Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays!! Whatever works for you, let’s be a little kinder to our fellow humans. This world needs it more than ever. Yeesh.

I really do need to get back to doing a ‘Year-End at Black Gate World Headquarters’ post. The one I completed may be my all-time favorite BG post (which I’ve written). I’ve started two others, but they petered off.

I talked about Fortnite last week, which I really enjoy playing with my son. I’m good – he’s excellent.

Wanted to talk about a couple other games I played this year. I spent more hours on Elder Scrolls Online than anything else. I got burned out and am taking a long break, but it’s easily my favorite MMO, supplanting Age of Conan, with Lord of the Rings Online the other one I really like. All three have terrific lore, but ESO’s game play, and graphics, stand above.

Here are a couple others that might appeal to the Black Gate crowd.

Merry Christmas!! I really do need to get back to doing a ‘Year-End at Black Gate World Headquarters’ post. The one I completed may be my all-time favorite BG post (which I’ve written). I’ve started two others, but they petered off.

I talked about Fortnite last week, which I really enjoy playing with my son. I’m good – he’s excellent.

Wanted to talk about a couple other games I played this year. I spent more hours on Elder Scrolls Online than anything else. I got burned out and am taking a long break, but it’s easily my favorite MMO, supplanting Age of Conan, with Lord of the Rings Online the other one I really like. All three have terrific lore, but ESO’s game play, and graphics, stand above.

Here are a couple others that might appeal to the Black Gate crowd.

HARD WEST

I like both real-time, and turn-based, tactical games, in limited doses. Except for Total War, Warhammer (Two, then One) , which I go way deep into periodically. I’ve enjoyed hybrids of the genre as well Be it games like Command and Conquer, the original Warhammer (never got into the MMO), Battle for Middle Earth I, or Myth: Fallen Lords (I LOOOOOVED that game), these have always appealed to me.

RPGs can fall in this category for me. The tactical part is a minor element of why I play RPGs, but sometimes it’s more prominent. I mentioned last week I’m playing the Shadows of Brimstone board game again (though I spend more time assembling the miniatures. I hate doing that). It’s a Weird Western (with expansions to other genres).

Hard West (which is on sale for $1.99 as I type this), is a turn-based, tactical, Weird Western. There’s a very cool story line that is some kind of combo of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and maybe Seabury Quinn. A comet, the devil, demons, ‘regular’ bad guys – there’s lots going on in the Old West!

I haven’t gotten very far, but there are at least two story lines, which feature a different hero. You often have at least one other person to make it a party (ha ha). A character has two slots for guns (maybe there’s throwing stuff too; haven’t gotten that far. A couple slots for miscellaneous items, like healing, or a charm; and one ‘clothing’ space. So, an inventory system, but not like in Baldur’s Gate, or an MMO.

You also earn playing cards, which give you benefits. You can assign them to different characters, and I guess the bonuses change depending on your ‘hand.’ I’ll understand this better as I complete more missions.

It’s a slow-paced game, and for me, I need to really be in a Weird Western mood to play it. I presently am, so I just uncovered the second adventure path. I’m totally a fantasy guy (I played some Dungeon of Naheulbeuk before I got bogged down in a really hard battle), but I’m enjoying the gunslinging, bandits, and Old West time frame. With the horror overlay. The game auto-saves between scenarios – you can’t save during one. So, if you get killed, you just restart that one. It can take a few tries to win a scenario, but it hadn’t been frustrating yet. When you have to locate an item, or if you want to lock a door, the on-screen prompts are helpful enough.

I like, but don’t love, this game. And I dive in DEEP when I get into a game – I’ve logged a ton of time the pas few years in Conan Exiles (Minecraft on steroids). But it’s a niche game, and I think it works in that sense. I never played Desperados, which is a more conventional turn-based Western franchise, so I can’t compare it to that. I see X-Com comparisons in the comments.

But for a turn-based, tactical fan, who wants some Weird Western, this is probably your game. A Hard West 2 came out this year, but I won’t try that until I complete this one. But at $1.99, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Here’s a game play video. Because of the controls and layout, I’m usually zoomed at a higher level. But the game looks better more zoomed in. I should try to figure it out.

