Over a year and a half ago, Goldtree Enterprises completed work on and began selling KINGSPOINT', a "Role Playing Computer Application for the Game Master & Fully Developed Fantasy City." At the time, when the explosion of the personal computer population has occurred and portable computers were few and far between, Goldtree took a risk in making their major product a $49.95 piece of software that is only more useful than a paper RPG supplement when the GM has a computer in the living room, garage, attic, or wherever gainers might sit down.
You see, KINGSPOINT is an active city. It does not sit there as a simple database, but lets time pass, and as the game time clock runs, NPCs come in and out of buildings, trigger events the GM set up earlier, and so forth. KINGSPOINT's main duty, in addition to being an excellent resource of hundreds of detailed NPCs, is to simulate the PCs traveling through a city. Does Ragnok the Dwarf, party leader, tell the GM that they leave the Orc Fall Inn in time to avoid overhearing a snide comment from the bartender? Does the party bump into a disguised assassin on the way out? Once the GM sets these special encounters, in addition to the ones provided with the program, the GM is no longer bound by his memory limitations or the disorganized binder of notes he made for the night's game.
Such was KINGSPOINT 1.0 in 1993. Around early to mid-'94, the split between the city data of KINGSPOINT and the software that did the main work was made. Goldtree advertised "The Goldtree Engine'": Role Playing Computer Application for the Game Master" and "KINGSPOINT Version 2.0 free with purchase of The Goldtree Engine." This was the first version I was able to put on my (at the time) new 486 PC. Goldtree had sent us a review copy, and for the time, it was good, but showing age. Version 1.0 didn't even require color graphics. Version 2.0 wanted at least EGA, and would run 16color VGA.
City navigation became much easier. Now, there was mouse support, and one could move around the city with a click of the movable block cursor, use pull down menus, and so forth. The city felt a bit more real, with expanded NPC descriptions, better support for GM notes to keep track of PCs and the rules system being used via the pull- down menus, and windows that didn't take up the entire screen in some cases.
Kingspoint the city, that is, the fiction-al history of the city and its inhabitants is good. There are many great ideas in there for a GM to get a Hook from and write his own Line and Sinker. On the other hand, there are also many stereotyped characters and situations. One Temple Seductress, for example, has every single facet of the character description relating to her profession. No other interests, just repetition of the facts of her job. Such characters are a minority in the population of hundreds of characters, but the lack of adventure seeds in otherwise-important characters is obvious to the GM.
Later there were add-ons for KINGS, POINT such as Demon Tower and other companion products such as Hudson City, a license from Hero Games for the city of their Dark Champions- RPG line.
Now, in 1995, Goldtree has made "The Roleplaying Software Company." I don't know how much the programming team changed, but the improvement is obvious in their product: KINGSPOINT For Windows. Let me say that I am really, really pleased with this product. While the RPG info for the city hasn't changed much, the interface is hugely improved, and is a joy to use. I saunter over to the cutting edge of technology whenever resources permit me, and, one year ago, my system was top of the line: a 66Mhz 486 PC, great video card, soundblaster 16, double-speed CD-ROM, 16M RAM, and a crisp 17" monitor. KINGSPOINT is now taking full advantage of my system with its new Windows version on CD-ROM (only) that takes about 16M of hard drive space. Whether as a window or full-screen application, KINGSPOINT runs very fast, uses 256 colors, sounds, and has a user friendly interface. I'd be scared to see it on a Pentium. It might go faster than light and create a black hole in my computer, right next to the one my wallet is endlessly being sucked into. KINGSPOINT also now greets you with a better introduction graphic and the growl of the Demon whose hand holds the crystal ball that views KINGSPOINT.
While, I'm a self-admitted computer geek, anyone who can use a mouse can use KINGSPOINT with ease. As one can see from the first screen shot, the program is set up as four 'page dividers.' One just clicks on the section one needs, the screen changes, and one immediately begins using the options there.
