Clans (video game)
A 1999 action RPG with adventure elements and no leveling system.
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Roland45 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Clans is a 1999 action role-playing game from developer ComputerHouse GBG AB. It blends typical action-RPG mechanics with point-and-click adventure elements, like managing an inventory and using items on characters or objects. A Steam re-release followed in 2014.
Plot
The story takes place in a world divided into four clans: humans, barbarians, elves, and dwarfs. An evil demon once forced them into war, but was imprisoned, ending the conflict. When the demon awakens inside his prison—now overrun by his minions—the player, controlling a top warrior from one of the four clans, must enter the demon’s domain and fight through to kill him.
Gameplay
Gameplay and visuals resemble the Diablo series, but there is no leveling system. Instead, players boost attributes by collecting rings, drinking stat-raising potions, and equipping stronger weapons and armor. The four playable classes—warrior, barbarian, dwarf, and elf—share the same abilities, though each excels in one area.
The game is split into seven stages, the last being mostly a boss fight. Each stage is divided into many sectors or "rooms." Players often solve riddles or puzzles and help friendly characters. There is no town, but quest-givers and helpers appear along the way, including a wizard, old woman, blacksmith, chef, witch, and cursed warrior, plus a trader.
Some character quotes are humorous. Players can find and equip five attribute-boosting rings, and use swords, axes, shields, and armor—five types of each except for axes (only four). The core gameplay involves navigating stages, finding better gear and health potions to survive monsters ranging from weak goblin-like humanoids and trolls to dangerous black mages and knights.
Reception
Reception was lukewarm. GameZone scored it 4.7 out of 10, calling the story stock and the old-style gameplay unable to compete with that year’s better releases. IGN gave a mediocre 5.3 out of 10, describing the game as pleasant but too plain and unchallenging, especially in its RPG aspects.
Lore & Background
The world of Clans is populated by four clans: humans, barbarians, elves, and dwarfs. An evil demon once set them at war with each other, but was imprisoned, ending the conflict.
The demon later awoke within his prison, now filled with his minions. The player takes the role of one of the best warriors from the four clans and must enter the demon's domain, fighting through to the demon himself. The game concludes with the player killing the demon.
From Mainframe to Mainstream
Role-playing video games trace their lineage directly to tabletop systems like Dungeons & Dragons, borrowing terminology, fantasy settings, and core mechanics from the pen-and-paper tradition. The electronic medium essentially steps into the shoes of the human gamemaster, autonomously resolving combat and reacting to player decisions. The genre's earliest digital incarnations appeared in the mid-1970s, when developers attempted to port tabletop rules onto university mainframe computers. Those early text-based console-window experiences were decidedly niche.
The genre broke into the mainstream with console franchises such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy on the NES, while Western home-computer audiences embraced series like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Baldur's Gate. Over the decades, RPGs evolved from those simple text interfaces into visually rich three-dimensional experiences. Today the genre spans blockbuster AAA productions and dedicated niche titles alike, and independent developers have carved out their own space with critically and commercially successful games such as OFF, Undertale, and Omori.
The Engine of Growth: Progression Systems
At the heart of every role-playing game lies a positive-feedback loop: the player's character grows more powerful, enabling them to tackle tougher challenges, which in turn yields even greater power. This cycle transforms an ordinary starting figure into something akin to a superhero with extraordinary abilities, and unlike genres that hand the player their full toolkit from the outset, RPGs let the player actively choose which skills and powers to unlock. Three distinct reward structures exist.
The most widespread is the experience or level-based system, inherited from pen-and-paper games, where defeating enemies, performing class-specific tasks, and finishing quests all grant experience points that eventually trigger a level-up. The training or skill-based system, first notably implemented in Dungeon Master, rewards characters for repeatedly using a particular ability—wielding a sword long enough makes one proficient with it. The third, the skill-point or level-free system seen in titles like Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, dispenses points for quest completion that can be spent immediately on new attributes without waiting for a level threshold.
Worlds Woven in Narrative
Role-playing games are distinguished by their deeply developed stories and settings, often rooted in speculative fiction—fantasy or science fiction—that liberate players to do things impossible in reality and help them accept the rapid growth of their characters. A common narrative premise tasks the player with saving the world or some threatened level of society, and the journey is peppered with twists: estranged relatives surfacing, enemies becoming allies or the reverse.
Because the story carries so much of the entertainment weight, these games make effective use of recorded dialogue and voiceover narration, and their players tend to welcome long cutscenes more readily than fans of faster-paced genres. The genre also strives to deliver more complex, dynamic character interaction than other video game categories, placing additional emphasis on the artificial intelligence and scripted behavior of computer-controlled non-player characters. While most RPG worlds are fantastical, settings closer to the present day or a near-future are also possible, though less common.
Combat, Parties, and the Shape of Play
Combat remains a defining feature of the role-playing genre, though its expression has broadened considerably. Traditional RPGs rely on turn-based encounters that rarely test a player's physical coordination or reaction time, while action-based RPGs do exactly the opposite. Modern titles have expanded the palette further, incorporating real-time action combat, non-violent forms of conflict resolution, and in some cases eschewing combat entirely.
Players typically control a central character or a party of multiple characters, issuing commands whose effectiveness is determined by the character's numeric attributes. Victory is usually achieved by completing a series of quests or reaching the conclusion of a central storyline, all while exploring the game world, solving puzzles, and engaging in battles. The electronic medium replaces the human gamemaster found in tabletop games, autonomously resolving combat outcomes and determining how the game world responds to the player's varied choices.
Reader's Guide
Clans is notable for its combination of action role-playing gameplay with point-and-click adventure elements. The game lacks a leveling system; instead, players increase attributes by collecting rings, drinking stat-raising potions, and equipping more powerful weapons and armor. Four classes are available—warrior, barbarian, dwarf, and elf—each with the same abilities but each especially good at one. The game is split into seven stages, the seventh being mostly a boss stage, and each stage is divided into many sectors or 'rooms.' Players frequently solve riddles or puzzles and help friendly characters.
There is no town, but quest-giving characters such as a wizard, old woman, blacksmith, chef, witch, and cursed warrior appear, along with a trader. Some main character quotes are presented in a humorous style. The game's reception was modest: GameZone gave it 4.7 out of 10, stating that a stock storyline and old-style gameplay could not stand up to that year's better releases. IGN gave it 5.3 out of 10, calling it pleasant but too plain and not challenging, especially in the RPG part.
More in Role-Playing Games of the 1990s
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Clans (video game) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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