Come together

Hey, it’s been awhile. Sorry about that. Life’s been kind of crazy lately, but what happened last night really takes the cake. I’m not going to make this post overly political, but it’s undeniable that in the aftermath of the 2024 US election cycle, a lot of people are feeling lost, angry, scared, confused, etc. It really does seem that our political system is fully off the rails, and in times like that, I think the only thing any of us can do is refocus. Concentrate on yourself, and the people closest to you: your friends, family, neighbors, and try to do what you can to make their lives better, as well as your own. In this case, I count whatever small audience I have for this blog as part of that–and neither education nor entertainment are ever a bad thing. If nothing else, it’s a lot better than getting swept up in an endless wave of negativity.

And, in a very tangential way, that brings us to today’s word.

pool, verb – to aggregate things into a common supply

Learned from: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Champions of Krynn (Apple II, Amiga, Commodore 64, PC)

Developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc.

Published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (1990)

Champions of Krynn played by old school, 2nd Edition D&D rules, where a lower armor class was a better armor class, you had to visit a trainer/mentor to level up, and I’m pretty sure they included encumbrance, where carrying too much incurred severe penalties. This, if memory serves, included money. Because metal coins get pretty heavy after awhile.

Enter the pool option, after combat. Selecting this would combine all the various bits of copper, silver, gold, etc. dropped by enemies into one big pile, which you could then disperse to your individual party members as you saw fit, without having to do quite so much math.

Small concessions like that, automatically assigning XP, and calculating THAC0 for you made the game somewhat more accessible for a seven-year-old than the tabletop version, but it was still a pretty dense game. I don’t think I ever did beat it, but it was still my first real introduction to the hobby of tabletop roleplaying games–a hobby which I hold near and dear to my heart to this day.

And on that note, if you’re struggling with current events, there might be no better time to try out the hobby for yourself and your friends. If fantasy isn’t your thing, there are systems out there that tackle sci-fi, horror, the wild west (with or without zombies and such), or even where you play as a crack team of vampire commandos on a mission to drain Hitler’s blood during WWII. If this world sucks, there’s nothing wrong with finding solace in another one.

Tabletop RPGs really do offer something for everyone.

Jinkies

The 1990s were an interesting time in the United States. The “Satanic Panic” of the ’80s was dying down, but panic over AIDS and street crime was kicking into high gear. Sleeping with an intern was somehow enough to trigger impeachment hearings for a sitting president. The “war on drugs” was unironically going full-steam ahead, and even before the “war on terror” kicked off, the military was beginning to dabble in wars–excuse me, “military operations”–for oil. And despite all the chaos and absurdity of that decade, looking back at it, those were simpler times. Which brings us to today’s word.

jink, verb – to abruptly change direction

Learned from: Desert Strike (Genesis, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Mac, PC, Super Nintendo, PSP)

Developed by Electronic Arts, Foresight New Media (PC version), Ocean Software (Game Boy version)

Published by Electronic Arts (1992)

Operation Desert Storm, the quick assault on Iraq after they invaded Kuwait, was the first thing approaching a war that kids in the ’90s were really exposed to, and to say that it captured the public consciousness is an understatement. I mean, just look at how many platforms this hastily-coded game released on. Still, despite capitalizing on a contemporary, real-world conflict, Desert Strike created a splash (and several sequels) for good reason.

First, it was different from pretty much everything else on the console market at the time, with impressively large maps and complete freedom of movement. Desert Strike wasn’t really a shmup; it was slower-paced, the levels didn’t auto-scroll, and you could move your helicopter forward, back, left and right, and even jink on a dime to try and dodge projectiles. Add in a decent array of weapons and enemy vehicles, and the experience was really quite memorable.

I couldn’t really see something like this getting released today, for a variety of reasons: the problematic game-ification of a questionable military assault; giving the leader of a fictitious Middle Eastern country the name “Kilbaba”; etc. But like I said, simpler times.