I went in without reading any instructions (installing a Windows program is a no brainer) and found that the program has helpful prompts on each page so you know how to do the obvious.
KINGSPOINT starts up in the 2nd divider (from left to right), so I clicked on 'Navigation' and found a large map of the city divided into sections. "Double click a map square to zoom" the page read to me, so I did, entering the temple district, K55. As I moved the mouse pointer around the map, a text box on the bottom changed to tell me what I was currently 'pointing at. "Double-click to travel" the page read once more, so I looked around, and saw, "The Temple of Seth." That sounded like an interesting place for a party of adventurers to enter, so my brave band of ... zero adven. turers? Well, I haven't created them yet, but I'll go in anyway. Lo and behold, the divider changes from Navigation to Location.
There's a lot of data on the screen, including a spot that tells me no computer art has been assigned to this location. (Other places, such as some Inns, have a picture of an Inn assigned) But, what's this? A clock is running in the upper right, and on the bottom fifth of the window, NPCs are coming and going! If only my party were here at midnight, they might see a Raving Prophet or a Mounted Mercenary. (Neither has a graphic assigned; with a bazillion inhabitants, a picture for every random guy with a name, even for the ones with major descriptions, would be a lot of data.) Behind the NPCs, Clouds! the weather is now visually apparent instead of just words on the screen, and changes as time passes.
A GM might say, "You had better find someplace else to go. The temple is damp, and it's cloudy out. It could rain." Since the time progression can be adjusted from one game second passing for every second to ten game minutes per second, the GM can control the flow of the encounters and weather as needed. Naturally, a GM who doesn't like anyone, even a computer, advising him or her on what to do can sim. ply use the information as much or as little as s/he wants, but it is a nice tool and it's much less work to let this roleplaying aid do its job. Why else would one have paid for it in the first place?
After looking through the Temple of Seth, one can go back to Navigation, following the on-screen prompts, and visit other areas. There's a wealth of information to be read and enjoyed, especially in the presentation format of a Windows application. Once you've sated yourself on building descriptions and histories, it's time to double-click on one of those characters that appear in the bottom fifth of the window.
I clicked on one while in the temple and found "Egyptian Religious Figure." As KINGSPOINT moved me to the 'Character' divider, I find that he wields a curved two- handed sword, carries a con, cealed crossbow with poisoned quarrels, has a pointed hood, and reacts to me in an excited manner, among other details. Thinking he's perhaps a bit too triggerhappy, I move off to examine the fourth divider, 'Multimedia.'
Multimedia is the testing ground for the GM who wants to try new wav sound files, new.pcx graphics files so he has pictures to show the players, and otherwise fiddle around. Checking the list of 'sound libraries, I use the one they have provided, 'Samples', and once again hear the growl of the demon as I entered KINGSPOINT, as well as a cash register, a man and a parrot arguing, many sounds from a inn's bar, and the 'Welcome to Kingspoint' spiel from the party's guide, Noladar. I spent some time checking the results of tying inappropriate sounds to characters or events, and the results were most humorous. You see, I used wav files from the game Civilization' for Windows'", which allowed me to set off a nuclear bomb when the archmage walked in, play American marching band to music announce the Seductress of Seth, etc. Your limitations are only what you can record with a microphone (or better equipment) or get off of on-line services or the internet. I think the Simpsons' sound effects library works better in Doom though.
Still, the brave adventuring party marches through the halls of mist, searching for the assassin who killed the romantic young couple at the mansion, only to hear, "The Simpsons!" followed by Bart's hideows laugh. A GM might get a couple of good laughs before he realizes he was disemboweled, from the back, by his own players.
