Ever wondered what happened if you would cross Dark Souls with Age of Empires ? well, there you have it, being a lifelong fan of both the Dark Souls series and Age of Empires, I have spent the last five months answering that question and building a scenario out of this idea. It’s now published and it’s called ‘Age of Dark Souls’ (original, no; catchy… maybe?).
I’ve tried to replicate the original Dark Souls 1 world and the game progression. You will have to carefully balance exploration, base management, and… boss fights ! Also there’s a twist. You can’t produce any villagers. Instead, you have to find Estus villagers out in the wild. In the same vein, you can’t build any houses. To increase your population cap, you will have to defeat bosses. So go get them!
There are a few other surprise mechanics, but I think this scenario is best enjoyed knowing as less as possible about it… Also, it’s quite hard and might need a few runs to get a good feel of the layout of the map and optimize your strategy. Hey, like in the original game !
add more info to the mod, people will rarely DL something with so little info/pics… it could be a pile of garbage or the worlds best mod for all we know…
“Also, there’s a time-bomb: if you do not fulfill all objectives in 4 hours, the full force of the Lord of Sunlight will come crashing on your home base. It gets brutal.”
Is it really needed? Basically I have to hurry through whole scenario because otherwise I will be destroyed after 4 hours? IMO such timers add too much stress and reduce fun. I can’t play at my own pace anymore after knowing this.
So the ‘time-bomb’ is there for balancing reasons: I found through multiple testing sessions that the end-game would be too easy if you could give each boss your full attention and send your entire armies, while also getting a bit redundant. With this time-limit, you can no longer afford to do so and have to multitask a bit, exploring at least two corners of the map at the same time. I was also trying to give a ‘die&retry’ feel to this scenario, you are not meant to complete it on your first playthrough. Instead, continually optimize your route, prioritize your objectives and find new shortcuts. You’ll see that in the end, you can complete the scenario in about 2 and a half hours, while taking plenty of time to build efficient production lines and afford a few mistakes or defeats here and there Tell me if you’ve succeeded ! Otherwise, I might make it somewhat longer, maybe 5 hours !
The scenario has just been updated guys !! Now features dialogue icons, displayed objectives and more for immersion… and it’s also a lot more polished, many bugs have been removed and the endgame has been reworked to offer more challenge: though the time-bomb mechanic has been removed, because it incentivized just waiting the final attack out without completing the objectives… this is no longer possible thanks to everyone who helped me try it out (Greywander, Badgone 21 and many more !!!) and thanks for the positive feedback !
thanks !