Heroes Ravage, Rise of the NPC

When I was a kid, we snuck into my friend's older brothers room to play the computer game.  Yes, this was back in the days when there were only two houses in the neighbourhood with computer games.  But anyway.  It was fun.  We got to go around fighting monsters and trying to destroy her brother's high score.  

But there was one part that always made me sad.  The villagers.

These poor villagers are having one heck of a time, being beaten up by monsters, having their crops destroyed and their princesses kidnapped.  Just a nasty situation all around.  

And here we come, the Heros!  We promise to save the day so long as you let us swipe all your stuff.  We'll probably get killed on the red dragon level so you won't be better off for us looting your village, but tough luck.

Why do the villagers put up with that crap?

It's time someone made a game where the villagers stood up for themselves!

Oh look, they did!

Have you ever played an RPG as a Hero where you barge into private  houses uninvited in search of loot, and smash all the breakable objects  right in front of the house inhabitants while they are eating their  dinner? If you have, you know the next step is to demand answers, if  they have seen someone SUSPICIOUS walking around town, as you quickly  skip through the dialogue and proceed to steal everything that is not  glued to the floor.

The NPC villagers often feel their spirits boosted as the chosen one  is passing through town, that is, until the hero smashes everything, and  steals all the money that is keeping the NPCs from starving. He may be  powerful, full of spells and magical items that could buy a castle, but  that worn out piece of underwear in the closet sure may come in handy  when fighting the demon lord.

Often these actions are enabled by the freedom that the players have  in the game, so we decided to flip the script and breathe life into the  NPC villagers, giving control to the players, so that they are not  robbed of their life savings while looking blankly at the heroes.

And so we created a game where players will play as the villager. For  once you will feel what is like to be an RPG NPC, in a fun and engaging  satire to the entire genre.

I don't know much about games, but I love the idea of this one.  

It's important that villagers stick together and show those heroes who's boss.

Thanks for posting that, Raven.  I've sent the link to my daughter, who's just finished her video game design course.

Sadly, I remember when Pong came out.  I guess that's better than being there when it did but no longer remembering though, on second thought, maybe it's not.

Did it go pong, then Atari, then Intellivision?  Thats what i remember.

Then the floppy discs came around.

I think so, but I didn't own Pong or the others.  We got a Commodore Vic20 when it came out because it was a computer first; my parents would never buy a game console.  

I learned to programme on it but, even at 9 years old, it wasn't hard to smack right into that 3k RAM limit.

We used to pirate games by copying the cassettes for the DataSet.  I hope, after that admission, that the statute of limitations on software piracy has lapsed.

I learned BASIC programming in high school. That was  as far as i got.

I'd go to sears where they had computers on display and do this. Lets see if i got this right.

100 A=0
200 let A=A+1
300 print A
400 goto 200


It wasnt "print" though. Maybe "display"?. Cant remember. 1983 lol

I feel young! We had a Vic20 for a few years, but we were not allowed to touch it. I just remember that it was for "taxes." Somehow, my did his taxes on that thing, but I have no idea how. Or, why he stopped using and we went years without a computer. I was maybe 3 or 5 at the time? We got a Nintendo probably when I was 6? My brother was MUCH better at it than me. We didn't end up getting a computer until Window 3.0. I was probably 8? I just remember going to DOS and playing that monkey game with the bananas, as well as lemmings. I'm pretty sure I still have Lemmings floppy disk around here somewhere...

Anyway, as I aged, I spent a lot  more time playing the more advanced RPGs, and I never liked the idea of taking from the villagers. I always tried to play as myself--I did what I would do as a real person, and so didn't take from the villagers unless absolutely necessary. I never liked how some story lines for games pretty much required you to be not-nice. I wanted to be able to win with integrity!

I started on DOS, C++, and Basic. So the most popular game back then was Dungeons & Dragons: VERY old school version but captivating stuff that made use of the mind AKA Black & White movies, rather than visual stimuli.

Then progressed to the stable of Microsoft programs Win 3/95/98SE, etc. The old Macintosh was also something to use as a standalone.

The games followed: Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Civilisation, Baldurs Gate, Fallout, etc.

In all, the peasants (NPC’s) always get screwed, though in Baldurs Gate there are some hilarious interactions written in: click on one fellow and he responds with a worried ‘Don’t click on me!, I got nothin’ to say!!’

The ‘peasants’ are like non-Permies: happily ignorant of the world around them and surprised when SHTF and they get slayed.

Try these guys, they have some very funny stuff.

I'm a paper 'n pencil role gamer from way back.
The amoral smash and grab style of play was a phase a lot of us went through, before we matured as role players.
When there is a game master is running a game,  there is human there to be affronted by bad behavior.
They are playing the role of each NPC, so eventually the mistreatment is going to piss them off.
At that point,  the players will learn some lessons in empathy, as seemingly harmless farmers resist bullying  with martial arts fury.
As we looked back (and down) on that kind of play,  we called those players "Munchkins".

