Pools of Darkness

Pools of Darkness is a role-playing video game published by Strategic Simulations in 1991. It is the fourth (and final) entry in the Pool of Radiance series of Gold Box games, and the story is a continuation of the events of the third game, Secret of the Silver Blades. Like the previous games in the series, it is set in the Forgotten Realms, a campaign setting from Dungeons & Dragons. Players must stop an invasion from an evil god, eventually traveling to other dimensions to confront his lieutenants.

The cover art and introduction screen shows female drow though it is unclear who in the gameworld they represent. The novel Pools of Darkness, loosely based on the game, was released in 1992.

Story

The party starts their adventure in the city of Phlan, charged with the task to safely escort Council Member Sasha on a diplomatic mission. Upon leaving the city, Lord Bane, along with four of his lieutenants, claims the entire land of Faerûn as his own, and magically teleports, destroys, and removes many cities off the face of the land.

The goal of the game is to systematically restore order to the realms by destroying Bane's minions one by one, and returning light and order to the land plunged in darkness.

Combat in Pools of Darkness, especially late in the story, differed greatly from the encounters of the previous games. The player's characters faced some of the toughest creatures in the AD&D universe, in addition to a number of new and formidable critters created specifically for the game, such as the Pets of Kalistes (intelligent magic spiders that can see invisible enemies and whose venomous bite had a -2 save) and the Minions of Bane (which have the magic resistances of demons and the breath weapons of dragons).

The game was by far the most extensive of any of the series, in storyline depth and possibilities of advancement and equipment. The game also featured better graphics at the time as it supported VGA 256 colors instead of 16. Another minor difference is the font used in the game is less stylish, but easier to read.

Differences between versions

In the Amiga version, scrolls could be joined into bundles, while the MS-DOS version didn't feature this option. Also games could be loaded in the camp menu of the Amiga version. MS-DOS users had to restart or enter a training hall and remove all their characters from the party to load a game.

Game credits

Game creation: SSI Special Projects Group
Developer: Ken Humphries, Dave Shelley
IBM Programmers: Russ Brown, Jim Jennings, Kerry Bonin
Music: "The Fat Man", Dave Govett
Testers: Phil Alne, John Kirk, Andre Vrignaud, Brian Lowe, Alan Marenco, Glen Cureton, Mike Balajadia
Artists: Maurine Starkey, Richard Payne, Fred Butts, Jean Xiong, Mike Provenza, Cyrus Harris, Ed Trillo, Kevin Thompson, Laura Bowen, Mike Nowak, Mark Johnson
Encounter Authors: Chris Carr, Ken Eklund, Lori White, Tom Ono, Gary Shockley, Dave Georgeson, Cynthia Hwang

Reception

Pools of Darkness was much less successful than the first Gold Box games, with SSI selling 52,793 copies. Pools of Darkness was reviewed in 1992 in Dragon #178 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. In Computer Gaming World, Scorpia found the game enjoyable, with better graphics than in the prior Gold Box games. She criticized the "lame ending", annoying sounds,

Jim Trunzo reviewed Pools of Darkness in White Wolf #31 (May/June, 1992) and stated that "The system is cleaner, quicker, easier to understand and better to look at and listen to. The adventure's plot is deep and believable, its scope is large and varied, and its monsters numerous and deadly. What more can a guy (or girl) ask for?"

According to GameSpy, while "not remembered as the most memorable of the Forgotten Realms Gold Box games, but it was definitely worth playing back then, if you braved the previous three installments".

References

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External links

Lost Citadel for Pools of Darkness