Risen is truly a fun game.
Released at the end of 2009 for the PC crowd and later for the XBOX 360 crowd, it offered what Piranha Bytes' was always known for, great role playing games with a story that draws you in.
Risen is supposed to be a stand-alone game and not a continuation of their previous Gothic series.
However, fans of the Gothic series will quickly note that this is in fact the natural predecessor to Gothic 3 that Forsaken Gods was never going to be able to be, much less Gothic 4 Arcania, both of which were developed by a different company.
Risen offers a fantastic number of choices for developing your character into a number of different areas.
Yet the game is too short for you to ever be able to really become a master of all of the traits.
This forces you to pick a weapon class or a mage discipline that you focus all of your experience points on.
If you do not focus, you will never be strong enough to finish the game.
Luckily, as with almost all games by Piranha Bytes, they have left behind a few tricks to allow you to unlock all of the abilities without cheating.
When I first started playing Risen, I was a little surprised by the Joke spell.
This spell makes the target forget any past transgressions and become your friend again.
This made sense in case you attacked the wrong person, but there were quite a few Joke spells that I simply found laying around.
That is when I realized the point of the spell.
Here's what you do.
Join the Monastery.
Almost finish Chapter One, exploring as much of the world as you can.
Save up all of the swampweed that you can.
Sell the swampweed to the farmer above the dam by the Don's camp.
Knock him to the ground.
Rob him blind.
Flash him with the Joke spell and repeat.
Once you have joined the Monastery, you have nearly an unlimited amount of Joke spells and with the farmer paying you every time you sell him the same swampweed over and over again, you will have plenty of money to spare.
You should get about 300 experience points each time.