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■ Dungeons & Dragons
Just to give you an idea, the first RPG (Role Playing Game) that I can remember playing was Bard’s Tale II and Bards Tale III. Back in those days, there were no automapping. I had to buy gridpapers and drew my own maps. When I graduated to Dungeon and Dragons, Wizardry, Might and Magic III (and its World of Xeen), I was hooked on these games. today.

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

I have a funny story about Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. I originally paid full price for the Collector’s Edition of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor in 2001, at COMP USA, so I can get a free Dungeon & Dragons: Player’s Handbook (this is a promotional exclusive to the store and not part of the Collector’s Edition). As you guessed, the game was one of the first (if not the first?) game to utilize Third Edition Rules.

Dungeon & Dragons Players Handbook (3rd Edition Rules)

Unfortunately, the janky UbiSoft DRM, that came with the game – it rendered my computer unbootable. I just confirmed this, but there is a bug in the game that would remove Windows system files. I immediately returned the game and got a refund, but kept the book as a consolation prize. I still have it to this day, in pristine condition.

Stormfront Studios remastered and is re-releasing the game for November 6, 2026. Ahead of the game’s release, Stormfront released a demo for me to check out.

After spending hours min-maxing my four characters (I guess you can recruit two more characters), I was ready to finally play Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor… 25 years in anticipation.

Despite remastering the game for the modern computer, and taking advantage of high resolution in ultra-wide… The game, I hate to say it, just based on the demo, is really not that great.

It just looks like a game from 2001, but with modern graphics. I did not like the movement (pathfinding). Lots of text (in tiny fonts). It’s just not exciting to play.

I don’t know what the final price for the full game will cost… but I feel if it’s more than $30, it’s not worth it, for such an old game. I may end up buying it, if it’s on sale or steep discount, for nostalgia’s sake. But at the moment, I’m really not that interested in playing Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor.

Rejected Draft

This early access game Rejected Draft will be released on November 11, 2026. I know the old saying, never judge a book by its cover… but just based on the crudely drawn black & white art, I probably wouldn’t be interested in a game like this.

The concept of the game is that you are a rejected idea and tossed in the trash. You must fight other ideas to become stronger. To start, you have to fight a stick man. He has two health and you easily defeat him, earning pencil points. You save up your points to buy various upgrades, like better attack or health.

Once you unlock the auto-challenge and auto-retry, you really don’t need to actively monitor the game. You just let it run in the background to earn more pencil points so you can upgrade your rejected character.

Earlier, when I was turned off by the crude art… it doesn’t really matter, because most of the time I never even look at the battle or the characters I’m defeating. I just let it run in the background and wait until I earned enough points to upgrade my character. I’m not sure what the limitation of the demo is, compared to the full game, but it just seems like this is pretty much the gameplay. Just let it auto battle and check back to reap the reward and upgrade your character.

I think the biggest problem is sometime the next level is so steep. For example, I want to get the Wax on Wax for 500 Wax… but right now I only have 79 Wax and it hasn’t increased in a long time. I’m slowly earning the pencil points (I guess they officially called it Graphite) so I’m just waiting for enough points to buy the next upgrade.

If you want to check out the game, head out to Steam.