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18 Jan 2015 - 22 Jun 2015
There's a dragon. He has a lot of gold. You want the gold, but the dragon can take a lot of punishment, and dishes it out just as hot as ever. But slowly, slowly, you can whittle away his health and take him out. You just need to go on adventures to get a little bit stronger.
I had a lot of fun with this series. The best thing the devs could have done was hand the tools over to the community, and sure enough the community delivered some prime examples of level design.
Some were just clear experience farms, but I tried to stay far away from those. It's always a pleasant surprise to see the great things that a community will create, even with the limited amount of space given. But we saw some good stories, some fierce enemies, and some well-designed levels.
In the end, of course, it comes down to having the right gear, and that's just randomly handed out over the course of many sessions. But it's pretty easy to determine whether or not something is better than what you're currently wearing. I just wish it wouldn't hand you things that your current character can never use. Why would a fighter ever need a wand, for instance? Or a thief a broadsword? They just can't use it.
There's an argument to be made that I could have used all three hero types, and leveled them up at the same time. That might have made for more diverse gameplay over the series as we battled as fighter, mage, and rogue. But I liked the fighter, and in my playtests before I started recording, I would get creamed as the mage and rogue because of the lack of shield. I'm just no good at dodging in this kind of control scheme. So I chose the character that I thought I had the best chance at, hopefully without frustrating my viewers too much.
In the end, it worked out pretty well. And if I had leveled up all three, how to decide which one to finish off the dragon with? That would have been a tough choice.
Lots and lots of fun. Even if abandoned by the community (and there's no sign of that yet), there's going to be lots of levels all ready to go for you to start your own fantastic adventure. Just don't worry about the dragon; you'll defeat him eventually. For now, just chip away.