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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Game Play: Silverfall Demo

I was just trying this out real quick and for a while, somewhat liked it. Silverfall is a pretty straight up Diablo style RPG with loads of clicking and running around. The demo I played didn't have any graphics to write home about but at least played smoothly for the most part.

Then I died. Silverfall may feature the worst death mechanics of any recent RPG (I've played). When you die, you magically respawn in nothing but your undies. A tomb exists where you died that holds all of your stuff. I think maybe you get to keep your gold - maybe. To get all your stuff back, you have to run back to the tomb and retrieve it.

This isn't too far off the mark of some semideath mechanics employed by other games - except when combined with the normal AI and interface of the game. As you approach whatever hoarde killed you in the first place, they'll aggro and swarm and essentially make it impossible to retrieve your goods without fisticuffs. Three times I tried to run around the group (my tomb was on one edge of the group) and get my gear back - each time I kept punching wildly into their midst. Even once when I could have sworn I had highlighted the tomb first.

Meh. It might be a decent enough game, but not something I'd be paying full price on - especially compared to other offerings (including the free version of Dungeon Runners).

1 comment:

Weefz said...

Good lord. I really wonder what designers are thinking when they come up with this sort of mechanic. What sort of twisted idea of "fun game" do you need to think this is a good idea?

Monsters killed you. Now fight them naked with no equipment. Hahahaha!

Uh... yeah.