Description
Darklands is a role-playing game set in medieval Germany. The player can begin by either selecting a pre-made party (quickstart) or by creating their own characters. They begin when they are ten years old and the player can choose a career path for them. The more time the player invests in a certain career path (in five year periods), the better the character will become. Skills involve weapon proficiencies, stealth, healing, riding, and many others.
Towns and castles are navigated via text menus, with background images representing various locations. The travel screen is a map of Germany with a lone figure representing the player-controlled party. Here the player can choose to travel around the countryside, getting into adventures and meeting friends and enemies. Combat is real time, but the player can pause the action to give orders, giving it a pseudo-turn-based flavor.
The game has a vast scope and can go on indefinitely. However, characters would age, grow weaker, and eventually die, requiring the player to create new ones. The main goal is to collect as much fame for the party as possible to obtain higher-ranked quests with better rewards.
Alternate Titles
- "Darklands: Heroic Role-Playing Adventures In Medieval Germany" -- Tag-lined title
- "Darklands: Heldenhafte Abenteuer im mittelalterlichen Deutschland" -- German tag-lined title
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Trivia
Cancelled Amiga version
An Amiga version of
Darklands was considered, but the game was judged as too large to be played from floppy, and the potential market of hard-disk equipped Amigas was apparently deemed not large enough, going by
a chat log with Arnold Hendrick.
Influence
Darklands is based on history (whether true or not) of the influence of the Templar Knights, a powerful monastic order during the crusades which were eventually crushed by the Church (Pope Clement V) and the King of France (King Philip IV) based on their allegations with Satan, specifically Baphomet.
Memory
The game needs over 600K of free DOS memory to avoid crashes. In fact, the MORE lower memory you can free up, the better the game runs, something that is barely addressed by all the later patches.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #10 Least Rewarding Ending of All Time
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