Dream On Gamers

Like the game he created, Brian Jamison's own dream of bringing a real role-playing game to an online audience is fulfilled today when Lyra Studio's game, Underlight, launches on Mplayer. The game is set in a universe of consciousness where players interact with each other through their dreams. Inspiration for the game evolved from Jamison's experience playing other computer role-playing games.

"I'm so sick of elves, orcs, and avatars in chain mail bikinis. I figured that we're creative creatures and we should be able to come up with something different," said Jamison. And he believes he's done that with Underlight.

Instead of creating an extensive back story and putting players into a world already populated with a host of characters and preset adventures, everything that happens in Underlight is determined by the players - including whether or not other players advance. And except for a few monsters (referred to as nightmares), every character a player encounters is another person and not an NPC (nonplayer character).

This is part of the reason why Jamison believes he's created the first online role-playing game.

"When you know that everyone in the game is also a real person, it forces you to role-play," said Jamison.

Jamsion's position on player killing or PKing is also different. In Underlight, killing other players is permitted, provided players meet one important condition. "You can attack anyone you want to, but you'd better have an in-character reason for doing so," says Jamison.

Some rational reasons include someone has challenged your honor, someone is about to do something that your character does not believe is right, or you have been threatened by another player. This point is eloquently driven home by an explanation in the player's guide posted on Lyra Studios' web site:

Note that "my character is a serial killer or a psychopath" is not a valid game reason to attack other players - if you want to frag, just play Quake. It's a far better game for frag fests.

Although Jamison created a very open-ended game, there are three rules to abide by when playing: Players must stay in character, they must respect others, and cheating or hacking is not allowed. And players who do not abide by the rules will be removed from the game.

Playing Underlight requires a free Mplayer.com account. During its premiere on the service, which will run for the next 30 days, it will be free to all Mplayer.com members. And those who sign up for the game during this premiere period will receive an additional 30 days of unlimited gameplay. After that, players will be charged US$14.95 a month for the game. Players who sign up for the game after the premiere period will receive ten free hours of gameplay before being charged a monthly rate of $14.95.

While $14.95 a month may seem a little steep for an online-only game, considering the fact that you don't have to buy the game (the 20 meg download is free) and that if you sign up now you can get 60 days of free unlimited gameplay before you have to pay, it's actually a pretty good deal.