RPS Feature Yes we clan
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
King of Dragon Pass looks like it has been drawn by the illustrator of 1970s books for pre-teens. That is wonderful in its own way, but much of the joy comes not from the wispy beards of your clansfolk but from the insightful stocking of wheat, from the easy diplomatic tone of your emissary, from consistently robbing a group of helpless duckmen.
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A Sharp and HeroCraft’s King of Dragon Pass [official site] is perhaps best described as a management game presented like a choose-your-own-adventure book, but that would be to profoundly undersell it. A new version arrived on Steam last week: is it still as good as the legends tell?
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“Many games claim to offer choice, but railroad you into making the same ones always,” we told you revisiting King of Dragon Pass [official site] last year, “or offer a simplistic binary option, tethered to game-oriented notions of ‘pick a reward’, monochrome extremes of kitten-petting-versus-baby-eating morality, or both … It’s a rare game that captures the complexities of leadership without getting bogged down.” The tribe-leading RPG-ish strategy game does well.
We were looking back at the original 1999 version, which was available on GOG. Now a new version has arrived on Steam, a port of the revamped mobile version which includes extra content.
RPS Feature Wail to the King
King of Dragon Pass was first released on PC in 1999, but its mixture of strategy, management and RPG, and its focus on offering the player meaningful choices at every turn, was sadly overlooked at the time. We asked Sin Vega to explain why you should still play the game today.
We’ve all dreamt about ruling over a tribe, right? And let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s not really about the feasting, the comely milkmaids, or even the apocryphal helmets. No. It’s about the decisions.
There you are, lounging regally and probably inebriated on your throne, and in come some people with a complaint. “Urgrim stole my axe!”, shouts one. “That’s a bastard lie,” screams Presumably Ugrim, kicking over a nearby cow, “you’re just jealous of my fabulous beard!”. Wearily, you motion to your advisors, who tell you all about these two, what’s really going on, what the laws say you can do, and that you could at least limit yourself to only drinking from one flagon at a time when the people are watching.
