The wonder of Candlekeep and Imoen. Gorion’s fall. Recruiting the heroic Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and many more. The wind-swept beauty of the Sword Coast. Deep in the mines of Nashkel. Cloakwood. Baldur’s Gate, the City of Blood. Sorcerous Sundries. Sarevok and the Temple of Bhaal. Dreaming deep. Waking in Athkatla, the City of Coin. Khalid’s tragedy. Dancing with the Shadow Thieves. Boo, Edwin, Bodhi and others. Yoshimo’s duel with fate. The de’Arnise Keep. Spellhold.
Dreaming deeper. The horrors of the Underdark. Suldanessellar’s majesty. Fighting elven mage Jon Irenicus in hell. Walking the planes. Choosing whether to sit on the throne of Bhaal or destroy it.
Fragments of a story from the past, drifting out of memory slowly for decades, resting in shadow until the chance arrives to be reborn under the Great Wheel…
Today, in 2023, my initial experience of the Baldur’s Gate series rests in my mind as a selection of distant but memorable, beautiful moments. Whatever bad experiences I had with the series when originally playing it over 20 years ago are now scrubbed from my mind, leaving only the series’ epic, poetic, heroic tales told in fragmentary form. Memorable characters, events and quotes surface and then fade, but recreating that initial new experience of questing in its world, as millions of PC gamers had back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has been beyond reach.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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