Apple's App Store is full of content. Much of it is junk, but search through all of that gunk and you'll find a very healthy population of serious gaming treasures, and among those treasures is the nigh-impeccable King of Dragon Pass. Measuring in at a flat $9.99 purchase for the full game with no trial available and no in-app purchases, the game is a hefty initial investment relative to much of the App Store's fare, but if you're a fan of strategy games, kingdom sims, or choose-your-own adventure books, this game might just be a dream come true, and in portable form no less.
King of Dragon Pass is not a game with new and shiny 3D graphics. Instead, it's largely text based and features beautiful illustrations. There is no animation. This is because it is an enhanced port of the computer game of the same name released in 1999. I didn't find the visuals to be a problem and rather liked the illustrations, but check out the screenshots yourself to see if you'd be fine with them:
Of note regarding the visuals: whenever there is an illustration behind text in King of Dragon Pass, keep in mind that you can tap the screen to fade the text out in order to fully appreciate said illustration.
The meat of KoDP is its wonderful, enveloping, and addictive gameplay. In the world of Glorantha where the game takes place, magic, trolls,
dragons, and gods are all common knowledge. Throughout your time managing the clan you'll sacrifice cattle and thralls to various gods for their blessings, rebuke dragon emissaries or embrace them, and perhaps fight off a few troll invasions. You start the game by making a few important decisions about the history of your clan. Which god is your clan's primary one? Do you embrace wanderers seeking shelter as clan members or take them as thralls? Who are your clan's mystical ancient enemies? Are you generally a peaceful clan or a warmongering clan? All of these decisions are presented through a story prologue, and they'll directly influence the game that you play.
When you finally arrive to manage your tribe, you'll already have friends and enemies in the newly-settled Dragon Pass, along with favors owed to you and favors that you owe others. The management and sim portion of the game is largely one of numbers. You'll need to make sure that your clan is well-fed, maintains a decent mood, and can engage its enemies both in raids and defense. Gather too many children in your clan and you'll quickly find yourself starving due to proportional lack of adult labor. You'll need to sacrifice to the Gods every once in a while to keep them content. To run your clan, you'll be able to take two actions in a given season. Although the season can also dictate the action. If you send your laymen off to raid an enemy clan during planting season, your crops will suffer. Send an exploring party off in the cold season and you're bound to lose a few men to harsh conditions or be thwarted by a snow-filled passage.
The numbers game that you play just to keep your clan afloat is intriguing on its own, but the icing on the cake is that between each season you'll usually get an event pop-up. I don't know how many of these random events there are, but in any given game you'll run into events that are new and events that are familiar. And the events themselves vary greatly. Sometimes a betrothed clan member has been caught having a lusty affair with a local poet. Or maybe a visiting weaponthane insulted your own weaponthanes. Perhaps you've stumbled upon a civilization of humanoid duck people. Whatever has happened, it's up to you to decide how to deal with it. You do have a council of varied personalities that can advise you on a course of action, but they'll often conflict with one another. There's usually no single right or wrong way to deal with an event, so you're still left with a hefty decision regardless.
Another layer of frosting is the quest system, with which you can send any of your clansmen on an epic quest to re-enact the ancient heroism of the gods. Each one follows a path parallel to an old tale of Glorantha. The game comes with a handy manual built in, inside of which are pages upon pages of lore and legend (and useful game info, read the damned thing). To successfully complete a quest, you'll need luck, a skilled clansman, and a good knowledge of the story that your quest is based upon. Completing these quests can earn great rewards and prestige for your clan or tribe, an important step on the road to becoming King.
The victory condition of KoDP is to create a tribe compromised of clans and have one of your clansmen become its King. It's a long road to get there and you'll need to take some rather specific steps as you come closer to that goal.
The game's musical score is fitting and wonderful fantasy fare that's generic enough to be turned off without missing much but a wonderful addition to mood if you want to hear it.
The game has been out for a long while now, and I have poured dozens of hours into it. It's easily my most-played on the iPhone. It's not a game without flaws, however. While the game comes with a thorough and solid tutorial, the manual will be required reading in order to gather additional info on everything that's going on in the game and also to memorize tales before embarking on a quest. It's also a game full of menus. Everything you do in KoDP is done through a menu. There are no platforming sections, you won't walk around your clan's tula, and there are no battle maps. In addition, while it's on a portable format and the game is perfectly playable in short bursts, it's also the type of game that allures you into longer sessions. You can lose track of time pretty easily while you're managing the clan.
King of Dragon Pass is a very peculiar and particular game, relatively slow-paced and full of text to read. It's not a game for everybody. But there's also a very particular audience that is going to love it to death. If anything that I've written about above sounds awesome to you, I highly recommend that you invest in this game when you have a good chunk of free time to dive into it and lose yourself in the world of Glorantha. If I sound like a walking advertisement for King of Dragon Pass, it's because this game made me one, and it didn't even need to lure me in with free coin offers.
No comments:
Post a Comment