Also, back then we used to at least *pretend* we were fighting against tyranny…

Hope you enjoy the series finale

It’s July 4th (Independence Day, for those of you outside the US), as I write this, and I find myself in a rather melancholy state of mind. This has always been one of my least-favorite holidays to begin with–it’s loud, the events are always crowded, and most of the festivities take place outside during the hottest stretch of the year–but given recent events, I feel like there isn’t much reason to celebrate at all. Er…I mean, everything is totally fine here, and we definitely haven’t just handed the president the powers of a king, which the felonious maniac whose cult will probably elect him in November will wield to punish any opposition once he’s back in office, and never abdicate the throne. Everything is great. Just great. How are you? Let’s talk about eagles.

eyrie, noun – an eagle’s nest

Learned from: Shivers (PC, Mac)

Developed by Sierra On-Line

Published by Sierra On-Line (1995)

I really kind of miss Sierra On-Line. You could argue that their adventure games weren’t as polished as the ones made by Lucas Arts (also RIP), but man, were they memorable. Take Shivers, for example. The game starts with you, a teenager, being dared to spend the night inside Professor Windlenot’s Museum of the Strange and Unusual–a Ripley’s Believe It or Not type of place, that never finished construction after the eponymous Prof. Windlenot disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Being that it was abandoned, you have to get creative about finding a way in, and once you’re inside, you find yourself trapped with the evil spirits from one of the exhibits that likely killed the professor. From there, it’s a struggle for survival as you make your way through all the weird (sometimes cursed) stuff Windlenot collected over the years, searching for a way to contain the spirits and get out alive.

Part of the fun of Shivers was never quite knowing what you’d find in the next room. You’ll go from exhibits about torture devices, to ancient Egypt, to an entire section devoted to optical illusions, to strange things found in nature–like the world’s biggest eyrie. As I remember, it takes up most of the room it’s in, and I was always worried something was going to reach/jump out from inside it, as I edged my way around its massive bulk. But it was just one memorable scene from a game that was full of them. Sure, it’s a bit dated at this point, but it’s still worth a play.

And, it’s like six bucks on GOG.com: https://www.gog.com/en/game/shivers

Not quite eating crow…

In my neck of the woods, there’s a restaurant chain called Culver’s, famous for their “concrete mixers” (custard shakes), and burgers billed as “butter burgers.” Delicious, but probably even more horrible for you than your average fast food burger, which is saying something. That said, I always assumed that the chain was just named after someone–and it is. But it turns out “culver” is also an actual word, and now that I know what it means, I’ll never be able to look at the restaurant the same way again…

culver, noun – a dove or pigeon

Learned from: Elden Ring (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox One, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by FromSoftware

Published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (2022)

FromSoftware games are known for being punishingly difficult, but also pretty dang weird sometimes. Case in point: Rennala, one of the main bosses of Elden Ring. When you first face her, she’s floating in the air, surrounded by a horde of half-formed…daughters, I guess? And she’s cradling something in her arms, cooing at it and calling it her “little culver.” It’s hard to really make out just what it is at first, but the whole situation is a bit creepy.

Regardless, I now have the irrevocable connotation that there’s a fast food chain that’s essentially called “Pigeon’s.” And I want to note, I in no way mean this to imply that Culver’s serves burgers made from pigeon meat (AKA: squab, so you’re getting a two-fer, today!). It’s just an unfortunate, and kind of amusing coincidence that their name happens to have another meaning.

