And now for something completely different, or a preview of things to come.

For the entertainment of the viewing body, the first installment of a series that will take its regular place on Mondays. A "Let's Play" pictorial article focusing on MS-DOS games from the eighties and nineties. On occasion, these will be accompanied by gaming stats. So without further ado...

The Lost Tribe, originally published by Kidsoft LLC in 1995, is a comedic, turn based simulator focusing on leading a tribe of cavefolk to the valley of the ancestors. Along the way you must gather food, craft weapons and statues, and generally keep a gaggle of goofballs in line.

The game begins when your tribe's volcano decides to erupt. Those who flee (as seen above), form the remaining faction of your tribe. Yes, that is an animated clip of people in caveman costumes running. All of the art in The Lost Tribe takes on one of three forms. Digitized photos/videos of actors (most likely the dev team), stylized 'cave art', or...

The map!

Ah yes, the map. Get used to it, because this is what you're going to be faced with for the majority of the game.  One thing I appreciated is that The Lost Tribe is easy to pick up, so easy in fact a caveman could do it!. To the left of the screen, in descending order, are indicators representing tribe size, food-stores, weapon-stores, hunting resolve (I think), the terrain you're occupying, and your hunting / gathering skill. Below this is the current day (you have only 70 days to reach the valley.) and an indicator of tribal love for you (as indicated by the orange bar and smiley face.) 

Right side of the  screen you have your options: Hunt, practice hunting / make weapons,  rest, and carve artifacts.  Below the carve artifacts button you have the encyclopedia on the left, and options on the right. The encyclopedia, while useful, also offers amusing tidbits such as biographies of your tribesmen and women. 

Right then, faced with the mission of guiding my people, we set out!

Caution? We don' need no steenking caution!

Oh...

 

A minor setback! To keep morale up, we feed the troops full rations. Each person, to the best of my understanding, eats one 'unit' of food. The next few days are spent in the same manner, breaking a trail to the water at the bottom portion of the map until our food reserves run out.

Not to worry! The tribe is in good spirits, and though the hunting is poor in this particular hex, we'll do a bit of gathering!

On this screen, you typically select the creature you want to hunt, then click the spear to increase the number of hunters. With no reliable game in the area, we will instead hunt the vicious berry!

26 meals of berries an roots! The tribe is so happy that while they gather berries we're regaled with a peppy little tune that I have yet to find the name of, and know only as "That one french classical piece".

A few days pass, and once again out of food, I decide to do a little fishing! The tribe's not incredibly happy with me, so let's hope I catch something good...

SCORE!

Tonight, the tribe eats like kings!

Oh Bloog~

Hard to believe that a week has passed since the nightmare that set our tribe on this path. And yet, the Cavefolk find time to philosophize on life. 

This has been the first installment of 'The Lost Tribe'. Tune in Monday for week two!