Not much to report recently, as I’ve been either busy or just grinding along in King’s Bounty. I’ve finished up nearly all of the quests and monsters in the starting area, though a few are still too tough for now. I’ve moved on to the surrounding forest and swamp areas and am still working on clearing out monsters and quests there. The difficulty varies a lot, so I have to run around looking for appropriate-level fights and being a bit careful, since the numbers of reinforcements I can hire are dwindling.

Along the way I had the opportunity to buy back the zombie wife of a robber I helped out, but I think I’ll pass on her for now… I also almost forgot about the Chest of Rage, and unlocked two of the monsters in it, though the other two will apparently still take some work.

I’m level 6 now, and the main things still left to do are to clear out the crypts in the swamps, a large island full of griffins, and the king’s main mission to another island.

In King’s Bounty tonight, I actually first went and redid the tutorial quests quickly, just so I could make a better choice for my first level-up bonus (minor Leadership bumps won’t be that useful in the long run). I then immediately did the king’s main quests to get the Chest of Rage, which contains four demons, and now I have to do quests for them in order to ‘activate’ them and get their assistance. Fortunately I’d heard ahead of time that it’s best to do this part right away, since the demons level up with you.

Their quests are a bit tougher than I can handle right now though, so I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up easier fights and minor quests in the starting area of Greenwort, including a trip into a cave to defeat some werewolves that resulted in my first defeat. Fortunately the enemies retain their losses, so I recruited another army and went back to clean up the rest of them.

And tonight I finally got around to starting King’s Bounty. It’s a modern remake of an old game of the same name, but I wasn’t familiar with it, so to me it’s mostly similar to how the Heroes of Might and Magic games work. (Which isn’t surprising, since HoMM was influenced by the original King’s Bounty…)

It’s mainly a tactical battle game, pitting your recruited units and hero against various enemies that you encounter as you wander around exploring and completing quests, with some RPGish elements in how you upgrade your own character and perform quests for people. Unlike the HoMM games, you only control your one hero and his ‘stack’ of units.

I’ve gone with a mage character, and so far, all I’ve had time for is the tutorial quests, and I will start in earnest tomorrow.