Codename: Mystery Babylon
The rich and powerful across nations have found one common ground: control. Unbeknownst to most, hidden powers collude in the shadows; waging war to gain profits, passing laws to fit their agenda, and pacifying the masses.
Your guild is unwittingly thrust into this tale of intrigue. Explore the depths of this corruption and attain forbidden knowledge in the hopes you can survive. Will you lead your fledgling guild to success and learn the ultimate truth?
What is the true source of magick?
Upcoming Features
Guild Home Base Management
Become a high-ranking guild, a force to be reckoned with. Upgrade and renovate your guild hall through a series of immersive and intricate management mechanics.
Dueling System
Fight in tournaments across the known world for reward and glory! A duel is not always fought in contest. There may be times with no other options left to settle disputes - or perhaps times you simply wish to impress.
Influence-based Relationships
Watch your relationships flourish or falter. Face the consequences of your actions, as those around you are shaped by the choices you make.
Reputation & Renown
A guild is nothing without its reputation. Earn influence with certain factions or towns through a multitude of ways. Have the freedom to complete guild quests, fight in local tournaments, and more.
Guild Quests
Witness your guild rise to greater heights, increase your rank and meet more dangerous foes who wish to topple your success.
Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.
HEXCRAFT: Harlequin Fair
Haven’t got very far into it yet. As a fan of Oleander Garden’s other games: The Pagan trilogy, and Hexcraft: Eventide Sigil, I can say with certainty that this is exactly what I expected in the best ways. It feels a bit jank, the graphics are muddy and dated, and it is very frustrating dying with very little warning over and over. It’s part of the experience, however. The game is one big immersive-sim-esque puzzle about working out how to get anything done. Leave your morals at the door, rob some people, and acquire black metal shirts to fight off the horrors lurking in dungeons hidden behind shopping malls and alleyways. It’s a lo-fi game for sure, but the experience is well worth the 13 dollars.
– Real player with 17.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.
Immersively simulate a nightmare. I instigated a gang war in Chinatown so I could plunder tarot cards from those caught in the crossfire. The victims had recited poetry to me moments before. They knew me by name.
Oleander Garden’s work is consistently haunting, enigmatic, beautiful, infuriating. It’s genuinely fun to bang my head against its walls in an attempt to uncover its secrets. I loved this game.
Given how unfairly obscure it is, you’re lucky enough to have stumbled upon this page, so don’t let the opportunity go to waste. Buy it already.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
The Council
“Mr. president, are you a killer?”
~Keir Simmons
For whatever reasons out there, “choose your own adventure” games, in which you make your way through the story by making certain choices, become more and more popular nowadays. I mean, we had quite a lot of those back in the days. Brilliant Digital Entertainment alone released tons of such games back in nineties, but somehow, even though they’ve made games based on such popular names as Superman, Popeye, Xena and even Ace Ventura, those games were never popular. Heck, most of the people nowadays don’t even know about the fact that 7th Level’s Ace Ventura game wasn’t the only one out there. Nowadays, on the other hand, we have all sorts of popular games of that kind. From Detroit: Become Human to Until Dawn / The Dark Pictures Anthology and Life is Strange. People love that stuff. So… yeah. Here comes another one of such games. Can’t call myself a big fan of the genre, though. Personally, I prefer proper Point-and-Click or puzzle experience, while “choose your own adventure” is something I prefer in the books, but… you know how it is. I don’t mind such games as long as the story is interesting, the choices are satisfying and they’re well-written. So… let’s have a look at The Council, shall we?
– Real player with 37.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Choices Matter RPG Games.
ORIGINAL POST = 08-08-2021 at 11:51 AM EST:
I’ve been playing The Council on the PC (over on Steam) lately. I certainly have some thoughts on it, as I’m currently on Episode 4 (out of 5).
So far, it has been ranging somewhere b/t really good to great. Namely, Episodes 1-3 were great; and Episode 4 at a certain point has taken a turn…and I’m not sure where it belongs yet, as it has hit a really shocking moment that sets quite bit of a change in both story elements & your skills; and I’m not sure how fleshed-out this will get, as it happens late in Episode 4 and the fact that there’s only one Episode left.
– Real player with 22.4 hrs in game
Secret Government
I really want to like this game, and in a lot of respects I do. I actually wish Steam had a middle option between the binary of recommend: yes/no, and the last thing I want to see is the devs give up on this due to negative feedback. However, I’m sure most people would be disappointed by the game in its current state, so “no” it is.
