|
 At long last, Lone Wolf has returned to PC!1 What is it? Lone Wolf Remastered (officially Joe Dever's Lone Wolf HD Remastered, but that's a bit much of a mouthful) is an updated PC port of the Android/iOS game from last year. It combines gamebook-style text descriptions (basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, if you're not familiar with the Lone Wolf gamebooks) with a branching storyline, animated monochrome art, and fully-3D turn-based combat. As the Steam store page puts it: quote:
So who are Lone Wolf and Joe Dever, Anyway? Joe Dever is an author and game designer who created the high fantasy world of Magnamund as a setting for tabletop roleplaying in the 1970s. Starting in 1984 with the publication of Lone Wolf: Flight from the Dark, Dever translated the setting to a long-running series of gamebooks. The titular character, Lone Wolf, is the last surviving member of the ancient Kai Order, a sect of psychic warrior monks who totally kick rear end against the Darklords and their pseudo-orc minions. Lone Wolf himself is basically Aragorn meets Geralt of Rivia. No relation to Lone Wolf and Cub. There's a lot to the setting, perhaps best learned by checking out EndOfTheWorld's and Ashenai's awesome Let's Play of the first 20 books (the complete Kai, Magnakai, and Grandmaster series), done right here on these very forums from 2007-2008. Funfact: After lurking for years, that thread is what convinced me to finally register here. How does it play? Take a look:    These gives you an idea of how it looks during the gamebook portions. Text on the left (click+drag or doubleclick to turn pages), character info on the right. You make choices by selecting applicable Kai disciplines or equipment.  Here is the map. You have choices about where you go and in what order you visit critical locations.  The lockpicking minigame, shamelessly cribbed from Skyrim. There is also another minigame that is more of a puzzle:  Here you manipulate the magic cube to make it match the given shape and unlock a door or chest.   Turn-based combat.2 On your turn, you click one of those blue circles to choose one of your weapon attacks (axes, maces, and swords, with three special attacks for each style), off-hand skills (shields or other weapons, each with three abilities), ranged weapon (throwing knives or crossbow), and Kai disciplines (psionics & magic). Everything costs stamina or Kai power, so you have to manage your resources carefully. You also have the Sommerswerd, a powerful artifact weapon, which has its own set of magical attacks. Everything you'd expect to see from the gamebooks is represented here. Here is a video that gives you an idea of what the combat is like. List time, shamelessly copied and pasted from the Steam page: Steam posted:HD Remastered Edition enhancements: Also: Things I personally really enjoyed, inspiring me to make this thread:
Things you might not like, in the interest of fairness:
 How do I get the game? It's on Steam for Links: http://www.projectaon.org/en/blog/ Project Aon. Free releases of all 30-something books in HTML format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_%28gamebooks%29 The Wikipedia page on the Lone Wolf series. http://lonewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page The Lone Wolf Wiki. Not super-detailed, but good for background information on the characters and setting. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2653690 The brilliant Lone Wolf series Let's Play from 2008. Requires Archives.   For Sommerlund and the Kai!1Previously appeared in 1991's Lone Wolf: The Mirror of Death 2I'm told it's more like active time battle than true turn-based combat. You do get turns and your opponents get turns, but on your turn the time to select each category of attack ticks down, but it pauses while choosing individual abilities. With a little practice, you can chug a potion, activate a Kai discipline, make two or three melee attacks, one or two ranged attacks, and an off-hand offensive or defensive ability all in one turn. 3Later acts are much longer than Act I. Currently at 13+ hours through most of Act IV (of IV). Total playtime updated as I go. Wise Learned Man fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Dec 4, 2014 |
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:16 |
|
|
The bad guys in the books eventually had all kinds of crazy poo poo like NBC weaponry, nuclear submarines, starfighters and laser guns. Is there any of that here?
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
Really Pants posted:The bad guys in the books eventually had all kinds of crazy poo poo like NBC weaponry, nuclear submarines, starfighters and laser guns. Is there any of that here? Not that I've seen so far. Looks to be pretty much straight fantasy as far as I can tell.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 02:42
|
|
|
Too bad. That was the neatest thing about the setting. How many of the villains are SWARTHY? 
