One of the hallmarks of the Swords and Sandals series has always been the 'choose your own adventure' style choice scenarios. As far back as Swords and Sandals II, our hero would be presented with many decisions - sometimes whether to help out a villager in danger, sometimes to compete in a test of strength, some scenarios were even stranger.
I've always enjoyed having these mini-adventures in the games as not only do they break up the monotony of combat, they also add a sense of a larger world to the game. Getting a glimpse into the lives of the citizens of Tritonia, of strange and interesting locales and events, of dangerous foes and mysterious strangers. You don't need big fancy graphics or detailed mazes to convey this kind of stuff - a few well written paragraphs of text combined with some choices for a player can be a very effective way to make your adventure feel more 'real'.
Swords and Sandals Immortals now has over 50+ of these mini adventures! A few were written by myself but the great bulk of them were written by my long time friend Tom Gattenhof, (also known as the tavernkeeper in S&S V) - he's a great writer with a flair for adventure and comedy.
These adventures present themselves in the forms of small map icons that pop up from time to time on the overworld map. When you leave a town, these adventures will disappear and be placed elsewhere in the map, so if you see one a few days ride from where you are , it is worth investigating as it may not be there next time you are in the area!
When you click on an adventure icon and visit it, you will be presented with a paragraph of text describing your adventure scenario, and two options. Each has a positive or negative outcome, for a total of 4 results - meaning if you encounter the scenario again in your travels, you can try the other option.
Once you have selected an option, the familiar D20 die will appear - you must roll 10 or higher for a successful adventure!
Following that, you will see what happened next and either gain a reward or suffer a penalty!
In addition to that, some adventure scenarios ask moral questions of you. For example in the images that accompany this blog post, our hero encounters a broken. They are given the option to help the merchant repair the cart, or rob them blind. Should you choose the latter, your alignment will shift towards *evil* , which will have small repercussions through the game.
In the next post, we talk about rideable steeds in the game!
Until next time,
Cheers, Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios
