Ross's Game Dungeon: Mage Knight Apocalypse

Ross survives the Mage Knight Apocalypse.

[ShinyGaara]

"I'm already a master of nothing in my own life."
-Ross Scott, Youtube celebrity, creator of Freeman's Mind, gaming archaeologist, aspiring movie-maker, music saver, and all-around awesome guy

[blakecarpenter]

Blobman actually used his entire mana bar on that attack that killed everything in Mordor, and he didn't want you to know that he needed to go regenerate for 15 minutes.

[johnoneil]

This actually reminds me of one of those DnD campaigns where you all make characters but in truth the DM just wants you to be witnesses to how aweseme and powerful this NPC that he came up with is, in this case blob guy.

[Apollomasque]

Loving this party composition of two leggy, amazonian models wearing what can be charitably called "armoured swimwear" being led by a surly little dwarf in 60 pounds of chainmail.

[MoonMoverGaming]

This game's story has the feel of a D&D campaign that's been going on for two years but you only just joined and too much has happened for the other players to possibly explain.

[medicindisquise]

A quarter of the way through the video, I quickly realized exactly what was happening. This isn't actually a singleplayer game. This is actually a CO-OP GAME. That's why you suffered through the first chapter as the dwarf, because the game expected you to have at least two players. If you played as any other class, you would've gotten the dwarf there and thus a little bit of extra damage. That's why your inventory is so stifling - everybody is expected to loot, not just one guy. That's why there's a lot of cooldowns - you were asking "Where's the army?" but just like in WoW, you're expected to have 2-5 other people playing with you. That's why your player character didn't speak until chapter 2 - again, they couldn't be sure you had the dwarf until after the murderhall chapter so they couldn't risk having any player characters speak. In fact, I wonder if the Dwarf had important exposition during the murderhall chapter ala the huntress' insane rambling at the beginning of the pyramid that you unintentionally skipped by playing as him?

This game was never meant to be played singleplayer. This is a co-op game, and all the devs probably played co-op together during playtests, assuring that singleplayer became completely unbalanced.

[TheMaabusAdmiral]

Ah, a new summer game dungeon, now things are starting to make sense. Hope everyone has a safe and fun summer!

[fien]

What is it with Ross continuing to find RPGs that are nigh-unplayably hard and completely incomprehensible? Did he insult a witch and get cursed to manifest these games from the ether?

[TheJesterInYellow]

The fact that you credited each individual "Will It Blend?" episode instead of just putting them all under "Will It Blend?" is why you are the true master of the internet.

[Neziavothal]

This is from the early "brown and bloom" era of game design. Shiny new tools, can't resist using them.

[VulpesHilarianus]

It seems like this game was designed to be played with other players in a LAN environment, like how Unreal Tournament was. The fact that multiplayer is the second option on the menu and the first you land on is indicative of this, as is the opening narrative about five heroes working together. A lot of the other decisions seem to reinforce this, like the insane amounts of loot, non-pausing dialogue interludes that would be difficult to sync across multiple computers were they to pause the action in the game, the barriers that need to be destroyed, the specialized enemy types and unfair numbers, and the weapon cooldowns. Like you were meant to cover for the other players while they recharged or destroyed obstacles as the dwarf, inflict status effects as the vampire, do the damage and direct enemies as the amazon, and draw attacks as the elf. A hybrid support/ranged, a full support, DPS, and tank. They even screwed up class balancing.

[connorperrett]

33:10
The art director told the artist assigned to this character that he wanted a "happy merchant" and the artist just Googled it and drew the first result.

[cybermadness]

I just had the most exhausting week of my life, sitting through this unbelievable heat and I finish the day by finding a new Game Dungeon by Ross! *YEEEESSS!!!!*

[ezekielrose]

So I've watched this video all the way through I think once, but I've started it and fallen asleep listening to it about 7 or 8 times now.
Game Dungeon is one of the few things I can listen to that actually helps me sleep, and I mean that in the most positive possible way. I find Ross's delivery very relaxing and the whole vibe of GD very cozy.

[i.m.evilhomer]

This game actually has a connection to Another game from the Game Dungeon. That game being Hellgate: London! Both Hellgate & Mage Knight share some of the same devs.

[wolfgangbrooks]

The reason the story is so convoluted is because it's based on a collectible prepainted miniatures game with turn-able bases that tracked stats and abilities as you take damage. Each new set added a little bit to the lore and advanced the story, and at one point they were even doing a kind of weekly in world diary of one of the human seers the Solonavi allied with to expand on ongoing plotlines/wars and give background to new expansions.

I think it still has potential as a setting, but I doubt they'll do much with it now even though I understand the board game is popular.

Oh, Mageknight is supposed to be like the player's title as the leader of the armies you collected if I remember right. Wizkids made a number of games based on the dial base gimmick and Heroclix is the only one that survived.

[InvadeNormandy]

I remember an ancient gamefaqs type guide for this. The unfortunate thing is even the ancient guide says "The dwarf is the hardest to play especially early on." As he's the ONLY character with the backwards rage bar/mana mechanic.

What an introduction

[bearVshark]

Sometimes it feels like Ross has more fun trying to get these busted ass games to run on his system than actually playing them.

[joshuazane]

I'm consistently impressed by the amount of effort that you put into finishing awful games.

[Ghost_Of_SAS]

9:14 I have tested Crysis 2 just walking past everything on the highest difficulty and without any suit upgrades: it is possible and very easy, barring the scripted shooting sequences where you need to kill a boss to trigger the level exit.