A Tale In the Desert

Played in Tale 2 & 3 (then got too busy).

It's a game that needs to be played relatively hardcore - or at least it used to back then.

The biggest stuff I ever did was the test of the bedouin. For those of you who never did, here's how it goes:
- There's over 100 Altars spread all over the map (and no, there's no game map that shows them)
- You can use cactus sap to "anoint" the altar
- Only the last 3 people who anoint are counted, whenever you do your sap spread, you knock out the oldest one
- At the end of the day, the 3 people with the highest numbers of altars get 1 point
- You pass when you have 7 points

You needed a list of at least 2/3 of the altars. And you ran across the map, putting your sap. It usually took you 6 or 7 hours since not only was the map huge, some of those were in complicated places. And you ran again the next day, and the day after because people kept putting sap, knocking you out of altars. So basically, you took a 2 week holiday to run.

That was ONE test. There are 7 tests for 7 disciplines - the obvious goal is to become Oracle of a Discipline, that is, complete the 7 tests of a particular discipline.


Almost all tests involve combat-less competition, but some involve cooperation. Or both.


The test of the Pyramid for instance is a race that requires help. Your goal is to build a pyramid by excavating blocks, and dragging them across the place. But a pyramid counts ONLY if it is 1 block higher than every pyramid in the area. So the first lucky guy can build one with only 5 blocks, but the next one requires 16, and the one after 41, and so on. And moving a block for a yard can be done only one per minute, so you need a hauler team or it takes months (while others make higher and higher pyramids).

The test of the Demi-Pharaoh was insane. It was an election. You got thrown in a pool of people, and voted. The person elected went on the pool of winners, and they voted again. The winner of the election passed the test - and had the power to BAN one person of their choice. As in ban, account wiped. No recourse.


What make the Tale different is that there's 49 tests, they all use different mechanics (ranging from relatively easy to insane ones) and almost nobody ends up becoming Oracle ("win" the game).

It's a massively social game. You do need other people to advance; playing entirely solo is ok but limited.

The big difference is the sheer amount of different mechanics involved. And it was mostly developed by one person.