Ataraxia Theatre

File this one under “if you get the joke, you got the joke”.

Bay 12 Games is probably best know for Dwarf Fortress, in much the same way as Peter Jackson is best known for the Lord of the Rings movies. They aren’t known for Slaves to Armok: God of Blood in much the same way as Mr. Jackson isn’t known for Meet the Feebles.

Armok was a highly ambitious project. It was in a similar vein to Spore, but bloodier and far more complex. This would have been a difficult project for an established game company to pull off; for two brothers working mostly by themselves to have gotten as far as they did is nothing short of amazing.

I used to read the updates for Armok back when there used to be updates. The right side of my brain thought that this would be the greatest roguelike ever. The left side, though, worried that there were serious problems with the project. It was too big, too unfocused. For all the details and options being added, would there emerge a game worth playing or merely a Rube Goldberg contraption to put on a shelf and admire from afar?

Reading about Armok convinced me to restrain myself when designing my own games. That’s right, folks- GearHead is a minimalist design compared to how it would’ve been if I added everything I wanted. It apparently also convinced the Bay 12 guys of that, since their next project (Dwarf Fortress) was basically a scaled back version of Armok.

I’ve got a lot of respect for Tarn and Zach, and they’re on my short list of game designers I’d like to invite over for an evening of dakkalbi and discussion. Afterwards I could show them Meet the Feebles. I think they’d enjoy it.

Tags: bay 12 games, short subjects, slaves to armok

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