By Kieron Gillen on December 3rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm.
Old housemate Griddleoctopus pointed this at me. It’s My Pet Protector, and he’s brought it to my attention because he spent many an hour watching my oddball Princess Maker obsession circa 2003. This is basically a clone, and – exactly like Princess Maker – yet more testament to the sometimes-a-number-getting-bigger-is-enough school of game design. The main difference is instead of training a girl, you’re training a boy, so the frankly enormo-dodgy starving your daughter so she can wear the best dresses elements are gone. And there’s no option to feed them breast-expansion pills. At least, not so far, though I’d imagine it’d teach any son some valuable life lessons. Go play here or watch Be Your Own Pet play Adventure below…
Wait – what am I doing?
I don’t find this much fun. Princess Maker works because there’s some depth to it. You never quite know what’s going to happen, it feels like there’s more to it than watching numbers go up and the adventure mode keeps the gameplay varied.
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I played this a while back and liked the idea but found it to be lacking something.
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This looks like Kudos but with better graphics.
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Played it a while back – it’s a spin off of Undefined’s Protector series of fairly deep (and hard) tower defense series.
It’s somehow engaging enough to play through a couple of times dispite the lack of any really interesting bits (though exploring dungeons is kinda fun). Shame the combat system is completely lacking anything beyond “press attack repeatedly”
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Also played it awhile back, killed some time.
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I enjoyed this, thanks KG.
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Well..the music and the video were fun. And *not* in the game.
Stilled, the game killed about half an hour at work today, until I found out nothing exciting would happen..still I’m thankfull for any experimental diversion :)
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Is it just me, or is this game quite hard to play as a mage? My guy’s only got 48 weeks left, and I can’t even survive the third dungeon. I haven’t gotten any staff drops (if there are any), so I’m stuck with the 13 damage one from the store. Meanwhile, I have a 35 damage sword sitting there unused. Was magic just an afterthought?
Anyway, it’s an interesting diversion.
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Theres no such thing as a mage staff that increases magic. The stafff doesnt do anything to magic damage, infact all your weapons seems to be only for melee. But yes the mage is hard. The real problem lise in the fact that to up damage to decent levels you need high Wisdom as well as intelligence. How do you get more wisdom? Church is your cheapest and best bet. BUT that lowers your magic stats. So you end up generally going around killing your magic for money and training it back up again by paying money.
If you are going for anything resembling adventuring, go for melee. However, magic is critical for a high tier end result. The only tier 2 result I ever had was with a magical poet type. Also finishing dungeons earns you oodles of points, but going for those adventures gets you the most respect and costs less stress + has lots of pseudorandom encounters that change your character significantly.
Yes, I played this game way too much. But it was a great way to pass a boring sick day, and there is something entertaining about ordering your apprentice to shovel horse dung for 50 days straight. And watching numbers increase has always been my private hobby…
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I enjoyed Princess Maker, but this was just meh. Wasn’t a lot of fun for me.
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BYOP doing their Bow Wow Wow-ish punk pop song?
Kieron, you are full of win.
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Jemina Pearl is a weirdo. Used to play with her band a bunch around town in Nashville. I joked about starting a fake rivalry and called them things like “Be your own bitch” and “be your own drop-out” at shows. She dated one of my best friends for awhile. THEN BROKE HIS HEART!! lol no not really at all :)
They were a good band, though!
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The web site told me to “Register or Sign in to collect badgers, track your progress and chat with friends.”
Does your pet have to be a badger, or are there other options as well?
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Shadowcat: A gentlemen always selects the Badger.
KG
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Isn’t that part of Sting’s list of things that make a Gentlemen in “Englishman in Newyork” A Gentleman will walk but never run, and always selects the Badger? : P I love that song
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Ah, yes. Played this one for a bit. Not too much to it, and it got boring rather quickly.
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The problem is that the only way to beat orcs in a fight is to have physical defense, because you will never have as much hp as them, which means you need to evade their attacks. In fact, if you’re going for the badge where you get all special items within four years, you pretty much need both defenses at 100 – otherwise the enemies in the harder areas will rip you apart one way or another. I suggest training for most of the time period, and then saving several months at the end of the game to finish up all the dungeons.
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