist, and interested in contributing work, contact me at ajhendrick@... . Again, this is NOT a job opportunity. I'm simply checking to see who might be available.

If you're simply a fan of the game, I'm happy to collect your email. If a project does materialize, and gets sufficiently far to start any promotions, I can get in touch with you.

This project is NOT a sure thing. I'm just making initial investigations.

On the Steam forums for Darklands the original designer/producer has a thread open dedicated to answering questions about the production.

Ask the original designer why...

Over 20 years ago, I almost bankrupted MicroProse by designing Darklands and leading the team that built it. I will do my best to answer design questions in this thread.

There are some caveats:

- I do not have any legal rights to the game or its code, so I can't promise any improvements or follow-ons.

- I am unfamiliar with the code adjustments made to produce this version. I can't help you with bugs.

- I'm a designer and producer, not an artist or programmer, so I can't help you mod the graphics or decompile the code.

- I don't have 10+ million of dollars to invest in making a new version. If somebody were to offer me a decent budget,I could do it. I've built and led teams many times in the game industry. However, I don't think that's going to happen for Darklands in what's left of my natural lifespan.

Nevertheless, for those seeking insights into the mind of a designer/producer, I'm available.

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Yasha 13 Oct, 2016 @ 1:37pm
I've always been a fan of RPGs, going back to the paper and pencil era. It took all my political clout and influence at MicroProse to get the project started. I'm also an academically trained historian, which helped inspire the topic and the approach to it. You can see echoes of Traveller and Runequest in the Darklands design, although the setting was totally original.

The problem with making a modern sequel is money. A decent-looking and playing RPG is NOT cheap. The amount of content for RPGs is staggeringly expensive (lots of art time for world building, character creation, animation, etc.), not to mention all the game data and game logic. If you want it playable online (an MMORPG), that roughly doubles the game programming cost, and adds a whole business-software layer to handle monetization (whether subs or F2P style cash shops). As a producer with solo game and MMO experience, I know the level of effort needed. The classic indie mistake is underestimating the work required, but not realizing it until you've burned through your money and are only half done, at best.

People I know have tried crowdfunding game projects. With a few rare exceptions, most projects can only pull in 0.5 to 1.5 million dollars, assuming they even succeed to that degree. I calculate that I'd need at least 10 million to staff a team for 2 years to build the a Darklands sequel. Therefore, for a modern version, I'd have to find a "white knight" who was willing to invest multiple millions in a core team. That team builds some early demos to attract most of the remaining funding. Crowdfunding helps validate the project (or help us find how to change it) and provide additional money for marketing and reserves. Steam Early Access might play a role in the final phase of testing and financing near release.

It is possible that such a "white knight" investor might be a game publisher. Unfortunately, I don't know of any publishers who would be interested. Even in the heyday of MMORPGs, publishers were very leary of projects that didn't have a big license to generate nice sales estimates from the marketing department.

For a little nostagia, Humble Bundles' latest bundle has Darklands & some old classics, such as Sid Meiers Pirates! Gold Plus, Sid Meiers Colonization, & Sid Meiers Covert Action. Rounding out the bundle is Nam, F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter, Command H.Q., & Sword Of the Samurai for a $5 bill.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun pens a retrospective review of the 1992 classic Darklands, in which they call it "one of the best RPGs ever made".  Thanks, GameBanshee.

I could say it’s because the setting is original and unique, which it is. It’s a largely realistic depiction of greater Germany in the 15th century, with scores of towns, authentic currency, and even time itself based on literally canonical hours. “RTFM” is a cliché, but here a fair warning, as that kind of detail makes for a daunting opening. It is fortunately a lovely one, from that line of 90s manuals that featured a completely unnecessary educational section, with a full bibliography. Don’t say games never taught me anything, Mum.

I could also say it’s the absence of levels, XP, and over-abstracted stats, which are cast out entirely in favour of characters defined by dozens of skills, and progression that ebbs and flows with your success and misfortune. While better quality equipment helps in a fight, it’s choosing the right tool that matters most. There’s no comparison of every sword against every other sword you pick up here. Instead you decide based on your skills, and whether you value fast attacks, higher raw damage, or better armour penetration – a battleaxe might be cool and mop up the cannon fodder, but it’ll simply bounce off the plate armour that knight’s wearing.

