It's a pleasant surprise to see such an in-depth write up of something that was extremely influential on me. That was at the sort of young age where things coul

It's a pleasant surprise to see such an in-depth write up of something that was extremely influential on me. That was at the sort of young age where things could blow my mind without me being at all cognizant of the rich real-life backstoies that produced them. I remember getting a demo of BaK on one of those demo disks that came with PC gaming magazines. I was blown away by the immersive open-world 3D gameplay. The battle and equipment systems were innovative and well designed. Our local library didn't have the Riftwar books that inspired the game, but it did have the Serpantwar saga that followed them. I'd eventually figure out how to acquire books on my own and catch up with all the books that Feist published, and I hung on until the end of the cycle, even though the books plummeted in quality on the back half. I also played Return to Krondor, with much excitement. It was a fun game and better produced, but much more linear than the original. Thinking about this reminds me of a time in my life when things were a bit more magical. Information was accessible, but not too much so, and being a kid with a meager allowance meant I had to have some hustle to follow the cultural threads that intrigued me.