Saturday Morning Gaming: Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf
Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf series is one of the series that I read back in the mid-80’s. Like, it’s D&D for the kids who didn’t have anyone to play D&D with (or kids who weren’t allowed to play D&D… “Mom! It’s not D&D! It’s just a book!”). Similar to Steve Jackson’s Sorcery books, these had the added benefit of not screaming “THIS IS D&D!” to any nosy parents with the title. “Flight from the Dark”? Pffft. That could be about anything.
The basic idea is that you are the sole survivor of a monastery following a horrible attack. Just an initiate, you have to take your handful of skills and go and inform the Crown that your monastery has been destroyed. To get there from here will take all of your skills.
What made the Lone Wolf books somewhat different from the Sorcery books is that you had multiple different possible builds for your monk. You could be a “punch first, ask questions later” monk who was skilled in setting traps or you could be a slow and deliberate monk who focused on healing skills. This allowed for serious replay value.
I mean, it was still pretty much the same basic story, but your mental movie of the same story was entirely different on each readthrough. Were you a lumbering ox bowling your opponents over with your mace? Were you a lithe ninja tearing up your opponents with a thousand cuts from your trusty blade? You’re still fighting an evil “giak” either way, mind. But it *FELT* different.
Well, they’ve translated the books to the medium of video games and that makes some the stuff really cool and just like how you remember it and, sadly, other stuff loses a lot in translation.
For example: Combat has been video-gamified. It’s now a series of Quick Time Events. (And this alone might be a dealbreaker for most folks.) I mean, one of the great things about the original books was that they *WEREN’T* a video game. They were like playing D&D. They’ve turned the combat into a video game.
But the game also includes stuff like “page turning” and that’s one of those little touches that gets me right in the feels.
That said, if you can get past the combat, the game plays like a rush of nostalgia and it goes on sale fairly often. I probably wouldn’t pay $15 for this, but I picked it up for 80% off and that made it well worth it to me.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is from the intro of the game. All screenshots taken by the author.)
