Hello!

I think of this as the perfect kind of game to appeal to GOGgers. Isometric. A gauntlet for a mouse pointer. Pixelated. Intrusive UI. But most of all Difficult Long cRPG.

Here are the rules:

1. Be a human - or at least half-human. Come back, Thespian!
2. You may only enter for yourself, but you can do anything you want with you winnings.
3. Say you are in if you are in.
4. Write a paragraph - at least 5 sentences - on what you love about a specific RPG from back in the day. (The time period is not strictly defined, but if you write about The Witcher 1 I will tell you to get off my lawn and I will disqualify you.)
5. The contest will end sometime Sunday Sep 30 Eastern Standard Time (I believe that is Dateline -5 hrs.)
6. Whatever important rule I forgot is hereby covered.

Cheers!

Hi, misteryo! Thank you for the giveaway! I'm in.

My immersion into cRPG genre began with Baldur's Gate. Despite it's flaws it is still one of my favorite games. I remember one funny situation that I haven't seen in any of modern RPGs yet: I was on one quest and was questioning a npc about some rumors related to that quest, and suddenly evil characters in my party just began to arguing with a good characters.. They ended up fighting each other. All I could do is chew my popcorn. Unfortunately, I lost some good guys then. I hope some day I could play a party-based RPG with the same level of character relationship inside my party.

that reminds me of a moment in my favorite game Arcanum, when Virgil, my trusty companion from the very beginning, suddenly left me to go off and do his own quest. !!!

Did he come back?

Not in but thanks for the giveaway and the great memories of Thespian!

You can find him again and help him finish his quest.

I am in. Thanks for the GA!

I have fond memories of Betrayal at Krondor. I came across the game on a CD from a gaming magazine and I was hooked instantly. The world felt differently and was fully fleshed out (of course, it was based on a series of books), which really helped the immersion. Story was great, turn-based combat and interesting spell system, what do you need more. The magazine version came with a game-breaking bug so I was never able to finish it. Then, years later I came across GOG and BaK became one of my first purchases here. But that is another story...

Thanks for the giveaway, misteryo! You're the best!

I'm in but not for the game code. Serpent in the Staglands has been collecting dust in my library for too long, so if I win:
-Reroll the prize to someone else.
-I will inmediately start playing the game, and promise to finish it.
-I will change my hideous avatar for a Staglands related one. :)

As an old school AD&D player, my first computer RPGs were Dark Queen of Krynn and Eye of the Beholder
EotB was specially fun. I remember it was such a bad Spanish translation that reading the texts in Spanish was indeed one of the funniest parts of the game. And being able to move and flee when your whole party was paralized (This glitch was removed in the 2nd game of the series). Oh! And I also managed to kill all the friendly dwarves in level 5 and still have access to the dwarvish cleric by throwing rations at them.

To anyone who will start the game: BE CAREFUL!
Do not tackle missions blindly and don't be experience or cash thirsty. Some of the most rewarding missions might come back to bite you when you expect it the least, and the consequences can be nefarious. Seriously.
There is nothing you cannot guess, but there is also no hand-holding, so you have to make wise decisions.

So kitties and bunnies are out. That is so very speciesist.

Good giveaway.

I'm in.

I started to play RPG from Diablo II, so not a very many years ago. But my love from that era is always Divine Divinity. My AMD Duron and GEforce II MX 400 (not a powerhouse in any way) play it flawlessy. The twin teleporter stone, the haystack and that any kind of container can be used as a permanent storage is a great touch. I love how you can pay a street performer to distract a shop owner and snag a powerfull dagger. It was not balanced though, with an overpowered scorpion traps. One exploit that I really remember is that there are a certain safe distance where you can hurt the enemies from fighting back with the combo of bow and freeze. And everyone of my friends that play it by recs all enjoy it. Larian Studios learned and built from it and set to become a great RPG devs around.

I remember that. My friend at the time was like "He can DO that?!" LOL. Fun times!

I think one of my favorite memories comes from Lands of Lore 1. I was playing and had entered a new zone and suddenly there was a roar and the whole screen visuals shook. It was the first time I recall seeing a game actually have that. It probably didn't help that we were in California at the time. Both my wife (who was side-seat watching) and I jumped and then had to check if it was an earthquake tremor. Our cat at the time was lying on the bed staring at us like we were crazy. (Well, we were a couple of crazy gamers.) :D I think that game is the one that really got us hooked on RPGs.

Not in, but +1 for the memory and a very cool giveaway. Good luck to the entrants!

Not in but thanks for the giveaway. :)

My childhood began more with adventure games, so I didn't really get into RPGs until later. My intro was with a game that most "hardcore" RPG fans would pooh-pooh at: the Quest for Glory series. Following that, approximately chronologically, Geneforge games, Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, until finally, I found Morrowind, the pinnacle of it all :D.

Morrowind was awesome. You had so much freedom to do what you wanted. It was almost like a sandbox before sandbox games were actually a thing, but it wasn't boring like most sandbox games, because you always had something you wanted to do. It was a sandbox in the sense that it gave you bunch of rules, and then you followed those, or found ways to exploit those and dance around them while still being within the rules. You wanted to cast Bound Armour, and then throw your armour to the ground, pick it up, and keep it permanently? Sure (until they patched that out). You want to buy a bunch of intelligence potion ingredients, make a few, drink them, boost your intelligence then make superintelligence potions in an exponential crazy potion frenzy? Sure! You want to go to the top of a tower the height of which was just lower than enough to seriously hurt you, fall off, go back, fall off, go back, fall off, until you were super acrobatic? Sure!
And then there's the game world- even today, aside from the character models, I'd say it holds up because it is so unique and full of personality. I can make my way around Balmora or Vivec blindfolded even after all these years.

EDIT: Oh, I'm not in, I don't know much about Serpent of the Staglands, so it'd be unfair for me to get it compared to someone who really wants it.

Unlike what some users may think of me so far in the forum, I'm not greedy for every game giveaway. lol.

Not In.

But good luck all. Sounds like another interesting giveaway.