The Best Modules by Ben Sanderfer (ProphetSword)

[ProphetSword]

Stealing this idea from a fellow FRUAite and being equally as shameless in my self promotion.  You can select up to 3 games.  You can select as many games as you want.  If you didn't enjoy that many of my modules or you didn't play any of them, you can certainly select less of them.  Comments are always welcome.

Putting this list together was eye-opening.  I realized that I had five unfinished modules that were released (which I did not include on this list), that certain years were more productive than others, and that I have a real problem when it comes to starting a series of games and never finishing them...something I have tried to get away from doing in the most recent one-week challenge modules.

Looking forward to seeing the results.  There are some results I expect, but I'm hoping for a few surprises along the way.

[Milos Gulan]

Thanks for puting this list together, I will try to play modules that I have not yet as Your adventures are really great and inspiring :)

[Olivier Leroux]

I went for FR1, AT1 and AT2, because I only had three votes and those were the first ones that came to mind. But I also recall really liking The Heroes of Shadalar (it deserves a sequel!), and possibly the short Buck Rogers module as well. For the last two, I'd need to refresh my memory and check up on them, off the top of my head I couldn't say what they were about, but I probably liked them, too. Maybe I'll replay them some day, they were mini modules, right?

[ProphetSword]

Poll has been altered so that you can select up to 14 titles (since there are 14 on the poll, that works out conveniently).  Simply select "Remove Vote" and you will be able to recast your votes.

[Olivier Leroux]

Ok, I recast my votes, for now. I'll probably revise it again when I've checked out The Voice of Vengeance, Dwelling in Darkness, SS1 and Assault at Kinnia Bay (I might not even have played the last one). I'm pretty sure I haven't played any of the pre-FR1's.

[Olivier Leroux]

Now I've played Assault at Kinnia Bay - for the first time actually - and it was nice. Simple story, simple combat, but good story-telling. +1

I've also played The Voice of Vengeance - for the second time. I remember playing it  before, but I forgot enough to make it fun again. +1

And I've played SS1: The Huntmaster of Hulburg - for the first time - and liked it to a certain degree - story and writing were just as well as in the other designs - but there were a couple of things that eventually made me enjoy it less, and that's why I abstained from giving it my vote here: (1) where the more recent designs had encounters or flavor text in almost every room, in this one there were a lot of empty and silent rooms; and there were some rooms where encounters only happened on certain conditions, but there were no clues for that to happen, so why would you revisit those empty rooms? (2) There were also important sections hidden behind secret walls in rather obscure places, and in general I felt the design could have used a little more guidance, I often didn't quite know where to go and what to do next, resulting in lots of backtracking and aimlessly wandering around (3) which quickly turned the random combat events into annoyances, I felt like too much time was spent on pointless grinding, and (4) last but not least, there were some noticeable bugs (possibly due to it using a pre-patch version of FRUA?), like a transfer module event not working because it was chained to a guided tour event, or the recruitable companion always fleeing or surrendering at the start of a combat and often ending up unconscious at the end of it, without clearly discernible reason. 

But in the end, while I wouldn't really recommend playing SS1 in its current state, despite the nice enough story, I can all the more appreciate how the designs following it tried to avoid these pitfalls and brought an already good approach to perfection. Because, while SS1 is listed with the date of 1997 here, the accompanying text file says it was completed in 1994, so it seems to predate FR1, and that means that I've enjoyed every one* of the designs since FR1 and hardly found anything to criticize in them.  :)

(* The jury's still out on Dwelling in Darkness, but I think I enjoyed it, too. I'll probably replay it tomorrow or so.)

[ProphetSword]

That makes sense. I listed the dates I remembered, and when I couldn't remember I went by the date listed in the module list.


The older modules are of terrible quality. I only released them after "AT1: Dark Alliances" because folks were interested in my early works with the toolset. Most of those games were written in about a week or two. I mainly did them for friends...as these were days before I had the Internet or ever realized a wider audience might play anything I made.


"SS1: The Huntmaster of Hulburg" is one that I barely remember, honestly.

[Olivier Leroux]

Now I've also replayed Dwelling in Darkness. It was good, but all in all I think I enjoyed the others more, since I prefer VGA over EGA and this was very combat-heavy with some annoying opponents that made luck too much of a factor for my taste, especially when outnumbered (charm, destroy, disintegrate, instant poison kill etc.) and I didn't have so much fun in repeating some combats several times. Still, I think I'll give it my vote nevertheless.

[hans]

Since the subject of this thread is different than the Poll question, I should make a distinction. 

I've enjoyed all your (Ben Sanderfer) mods that I've played, which would be first FR1: Night of the Basilisk, and then from AT1: Dark Alliances on down. 

If I were to choose my favorites of those, it would be AT1: Dark Alliances and AT2: Dark Wizardry. 

The other two most memorable to me would be Buck Rogers XXV: Chaos Factor and The Voice of Vengeance (the remarkable one-week-challenge entry). 

Possibly I played some of your earlier mods before I started keeping a record of the mods I'd played, but, if so, I can't remember anything about them.  I also haven't keep records of demos or unfinished mods that I've played, but I do remember enjoying Ghost in the Machine.   :) 

Y'know, if Ray Dyer wanted to have such a Poll as this for his mods, I doubt that he could possibly fit them all in.