F4T C4T

I only had a bit of time last night so I haven't managed to accumulate enough souls for a miracle yet but I did buy a bow as I had no form of long range attack. Shortly after I found a crossbow. I had another shot at Mr. Taurus but he's proving to be a tough cookie. I do not want to look at a wiki/guide though! I spoiled myself a couple of times on Demon's Souls and felt robbed of the experience afterwards. I can get a hugely damaging plunging attack straight off by climbing the tower but after that I'm stuck in close combat and get nailed. My attacks do almost nothing. I have successfully dodged through his legs a few times but it seems only luck prevents me taking damage when I do that. He spins round and catches me with his hammer/club thing most times so I don't think it's a tactic I can rely on, especially for how long I'd need to keep it up! Next time I'm going to try using my speed advantage and annoyingly run away to the other tower, then back again to climb up and get the plunging attack in again. I reckon 4 of those will do it. I've not reached the other tower yet so I may be able to climb that one too. That would be nice (as long as there aren't more archers up there). I think I've explored as many areas as I can without running into an enemy I can't get past now (Mr. T, dildo knight, black knight and a couple of annoyingly tough skeletons). The black knight seems the easiest of those yet the way he runs at me is terrifying.

I put a few hours in last night, so much to say! I started as a thief character with black firebombs as my starting option (which I'm slightly regretting as I instantly threw the majority at walls mistaking the use button for attack while figuring the controls out. The heal spell would have been more useful). I'm light and fast so my tactics involve dodging around and stabbing everyone in the arse repeatedly with a dagger. If that fails, I run. I managed to reach the Taurus Demon. I said a quick hello and was promptly splatted. I also ran into a knight holding what appears to be a 12 foot stone dildo and was promptly splatted again. Thankfully the screen faded to black there. While trying to retrieve those souls I then discovered a Black Knight (possibly the same one Gwardinen is talking about, down some small narrow stairs?) who proceeded to chase me all the way back to the starting area before tearing me apart. I haven't gone back there yet, I'm not ready for that! So now I'm having fun collecting enough souls for a miracle that'll be helpful and generally levelling up a bit before tackling the Taurus again. I guess it's grinding but it doesn't feel like it. Practising is probably a better word here. I've gotten comfortable with the combat now but I still get caught out by the easier chaps on occasion. With regards to equipment, I've found a bunch of stuff in the world and at a merchant but nothing that betters my starting thief blade and small shield. They just work better with my skills. At one point I tried to drag a Hollow Shield around but I'm too weak for such things. I'm hoping there's some cooler stuff available for a light character later on.

So I didn't manage to pick up a copy after work last Friday and instead ordered it off Amazon. I've been averting my eyes from the conversation since but today it finally arrived. Yeah! Preparing to die as I type. Preparation involves a nice hot cup of tea and a biscuit of course.

Oh man, I'm very excited about this game! Edge's review of it is beautiful. I'm going to go buy it as soon as I finish work today.

I was thinking of heading to the RPS thing on the Friday evening despite not being able to make the Expo itself. Although I'm not 100% sure I can make even that yet. Last year was a fun time though! Nachimir: The Indie Games Arcade I always find the most interesting part. This year's is looking great too so I'm pretty sad to miss it!

The love of a woman has led my mining empire to ruin! The one weekend in months we get to spend time together and it's the one after starting an Iron Helmet game. Ah well, I will rebuild! If only my phone could display flash content I might stand a chance at these games. They really should make a mobile app, but only if they make it for my WP7 which every popular mobile dev seems to forget to do. Sigh.

I just changed the avatar in my profile but it doesn't seem to have updated in game which is a shame. We'll just have to be twins Gward, separated at birth.

I'm in. Space_Adynod in game.

That brings me to Mokosh. Aka amusingly; Moist Mother Earth. Btw, I'm just googling here. I have no idea if I'm nearer to understanding your name. I've had fun reading about previously unheard of gods and goddesses at least.

Is everyone waiting for Murdoc to start a game? I also don't mind sorting it out though so if people are still up for this, I'll set one up when I get a chance this evening (UK time). Will post in here the moment it's ready.

Dmytro comes from the pagan word Demeter meaning "Earth Mother". So you are a False Goddess, right? http://wikiality.wikia.com/Demeter

I'd be up for joining in on this. Can't promise much in the way of intelligence but I'd say I'm decent enough. With regards to the previous Iron Helmet games, I clicked more with Blight than Neptune and was disappointed that Blight never really progressed as much as it promised to. This new game and this interview on RPS explain the reason for that but I do hope they go back to Blight as suggested.

Scrobbs, good work! Thunderpeel, glad you're ok. Being close to all that is going to shake you up some. Being in Oxford I escaped any uprisings, although rumours of start ups were spreading on the second evening and work locked up gates earlier than usual just in case. Anyway, I'm with Thunderpeel on lightening up and having more fun! If there were a graph of both the good and the bad that has befallen me in my lifetime, this year would include the lowest of troughs. However I'm a positive guy on the whole, so here's to a new beginning. I've been around these forums for a couple of years now, and although I don't tend to join in the conversation much, you guys are always my go to to get thoughts on games I'm interested in. I wish I were better at participating in these things. F*ck knows why I'm writing this. I guess I just want to say you all are great. And Games.

