DavesGaming

Its funny, I’ve had this site called “DavesGaming” up for almost two years. But so far, all I’ve done is the Infinity Engine games Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate (1 & 2). Well no doubt, I tend to dig in on an interest and spend several months or years before I shift. I had thought this might happen! I blame Zeno_42 for getting me wrapped up in AI renders for my games.
I can’t even claim I’ve “moved on”. As you’ll see, this is more of a shift than a full out change. I’ll refer the reader back to my previous “Gold Box Games” post for a more general sort of introduction.

Pool of Radiance is set in the Forgotten Realms like the later Infinity Engine games. On the calender its 60 years after Icewind Dale, and almost 30 years before Baldur’s Gate. I’m no master of Realm’s lore, but I believe that makes it near the time Bhaal walked the land to plant his seed prior to the Time of Troubles. Which has no bearing here…

The game is set in and around the ruined city of Phlan, on the north shore of the Moonsea. That is a long way east of the Sword Coast current gamers may be more familiar with. It was ruined, for the third time, in 1306. By 1340 a small number of settlers (less than 4000 I believe) have rebuilt a part of the city. They keep it walled off and secure as the “Civilized” part of Phlan, or New Phlan. The rest, in ruins, is inhabited by all sorts of monsters and just waiting for brave adventurers to reclaim.
Enter the player’s team…

From this point the game plays like a number of old school dungeon crawls. The adventurers head into the ruins, battle monsters, gain treasure and experience. Even better, the City Council of New Phlan will pay for areas reclaimed from the monsterous hordes. And there was much rejoicing.
There is also *some* entertaining story telling going on here. Not as fully developed as more recent games, but you will learn the history of what all has happened here. If you take the time to read and pay attention. The various monster groups have some organization(s) and understanding what all is going on is entertaining. And many encounters are scripted, in part. At least enough to be more entertaining than killing wandering monsters. A lot of this follows the traditional “boss monster” and his hoodlums sort of model.

Beware, spoilers ahead!

And of course, there is a big bad. The ultimate boss. Tyranthraxus is a name you will learn, he will even reappear in later games of this series.

Well shoot, should I have tagged that image with a spoiler tag? For a 38 year old game? The big bad is a pool of water? Why not something really cool like a giant flaming eye? Oh yeah, its actually an evil, possessing spirit. So fighting Tyranthraxus might have something to do with an ancient Bronze Dragon that came here some years ago.
Wow, I just spoiled all of that!
The game was released in 1988, I figure a full overview is fair.

*****

To play Pool of Radiance has involved some learning and relearning of the game. Relearning because I’ve not touched it since the mid-1990s. Learning because I never played the PC version before. And that’s a funny thing. In 1987 I was just starting my new career, and I wanted a computer. Now I need to point out here I’ve never really been a “computer nerd”. Well nerd sure, I’ll own that. But computers were a means to an end, not a particular interest of mine. I wanted a computer to play games, to replace my old Atari 2600. Well my research suggested the C64 was a better machine for me than a PC. It had better graphics and was aimed at people like me. So that’s what I bought. And most new software came to the PC first, which meant C64 software often looked better and was a little better polished.
Later I bought an Amiga which really put some new polish on these games.

Now I’m playing the PC version on DOSBox. Honestly it looks about like I remember, no real loss there. But the C64 (and Amiga) versions played entirely with joystick. It was actually a really slick input device for the menu driven game-play. Now on PC I’m learning all keyboard inputs. Pretty much all on the number pad, except for letter driven menus. And up and down scoll is 7 and 1, not any variation of “up” and “down” keys! Oof, that took me some time to figure out!

If memory serves, the last few times I played this game I did it in a couple of days. I won’t be trying to do that here. I intend to take my time reading through history and story related material. And every few days I will do an update, basically the same format I’ve used on my Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate playthroughs.
I am building my party now, it will be a mix of old and new characters for me. I expect the first will be up this weekend.