It’s a great concept and it has a lot of promise, but the game is incredibly game breakingly buggy and there are some very obvious gaps where development just never caught up to what was planned. The developers have stated their intentions to keep working on the game, and I really hope I can rewrite this review into a recommendation at some point. Outside of the issues, what the devs were going for is very apparent, and I would love to see it more fleshed out. There is one circumstance in which I would recommend this game that I will include at the bottom of the review.
– Real player with 90.4 hrs in game
Let me level with you: this is a thinking person’s game. Though its aesthetics reminds one of the Europa Universalis games, if you lack the patience to tackle your goals in a subtle, clandestine way, you will suffer. Unlike the EU games, you cannot simply go up to a ruler and order them to go to war with another country, nor can you simply go to the citizens and order them to support your newly created political party. In fact, it is best if neither are aware of your existence at all as they will crush you if their Awareness of your Brotherhood is high enough and it doesn’t necessarily have to reach 100 first for them to start weakening your Brotherhood.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game
Emily is Away
SPOILERS
If you’re expecting more than one ending, this isn’t the game for you.
To be honest, I wish we had a more complex review system, like stars or something. Although my experience was negative, I don’t completely dislike it.
The biggest upside for me was seeing how people’s status pages change over time, as their lives go on.
What frustrated me is that, in the end, your choices don’t matter. And it’s not just that you don’t get to be with Emily. For instance, you have the possibility of making her date Travis instead of Brad. When I entered this ‘route’ I thought something would change, but it turns out that even though Brad and Travis have different stories, they are exactly the same. The dialogues about them don’t change, except for the name.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
I want to preface by saying I really enjoyed the game interface, graphics and sound effects. They were quite nostalgic. However, having to press keys to type the sentences became a hassle after the first playthrough.
My sole reason for not recommending this game is Emily, or rather the dead end that Emily consistently pushes you into. In the beginning she is probably a good representation of a moody, angsty teen that we all once were on MSN with deep lyrics in our messages. Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter whether you’re indifferent or a supportive friend - she will claim to have once had feelings for you but not any longer. If you hook up then she accuses you of ‘planning’ it and says she was ‘vulnerable’. Please forgive me for trying to plan a nice weekend for you to help you get over your break up! As for the vulernable comment, I don’t get the feeling that the protagnoist (i.e. the player) did anything bad (e.g. purposely plied Emily with alochol or pressured her to get physical). Therefore, despite saying she might fancy you, she decides after hooking up that it’s your fault you hooked up and she doesn’t really like you after all. If you don’t hook up with her, she says she wishes you made a move because she did like you, but doesn’t now. Throughout the game, Emily seems to make everything someone else’s fault and I really disliked her after the first playthrough, but came to hate her after the second and third. Honestly, I wouldn’t have continued talking to her after the first year.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Himawari - The Sunflower -
I ended up with this game in my library one night after imbibing a tiny bit too much alcohol, evidently having decided that these heroines were too cute to not throw 35 bucks at, as I knew nothing else about the game.
I wish all my inebrieated decisions ended this well.
Do not be deceived – Himawari may be teeming with an overwhelming amount of moe appeal, but judging it as a run of the mill moege is more criminal than all the lolis the game has to offer combined.
It’s understandably hard to convince you otherwise, and the entirety of the first route will, sadly, do little to dispel any reasonable person’s concerns regarding that. You’re treated to a route consisting of a hodgepodge of anime cliches you’ve seen at least a hundred thousand times before, including things like amnesiac protags, amnesiac girls falling from the sky, and a harem lead so bland you oftentimes find yourself wishing you were doing anything but reading this trite dialogue. How well you can withstand the game’s copious amounts of slice of life comedy scenes depends on your tolerance for cute girls doing cute things – fortunately, I consider myself quite the connoisseur, but I can understand it might be tiring for a more socially well adjusted human being than myself.
– Real player with 86.9 hrs in game
Himawari is one of the most heart-wrenching yet beautiful stories you will ever read. It tells a tale about characters trying to overcome the shackles of their pasts and finally putting their lives back in motion. Once it gets going, the story is amazing at hooking you in with its cool sci-fi concepts and brilliant character drama.
“You said there was a meaning behind chasing after one’s dreams. But if the dream one had been aiming for vanished into nothingness… what is one to do then?.”
– Real player with 69.2 hrs in game
Impossible Quest
This is a simplistic text-based game. The game offers four different stories. Each story has various endings that you can unlock. I do like that the game has a setting to delete the save file, although I’m not sure how much of a replay value this game might have (unless someone else in your house would like to play the game).
