Andreas Darkstone, Darkstone Clan Founder

A seasoned adventurer, Andreas Darkstone has seemingly seen and been through everything he could imagine, and still wanted more. A sorcerer that also took to the sword quite well, he wanted to share his experiences with people that he could trust and were close to him. The dragonborn even started up his own adventuring company, the Darkstone Clan. At its peak, the Darkstone Clan had almost two dozen members and was a group known for lending assistance to a town in need in exchange for goods or a few nights in a bed. From mercenary work to monster hunts to dungeon delving, the clan did it all.

However, shortly after his son Arjhan had reached adulthood, the clan was ambushed as it left the town of Crosswinds. Lia escaped with Arjhan while Andreas and several other clan members tried to fight back. Most of those who fought were killed, and Andreas was left for dead. He was found by refugees of Crosswinds, soon discovering that the group that had attacked them was laying waste to towns they had just visited, finally making a decisive strike against the clan.

After healing his wounds, he started searching for the remnants of the clan, hearing the occasional rumor of a small group here and there. Not wanting to endanger the other members when he found them, he had a special ring crafted, making sure that he would remain disguised so long as he didn't attack anyone, as the magic from his spells would interfere with the illusion, showing him for what he truly is.

Andreas is known to keep a calm demeanor under all circumstances. He is somewhat nervous about staying in any one place for too long a period of time, rarely staying in a city for more than three days, as he is somewhat fearful of another disaster falling upon where he is at the time.

In combat, Andreas wields his falchion with deadly accuracy, having attuned the blade to be used as an implement to cast his spells through. He'll often lure his foes close with his disguise, then surprise them when the illusion drops and his Dragon Breath comes to bear on them. If opponents do close in on him, he uses the various powers of his magic items to teleport to safety, keeping them at range for his spells to do their work. Failing that, he wades into battle with his falchion, trying to cleave his foes.

Andreas Darkstone, Darkstone Clan Founder

Horrible Games: Where's Waldo?

That was the call I had put out on Twitter a few days ago. When I got a response for a game, I gave a little snicker as to the title. I remember that it was made, but never wanted to play it, mostly out of the frustration that the subject material for the game had given me in the past.

However, when I loaded the game up, I was not disappointed in having been provided a truly bad, horrific game. With that in mind, I'd like to simultaneously thank AND curse @icekitsune on Twitter for the suggestion.

Anyone that's put in pain by the images/words that are in this article, you can blame him (although you probably deserved it somehow).

This is as good as the graphics are gonna get, folks...

I load the game up, ready to begin the time-honored tradition of finding a needle in a haystack (or a white guy in a candy-striped outfit in the middle of New York/zoo/carnival).

He's behind the si-- Oh. Game hasn't started yet.

Game starts, and the obligatory "theme" of the story loads up. So at least we know where the game will end (we hope).

If a train runs through a forest and only Waldo's around, does anybody care?

So far this doesn't look too bad. It looks as if @icekitsune may have been completely wrong about this game. Little did I know that I haven't gotten to the actual gameplay. I eagerly await the foray into the train station when I'm presented with this:

Can YOU find the candy sprinkle that most resembles Waldo?

I let a full minute go by staring at the screen, wondering if the game had messed up before realizing that this WAS the actual game. Another minute went by as I tried to find out which speck of vomit on the screen was Waldo. The gameplay consists of taking your cursor (the white bracket box in the top-left corner of the screen) and hitting the A button when you settle over something that could quite possibly be Waldo. After I found him (by randomly jetting the cursor around and mashing the A button), I was done, only to be presented with ANOTHER area. I'd post that picture, but replace all of the white on the previous screen with brown (ironic, because by that time, I was getting tired of staring at shit, so they give me a screen that looks like nothing but). Moving on past that we get to "The Cave"...

I could find him and kill him in here, and no one would ever know...

Ever play a game of flashlight tag with your friends at night, only to realize after ten minutes that it was a bad game and you two could've been doing something productive? That's what I felt like about now. Again, with the help of your trusty cursor (acting as a very dim flashlight), you have to find Waldo in the pitch black of the cave, occasionally seeing him as he flashes on screen (presumably lighting up a cigarette to pass the time until some poor schmuck actually comes in to find his ass).

Slogging on through this crap, you come to a few more areas of "Find the Pixel at the Fairgrounds" and "Find the Pixel in the City", we come across another diversion, probably designed to keep children under the age of six from finishing the game.

About as good a map as you'll ever find of the NYC subway system.

The object of this one, from what I could glean, was to steer your bullet-like subway train through a series of tubes, run over a pair of glasses, then run over Waldo and escape before Homeland Security (the guy in blue with the cowboy hat) comes to arrest you and ship you off to Guantanamo Bay (quick aside, if they had made the Guantanamo inmates play this game, we would've had the info we needed YEARS ago).

Forcing myself to move on through another search, this time in a castle (I'm fairly sure the place was just a Medieval Times they rented out for the search), he gets to the Launch Pad! The game's over, right?

Tell us which man touched you, little Billy...

No! One more inane mini-game you have to go through! From the looks of things, they didn't know WHO was going to be in the shuttle, so you have to play a slot machine game to tell the ship to lift off, taking Waldo and his Norweigian Sex Slave outfit with him!

"Quick, Harold! He's outside! Hit the gas!"

And that's pretty much the entire game. You can get through it in about six minutes, which is about five minutes more than you need to decide that this game should've gotten the E.T. Treatment long ago.

It's a shame that current events happened as they did, though... I could see the format of the game staying the same, although with a more infamous "star"...