With haunted hearts through the heat and cold we never thought we could ever get old

Dungeons and Dragons Online is 20 years old. 20! That's mad. I'd briefly played at launch and burned out even before starting to blog, then went back a few years later when it went free to play (if I can believe myself), as did Melmoth (probably; with the various blog migrations I lost the author details on individual posts, and while I can usually tell us apart occasionally I'm not sure if I'm me or him). That means I missed what would have been the 20th anniversary of City of Heroes (Alas, poor CoH! I knew him, Statesman: an MMO of infinite skuls) and World of Warcraft (I've obviously successfully unsubscribed from any of its marketing literature and any last vestiges of MMO blogs, social media, or what-not). DDO hasn't been irritating enough to unsubscribe from, evidently, so when the newsletter turned up with the promise of a new archetype for free and assorted other anniversary celebrations, I thought I'd get it patched up and have a look.

Blimey. I mean, fair play for still going, but it took some getting used to - never mind character abilities being like a 747 cockpit (that definitely was Melmoth, one of his classics) (also, apologies for the lack of media since migration, but I'm sure you get the idea) pretty much everything about the the game, the interface, the control mapping was a struggle to remember. "You can speak to an NPC called “Giver of Gifts”, located on Anniversary Island, which is accessible by speaking to the NPC Fred in either House Jorasco or House Phiarlan near the location of the 10th Anniversary Event" says the news page. Well, triffic, if I had the first clue where the 10th Anniversary Event was, or what a House Jorasco might be, that might be useful...

I did find him, in the end. After rolling a new character on a new server, heaven knows where I'd left the last one 15 years ago. And then logged out again. Not sure I'll be back in a hurry. Maybe for the 30th anniversary! If both me and the game are still going then...

 

The pit full of emptiness and wrath

I do like a good roguelike game. Or more usually a roguelikelike, maybe a roguelikelikelike, or even a roguelikelikelikelike. Rogue was great but a bit dated now. Probably. I haven't played it since 1988 when I had it on a 5.25" floppy disc for the Amstrad PC1512.

OK, that was true, but even as I typed it I got curious and went off to archive.org for a quick dungeon bash (matron). It's strange what sticks with you, I instinctively mashed 'S' when I reached a dead end in a corridor, and sure enough there was a secret door there. Then I got killed by a rattlesnake. Did I want my possessions identified? 

Anyway, that confirmed the while Rogue was indeed most impressive in the 1980s and eminently playable now, there are better options out there now. Like Vienetta. By which I mean Vienetta was impressive in the 1980s, not that it's a better option than Rogue now. Though there are strong arguments for the latter as well. Anyone else have a craving for several rippled layers of ice cream?

So. As you've no doubt surmised from that fact that I'm talking about Vienetta, I bought Ball x Pit over the Christmas holidays. It's a lot of fun. There we go, I know everyone's been on tenterhooks for my enormously in-depth review.

What really kicked this all off was the fact that Ball x Pit is often tagged as a roguelike. As the opening linked article shows, the debate over the definition of roguelike was well-worn even ten years ago, but as per the How Roguelike is your game? tool, Ball x Pit would be, by my assessment, Roguelikelikelikelike at best. The current definition of roguelike generally seems to be along the lines of 'keep doing sort of the same thing but gradually unlocking more stuff as you go', which is one of my favoured genres recently with games like Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Megabonk, Death Must Die, Jotunnslayer and Ball x Pit in the last year, and it's far too late to try and coin a new name for that style of game. The roguelike horse has not merely bolted but come back, built an upgraded stables, and unlocked a new class of horse by the time the stable door is shut. I still like roguelikelike, though, shame that never really caught on.