I recently finished ROK and thought it was a very good game, even
though it took so many (enjoyable) hours that the rest of my life
went down the tubes. It was so much fun, in fact, that my willpower
broke down and I tried the Demelza demo. After two days of play, I
decided today to buy it. That was a mistake.
No doubt you can discount the opinion of someone who only spent
three days playing the game. Obviously, I might have missed many of
the intricacies. But I feel compelled to say that Demelza has too
many flaws to make it worthwhile.
Yes, there are some good things about the game. Read the promo.
It's a big game, it has multiple solutions, it's different from ROK!
If you are totally hooked on DB2, go for it. What choice do you have?
Here are the things I don't like about it. Whereas ROK was a
tightly-constructed game, by which I mean the author seemed to have
thought of everything and paid attention to details, Demelza is good
in the big picture but lacking in fine points. For example, many of
the early (and that's all I had) battles with monsters are
completely predictable. Also, although the maps are interesting, it
is too hard to get around - there are trees everywhere getting in
your way for no good purpose. And, in spite of the new maps (which
are interesting, I admit) and optional solutions (going up or going
down), there isn't (in the first couple of days) anything really
revolutionary.
In spite of all that, I bought Demelza today after two days of
trying it out. It does have appeal. But what really fried me was a
puzzle I just did not like. ** NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILER HERE. ** And
that was the closing of the inns. I'd been battling on, no hints,
when three of my crew were made insane. I didn't have any way to get
them Prozac or whatever, so the obvious choice was to get someone
who could cast a spell and cure them. No way. Okay, I admit, this is
probably an excellent part of the game, a clever puzzle with an
amazing solution. It wouldn't surprise me at all, because the game
has a good design. But I didn't like it, especially since I am still
aching from spending so many hours on ROK. I spent about 4 DB days
banging on the doors of inns, but they just stayed closed (which, in
a reality kind of way, doesn't make any sense). Anyway, it was so
frustrating that I decided to give up, and I deleted Demelza, ROK
(what was left of the Easter Egg level), and DB itself from my PDA.
Time to move on.
As I said, I bought Demelza today and I'm not going to play it,
ever. I think it is fair, reasonable, and legal to give it away. I
hate to see my money simply lost. So I will give my copy of the
registered version to the first (and only the first!) person who
writes to me at FreeDemelza@.... I hope you have better
success (and more patience) than I did.