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 02:49
|
|
|
Lone Wolf and the OP says it's not terrible? Sold! I'm installing now. I found the gamebooks in the form of a damaged library book when I was a preteen, and it rather caught my imagination. I pretty much have to give this a spin and see how it is.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:05
|
|
|
This is an Exciting Thing and I am happy it exists.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:08
|
|
|
ZeeToo posted:Lone Wolf and the OP says it's not terrible? Sold! I'm installing now. You can relive those days with the free html versions of all the books from Project Aon.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
Wise Learned Man posted:You can relive those days with the free html versions of all the books from Project Aon. Oh, I have, multiple times, but I didn't realize that there was any other Lone Wolf stuff coming out like... at all ever.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:30
|
|
|
How come I never heard about this earlier? Dever!
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
Scalding Coffee posted:How come I never heard about this earlier? Dever! Yeah, I never even knew there was a mobile game until I saw this on Steam yesterday. Made for a nice escape from the in-laws today.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 04:12
|
|
|
And I'm dead on fight two, despite being what I thought was pretty combat-focused.  I may not be very good at this.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 04:27
|
|
|
I got the Android version a while back but its buggy and frequent realtime hard-hitting combat with long loadtimes and unskippable animations was infuriating enough to make me uninstall. Just let me use a bow to skip the fight for once, goddammit. Has the PC port improved that any? Jackard fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Nov 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 04:37
|
|
|
Jackard posted:I got the Android version a while back but its buggy and frequent realtime hard-hitting combat with long loadtimes was infuriating enough to make me uninstall. Just let me use a bow to skip the fight for once, goddammit. Loading before/after combat is basically instant. Haven't come across any bugs myself, but  Combat is kinda hard, but I did just start using a shield and there is an active dodge mechanic after all (it does cost endurance though).E: oh, ninja'd. yeah, it'd be nice if there was a way to speed up combat, as it gets a little stale when you've seen those animations a millions times each. Wise Learned Man fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Nov 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 04:48
|
|
|
Wise Learned Man posted:Haven't come across any bugs myself, but Also I wouldn't call this turnbased, this is really more of an ATB system.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 04:52
|
|
|
Jackard posted:Also I wouldn't call this turnbased, this is really more of an ATB system. Yeah, I don't really play strategy games, but I wasn't sure what else to call it. I'll update the OP so it isn't misleading.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
Jackard posted:I got the Android version a while back but its buggy and frequent realtime hard-hitting combat with long loadtimes and unskippable animations was infuriating enough to make me uninstall. Just let me use a bow to skip the fight for once, goddammit. The fights seem alright to me and if there are any loading times they're practically instant, mouse controls are good but there is a keyboard option if you wish to use that. Also...why would you want to skip fights anyways? You have a small arsenal of weapons and you should wish to use them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 01:33
|
|
|
I keep reading it as John Denver.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 01:38
|
|
|
Krakatoah posted:Also...why would you want to skip fights anyways? You have a small arsenal of weapons and you should wish to use them.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 06:28
|
|
|
Jackard posted:The original series only used the bow for crippling enemies or skipping fights entirely I think Camoflage can let you skip some fights? I'm not sure because I don't feel like giving up Sixth Sense for that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 08:56
|
|
|
I remember some dude made some homebrew versions of the Lone Wolf books for the DS that I enjoyed playing. I briefly picked up the Android version which was great, but slightly buggy. I'll definitely be picking this up when it goes on sale since the Lone Wolf series is criminally underrated. e: I should point out that if you do have a DS and some means of playing homebrew stuff on it, definitely check out the LoneWolfDS things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNh4v6r8lU They're pretty drat cool. Not as fancy as the HD remaster, obviously, but still very good. http://www.projectaon.org/staff/frederic/ Rush Limbo fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Nov 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 16:09
|
|
|
There were also a couple fan-made Lone Wolf modules for Neverwinter Nights back in the day that were pretty fun, though I just googled looking for them and could only find some random forum threads here and there talking about them. I hope all that stuff wasn't lost when Neverwinter Vault died. E: Actually, they are still around! The original Neverwinter Vault is dead, but there's another one now: http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/lone-wolf-ch1-test-sun-ch2-mysteries-night No idea how I missed that when looking earlier. Wise Learned Man fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Nov 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
This game's length is a pleasant surprise. Steam says I have 7.4 hours played and I'm only to the end of Act II (of IV). Act I was pretty short (I'm guessing it was free in the mobile version?), so if II-IV are all the same length, I'll get 15+ hours out of this on just one playthrough. Unfortunately, RedFang the elite gourgaz is just ruining my poo poo right now. I use everything I can in the first round and can barely drop him below half health, but he can't be stunned and his attacks can't be parried. On his turn he does an unblockable stomp attack that drops me from full health to near death AND stuns me so I can't even try to evade the followup attack. Still, having a lot of fun. Came across a couple of those classic Dever bullshit instadeaths--one was perfectly fair and the other punished me for being cautious (DEVER!!!  )--and yet I'm still motivated to play through it again with different disciplines and path choices to unlock all the extras. Pretty darn nice little package, all told.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2014 06:18
|
|
|
Now if they only made a Freeway Warrior game I would take back alot of the things I've said about this cold cruel world we all live in...
