Since I’m trying to wind things down in WoW anyway, I figured it was about time to embark on something I’d meant to do for quite a while: working through whole series of games. And with Risen just recently released, I may as well do the Gothic series first (Risen isn’t technically part of it, but it’s very similar and by the same developers). This could take a while though, as they’re all fairly lengthy games…

I picked up Gothic 1 from GOG a while back, and it’s definitely hard to get into at first. The 3D graphics are really showing their age and the interface is just bizarre. The mouse only controls the camera and nothing else (there isn’t even a mouse cursor), so you have to use weird keyboard combinations, like Ctrl-Forward to activate things and talk to people, strafe left and right to move between columns in the trade screen, etc. It takes some getting used to, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.

So far I’ve been dumped into a valley sealed under a magic dome, with the job of delivering a letter to the mages. Of course it’s not that easy — I have to join a camp, work my way up through the ranks, and so on just to be able to get close to the mages. I’m in the Old Camp right now, trying to impress people so that they’ll promote me within the ranks.