KINGSPOINT for windows also has buttons and menus for other functions, which maintain its status as the premier GM Utility. Roll any kind of dice, define procedures to roll dice for character attributes to get stats for PCs and NPCs on the fly! Take notes, search for specific text files, print out character and building details, add to character details and journals as you like, stop or start time as slow or as fast as you want to generate weather. Type in a new date and/or time, import pictures sounds, and create events your players will remember. With a microphone for your sound card, you could record a player's rendition of his character's death scream secretly, and play it back for other players while you keep each player unaware of what happens to the others unless s/he can see or hear something.
When you combine all of these abilities with the lovingly detailed gargantuan city that is Kingspoint, you take the adventure so much further. Since you can change every detail, theoretically, you could rewrite the entire city so that you use KINGSPOINT the program, but (for example) Soult Tet the city. Inserting your own city map is not an option unless you can get that level of programming detail from Goldtree, but the existing map is quite useful. As long as you can deal with the geography, Kingspoint could become TSR's Waterdeep-, Judges' Guild's City, State of the Invincible Overlord'" (since acquired by TSR or someone else) or any other richly detailed city, if a GM applies his typing talents skillfully. Since the CD, ROM is not needed after installation, a GM could install it multiple times to have several cities, except...
The one major flaw that I was surprised to see stay in from our pre-release copy, was that even though you can install it to any directory, the program only looks for certain art, sound, map, etc. files in a single, hard-coded directory: C:\KPWIN. This means that if you want the program anywhere else, another hard drive (like D: or E:) or another directory, you need to delete the list of pictures and sounds one by one on the Multimedia divider, (something I decided wasn't worth the hassle) and hope nothing else is needed. When I installed KINGSPOINT to my D: drive under OS/2's windows emulation (KINGSPOINT runs just fine under OS/2, except for one bug I'll detail later) the program came up, but couldn't find any of the picture files and would occasionally crash.
It's possible that until new CD,ROMs are burned, one may not be able to run KINGSPOINT from any other directory than C:\KPWIN. This bug will not prevent you from enjoying the program, unless you are like a friend of mine, whose C: is for DOS and Windows only, and doesn't have anywhere near 16 megabytes free. (A common practice in the days before 1,000 megabytes could be had for $350.) He will have to do some lengthy repartitioning and backing up data before he will be able to use KINGSPOINT. He has the room, just on D: instead of C:.
Some final technical points; there were no bugs when run in Windows 3.11. When run in OS/2 Fullpack (Windows support included), sometimes the program gives "No property value" and quits when you double-click an area from the navigation map, but only when the window is maximized. It works just fine when it's the default window size. I've got no clue what the difference is, and it works fine as a window or maximized under Windows 3.11, so it's probably just some little quirk no one could predict. It's likely in IBM's WinOS/2 code somewhere, some .001% imperfection in making Windows code run under OS/2.
My recommendation: If you can get a cheap 486 portable (under $1,000) or can lug your computer near the gaming table, it's a worthwhile product to have. Even without using the city, the GM aids are great, and it has things automatically organized by windows. Using Windows 3.1, one could simply have several text editor windows running, each on a different file, but that's a bit of a hassle when you can just have KINGSPOINT do it all for you. There are some people with portable computers and at least a 256-color or grayscale display that live by KINGSPOINT for all their needs in notes, dice, etc. Of course, they spent a grand or two for the computer, $49.95 for KINGSPOINT, and however much to charge the batteries on the computer. I would not recommend that someone spend $1,000 or $2,000 to get a PC that can run KINGSPOINT, but if you already have the computer, and most of us gainers, do, then KINGSPOINT is a great bargain. You might find a die-roller here, a character generator there among the vari, ous BBSs and the Internet, but KINGSPOINT is all that and so much more, done at far greater quality.
If your computer is an older model, or you don't have a CD-ROM, you can always order the older, disk-based DOS version. The older version just needed a 12Mhz 286, DOS 3.1, EGA, a little bit of hard drive space, and not even a mouse (though it's really good to have). It's not discounted as far as I know, but there are still copies to be ordered from Goldtree, even though it's not advertised.
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