KFC, however, I have my doubts about. (Pardon the AI art)

Rude awakening

For awhile, my cat had a habit of poking around in my closet at night when she got bored. There’s no door on it, just a curtain that she can easily get through, and she sometimes makes a lot of noise, messing around with the stuff I have stashed there. So, I recently stacked some boxes in front, to keep her out, which worked…for awhile. The other night, she somehow clambered her way over them, and woke me up. I get up, turn on the light in there, and as soon as she saw me, she seemed to know she’d done something wrong and tried to get out…and got stuck between one of the boxes and the doorframe. When I reached over to shift the box, she panicked, and in her flailing of paws, she tore several large gashes in my leg. Which brings us to today’s word.

laceration, noun – a rough cut or tear with ragged edges

Learned from: Half-Life (PC, Mac, Playstation 2)

Developed by Valve

Published by Sierra Studios (1998, PS2 version in 2001)

Remember back when Valve made games? Pepperidge Farms remembers. And honestly, Half-Life and Diablo were the main titles that got me into PC gaming back in the ’90s. While the roguelike nature of Diablo scratched my itch for fantasy, Half-Life just looked so much better than anything else in its genre. I’d played Wolfenstein 3D a little at a friend’s house, and Doom on my 32X (arguably the worst way to play it, since it wasn’t even the whole game), and they were fun, but Half-Life looked to be doing something different; it actually wanted to tell a story, with characters, and set pieces, and weapons located in places that made sense, rather than just floating around in the air.

I devoured every article and preview of this game I could get my hands on, leading up to its release, and when I finally got my hands on it, I wasn’t disappointed. From the opening, in-game credit sequence, to the unfortunate amount of platforming during the climax in Xen, I was engaged, making my way through hallways filled with hostile soldiers and three-armed aliens that shoot lightning. And all the while, my constant companion was the voice in my HEV (Hazardous Environment) suit, giving me constant updates on just how badly beaten up I was, from suffering minor lacerations to being dosed with high levels of radiation. Sure, in the end it all added up to how much health I had left, but it felt so much more immersive.

And after that early morning run-in with my cat, I can confidently say she’d give any headcrab zombie a run for its money.

This is Anji. Don’t let her coyness fool you; she is sharp.

Cryptic messages in the Lands Between

As I write this, Elden Ring‘s DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, drops in a little over a month, so I figured I should really get back to Limgrave and sharpen my skills. And, you know, maybe actually beat the game. Which brings us to today’s word.

baldachin, noun – the cloth canopy above a throne, or carried above an important person

Learned from: Elden Ring (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox One, XBox Series S/X)

Developed by FromSoftware

Published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (2022)

Early in the game, you unlock an area called the Roundtable Hold which acts as a sort of hubworld populated by a diverse array of NPCs. And in true FromSoft fashion, most of them are…ambiguously helpful at best. One of the, Fia, is a woman who came to be bound to this place due to “circumstances.” She also offers hugs, claiming she’ll receive the warmth of a warrior in exchange for what is surely a “baldachin’s blessing.” Possible minor spoiler: Hugging her might not be an entirely good thing to do.

Otherwise, Fia is pretty innocuous, and seems a rather sad figure. Not that anybody in a FromSoft game ever comes across as terribly happy, but there’s a special melancholy to her. Curiously, she doesn’t seem to have anything resembling a baldachin in her room, which makes her initial claim even more confusing. But while there’s no canopy, she does have a mirror in her room that the player can use to change their appearance, so she’s got at least some accoutrements.

Don’t let it bug you

It’s been a long, kind of weird week at work. A lot of strange transactions that I’m tempted to blame on the upcoming eclipse, the same way people blame weird behavior on the full moon. But one thing that stood out against the craziness was something as simple as a shirt one of my coworkers was wearing the other day: It was basically black, but had this interesting green and purple iridescence to it, that brought to mind a beetle’s shell. Which, after a few detours, brings us to today’s word.

carapace, noun – the shell of an insect or other arthropod

Learned from: Lunar: The Silver Star (Sega CD)

Developed by Game Arts

Published by Working Designs (1993)

For as much as I love RPGs, I never really owned many of them as a kid. Aside from this, The Ancient Land of Ys on my Apple IIGS, and if you count action RPGs like Landstalker, most of my exposure to the genre was from my local video rental store (thanks for the memories, Major Video!). And they didn’t really have a ton of Sega CD games. But I’d begged my parents for the clunky Genesis add-on (as I would again a few years later, for the 32X, much to my lingering chagrin), and I wanted to make use of it. And Lunar looked amazing, from the previews in the magazines. I think I actually had to do a mail order for it out of an ad in one of those same magazines once I’d saved up the money, because the Internet didn’t exist in any real capacity yet, and it turned out Major Video wasn’t the only place that barely carried Sega CD games.

