With the holiday season quickly approaching (The Dame is already engaged in Halloween, which lasts the entire month of October), there is less time to roll dice with your D&D buddies each week. To scratch that dungeon-crawling itch whenever I want, Knights of Pen and Paper is the video game equivalent to sitting around a dining room table with a bunch of geeks. Just grab some Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and it’s almost like you’re really there! |
As the Dungeon Master, you guide your adventurers, such as the Nerd and the Pizza Guy, on a series of quests. Control the difficulty by adding or subtracting monsters; too few, and the players get bored, too many, and you risk a TPK! Not only can you upgrade and customize your party, but also the “table” itself, buying extras such as chips and drinks.
Each turn you can fight monsters, travel to a new location, sleep and recover your health, use items, or start a quest line. As in a typical roleplaying experience, dice rolls determine your success in many of these actions. Do well, and your buddies gain XP, money, and/or sweet loot. Beautiful pixel art sets the always-dorky scene.
The story is a minimal excuse to get everyone kicking monster butt, but there are plenty of geek/roleplaying jokes that got me to crack a smile of recognition. As with many of the roleplaying games I’ve played in real life, as the adventure goes on the settings and plot go off the rails. You start out in Default Village, which is in typical Ye Olden Medieval Fantasy Style, but the more you play, the stranger and awesomer the places and enemies get.
Knights of Pen and Paper is available for iOS, Android and PC, and the sequel is now available for all three of these platforms as well. They’re half the price on mobile stores, and the game runs fantastically on my phone, but if you want to play it on PC I suggest waiting for a sale.
Nice roll!
-The Dungeon Dame
-The Dungeon Dame