Way back in the day (and I mean *way* back in the day) I was fortunate enough to be a player in one of David's Runequest campaigns. His worldview was rich, detailed, innovative, and *consistent*, and he incorporated all of that (and more) into his design for KoDP. The game was so deserving of praise and attention, but the timing as pointed out in this fine overview just wasn't right. I'm glad that all the hard work by David, Elise, Robin Laws, and all the other talented people involved has finally gotten some of the recognition it so warmly deserves - and thank you for spreading the word.
I played that in 2000--by that time I had gone Linux only at home, so I bought another HD and installed Windows in a dual boot, solely for that game.
Besides a good story and good gameplay, the thing I really liked about Dragon Pass was the characters and world didn't seem like modern world citizens with modern individualistic values simply transplanted into a primitive fantasy world. It felt like a genuinely foreign world in a different time. The thanes had different motivations and agenda from the farmers or carls. Another game I ended up playing while I was still running windows was Black & White, the god game, which really suffered in comparison to Dragon Pass--I was hoping for the same thing, but it was nothing but a videogame with generic videogame characters (god or human).
I bought the sequel recently on Steam, but didn't check the reqs--no Linux version. Someday I'll install a Windows VM and get around to trying it.
Way back in the day (and I mean *way* back in the day) I was fortunate enough to be a player in one of David's Runequest campaigns. His worldview was rich, detailed, innovative, and *consistent*, and he incorporated all of that (and more) into his design for KoDP. The game was so deserving of praise and attention, but the timing as pointed out in this fine overview just wasn't right. I'm glad that all the hard work by David, Elise, Robin Laws, and all the other talented people involved has finally gotten some of the recognition it so warmly deserves - and thank you for spreading the word.
I played that in 2000--by that time I had gone Linux only at home, so I bought another HD and installed Windows in a dual boot, solely for that game.
Besides a good story and good gameplay, the thing I really liked about Dragon Pass was the characters and world didn't seem like modern world citizens with modern individualistic values simply transplanted into a primitive fantasy world. It felt like a genuinely foreign world in a different time. The thanes had different motivations and agenda from the farmers or carls. Another game I ended up playing while I was still running windows was Black & White, the god game, which really suffered in comparison to Dragon Pass--I was hoping for the same thing, but it was nothing but a videogame with generic videogame characters (god or human).
I bought the sequel recently on Steam, but didn't check the reqs--no Linux version. Someday I'll install a Windows VM and get around to trying it.
Asimov, not Asmiov :) Great story though, and first I've even heard of King of Dragon Pass
Thanks for the catch!