Eloquence
Learn a fully functional symbol language by interacting with villagers that settled on an active volcano! Collect and apply phrases and words you may not immediately understand and discover that language is an expression of humanity.
Eloquence is a point-and-click language puzzle game. You learn to understand and eventually express yourself in a symbol language. The languages found in Eloquence are living and are used by the characters inhabiting the world. Test collected phrases and words on villagers and study their response, to find out what the symbols mean.
Read More: Best Conversation Hand-drawn Games.
Nowhere New
TLDR: If you like indies, play this game. Its story and atmosphere are well worth a few hours of your time.
This is not a full size game. It was created by a small group of students on no budget, and it shows. However, for that size and scope, it is impressively complete. I greatly enjoyed the couple hours I spent playing.
Narrative:
The writing is very strong. The mystery is intriguing, the characters are likable and complex, and the story is well constructed. There are several emotionally impactful story beats; at various points I felt shock, anger, suspense, horror, compassion, etc. I enjoyed the prevailing theme of identity, trust, and how our experiences shape who we are. Also, LGBT rep is a plus!
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Conversation Story Rich Games.
Even though the game has unappealing visuals, I thought that the writing was very strong and I liked most of the characters. However, I ultimately was disappointed with the experience because the ending felt very anticlimactic, a big exposition dump to what otherwise was a mysterious story that could have gone in many ways. We play as a character that crashlands on a mysterious world where inhabitants lose their memories as they share them with other people. The game presents memory share as a mechanic but it’s somewhat cosmetic, for the most part, the story is pretty linear and you can only trade a few memories for a couple of hints, although I cannot confirm that as I decided to keep them. I wouldn’t say that it has any puzzles, you just have to talk to the characters in the right order, it’s not too convoluted. If anyone cares you can complete the game in about 90 minutes.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Paper Shakespeare: To Date or Not To Date? 2
King Alexander XI is dead, and without heir.
Your parents want you to be that heir. Luckily for you, there’s totally an ancient tradition for electing a new ruler in times like these: simply lock eight children of royal blood (or the closest thing) in Castle Elsinore, complete with the ghosts of past rulers, and let them manipulate the living heck out of each other and the local population! Two shall rise above the rest: King and Queen (or Queen/Queen, King/King, King/Nobody, Queen/Nobody)! Everyone else that is still alive gets to go home! It’s a win-win for everyone (except those that died)!
Features
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Interact with eight different potential royal candidates! Sabotage or help them!
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Decide what skills you want to learn as a potential ruler!
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Part strategy, part dating sim, all royal bloodbath! This is more a dating sim than an election sim, though.
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A variety of paths to go down, depending on what you do in the game! Who do you romance? Who do you backstab? Who do you romance and then backstab?
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Invading armies? Political debates? It’s all in here!
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Direct continuation of the story started in Paper Shakespeare: To Date Or Not To Date?, but completely separate from Furry Shakespeare and Dinosaur Shakespeare! Telling you why would be spoilers. Also, just a perfectly good stand-alone story!
Read More: Best Conversation Relaxing Games.
La Dimensione Interna
La Dimensione Interna (The Dimension Within) is a 3D narrative adventure game where you play as a young Italian journalist, named Giorgio, living in a small town in Tuscany. The game focuses on his personal struggle as he finds himself at the center of a chain of events he doesn’t quite understand, but feels responsible for. The player will be asked to guide him through a series of situations and decisions where time, the opinion of others, and his emotions will influence how the story unfolds, and ultimately decide the destiny of the protagonist and the people around him.
Through an innovative dialogue system, the player will be able to decide when to respond or intervene in a dialogue; he will also be able to decide what to say – and how to say it. All those elements will be taken into account by the characters involved, which will respond accordingly to what they feel, believe, and are trying to achieve.
However, not all options will always be available, and this will depends on Giorgio’s Principles: the player will be able to shape up his instincts and personality, which will enable some choices and hinder others. There are ways to force Giorgio to act against his will, to a certain degree, but it will have a cost.
Giorgio’s emotions are another important aspect the player will need to deal with: fears, anxieties, neurosis will make everything more challenging for him: on a wrong day, even innocent jokes can turn into mortal offences, and some NPCs will leverage this, in the attempt to manipulate him.
