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Thursday, March 12, 2015

Die in this game and you can never EVER play it again

Thank the Lord this isn't a Super Mario Brothers game.  Or a Fallout title.

So here's the conceit: if you die in Upsilon Circuit, you get perma-permadeath.  As in: you'll never play the game again.  Not because you won't want to play but because you literally can't play.  Ever again.  You get one life, one chance to make it through.  And that's it.  One shot at making it through to final screen.

And it won't be easy.

From the article at Kotaku:
The fantasy RPG plops specially selected players onto a single server and divides them into two teams of four. This means only eight players will ever be playing Upsilon Circuit at any given moment, and their adventures will likely come to swift, brutal ends. Sounds terrifying, right? Every move you make can literally be your last.
On top of that, the game will have a participatory audience watching live, something nearly as cool as the "one death ever" conceit. Here's how it works:
"Each Contestant explores the overworld and generated dungeons in search of the Dream Tech Crystals. They fight monsters, avoid traps, and compete with the opposing team."
"When the Contestant fights monsters or gets treasure, the EXP and other rewards go to the Audience. EXP is used collectively by the Audience to level up the Contestant's Skill Tree. Simply put, the Audience is part dungeon master, part strategist, and part judge & jury."

Sorta makes you wish Gary Gygax was still alive and making easy stuff like "Tomb of Horrors", aye?

5 comments:

Minion Number 1 said...

Easy? You call Tomb of Horrors easy???

Gary Gygax was a sadist. I lost sooooooo many characters to his modules.

Chris Knight said...

The highest I ever got in D&D was a poor level 5 thief who for whatever reason I played like he was Inspector Clouseau, LOL. I never got to play the Tomb of Horrors module.

But over the years I have read accounts from many who have. Enough to know that Gygax wasn't creating an adventure: he was crafting layer upon layer of unforgiving deathtrap.

One of these days I'd love to play Tomb of Horrors, just to say that I attempted it (and like so many others, failed miserably :-P)

Anonymous said...

Really more like a game show than a legit video game experience. Still a unique novelty though.

Thespia said...

I play games to relax. This sounds anything but relaxing.

Chris Knight said...

Thespia, in my case you're more right than you know. I've discovered that if I'm in not too manic a state, that playing the original StarCraft helps me to refocus my thoughts.

I call it "StarCraft therapy" :-)