Tuesday, September 19, 2023

MODS: Mount & Blade: The Hyborian Age (2018)

 


In 2008 the Turkish developer TaleWorlds released Mount & Blade, a medieval combat sandbox game. The game is set in an alternate version of Europe and Asia Minor called Calradia. You create a character whose background and starting abilities you can set, but whatever you settle on the game will start you in the same place: as a lone adventurer who needs to learn how to fight better, take jobs to earn money, and use that money to gradually upgrade your equipment and hire mercenaries who can help you take even bigger jobs. You can pledge yourself as a vassal to one of the Calradian lords who are always fighting each other, be totally independent as a mercenary captain, or even just run around entirely on your own. You can even just be a dull trader of goods, stocking up cheaply from one town and hauling somewhere else where prices are high, if you don't feel like fighting. There is no ultimate object and you just make whatever fun and story you feel like making. It's similar to the classic Pirates! game by Sid Meier, except you're controlling a landbound horseman instead of a ship captain. One thing you can't do is, unlike Conan, you can't become so big that you seize a crown for yourself.

Like Pirates, it's a very compulsively playable game, one of those "Oh man, it's 3 a.m.!" games where you lose track of things because it's so easy to run just one more mission, visit one more town, fight one more battle, over and over. Although it's quite Howardian, it's not a sword and sorcery game because there isn't any sorcery in it...but it is a very moddable game and some fans have introduced fantasy elements on their own. There's a mod that allows you to fight the War of the Ring from Lord of the Rings, there are mods like Prophecy of Pendor that are set in original fantasy universes, and there's a mod called the Hyborian Age that attempts to rework the game's map and factions to resemble those found in Howard's Conan stories.


As it is, the Hyborian Age mod doesn't really change the game very much. It's still fundamentally the same game, but there's an option to make your new character a sorcerer/sorceress who begins with a spellbook and the ability to throw some fireballs. Otherwise, character progression is mostly similar.

The map as said renames the areas to better match Howard's stories, with places like Cimmeria, Nemedia, and Shem represented, although one could quibble a bit with the arrangement; e.g., the game's version of Cimmeria is probably a bit too far north and snowy compared to how Howard described it. The most dramatic change might be that the southern regions are peppered with undead armies instead of regular bandits.


The arena/tournaments also use more of a classical gladiator vibe than the base game and there are some changes to how equipment looks. 


It's a nice bit of work and could serve players who really want some Conan flavor in an already relatively Howardian game, although not necessarily a must-play considering the age of the mod and the base game itself at this point, and there seem to be later attempts to do Hyborian Age-inspired mods for the Warband expansion and also Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. Mount & Blade is a good game regardless of how it's modded and it got better as it was expanded on.

Friday, September 8, 2023

Bleak Sword DX (2023)


Bleak Sword was originally released on Apple Arcade in 2019, but got an expanded DX edition this year. It was intended by designer Luis Jiminez to do something like Dark Souls on a touchscreen, so it's all about brutal combat with a simple interface. You attack or dodge, with some basic variations, and defeating enemies requires you to study their patterns, make sure you're not in the way when they go for a big attack, and then let them have it while they're open. It's actually a pretty easy game, at least on the PC.

It has a striking presentation. The music is by Jim Guthrie, who was a big factor on Sword & Sworcery, which Jiminez cited as a major influence. The non-boss enemies are small and rendered in minimal pixel art graphics, but what leaps out about the graphics are the diorama-like arenas where the battles take place, some of which add environmental hazards like out of control mine carts.

The game definitely falls more in line with the modern grimdark style, especially the type popularized by Dark Souls. It's a grungy, seemingly hopeless world overrun with demons and slimy predators. Lots of undead and necromancy, with a hero who dutifully trudges through everything because it's really the only thing he can do. Just kill as much as he can until he hopefully ends whatever curse the king has foolishly unleashed. There's a sense of delirium that hangs over everything.


Supplemental viewing: Conquest

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