I'm enjoying this one despite the art style and interface issues. As mentioned already here the picking up of items can be tedious and clicking to move around can be a bit clunky while the double height of the walls and certain objects creates a lot of confusing situations I find, hiding passageways, enemies and, though I haven't had this happen yet, potentially traps too I'd imagine (unless they aren't allowed to appear on hidden tiles, which would be sensible). More nit-picky but I feel should be pointed out as the devs claim to have improved the interface of the traditional roguelike, is that I can seemingly do everything with the mouse apart from wait a turn. Which I've needed to do often enough to become annoying when I'm in my favoured position of relaxing back in my chair, one hand on mouse, one holding a cuppa. That all sounds a bit harsh but as I said, I'm still enjoying it despite those issues. The exploration, skills, crafting, loot and humour are all hitting the right spot and I'm keen to go back and discover more. I've spent 4-5 hours so far and like Orvidos, a lot of that time was just in the first level (I've only managed to get to the 2nd level so far due to wanting to explore everywhere first) and there feels like there's a lot more to be seen. I see your point about more complex free roguelikes Shammock, but I think something like Dungeons of Dredmor has a place for people interested in the genre without wanting to dive in at the deep end. The visuals (disregarding taste) and interface alone (despite the aforementioned issues) make it something I'd happily add to the very short list of roguelikes I'd recommend to newcomers along with Shiren and Powder.

I tried the demo out yesterday but it didn't capture my interest enough to get the full thing. The art style's beautiful and the narrator wasn't as bad as I thought he might be from the trailers but I think it was the combat that didn't do it for me. I'd have to go back to it to figure out why exactly that is though. Maybe I'll come back to this one later.

Thanks for the comments twmac. Sorry I haven't been around to reply, I'm going through a bit of a rough time at the moment and haven't been able to concentrate on anything but (real non-game) work and family. The spike hat is pretty evil & I'll take power up explanations into account in the future. There's a hint screen or two in there related to them but I don't think they pop up often enough. The special move has a blast radius which means you can potentially take out multiple people, it's probably most effective in 4 player when the other 3 are all having a little tussle and have forgotten you're above them. It's weighted towards the lower scoring players too as a bit of a chance to catch up (it charges faster the lower ranked you are). Thanks for sharing the experience, glad you guys had a few laughs!

Yeah, thanks for posting that Hermie! I was planning a trip to the fjords of Norway this year but have had to postpone it to next year. Now I can watch a bit of what I'm missing! I can't wait to go for real.

Thanks guys! Synth, it's a multiplayer platformer. The aim is very simple; jump on the other Sumo's heads. There are a variety of pickups to aid offense and defense and every now and again the Sumo's can unleash a more powerful airborne attack too. One of these days I'll finish the trailer I'm putting together so you can get a better idea of it in action.

Hey Thumbs, me and a few friends have been working on a little XBLIG title for a while now. It finally passed review the other day so I thought I'd plug it a bit here. marketplace link There's a blog here and I'm handing out some free codes on @TeamSumo at the moment as well. If you try it out at all, let me know what you think! Warning: it's local multiplayer only (no singleplayer). While I'm at it I might as well plug my website too: http://gclarkedesign.com/. Needs a bit more work on it but for now it'll do. Kingzjester, I love the Hobolobo site. Nice idea. I like the depth and layout and the drawings are great. You too Syntheticgerbil. Good luck with the applications. In fact there's lots of cool stuff in this thread! Keep it up everyone.

I haven't played Fire and Sword but I'm just not interested in it. Warband has enough for me that I keep returning to it again and again and I can see myself doing so for years. It doesn't help that FaS's setting isn't as appealing to me but mainly I think it would take a proper sequel to entice me to buy another one of these, and by that I mean production values. The mechanics are all there (although there's room for improvements in the refinement sense) but imagine Witcher 2 like quality in battles & towns and a Shogun 2 quality world map. I don't mean to be so down on the graphics as they haven't stopped me enjoying the series at all, but at this point I'd just like to see a bit of improvement and polish in future releases if I'm going to spend anything. I appreciate that they are a small company and why this (probably) won't ever happen though. I can but dream!

I've been gaming on my PC a bit more these days so I thought I'd add my SteamID here. F4TC4T

I managed to fit 25 minutes in at lunch today (I live very near work). Nice intro. Think I might avoid the net now until I'm done with it. Hurrah for the bank holidays and royal wedding (giving us and extra days holiday) coming up here in the UK!

If I had it pre-ordered/loaded and had the time this evening (or even this weekend) to join the fun it would be ace. But that's not the case for me unfortunately. I still think it's cool for everyone else though!

I've only ever read about these ARG's after the fact before now and although I haven't been a participant in this one, watching it all unfold has been great. There's 40-odd minutes left on the timer and I'm intrigued more than ever about what is going to be revealed. I might be a tad disappointed if it's just an early release as like Scrobb's, I've just moved house and it's both an expensive outlay and a good way of acquiring a million tasks that must be accomplished. I can't see myself having the time to experience this with everyone so I might have to abandon the internet until I get my hands on it!

I'll keep awakenings on my "to play" list in that case as I have heard good things. I'm just a bit burnt out on DA at the moment.