Now a days, most players experience of role playing games is via computer.
No annoyed game master to push back against crappy behavior.
Coincidentally Munchkin is now a popular board game with many expansions, a satirical  game that encourages you to indulge in all the most munchkiny behavior possible,taken very seriously by many of it's players.

And yet,old school paper n pencil   Dungeons  and Dragons is more popular than ever before, and role-playing has been elevated to a spectator sport.

Now this game, a computer adjudicated exercise in empathy for the NPC.
The munchkins will always be with us,  but we can still learn to role play something other than wandering sociopaths driven by avarice.

I remember playing Pong on a 9" black and white TV in the '70s, and getting an Atari (2600?) when they came out as well, those halcyon days of childhood. I read that Atari made a definite choice to never make a game where people were killed, it was always monsters, aliens, or machines like tanks. I'm definitely a fan of that over the GTA style games where your success is based on how many crimes you commit, and the number of people you murder and/or rape.

I recently purchased into the early testing option for a Steam game called Foundation, where you harvest resources and build a town where villagers have a variety of needs, nice 3D graphics for that but it's definitely a work in progress as far as finished UI. I've also played Banished which is a similar game concept of building a village and managing resources and villager needs which evolve over time.

As far as playing the downtrodden, I've enjoyed the Dungeons series, where you are the evil overlord building a dungeon of monsters while defending yourself from the "pathetic do-gooders" found outside who come to rob you "in the name of bunnies and rainbows, and other such nauseating nonsense". Also has a great narrator for the campaigns which uses similar phrases.

I think I've still got my AD&D stuff, circa 1977 if I'm not mistaken.

I never played, or even saw the GTA games; it really didn't interest me.  I did the Wolfenstein, Duke Nuk'em, and  Quake games.  We used to run network cables all over the house so we could all play together.  Later, we'd play Command and Conquer and the original Warcraft, along with Dune, all in the computer labs, usually late at night.  They were banned from the network, but we played with the IT guys, so we had access to the FTP site.  It was pretty addictive and certainly took away from school time, but I was able to stop at exam time.  Some guys played right through exams and they pretty much all failed.

I've never heard the term munchkin before but it's hilarious.  I've always felt kinda stupid about it, but I never liked stealing from NPCs, unless it was a Thief game or something like it.

THE game of my childhood was Quest for Tires.  (there, now you all know how old I am)

I miss that game.

But I think I'll donate to this Hero's Ravage kickstarter.  I don't know if they have what it takes to make a game, and I certainly don't have enough time in the day to learn how to play modern video games, but the idea is so awesome I can't let it pass.

For non-gamers, what are some of the words meaning in this thread?  I think these are right.
RPG - role playing game
NPC - non-playing character

Anything else?

r ranson wrote:THE game of my childhood was Quest for Tires.  (there, now you all know how old I am)

I miss that game.

But I think I'll donate to this Hero's Ravage kickstarter.  I don't know if they have what it takes to make a game, and I certainly don't have enough time in the day to learn how to play modern video games, but the idea is so awesome I can't let it pass.

For non-gamers, what are some of the words meaning in this thread?  I think these are right.
RPG - role playing game
NPC - non-playing character

Anything else?

It takes a LOT to make a game.  Commercial games are usually time-budgeted for 9 months, sometimes less, due to the ever-evolving tech.  It's also very expensive to buy the software to make the games.  

My daughter just finished her third and final year and they did a game each term, in groups of 5, so 2 full games in the third year.  They didn't create the game engine, the software that drives the game, but they first had to submit game concepts, complete with character designs, then do the actual artwork, both background and all the other objects, put it all together, then trial it.  In all, they had about 10 weeks to do each game; she worked at least 80 hours a week on school, most of it for the game.  

Last term she was one of two groups to win a cash reward of $2500 per group and they were featured in the paper and also on TV for their showcase at the Juno's, the Canadian Grammys.  It's incredible how good the games are and how polished they look.  The were constantly asked if they were going to market the game, but Unity, the software they use, is very expensive for commercial purposes, so they only had access to the student version, so they can't market the game.  

I like the Hero's Ravage game concept and I hope they do well.  I passed it on to my kid and she really liked it to.  I think she's sharing it around.

Pin ball was my game, I learned assembler and fortran computer languages, about 25 years ago I had to learn C then C++ then Pearl.
I had pong and my last game purchase was Ms. Packman.
These days I simply don't have time to play games.

Oh wow!  The game has a spinning wheel in it!



I wonder if it puts the heroes to sleep?  

Interesting that this is the creator's (creators'?) third attempt at funding this game. I wonder if they'll make it this time.

Is it purposely more pixelated than other games these days? Is that part of the irony?

Edited to add a bit of a blurry screenshot of one of the characters. Though it's pretty pixilated (how do you spell that?) even without the blurry.