- Site: FATE
- Publisher: Encore
- Developer: WildTangent
- Genre: Role-Playing Game
Game Media
By Brad Cook
Urban planning has never been Groves strong suit. The idyllic town is nestled deep in a tranquil forest, but along its eastern border stands the forbidding Dungeon Gate, beyond which lie dozens (some even say millions) of levels of subterranean horrors. During the long, frigid winters, the townspeople regale each other with tales of the adventurers who braved those depths during the previous year. Some returned battle-hardened and much wealthier. Most were never seen again.
With your trusty pet by your side, you arrive in Grove to test your mettle and amass more riches than anyone before you. Don your armor, pick up your weapon, and learn your spells in preparation to fight orcs, goblins, skeletons, dragons, and over 100 other denizens of the depths.
Questing
Choose one of four levels of difficulty, customize your characters appearance, and decide whether you want a dog or a cat to accompany you. Your pet helps you fight monsters, but if its health drops too low, it runs away and waits for you to heal it. Make sure you buy a fishing pole from one of the vendors in Grove and go fishing in town or in the dungeon every chance you get. Feed a fish to your pet to temporarily transform it into a more powerful creature, such as a tarantula or a gargoyle.
Groves vendors are happy to sell you weapons, armor, magical scrolls and gems, restorative potions, and other necessities for your adventures. In return, theyll purchase any unwanted items you bring back from the dungeons depths; dont forget to use your pets inventory slots to increase the amount of stuff you can carry.
When you start a new game, the wizard Bremen tells you of a monster in the dungeon who must be defeated; its name, type, and location change each time. However, the creature is always a very powerful one that lives many levels below the ground, so first youll need to speak with various villagers to obtain easier quests. As you complete tasks for them, such as retrieving lost family heirlooms, theyll reward you with precious objects and experience points.
You also accumulate experience and fame points by defeating monsters. When you earn enough experience, you gain a new level and increase your strength, dexterity, vitality, and magic abilities, while new fame levels allow you to enhance your weapon and spell skills. While FATE doesnt ask you to choose a character class, such as wizard or warrior, how you develop your abilities and skills allows you to focus on one area or opt for a balanced approach. Dont forget that your pet receives experience points and becomes more powerful too.
Your Destiny
The more powerful you become, the more ways you can tweak a character to your liking. For example, many weapons and pieces of armor contain slots where you can place gems that confer offensive and defensive bonuses. If you recover a gem-encrusted item in the dungeon and decide you dont want it but desire its jeweled bonuses or the opposite look for Gann Gar and Samwen in Grove. The former can retrieve the gems, but will render the object useless, while the latter can restore the items sockets, which destroys the gems.
After you complete Bremens quest, you can continue your adventures by picking up new assignments from the townspeople, who seem to have ever-escalating problems, or you can retire your character. Retirement allows you to create a descendant who inherits one object as an heirloom and begins her story at level two. Your characters exploits also bestow his descendant with enough fame points for a higher level of renown. Future descendants get the advantage of earning higher and higher levels of experience and renown before they set foot in the dungeon.
Thus you write your exploits in Groves history books, establishing a lineage of brave adventurers whose stories will be told on those frosty evenings for many decades to come.
Game Hardware
Check out our systems for your best gaming experience.
FATE Bonus Pack
FATE includes the bonus pack, which brings additional weapons, armor, and 3 new monsters to battle.
If you liked this game, check out:
System Requirements:
- Mac OS X version 10.4
- Intel processor
- 256MB of RAM
- 32MB video RAM
- 200MB hard disk space
Cheat If You Must
Even the bravest magic-users and fighters need some help every now and then. Just dont tell Bremen what you did.
To enable cheats in FATE, hold down the Control, Shift, and Tilde (~) keys simultaneously. Youll see a question mark on the screen. Type any of the codes below, in upper or lowercase, and press Return. Youll see the effects right away. Dont forget to insert something in place of the descriptions in brackets.
While your character cant progress beyond level 99, he can still earn experience and enhance his abilities and skills. He can also progress deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Bear in mind, however, that all numbers in FATE have a limit 2,147,483,647 whether youre referring to dungeon levels, life points, or other statistics. As detailed in this WildTangent forum topic, the game will run into serious errors if you go beyond it. Of course, youll have to do quite a bit of adventuring to get that far.
Some of the codes below allow you to summon an object or a creature. For lists of such things, the FATE reference site contains a treasure trove of information, while another post on the WildTangent forum details all of the artifacts in the game
The Codes
fame Add 1,000 fame points
experience Add 5,000 experience points
ascend [number] Climb a specific number of levels in the dungeon, rather than having to trudge your way to the stairs in each one; if you enter a number equal to the level youre currently on, youll return to Grove
descend [number] For when youd rather go deeper into the dungeon
fountain of [name] Insert health, mana or stamina (without quotes) to create a restorative fountain for that statistic, or insert wellness for one that replenishes health and mana; these fountains are scattered around the dungeon, but theyre often not nearby when youre in the middle of a vicious battle
shrine of learning A shrine appears; it will positively or negatively affect your statistics
fate statue Summon a statue that either unleashes a monster or gives you two random bonus gems
magic anvil Place a weapon on the anvil and it will gain a random positive or negative magical effect
gold Pocket a cool 500,000 gold pieces
levelup Gain one experience level
god Gain ten experience levels while your pet earns eight
heal Restore your health
discoverall Reveal the map for the current dungeon level
[monster name] Insert the name of a monster and it will appear next to you; luckily, it will be of a comparable level
[item name] Summon an object, such as a super health potion or a particular artifact