I remember checking our mailbox every day, afraid someone would steal something that was so hard to acquire if I wasn’t vigilant. And when it finally arrived, my 10-year-old mind was blown. The sprites looked crisper, the world was huge, it had an opening cutscene–with a theme song! (Which I still mostly remember to this day, actually.) I knew I’d made the right choice in tracking this game down.

Looking back at it all these years later, objectively Lunar is a fairly run-of-the-mill 16-bit JRPG, with a questionable translation (e.g. there’s a Wheaties reference at one point), an unremarkable overall plot, and some admittedly nice art. But at the time, I had a blast exploring its vast world, filled with bizarrely modern humor. Even when I expected that world to be more cohesive and immersive than it ended up being. Case in point: the carapace armor.

This was back in the day when games still came with (occasionally well-illustrated) instruction manuals, and reading through them on the ride home from the store, or in this case, simply before playing, was part of the experience. So when I saw that carapace armor was made from “shells of bizarre creatures on the southern continent,” I got it in my head that I shouldn’t wear that armor in that area, because I thought parading around wearing the corpses of the native inhabitants wouldn’t be a great idea. It…never became an issue–though there was some equipment-based, outside the box thinking they put in toward the end of the game, in a sequence that’s one of the game’s shining moments. So I was actually sort of on to something, in a roundabout way.

It’s weird that a lot of modern JRPGs have actually regressed in how they display gear. In the ’80s and ’90s, even if equipping new armor or weapons didn’t necessarily change the look of your character, they usually had unique sprites in your inventory. Now, a lot of them just have generic helmet or sword icons, with names by them. Sad, really.

Please take me off your call list

I recently played through the first Dragon’s Dogma, in preparation for the sequel, and frankly, the game delighted me. Even with its massive amounts of janky moments, there was such an earnest heart behind it all, right down to a solid attempt at period-accurate Medieval dialogue. And I’m happy to say the sequel follows suit quite closely. Which brings us to today’s word.

roborant, noun – a tonic

Learned from: Dragon’s Dogma 2 (PC, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Capcom

Published by Capcom (2024)

Part of what I love about fantasy RPGs is that they so often unearth words that would have otherwise been lost to antiquity, and place them front and center before a modern audience. Even when the word in question somewhat confusingly sounds like slang that very same modern audience would have invented, themselves, perhaps around election season. Even though “roborant” only dates back to the 17th Century, and isn’t as period-specific as Capcom might have thought when deciding to use it, it’s still collected one hell of a lot of dust.

Here, it’s both a strong healing item, and the subject of an early quest involving a little girl who’s studying to become an apothecary, but she can’t afford a fruit roborant to further her studies. But, good ser, you are a hero, aren’t you? Mightn’t she impose upon your valiant sensibilities and kind heart, and ask you to procure one for her? Truly, what is a bit of coin, compared to furthering the education of the next generation of healers for her community?

I totally expected her to pick my pocket when I left to go pay for her school supplies. And no, I won’t spoil whether that happens or not.

Devious little reprobate, or budding credit to her community? You’ll have to find out for yourself.

I’ll take “Things I haven’t had much of for a few weeks,” for $400.

