Hey, you want to learn an interesting tidbit about your friendly neighbourhood Jarenth? Next to playing video games, I also enjoy the occasional tabletop RPG session. Like Dungeons and Dragons, or Pathfinder. Or Shadowrun! I play a ‘weekly’ Shadowrun session with several online friends. Lot of fun. I play a Rigger in that game. Which, if you don’t know Shadowrun, is a character class that tends to specialize in remote-controlling their personal drone fleet. As an archetype, it’s almost tailor-made for me: what better way to ‘deal with dangerous life-and-death stuff’ than by piloting armored robots into the situation from the comfort of my own couch? I posit that no better reason exists.
So you can imagine I was surprised when I stumbled over Duskers, latest of Misfits Attic (they of A Virus Named Tom, a game I reviewed favourably in a distant past) and found that the object of that game was pretty much that. Except with more of a survival theme. Piloting hand-crafted robot drones into derelict spacecraft to scavenge much-needed fuel, supplies, and knowledge? Let me just sign up here immediately and also forever.
If it’s fun, of course.
(Spoiler levels: Narrative, low. Mechanical, medium.)
(Game source: Patreon funds.)