Well as anyone who is lucky enough to read my facebook status updates knows I became rather enamored with the idea of indulging in a multiplayer game of Solium Infernum after reading the excellent series of play diaries on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. With hope in hand I sought out willing partners among my friends, but all my friends are bastards and crushed my fragile dreams. “Oh I’m too busy to even say no Mick I’ll just leave you sitting alone in your dark room sobbing and waiting for some kind of response”, bunch of cunts, almost makes me feel glad that I’ve been slipping infected blood into their food for months. Anyhow, my righteous retribution aside, I finally managed to ensnare two of my siblings and thus the game was, as Holmes would say, afoot! I bet he said stuff like that because he was out of his tits on smack all the time.
So after getting the game installed, and following the rather laborious procedure for setting up a multiplayer game (user friendly is the last thing this game is) I was ready to send out the initial setup files to the other players.
After we all managed to secure our files from Dropbox, add our mighty Avatars and send them back to Dropbox a day had passed and much cursing had been done. Even for PBEM, a format I actually have some affection for, this was a bit fiddly. But it brought us to here:
And then it was time for the game to generate the map and conduct whatever unholy background tasks it required to simulate our own private hell.
After frankly savaging myself at the games request (I mean, what else could amuse yourself possibly mean?) I was feeling drained but ready to contest with my brothers for the lordship of hell. I started up the first turn and was met with this charming screen
It was at that point that I remembered I didnt actually quite know how to play the game. Having never glanced at the manual or read the wiki. Turning to the manual I read the two page quick play summary and ill prepared for what fate had in store I secured my tribute (which I’m assuming is the games currency) and fiddled with this and that. The fine figure of a demon that represents me in this terrible conflict is this lovely fellow which I made earlier:
Those charming black blobs are there not due to the game but due to the fact that I know Simon and Sean would use the information hidden there to destroy me. Though I fear my seemingly terrible stat choices may have already done so. While looking at the other players I happened to notice that Sean has named his demon after a fucking character from My Little Pony. Son, dont he know there aint room for no brony shit in hell? This seems like a good point to mention one of the games more interesting mechanics. The game asks you to rank the other players in order of how much of a threat you feel they pose. It then uses this ranking to generate the cost of taking action against the other players, its cheaper to take action against the person you feel is the biggest threat.
Now I’m not saying Sean’s at the top of my list, but he did a) name his demon after MLP, b) had the audacity to use the same graphic for his demon and c) as can be seen below he’s situated directly to my right and his stupid eyeball troops look ripe for a kicking.
Well I’m off to take care of my first turn. The rest of these diaries may be released in a somewhat staggered approach as I cant reveal too much of my plans lest Simon or Sean use my plans against me! Hopefully though they prove entertaining and perhaps manage to lure some people into joining the next multiplayer game. As I’m already paranoid playing against two people I can only imagine the mental mayhem that will be generated when six players are involved.
..I shouldnt have put on the Omen soundtrack.
Listening to: Jerry Goldsmith - Ave Satani