39
Pool of Radiance
(1988)
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Scenario: |
Jim Ward |
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Scenario Assistance: |
David Cook,
Steve Winter, and Mike Breault |
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Game Created By: |
SSI Special
Projects Group |
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Programmers: |
Keith
Brors, Brad Myers |
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Additional Programming By: |
Westwood
Associates, Raymond J. Huges, Peter Schmitt, and Eric Nickelson |
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Artists: |
Tom Wahl,
Darla Marasco, Susan Halbleib, Fred Butts, Maurice Molyneaux, and Vince
Reynolds |
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Additional Art By: |
Westwood
Associates, Scott A. H. Ruggles, Doug Barnett, Dave Shelley, Joana Zegri, and
Rob Wong |
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Music and Sound Effects: |
David
Warhol |
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Developers: |
George
McFonald, Victor Penman, Paul Murray, Russ Brown, and Dave Shelley |
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In House Playtesting: |
Dick
Vohlers, Cyrus Harris, Graeme Bayless, James Kucera, and Scott Barnes |
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Project Manager: |
Chuck
Kroegel |
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Rules: |
Steve
Perrin and George MacDonald |
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Customized Apple Disk Operating System: |
Roland
Gustafsson |
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Art, Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing: |
Louis Hsu
Saekow and David Boudreau |
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Printing: |
A&a
Printers and Lithographers |
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A seminal part of my
childhood, this game changed the way I played D&D, the expectations I had for
computer games for years to come, and even the level of excitement my friends
and I shared over what was already our favorite hobby. It would be decades before I explored every
aspect of the plot, despite defeating The Boss scores of times, there were just
so many secrets to be found, hidden in the wilderness or in secret areas of
every dungeon. A masterwork of
storytelling and a truly inspired method of bringing AD&D to the computer. NeverWinter Nights may have been resurrected
for the twenty-first century, but the ultimate interface will always be the
split 3D/tactical game play of Pool of
Radiance and its numerous children.
Realm Rating: 5/5
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Designed by Ray Dyer (flopsyville@earthlink.net)
Reviewed by Airamil (airamil@yahoo.com)
I was very excited to see that Ray had converted Pool of
Radiance (my favorite goldbox game) to FRUA. It took me a little
while to get through the game because I really took my time with it. The
conversation is great for nostalgia purposes and for playing the game without
some of the annoying things that were in the original version and fixed later
on with other Goldbox games.
The Best:
Fix button, auto spell rememorize, cool stores (although I
might have liked a few more items to be able to spend all the jewels you get
for completing quests in this game), graphics, close detail to sequences that
amazingly match the original game, no level maximums, etc.
Few Bugs:
I didn't find much for bugs; the main one was with
Codorna. When in the Castle near the end, if you try to talk to Codorna
when he is held captive, it dumps you into the Codorna map (which looks just
like the Castle SE map, but none of the events work or are configured).
It took me awhile to figure this out, I thought I was in the Castle SE map at
first.
Irks:
A few items were missing that are not found in the Realm
item database. The main ones were no efreeti bottle (which is fine you
never actually got the item in the original game either), the other was the
manual of bodily health that was found in Mandors Library was missing.
Some of this could be because Ray ran out of text or didn't want to substitute
these items. Lastly a Vault would have been nice.
Summary:
I highly recommend this module, it is great and I sure hope
Ray could use his talents to convert some more of these (Curse of the Azure
Bonds, hint, hint). :)
Designed by Ray Dyer (flopsyville@earthlink.net)
Reviewed by noyb_bg (noyb_bg@hotmail.com)
Good job. I felt like I was back in 92 (when was it?)
playing the game again.
Differences from the SSI version:
I'm pretty sure I fought more than 15 random encounters in
the slums back there. This is actually rather irritating as they were a
nice place to rest after you were done fighting. All you have is 'pieces
of gold', but I guess that's unavoidable. Mages and Clerics can advance
above level 6. I like to see this as an improvement on the original,
though it did make the graveyard a little easy. I really dug turning all
the spectres. You couldn't pick fights with the council guard.
I guess this isn't that big a deal but it was a fun challenge for my party
after beating Tyranthraxus. Overland and random encounters didn't adjust
to party strength (there's no way to do that in FRUA unless you condition on
the number of times the party enters the training hall or something).
Monsters don't use items. Has anyone found a way to tackle this in FRUA?
One thing the game made me realize is just how easy old Pool
was. Think about it...how many times were you really challenged, besides
the twelve 8th level fighters at the end? I doubt this is a spoiler for
anyone on this list. ;)
And here's a test for any of you to see if you've played the
original as much as I have...did anybody notice:
You fought the vampire facing north,
instead of west?
The sheets of gold in Mendor's Library are gone?
The efreeti bottle in the
Game39: Pool
of Radiance
by Ray Dyer (flopsyville@earthlink.net)
What a treat! What a joy! This game started my love of
the "gold box games" oh so many years ago. Ray did a fantastic
job of recreating the ambience of POR but giving us the ability to
"fix" and other things. I still hate that maze in the pyramid
as much as I did originally.
Rating: 9.95
40
Curse of the Azure Bonds
(1989)
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Game Created By: |
SSI Special
Projects Group |
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Project Leader: |
George
MacDonald |
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Programming: |
Scot Bayless,
Russ Brown, Michael Mancuso |
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Development: |
David
Shelley, Michael Mancuso, |
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Graphic Arts: |
Tom Wahl,
Fred Butts, Susan Manley, Mark Johnson, Cyrus Lum |
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Playtesting: |
Jim Jennings,
James Kucera, Rick White, Robert Daly |
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Oh how I hated this game! But I loved Pool of Radiance so much, and the
chance to use those characters again outweighed anything else. So every time I killed the boss, I suited up
and road off for Cormyr, knowing full well that my group was about to be
stripped naked and tattooed with the sigils of the most infamous organizations
in the Forgotten Realms. But it was
worth it. Especially once Secret of the
Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness came about.
Just imagining those meteor swarms and monster summonings was
enough. More than enough.
What didn’t I like? Well, I was a kid, and a lot of what I didn’t
get was because I didn’t understand it.
I recently played through it again and had a far greater appreciation of
the story. I also found that it wasn’t
nearly as difficult as it was when I was younger. The strategy of a thirty year old seems to be
far greater than that of a fourteen year old…So, while I’m not sure making this
game the sequel to a newly published novel was a great way to kick off the next
installment of the Pool of Radiance series (and I still hate losing all that
magical gear), I have to admit that I was too hard on this game when I was
younger. Turns out, it’s a whole lot of
fun!
Realm Rating: 4.5/5
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No reviews are available for this design at this time.