Surviving the Game as a Barbarian

I’ve liked games since I was young.

The reason is simple.

Since I was always in the hospital when I was a kid, there was naturally nothing to do but play games, and as time passed, games became a part of my life.

But if you do anything for a long time, you will get bored and tired.

“Oh, shit… what’s this AI thinking? Why are you giving a Heal there?”

After some time, no matter what game I played, it wasn’t as enjoyable as before.

It wasn’t a matter of genre – be it AOS, RPG, or FPS.
It was all the same.

All the games that came out every year were like garbage.
The story and worldview adhered to the norm, and the system lacked depth.

I wanted a game with something a little more special.

Then I discovered [Dungeon and Stone].

Tadadat.
Click, click.

The genre was single player RPG.

It was an overseas indie game.

There was no Korean language support, and it used 2D pixel graphics, which had already become rare.

To be honest, it was far from my usual fare.

Still, it was free, so I installed the game to give it a try, and soon I fell in love with it.

“Wow, I almost got killed like a newbie.”

It was a unique game in many ways.

When your character died, you had to start again from scratch.

NPC companions were essential for making progress, and the degree of freedom was also extremely high for a vertical scroller type game.

The skill system and worldview were also attractive, and the story was interesting even though I had to read it in English.

Crucially, I could feel something unknown but special in this game.

Tada-dat, tick-tap.

I, who at the time had just started as a service worker assigned to the subway, began to delve into [Dungeon and Stone] in earnest.

It wasn’t easy.

Combat in this game was not simply done with HP/MP.

Even with full HP, if there is one misjudgement, the character that has been painstakingly nurtured for three months can disappear.

“… Let’s go.”

I couldn’t even get to the mid-game for over two years, so I gave up my pride and searched for a strategy guide.

I couldn’t find any on the Korean portals, so I had to translate and read them from foreign sites, but even that didn’t mean much.

There were not many users abroad either, so there were few related articles with no useful information.

Rather than those who played it for a month or two and called it ruined game, I, who had been seriously exploring this game for two years, had a much better understanding.

So I stopped looking for a strategy.

“Three times up, four times to the left, once down, twice to the left, six times to the top, four times to the right.
Finally, avoid the trap… okay.”

Wasn’t this the only game I finally found while searching for one I could actuall