Fastcrawl - Quick Take on the 2006 Indie RPG Award Winner
Sometimes, you just feel like a good ol-fashioned dungeon crawl. So I gave FastCrawl (Download it HERE! ... or not), the winner of the 2006 Indie RPG of the Year award from GameTunnel, a try this evening. I didn't have much time to play around with it, but I was able to play through a couple of full games, and thought I'd share my discoveries.

Installation was a pain. The game requires .NET 1.1, which I thought I had on my machine, but it claimed it couldn't find it. I tried reinstalling .NET (without a reboot), and FastCrawl still complained about not being able to find it. I went ahead and installed and played it anyway, and it worked in spite of complaints.

When you start a game, you are immediately given a random party (with random names) and it is up to you to guide them through a dungeon. It creates a random story (more of mission objectives and setting), and drops you into the entrance of a randomly-generated dungeon. Some dungeon types include doors and locks. Others are more open caverns. A skilled rogue is handy in the former dungeon types. The dungeons are filled with various monsters, traps, randomized treasure of innumerable different types, and occasionally a character who will join you on your quest.

FastCrawl bills itself as an "action-RPG," but it's really turn-based. There's really no time-critical actions you ever need to perform. It's even less action-oriented than Empires and Dungeons. I actually prefer the turn-based gameplay, anyway, so other than a misleading category name, it doesn't bug me. Every step or action takes up a turn. Resting takes several turns (and uses supplies, a treasure type available in limited quantities).

You only "level up" when you find and take the stairs down to the next level of the dungeon. Each time your characters level up, you are offered one of several specializations that they can choose from. For example, a cleric may specialize in improving the strength of his healing spells, or in healing the entire party at once, or in becoming a "Wrath" priest that inflicts deadly spell damage on oppnents.

Combat is also handled in a turn-based fashion. You will need to select the starting formation of your party - which dictates who can attack and be attacked with what equipment and range. Once that is set, the game goes through the combatants one-by-one during the course of each combat turn. Though it's a somewhat abstract arrangement, long-time players of certain games with "ranks" of characters (like the old Wizardry / Bard's Tale games) will be right at home.

Eventually, assuming you survive long enough, you'll come up against the "final encounter" - the "boss monsters" of the dungeon mentioned in your initial quest story. Defeat them, and you win the game.

The graphics of FastCrawl are simple and static, but pretty. The music is likewise nice but doesn't overwhelm the game. No saved games slots are available, but your game is auto-saved when you exit so you can continue when you come back to it. You won't need to do that much, as the shortest games can take 30 minutes or less.

My take: According to my definition, FastCrawl is definitely an RPG, with some old-school sensibilities mixed with some newer indie production values and ease-of-play. It has enough replayability to remain entertaining (I think) after many play-throughs.

While the random party generation may frustrate some players, I think it's actually advantageous to maintaining the replayability of the game. It's much harder to settle on a single, optimized group. For example, in my first game, I had two clerics. It was easy to get used to having the two clerics on "heal duty," though I eventually specialized one in Wrath. My second run-through, I was given no clerics whatsoever initially (though I eventually found one who joined me on the second level of the dungeon). I had to come up with an entirely new strategy to take advantage of having a warrior, rogue, and mage.

Like Empires & Dungeons, FastCrawl has a little bit of a "board game" feel to it. It's a good quick-and-dirty dungeon crawl, and well worth checking out if that sort of thing floats your boat. If you are really looking for a more epic adventure and in-depth storylines, it will leave you unsatisfied (go check out Avernum 4 or Aveyond).

While I love big storylines and detailed characters, sometimes I'm just in the mood to grab a sword, hit the dungeon, and beat the crud out of some monsters for some ph4t l00ts. I got a kick out of this game, and I expect I'll keep playing it whenever the mood strikes me.

Want to check it out yourself and tell me how wrong I am?

Download the free FastCrawl demo!

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Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:36 PM (Permalink)