Favorite FRUA mods?

[Uatu]

Well, blobs of energy are always easier to draw than detailed, scaled creatures of large size

[manikus]

Easier to draw perhaps, but much, much harder to render.

[Uatu]

Ah - that is true

[manikus]

It's really hard to get them lit properly. I think some of them might need to be lit from inside actually, and that often as not returns som unexpected results.

[Arminius]

A module I'd like to see in DC is Tomb of Horrors. That and Expedition to Barrier Peak. I loved all of Gary Gygax's old modules from the late 70's early 80's but I think those are the one's I think would be cool to play in DC.

I think I saw Expedition to Barrier Peaks done in FRUA a long time ago but can't remember for sure. I remember there being a little humor thrown in like an 80's arcade machine. And I recall there being some of the original art from the module in there but colorized. I have the original module so I could do the converting to DC if I had the FRUA module or even without the FRUA module though that would take a lot more time, editing art from the original module.

Oh! and thinking of horror mods like ToH, I just thought of those great old Call of Cthulu modules! Can't remember the guys name but I remember those being among the coolest [creepiest] hacked FRUA modules I played.

Another one I remember loving was a kind of parody FRUA module with lots of little references to pop culture. The funniest for me being the appearance in the fantasy world of Dana Scully and Fox Mulder [of the XFiles - my favorite show of all time] who are overheard discussing the strange world they find themselves in, arguing over the impossible vs the possible existence of dragons, and magic and such [I might be adding to what I remember since I dont really remember much of it] and I think Mulder explains that they've somehow crossed over into a parallel universe in which fantasy is real. I remember one of the first NPCs you meet was called big-n-greasy. I remember laughing the whole way through the game.

Anyone know which one that was? I'd love to play it again for inspiration.

Originally Posted by Manikus I had a very weird experience last night. I was thinking about FRUA, so decided to look through the directories of games I had currently available (not counting my zipped archives) and saw a folder name that didn't look familiar from downloading at Rosedragon. I started playing it and was having a good time until a band of kobolds wiped out my first level party (they would have been fine if two of the fighters hadn't been mauled by a cave bear). I wanted to see who made it so I could find more of their stuff if the rest of the design was as fun to play. I opened up the readme and saw that the mod was started in 2001, which is a few years ago but did have some good art. Anyways, I looked at the mod author's name and it was... (any guesses here?) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... manikus. Boy was I surprised. Even after going back in and checking out the mod in the editor, I only have the vaguest of memories of creating this.

LOL! Man thats funny. Kind of cool though. That is exactly the kind of object detachment every game designer attempts to achieve when play testing his own work but seldom ever really achieves it which is why he usually needs [and seldom gets] beta-testers. Yet here you are practicing this objective detachment from your own work with no effort at all. Whats your secret Manikus?

I think it's a lot harder for Tarlanon to work on the code than CocoaSpud b/c he doesn't know what CocoaSpud was going to do next or was planning for things yet undone.

Does that mean CocoaSpud has retired from his work on DC? Or is it just a break for a while? My thanks to Tarlanon for keeping it alive and carrying the torch. If he needs a tester for anything I can volunteer.

I've thought about having a fight with a dragon that didn't take place in the combat event, that way you could simulate a lot through text events, damage events, etc. Of course, that would mean at least doing a sprite of a dragon, if not more... Well, it was a thought.

I thought about doing that too. I kind of like the old Bard's Tale and Wasteland style combat. I like seeing the colorfully pixeled and animated close-ups of the creature your are fighting. When there are a group of them you see the closest type of monster first. When it dies you see the next closest or whichever has initiative or higher speed or whatever.

At the risk of sounding heretical I actually never really liked the Gold Box style combat that much until DC came along with it's upgraded graphics allowing us to have much more detailed combat icons and combat wallsets, and effect sprites.

[manikus]

Heretic! Heretic! Just kidding. I dug the Goldbox style partly b/c that was all I knew. When FRUA came along, I saw all the cool new icons and was hooked.

The Call of Cthulu mods were by John Rudy. How funny that you mention those, as I've just now begun working on Cthulu himself. He will definitely end up being the biggest icon I have done.
I haven't played any of the other mods you mention, though, so I can't really help you with the names. Do you know about the Rosedragon repository? It houses just about every known FRUA mod.

And as to my secret for object detachment, it's called being very busy and waiting 7 years.

[Arminius]

Originally Posted by manikus Heretic! Heretic! Just kidding. I dug the Goldbox style partly b/c that was all I knew. When FRUA came along, I saw all the cool new icons and was hooked. The Call of Cthulu mods were by John Rudy. How funny that you mention those, as I've just now begun working on Cthulu himself. He will definitely end up being the biggest icon I have done. I haven't played any of the other mods you mention, though, so I can't really help you with the names. Do you know about the Rosedragon repository? It houses just about every known FRUA mod. And as to my secret for object detachment, it's called being very busy and waiting 7 years.

Yeah Rudy! I remember that name. Cool thanks. Yeah I have a link to Rosedragon from my Forum, but I haven't checked there for the modules I mentioned as I only just today thought of them when I read your thread. I'll check for them. Hope your all having a swell Independence Day. And watch out for the big bad Uncle Sam [aka Big Brother]!

[manikus]

There are some good mods there. It would be cool if someone made an index with like a two or three sentence description of each. Unfortunately, the name of the zip file does not always convey the mod very well.

[Uatu]

I liked the Gold Box combat system because it made range and area an important part of combat (older systems like that of Ultima (and the derivative Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc.) ignored all of that).

The best system I have played was the Temple of Elemental Evil (demo) - very well done, but I wish they had made it for 1e or 2e, not 3e...

[manikus]

I still like the Goldbox system compared to modern systems b/c it's not about reflexes, it's all turn-based and I can really focus on the strategy. (What can I say, I'm getting old and have fat fingers. )