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2014 07:50
|
|
|
Krakatoah posted:Also...why would you want to skip fights anyways? You have a small arsenal of weapons and you should wish to use them. I briefly tried the Android version, and on normal difficulty, the second fight the game threw at me I had no prospect of beating even a single enemy out of the three in the group, even chugging consumables and hitting the QTEs perfectly. I got a game over when I unsurprisingly got killed. Tried the fight a few more times with different strategies to the same result. The only way to avoid the encounter was to choose a different path entirely, which seemed a bit crap. I wanted a story-driven experience like the Sorcery! games, not the emphasis on extremely difficult, twitch-based combat this game seemed to have. I'm sure I was doing something wrong, but the game gave me no pointers, other than to tell me to do what I was already doing. Coupled with the long load times and the strain it put on my phone this was more than I wanted to put up with so I uninstalled it. It's a shame because the world seemed interesting, but it really wasn't the game I wanted it to be. Not to say that means it's bad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2014 12:55
|
|
|
Combat on Android was intolerable. Has anyone experienced both versions?
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2014 15:04
|
|
|
TerminalBlue posted:Now if they only made a Freeway Warrior game I would take back alot of the things I've said about this cold cruel world we all live in... If they only published books 3-5... On an unrelated note, while doing a clearout I found my old copy of Flight From The Dark. NostalgiaFest 2014: commence.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2014 19:14
|
|
|
Deep in Act IV now, at a little over 13 hours played. I'm still enjoying it, though there are a few grating issues that suggest some things weren't all that well thought-out. For example, there's only one place to repair equipment in Act III (I only found one place anyway, and I explored everywhere I could), and I ran into so many random battles on my way back through the end of the Act and into IV that my sword was broken by the time I got to the repair spot in Act IV, so I had to make do with an un-upgraded inferior replacement, which made a couple fights noticeably tougher. Tough as I found the gourgaz previously, vordaks are a whole new level of bullshit. I don't mind hard games, but some of the fights can seem pretty unfair. If you're missing the wrong disciplines or make the wrong story choices in how to evade or deal with a group of enemies, you might not get to go first in combat, and can often end up dead before you even get a turn. Admittedly, my guy has pretty low health, but some fights took me eight or ten tries to get through. Enemies start dodging and parrying a lot more too. I do like the feel of having to use every ability, potion, and special weapon just to scrape by, but sometimes you get locked into a string of battles that wear you down to much. There's also no indicator if there's going to be another wave of enemies, which sometimes makes it hard to plan ahead. More than once I've blown all my disciplines to finish off a tough enemy, only to have a couple more show up and slaughter me before my next turn. The cooldowns for everything but your most basic attacks seem pretty long too. Anyway, after I'm done I'll probably take a break before another playthrough, but I do wanna see the alternate paths and what other disciplines will do. At some point I'll probably post some tips and stuff, but here are a few lifesavers in case anybody else finds this thread and finds it tough going at first:
Wise Learned Man fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Dec 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 05:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 06:16 |
|
|
Really Pants posted:The bad guys in the books eventually had all kinds of crazy poo poo like NBC weaponry, nuclear submarines, starfighters and laser guns. Is there any of that here? I have a better response to this now: This takes place between books 3 and 4 I guess, so none of the crazy poo poo they got into in some of the Grandmaster books, but the main goal of the plot is to keep a darklord from using a high-tech engine based on ancient technology as a weapon of mass destruction, by stealing back the prototype before he can figure out how to use it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2014 05:28
|
|