Weapons and armour are expensive, and while there’s no regular degradation, some events and enemy attacks can damage them permanently. And if you lose a fight or surrender, don’t think anyone will hesitate to strip you naked and take every pfennig you own. And those are the merciful ones. But hey, some of your party survived that encounter, right? So, dust yourselves off, recruit some replacements, and get back on that horse.

More information.

Escapist Magazine has a new Retrospective Review of the GOG vesion of Darklands.

Darklands drops players into a fantasy tinged version of medieval Germany where devils are real and power can be found in prayer just as much as it is in arms. Complex and huge almost to the point of being overwhelming, it's an exemplar of what makes old CRPGs worth playing.

Roxor from RPG Codex has written a retrospective review on Darklands,  a game released by Micropose in 1992. Roxor mentions that:

[....] there was also one RPG that I believe was truly ahead of its time, and was never quite matched in some respects. It's also quite heavily overlooked nowadays, which in my opinion is downright scandalous. Considering that Josh Sawyer seems to be all the rage on the Codex these days and this game is one of his favourites, I decided that it was time to write a few words about it. The game in question was released by Microprose and its name is Darklands.

A quote then, on character creation:

Each character can choose from a variety of backgrounds, from noble heir to rural commoner, which will influence their statistics in various ways. A nobleman will start with an edge in reading and writing, while a city trader will have higher streetwise. The background also determines the occupations available to your character during childhood, which, again, switches the numbers around in skills. A freshly-created adventurer is 20 years old, but you can choose to draw out his career over more years, each extension giving more skill points, and aging the character by 5 years.

A quote, then, on the travel system:

When travelling from city to city, your party gets placed on an overland map of medieval Germany. Travel speed is dependent on a few factors, such as whether your party has horses (and how high their quality is) and the type of terrain you are moving through. Roads are the fastest form of travel, but obviously they don't lead everywhere, and sometimes you will need to make a detour through forests, swamps, etc, which all slow your party down. There are also some impassable objects like deep waters and mountains, unless you pray to a saint for miraculous guidance (everyone can be Jesus and walk on water! Thanks, Saint Florian). The map also changes along with the seasons, and it is not uncommon to run into a particularly nasty blizzard when travelling in winter.

Apparently Darklands were the first game to introduce realtime with pause during combat, namely:

an Innovative Real-Time With Pause^TM system. During battle, you can control each of your dudes separately, pause the action with the spacebar and issue orders. Your characters have a pretty good array of combat stances that influence theirstats - parrying will do less damage but significantly up the defence, seeking vulnerable places in an enemy's defence will increase armour penetration, but decrease attack speed, etc.

Roxor's conclusion:

Microprose gave us an absolute classic that should be checked out by every self-respecting RPG enthusiast out there, especially those who favour simulation above all else. It also makes an excellent treat for those who have a big love for history. Not to mention that the game is simply a gift that keeps on giving because just about everything in it is procedurally generated, so no two playthroughs are the same, and you're bound to stumble upon something new each time you press "create a new world".

RPG Codex has a short retrospective on Darklands written by none other than J.E. Sawyer, followed by an interview they conducted with the lead designer, Arnold Hendrick. Here's a snip from the retrospective part:

The Magic Candle was the most unusual CRPG I had played to that point, but I wasn't prepared for Darklands. It used 15th century history for almost everything: canonical hours, Medieval currency, alchemical formulae, Catholic saints, practical arms and armor of the era, period-accurate names and spellings for cities, traditional music, mythic conceptions of satanic Templars – the works.

It also bucked so many CRPG conventions that it took me a while to wrap my head around it. Instead of making a party of characters of different races and classes, you developed them along life paths, Traveller-style, in five year increments. You could, in fact, have a party with a grizzled knight, a young bandit, a hapless mystic of affective piety, and an 80 year-old alchemist (whom you most certainly would not abandon for his potent potions five minutes into gameplay!) And as previously mentioned, there were no alignments, no levels, no experience points – just a learn-by-doing skill system and a big open world. I felt like the game gave me the freedom to explore “Greater Germany” as I saw fit.

Not that it was a forgiving exploration. Darklands was a wonderful open world game, one that rarely warned travelers about dangers lurking in a Raubritter's castle or what you might encounter while stumbling through the Black Forest. You could find yourself arguing with a demon in Latin at the Devil's Bridge, fleeing from the Wild Hunt after you've interrupted the witches' High Sabbath, or praying for a saint's intercession as you await public execution in a town square.

Thanks, GhanBuriGhan!