#demonswinter — Public Fediverse posts

#DemonsWinter is a game about a band of kobold marauders who have to be stopped. There is no demon and it's not winter. At least for 90% of the game. Yes, 38 years ago, it was still possible to expect patience from one's audience.

https://www.goodolddays.net/en/game/Demons-Winter/

P.S. I annotated my playthrough "live" here earlier. In case you're interested, check the tag of the game's title.

#AppleII
#Amiga
#C64
#DOSGaming
#SSI
#RetroGaming

Beat #DemonsWinter by #SSI. Honestly, I don't really understand what happened. For some reason, I had to travel back in time, to "re-imprison" the demon, even though at that time, he would have been well imprisoned already... too much for me to grasp. Anyway, the ending is very bleak. The world remains in constant winter. I just prevented its total destruction. The final sentence hints at it all just being temporary, the threat of the demon will rise again anyway.

(thread continues)

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. Alright, thanks to emulator save states, I explored the complete world, now ruled by eternal winter, again. Turns out one single town has survived. Phew... Also, the dwarves are there, available to power up my equipment. Off to the showdown on the weirdly shaped island...

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. The showdown with Eregore, Malifon's disciple, was exactly the kind of interaction and dialogue I expect of such a cliché fantasy game: the baddie having lied to his followers all along, taunting them when they discover it. Now, FINALLY, the world is cast in eternal winter! Worse, all towns have been destroyed. Eh. I understand the design choice to let me play and struggle a lot before this even happens, because this cuts off the regular supply of healing, levelling etc.

Cool special encounter in another dungeon of #DemonsWinter by #SSI: each of my characters had to face one enemy alone. Each enemy sort of appropriate to the character class. Having just one isolated character for the fight brings a nice change compared to my by now usual tactics.

Plus, rune decipering puzzles, I like those.

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. The random encounters are becoming quite annoying now. They don't really pose any danger anymore, just slow the progress. After defeating Xeres, I stumbled upon the continuation of the main quest more or less only by accident. As common in those older games, there is really hardly anything leading me towards the subsequent step. I'm now on a mission given by none less than a real god! That Malifon must be the "demon" of the title. After all, he plans to destroy the world.

I found the greatest dungeon in #DemonsWinter by #SSI! At its bottom, I encountered a group of dwarven smiths which will improve my equipment in exchange for gold. That should put me ahead in those battles.

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. I entered a few dungeons, some of which turned out way too hard for my party at this point. More towns and colleges on the other islands. My characters could learn some neat skills. When I finally found the secret temple containing a secret passage to Xeres' lair, my party was well ready for him. Maybe I'm playing too carefully? You never know with these games. The game does not end with defeating him, however. He certainly looked like a demon, but still no winter.

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. I bought my own ship to travel to other islands. Random encounters continue at sea, but sea battles lack and tactical component. Just random rolls. No gold loot, but huge amounts of experience to be had there! If only I'd known before! Need to balance this with land battles to have gold to repair the ship, though.

Continuing on #DemonsWinter by #SSI. Irritatingly, it's not winter at all and there's no demon. Not yet, at least. Instead, I found the first real quest, which is about chasing some kobolds which could be responsible for the destruction of a village. The random encounters had prepared me well for this. After slaughtering them mercilessly, in their camp, I found hints at a baddie called Xeres. Maybe that is the eponymous demon?

#DemonsWinter by #SSI. Towns serve as a means to visit merchants and buy equipment, but also to level up. Spending experience points in the guild to train, character development can be steered in quite a targeted manner. Even if this is still fairly blind, not knowing what surprises the game will throw at me later, it feels good. So far, it seems the game rewards specialisation. Some of my characters are quite deadly by now. Character stat progression, on the other hand, seems random.

Lots of random encounters and strength of those enemies differs wildly. Combat in #DemonsWinter is not all that different from what #SSI's later Gold Box games (strange omission: no ranged combat save for magic). Applying generic tactics about spatial placement, keeping the party in compact formation and saving some action points to dodge has served me well so far. Thankfully, combat does not take ages. My melee-based characters are doing well, others aren't needed much. I expect this to change.

I'm starting to explore the world of #DemonsWinter by #SSI. The game comes on a single floppy disk, but this is a big world! There are dungeons, towns, temples and colleges. Staying away from the dungeons for now. Colleges offer education in the previously mentioned skills, but I cannot afford them yet. Temples seem most interesting. Each character is aligned with a certain god, which then grants special favours. Conversion is possible. This could inject some strategy into approaching things.

First observation in #DemonsWinter: interesting character creation system! I usually dislike these. Typical RPG issue: how should I know before playing the game what kind of characters I will need? There are classes I can't even imagine how they will play, such as "visionary" or "scholar". There is also a skill system which is clearly out of the ordinary. It doesn't invalidate my usual issue, but for sure it makes me look forward to exploring the system.

#SSI
#Amiga

I'm going to play #DemonsWinter. Bought it ~25 years ago on a flea market, never played it. It's a pre Gold Box RPG from #SSI. I understand it's also the sequel to another game ("Shard of Spring"), but familiarity with that one is not required. The box came with no manual, but I found the one which goes with it here: https://archive.org/details/demons-winter-top-shots-1993-ibm-pc-german-budget-floppy . Wish me luck!

#Amiga

Got myself some hot new games. #GOG #Questron #WizardsCrown #DemonsWinter