Tin Man Games is a reliable source for multimedia fun and strange nostalgia. They’re best known for converting ‘80s-era Fighting Fantasy adventure game books into apps that can be played on your smartphone, and have saved many a geeky commuter from utter boredom.
Their latest adaptation, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, is a sharp departure from their previous output. Rather than a nifty app that emulates the page turning and dice-rolling experience of the old book based games, this game is built for a desktop computer. This isn’t an emulation of the paperback experience. Instead, it feels like a more traditional fantasy board game in which you move models around and roll dice. It has an isometric design, a look, and feel that also comes straight out of the eighties.
The plot is pretty simple. Hidden deep within Firetop Mountain is an evil Warlock called Zagor.
You have to stop him and of course, he has lots of treasure for you to loot, provided you can find the defeat the various measures he’s put in place to stop the casual home invader from killing him and taking all his stuff.
Rather than you being a hero, you pick a character from one of a set of four (others will be available as the game progresses). You move your little digital hero around the lair, making various choices and branches along the way. The game is still quite text-heavy; description is everything here.
The graphics themselves are frankly gorgeous. This combined with a strong soundtrack and some nifty mechanics take the game to the next level of fantasy gaming. Make no mistake, though, this is a video game version of traditional tabletop style fun, owing as much to Dungeons and Dragons and Heroquest as it does to the original book.
Combat is position based; unlike the random dice rolls of other Fighting Fantasy game, where you move and when you hit is important here. Apart from these factors, the game sticks pretty close to the book; illustrations from the source material pop up as you progress to add an extra smack of nostalgia into the entire affair.
The game itself is pretty short – but sweet enough. It’s amazing dive into nostalgia, from the masters of the art. Tin Man Games, necromancers of nostalgia, has done it again.
THE WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: TIN MAN GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
