At long last, the epic Solium Infernum diary known as Infernal Medicine is complete! There are links to each portion of it below. I’d like to extend the warmest thanks to my contributors Anonymoeba, Baleygr, and Codename Duchess for making this possible. They are fine, upstanding citizens… er, I mean vile, conniving fiends.
Part 1 (Turns 1-10)
Part 2 (Turns 11-20)
Part 3 (Turns 21-30)
Part 4 (Turns 31-40)
Part 5 (Turns 41-49 and the epilogue)
Solium Infernum is available directly from developers Cryptic Comet. If you like what you see, and you think you’re ready to step into the inferno, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to host a new game.
Read on for a few (spoiler-free!) final thoughts on Infernal Medicine.
Infernal Medicine is, at the time of writing, the single thing I’m most proud of on this blog. When I started the blog back in 2011, I was writing shorter posts and trying to stick to a relatively frequent posting schedule. Just a few months later, however, I managed to win my favorite roguelike (and I use that term in its most classical sense), Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, for the first time. This inspired me to write the story of my win, which was supposed to be just one long post but ended up ballooning into the absolutely massive 7-part Saga of Urist Redbeard.
While I continued to write shorter posts in a semi-regular manner, I soon found myself gravitating towards these long-form stories. Some were big multi-part series, like my History Lessons posts on Betrayal at Krondor. Others were single entries, like my extended thoughts on Metro 2033, or my account of how, five years after my first Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup win, I finally decided to learn magic, and eventually mastered it.
Solium Infernum naturally lends itself to this type of writing. My first post about the game is already very long, and once I started playing again I couldn’t resist chronicling that first game in a big multi-part series. I had hoped it would entice others in the same way I was enticed when I read a similar account over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun back in 2010. But it’s impossible to truly capture the appeal of Solium Infernum without presenting perspectives from several players. The limited information that each player has makes the scheming, bluffing and double-crossing incredibly enjoyable during play, but the emergent stories of each game only really come alive when readers can see what each player is thinking. Luckily for me, the other players were intrigued enough by my Hell Or High Water diary that I was able to talk them into contributing to Infernal Medicine. The result, I believe, speaks for itself.
So, once again, I’d like to extend my warmest thanks to Anonymoeba, Baleygr, and Codename Duchess for their contributions. It was a huge effort to put together, but I think it was more than worth it. And I hope you, reader, enjoy reading it. I’ve already seen a few people get into the game because of Infernal Medicine (before it was even finished!), which is awesome. If you think Solium Infernum is something you’d like to try, just let me know and we can set up a game. I’ll see you in Hell.
Charles Geringer
This was awesome you are right to be proud.
I was only disappointed the angels did not wreck havoc in the end.
I would gladly read another thing like this, be it for solium infernum or something else, though I will probably wait until it is finished.
Excellent read.
waltorious
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I agree about it being better to read it once it’s finished. I would have loved to have made each post in quick succession, but they took longer to assemble than expected and real life kept intruding. Part 5 especially was delayed because I got swamped with work and ended up having an entire month where I had no time for anything blog-related. With such long intervals between posts it’s hard to keep track of everything. But now that it’s complete and collected here, new readers can read straight through for maximum enjoyment.
I’d love to do more writing like this, but it requires a lot of work and time. I think my contributors and I need a break before attempting something similar again. But, knowing me, I won’t be able to stay away for long.
(and yeah, sorry about the angels… The Magistrate dropped the ball on that one)