So, I caught COVID for the first time recently, and it’s really taken the wind out of my sails. Even in the aftermath. I’d hesitate to say I have “long COVID” at this point, but I’ve been dealing with some stuff, not the least of which is that I seem to be getting tired more easily than I used to. Which brings us to today’s word.

vim, noun – energy, exuberance

Learned from: Diablo (PC, Mac, PS1)

Developed by Blizzard North, Climax Studios (PS1 version)

Published by Blizzard Entertainment, Davidson & Associates, Electronic Arts (PS1 version) (1997)

The first Diablo was a formative experience for me. I’d played a few roguelike games before (from Fatal Labyrinth on the Genesis, all the way back to AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin on the Intellivision), but Diablo was the first game of its type I played that A) Had real-time combat, and B) Told a cohesive story, with NPCs and everything. It was also much more of a power fantasy than anything that came before it; despite its grimdark setting with the forces of Hell rising up to take over the world, your lone rogue, sorcerer, or warrior would be slicing through hordes of demons like butter, as magic items fell from them like rain. Well, you had a lone hero unless you ventured into the lawless, buggy, cheater-filled wasteland of online play. That was fun in its own way, but you never knew when someone was going to use an exploit to steal that shiny new sword you just found.

And man, was that gear shiny. You never knew what any monster or chest was going to drop at any given time, any more than you knew what the layout of the dungeon was going to be. That skeleton could drop just another potion, or a Diamond Battleax of the Whale could come flying out of its pile of bones. The basic-tier magic items in Diablo had stats determined by (often ridiculous) combinations of prefixes and suffixes. In the example above, that battleax would have pretty good magic resistance from the “diamond” prefix, and would give you a ton of health from the “whale” suffix.

Vim was a lesser vitality-increasing suffix. Really nothing special after about the midpoint of the game, but certainly better than a garbage item with no traits at all–or worse, something like a Rusted Breatplate of Frailty that would actually lower your defense and strength. The first Diablo was a far less forgiving game than its successors, and I will always have a soft spot for it because of that. It was nowhere near as polished or feature-rich as Diablo II, or even the recently-released Last Epoch (which is really quite good, and a much better game than Diablo IV), but it had a lot of elements the later games did away with: outright harmful items, a random rotation of quests on each playthrough, shrines whose effects were unknown until you tried them, etc. I’d say it’s still worth revisiting today, if you can put up with a bit of clunkiness.

“I am here to destroy the world! And your free time!”

I’d think up a clever title, but I’m getting over a cold

Though, in a roundabout way, that’s fitting for the word I’ve chosen today. In ages past (and depressingly, probably still today in certain regions of the world), people thought disease was caused by black magic. Predictably, a variety of protective charms and incantations were invented to try and keep people healthy. And, while not an exact correlation, it does bring us to today’s word.

apotropaism, noun - the use of magical incantations to ward off evil

Learned from: Dragon’s Dogma (PC, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, XBox 360, XBox One)

Developed by Capcom

Published by Capcom (2012)

Dragon’s Dogma is a gloriously janky game. Combat can be a confusing mess of slow motion camera pans, characters being grappled into the ground, enemies launching 20 feet into the air from a single explosive arrow, etc. It’s like Skyrim, if all the rough edges and bizarre physics were intentional. And the fact that it embraces its weirdness with such madcap abandon actually ends up being quite endearing. I just hope the upcoming (as of this writing) sequel doesn’t try to iron out what made the original so distinct–even if it was completely overshadowed by Dark Souls when it first came out, despite being a very different sort of game.

One of those main differences is that you always have a party of up to two companions.* And these friends, called Pawns, have some of the better AI I’ve seen in a game like this. Depending on their vocation, they’ll try to restrain enemies, grab useful things from the environment to utilize in combat (e.g. explosive barrels), and if they’re a mage, they seem to have a decent grasp of when to shoot lightning, when to enchant your weapon for you, when to heal the group, etc. It’s really quite impressive.

Speaking of mages, one of the passive skills you can get for them is apotropaism, which is a mouthful that boils down to: They take reduced magic damage. No special rituals or preparations, as the word itself would have you believe; you buy it, and it’s there forever. If only warding off evil in the real world were as straightforward.

*It’s been pointed out to me that you can actually have three pawns accompanying you: two, plus your personal pawn. Just throw it on the pile of things this game doesn’t adequately explain to you, like why the backspace key is the default “save changes” button on the PC version…except when it’s the button that exits the entire game. Go figure.