The biggest issue I had with the game is that there was quite a bit of grammatical errors. Some of the sentences needed a bit of work, not to mention some words were either misspelled or missing a letter. I didn’t see many bugs in the game, but the one I did spot had me going through a loop. It would make the biggest difference if the devs double checked the entire game for errors!
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game
I must admit that I thought “Dull!” after the first few seconds of watching the trailer video. Then I saw that the game has more to offer than just clicking text boxes, like ‘Racing’; I ended up buying this game, which I didn’t regret: the game is inspired by the Impossible Quiz (series), has a lot of fine humour and at least knows some (great) references to
! (my favourite) series Lost: 4-8-15-16-23-42 ((un)lucky numbers), dynamite, which was found on the Black Rock (boat) etc. and HP and the Philosopher’s Stone; Chessboard Chamber ;-) It’s a Memory Game (remember what you chose towards an ending!), it’s fun and challenging; it also requires some out-of-the-box thinking if you want to make it to at least the most endings. Speaking of which, I considered a few endings unfair, especially because I’m not Russian.
– Real player with 10.0 hrs in game
Instant Death
Its a fine game but I wouldnt recommend it if you dont want to go through rage inducing obstacles. This isnt a typical game to just jump through. This has 20 levels and each one of them will be a real pain to beat. If you are getting this, good luck.
– Real player with 129.1 hrs in game
Best game ever? Maybe.
Pros:
High precision challenges in 3D.
Cons:
There are moments where the player has to wait or walk without any challenge like a
stage where the player starts on a moving platform and it takes many seconds to get
to the first challenge, so repeating these moments on every attempt is annoying;
No map editor.
Rating: 9.8/10; with a map editor it would be 9.9/10.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame
This LEGO game is not like the others. Whether this change is for the better, it is hard to say as there are certainly pros and cons to each style of game. This installment focuses more on open-world aspects rather than the episodic nature that its predecessors provided. Players are sent to various different planets (levels) to collect master bricks that progress the narrative forward with the help of a number of different tools to solve each planets puzzles (paint wand, grapple gun, power fists, etc). Players must also use build-ables (trampolines, sprinklers, generators, etc.) to traverse the planets using bricks the player collects from destroying the environment. This provides players with a greater sense of control when deciding where to go next and how to tackle problems. However, it still falls into the same trap as previous games in that certain puzzles can only be solved by progress further in the story and ultimately completing it. This means that players must still redo every level over again if they want to achieve that 100% goal. Not that surprising given the rest of the LEGO games but annoying none the less. Additionally, the story relates vaguely to that of the movie it is based off of. It uses the same characters, but fails to follow the narrative established in the film even changing core plot points to fit the games design. This led to a significant disconnect between gameplay elements and the overall story-arc. In the end, I did 100% this LEGO game, as I always do, and I did enjoy it more than the aging gameplay mechanics that previous installments have provided; however, this style of LEGO game needs a little more work before I will be fully on-board with it.
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame is not a typical Lego Game, its more like, when Lego Worlds was in EA (Early Access) but with The LEGO Movie 2 elements, like Characters, Worlds and Buildlings.
Controlls are better and this time also keyboard friendly. It works a bit like in Lego Worlds but simpler.
You have a lot of Quests to do, they are very simple so that even smaller childs could do it. With every Quest you complete you can get prints for buildings, a lila stone (on other Lego Games they where golden or red) or some items that need a shop to open it. (bad tongues would say “a few typs of loot boxes” but you cant buy them with real money ^^). The last reward can also be found with golden chests you find by explore the map.
– Real player with 25.3 hrs in game
Flatout 3: Chaos & Destruction
DON’T BUY if you expect Flatout!
I played Flatout: Ultimate Carnage and Flatout 2 a lot and some day I saw Flatout 3 on sale for around 5 $. Totally blinded by the awesomeness of the previous Flatout games by Bugbear I ran into this trap without checking what I was actually buying…
After playing maybe like 30 minutes I was really disappointed since I expected something like a worthy successor for Ultimate Carnage which Flatout 3 clearly is NOT. I uninstalled the game and considered this my worst game investment ever.
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
(Game was gifted to me by a friend, hence why I’m tagging it as having received the game for free.)
Having the (dis)honour of being one of few items on the Steam storefront to hold an “Overwhelmingly Negative” review score among Steam users, FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction is an absolute travesty of a FlatOut game, if not of a video game in general. One does not even need previous experience with the preceding titles in the series; even outside of comparisons to its vastly superior predecessors, FlatOut 3 falls flatout on its face.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game