THE CURSE OF FELDAR VALE

I solved this game in less than 25 hours, so it’s not a long-term RPG option. Though there is a direct sequel. But I’m just gonna tell you flat-out: if you want an Old School recreation of pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons, THIS IS THE ONE. Get it (It costs $4.49). It’s a labor of love by a husband and wife team, and nothing I’ve played in the last thirty years has felt like my grade-school Dungeons and Dragons experiences than this.

You create a party based on a pool of value points. I did four characters, with two multi-classed dwarven Cleric-Fighters, a half-elven Thief-Ranger, and an elven Ranger. I started out with a Mage instead of the Ranger, but he was so useless at the low-levels (just like the old days!), so I left him dead when he was felled.

Graphically, it ain’t no Baldur’s Gate 3. It doesn’t need to be. There’s one regional world map, where all the adventures are set. There’s a central hub with a merchant, a church for healing, quest givers. Then you wander off to a selected location and do some version of a dungeon crawl to solve the various quests.

There’s a follow-up, Mystery at Morgoth. It’s a continuation of the story line, and more of the same. It also lets you import your party from Feldar Vale, which is cool. I continued on with my crew.

This is even more of a niche game than Hard West. But if you want to spend a couple hours reliving your Old School pen-and-paper experience, this is absolutely the game for you. Best iteration of it I’ve come across yet. And you can’t beat the price.

SOLASTA

I’m on a break, but when I get more immersed in this, I’ll probably do a full post. Solasta had the misfortune of being developed along the same timeline as Baldur’s Gate 3. That’s an oversimplification, but they both popped up on Steam, for early development, around the same time. I’m not gonna say that Solasta is a Poor Man’s BG3. It’s a full-blown, epic RPG. But BG3 is the new measuring stick for all RPGs, and Solasta has the added burden of basically coming out in its shadow.

It’s more than BG3 light. I’ve played 58 hours so far (which is more than I have of Pathfinder: Kingmaker), and I think I’m around level 9. Solasta is a good D&D dungeon crawler. It’s fairly linear (something I like), with a fair amount of side quests. I like that you find artifacts, and they’re worth different amounts (of gold and gratitude) to different factions. So you can determine which relations you want to cultivate.

Food and encumbrance matter, so you gotta keep an eye on that. The animations and voice-acting are fine. The characters have personality – kinda based on class and alignment.

I got stuck in a forest part where I kept dying. I’ll get back at it when I get this kind of itch. I think Solasta would stand out if there hadn’t been BG3; or it were a year or two ahead of it. Definitely worth checking out. There’s some DLC, and it’s definitely less expensive – and often on sale on Steam.

DUNGEON OF NAHEULBEUK: THE AMULET OF CHAOS

I hate typing this game’s name! This is a very funny, very cartoony, dungeon crawler.

Another topic that deserves its own post. The Dungeon of Nahaulebeuk started out as a French radio series. It grew to include graphic novels, books, an RPG, and a board game. And an animated dungeon crawler.

The computer game is what I downloaded when it was the free weekly game on the Epic website. It is HILARIOUS. The party is the usual tropes – pretty female elf archer, dwarf fighter, cowardly thief, dumb ogre, etc. It’s turn-based, full of profanity and humor, and openly pokes fun at RPG stuff.

The animation is cute, and overall, this is a great game if that particular spot works for you. The barbarian references Crom, he actually made the ‘lamentations of their women’ speech, and that’s a classic Conan image they use. With chickens. And I’ve totally been defeated by chickens…

Fighting can be clunky, and I’ve started and stopped a couple times because I got stuck. Also, I’ve hit a couple game-stopping bugs which have required me to go back a ways and replay. Nothing that I haven’t been willing to do, but if there’s one near end-game, I’m gonna be pissed.

It’s not free now, but it is on sale for about $11 at the Epic website as I type this. At that price, it’s absolutely worth getting. There are some expansions to it, including some type of ‘Evil dungeon master’ game, but I’m going to complete the base game before I get anything else.

If you like cartoonish, turn-based RPGs with a Bard’s Tale sense of humor, this absolutely worth checking out.

What I’ve Been Playing – 2022

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’) and blogs about Holmes and other mystery matters at Almost Holmes.

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE DEFINITIVE guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.