Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is a 2010 iOS game. Its backstory has the mankind tunnel underground after the surface was rendered uninhabitable by the nuclear holocaust, carving out caverns and towns called Vaults. While down there, they rediscovered Steam power, and rebuilt civilization. Several expeditions were led to the surface eons later, where it was discovered that Fae Folk (elves) have inhabited the surface now. After a war, an uneasy truce has been forged, allowing humans to re-colonize the surface. Players take control of Rose Cristo, a red-haired treasure hunter and adventurer, on a quest to... well... hunt treasure. Along the way, she discovers her true identity, and gets entangled in a larger conspiracy that threatens to destroy both humans and the Fae.
Gameplaywise, it bills itself as a "steampunk adventure game using dice". In short, it's a turn-based role-playing game with two hub towns, and several dungeons. Battles are turn-based affairs determined almost entirely by rolls of dice. Getting more proficient in your class' method of attack will give you more dice to roll per attack, granting the possibility of more devastating damage. The dice, despite being 6-sided, have only four possible outcomes: a skull (which counts as a hit), a double skull (critical hit), shield (cancels out one of the opponent's skulls when throwing for defense), and an X (miss/failed block).Certain skills can modify the dice so that when rolling for attack, all shields count as double skulls, for example.
The game features three classes: the melee-focused Barbarian, the pistol-wielding Assassin, and the magic-using Shaman. Instead of being locked into one class from the start, players are allowed to pursue any combination of the skill trees, or all three at once, though this will make for a weaker hybrid character instead of a potent specialized one. The game has a cookie-cutter story riddled with cliches and tropes, and mostly serves as an excuse to get you into the dungeons and experience some dice-rolling goodness. Rimelands won many perfect and near-perfect scores from gaming review sites, as well as the 2010 Unity Award for Best Mobile Game, and Slide To Play's Game of the Month for September 2010.
This series features examples of:
- Action Girl: Rose, the Player Character.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Steam. It powers practically everything, and even a few weapons you acquire are implied to be steam-powered.
- Arbitrary Gun Power: The Assassin's pistol attacks. Although with a certain combination of skills and enough ranged dice, their guns become pretty dang close to the real thing.
- Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Averted, since if you plan to play a magic-using class, you can still wear heavy armor. Although magic-users will still stick to lighter armor, since it usually offers bonuses to your magic abilities anyway.
- Artificial Stupidity: Most of the mooks and some bosses are like this, in that you can get their attention and get them to chase you. Eventually when they reach a certain distance, they will stop, stand there for a round, and turn back, allowing you to get in a few free shots. This even works on some bosses, and makes battles ridiculously easy.
- Big Bad: Hermann, and it's more or less spelled out very early on in the game. He's after the Hammer of Thor, which he will use to wipe out the Fae and rule the world! MWAHAHAHA!
- Bonus Dungeon: After finishing the game, you're teleported to a new world map, and can't go back to the old one. From here, you only have access to a Bonus Dungeon that resets every time you clear it, and the town, beyond which enemies and three Optional Bosses can be found.
- City Guards: Only in the Fae town, and they won't let you past certain doors. The human town doesn't have any guards at all.
- Evil Laugh: Hermann, and his assistant even compliments him on it.
- I Am Not Your Father: Toward the end of the game, Gran reveals that she isn't Rose's real grandmother.
- Item Crafting: There's an Engineering aspect to the game, where you can find recipes to craft items using materials you get from breaking down other items.
- Luck-Based Mission: When fighting the Optional Boss Louhi, you pretty much have to cross your fingers and hope you can outdamage her before her Doom spell kills you.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Shortly after Gran's reveal, Titania reveals that she is Rose's real mother. This is significant because up until now, Titania is painted as a villain.
- MacGuffin: The Hammer of Thor. Hermann is after it, hoping to use its power to conquer the Fae Folk and rule the world. He uses it against you in the final battle, where he shoots lightning bolts and summons lightning monsters to attack you. However, when you get it at the very end of the game, it can't do any of that cool stuff.
- Puzzle Boss: Hermann, though it's spelled out how you need to defeat him, it's only vaguely hinted that there's another step to disabling his power, and you're left to figure that out for yourself (You have to destroy his thunderstones, then kill his summoned lightning balls while they're next to him so the area damage from their deaths hits him). Do this enough and he'll lose the Hammer of Thor, allowing you to start fighting him proper. At this point, he goes down pretty easily.
- Regenerating Health: Choosing the Wait command in battle will do this. Certain skills also regenerate your mana for free.
- Stealth-Based Mission: There's one of these toward the end, when you infiltrate an enemy base. If you're seen by a single guard, you'll be killed instantly.
- Another one in the Fae town, where you're supposed to infiltrate a building and steal an artifact. If you're seen, you have to exit immediately.
- However, there's nothing stopping you from simply running in the back door again...
- Another one in the Fae town, where you're supposed to infiltrate a building and steal an artifact. If you're seen, you have to exit immediately.
- Steampunk: Some buildings and weapons.
- Sword and Gun: Since you have a dedicated gun slot, you'll most likely be carrying a gun around with your melee weapon, even if you don't use it. Many guns offer bonuses to either melee or magic.
- Wrench Wench: Rose, the main character. She's sometimes seen talking about power flux converters and other complicated-named parts with non-player characters, and they seem impressed with her knowledge.