Another key aspect is that Time will always be ticking – even during conversations. Every line of dialogue pronounced by either the protagonist or other characters has a time cost associated. This means that even if NPCs will follow their own routine, your actions will impact what they will decide to do next, given they still have the time to do it… just remember that time won’t wait for you either.
Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between
What do you see up there, when you consider the infinity around us? And as you wander on your own journey, who are the strange, unworldly others who probe those questions as they pass like ghosts through your travels? Were they ever really real?
Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between is about the thoughts that exist between destinations, the parts of journeys that dominate our time but not our attention, when our minds wander to parts of ourselves and our world normally left unexamined. On a late night highway drive, a quiet train car in the early hours, a walk through a moonlight park, or the endless wait in a deserted airport, we listen to weird music amid the ambient announcements of delays, and question our place in the universe.
Inspired by long travel and the stream of consciousness it fosters, Glitchhikers asks you to look inward. Find the answers to your questions, and question the answers you receive. Ruminate on life, the universe, our place and purpose in it. Voyage through a freeform narrative experience, converse with the endless inevitability, and explore the cosmic, hopeful world you find yourself in.
A follow up to the critically praised short game released in 2014, Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between is an expanded experience, reborn and reimagined.
No pressure, no failure, no optimal path, no journey exactly the same. Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between is an introspective freeform game where the player picks a journey, slips into that liminal space and has a unique experience travelling into their own thoughts, guided by the characters they meet along the way.
A late night drive, a deserted airport lounge, a moonlit walk through an empty park, a quiet carriage on an overnight train, a 24-hour convenience store. Never the ultimate destination, spending time in the inbetween creates a setting for contemplation and reflection, a mood that exists in these liminal spaces.
The hikers you meet on each journey will travel with you for a time, offering thought-provoking conversations, and questioning your place in the universe. Who will you meet? What will you talk about? Were they real or just a figment of your imagination?
An extensive original soundtrack full of chill grooves, upbeat wonder, dreamy synths controlled by your movement through space, and that one busker who makes you feel right at home: each journey has its own feel.
Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between both expands and dives deeper into the ideas behind the original Glitchhikers (released as a short conceptual game in 2014), to fully realise the concepts and present a polished and fleshed out experience to a new generation of players.
Silverstring Media are a vital and vibrant voice within narrative indie games, creating a string of short experimental titles and working as narrative guns for hire on indie darlings including Celeste, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Manifold Garden and Wandersong.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1449230/
Through The Fragmentation
Short but sweet. Charming, but at the same time, low-key depressing. The setting, the themes, the visuals, and the music all come together very nicely. The multiple endings and achievements add replayability, and coming back for more was well worth it. There’s some pretty deep and metaphorical stuff going on, which might hit home for many of you, I found it really touching too. Had a very pleasant experience. I don’t think the charm of this game is going to wear off of me for a long time, very memorable stuff.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Defragging For More
I love it to pieces. Or should that be ‘I love it to fragments?'
If like me you’re a fan of Thirty Flights of Loving and Gravity Bones, you might be in the right place. One aspect I really loved about those was the light inventory management combined with something like a spy premise. There’s something so effective about an ‘augmented walking sim.’ Throw in as many varied and single-usage mechanics as you can and you birth something constantly engaging. Not the norm given how expensive a disposable approach to gameplay would make most games.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
The Dealer
It’s a cool idea. I like the concept. All the core mechanics seem like they work but I would recommend a few specific things which I posted on the discussions page.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Well done salesman simulator
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Witch Stone
Lucky me gets to write the first review for Witch Stone, which is a 2D mobile app tier clicker/physics puzzle from known asset flippers, Piece of Voxel. This is a basic retro puzzle game that plays like Bust-A-Move but without shooting, you just click on balls to make them fall and if they fall the right way they pop.
The artwork is minimal and looks to be phoned in/asset flipped (not a surprise, this is Piece of Voxel we’re dealing with).
There’s no working full screen mode, in fact, if you hit alt+enter, Piece of Voxel actually go out of their way to insult PC gamers by telling you they won’t allow you to try switch to full screen (“Don’t even try, i won’t let you do it), then terminate the game. Insulting your customers is not a winning strategy, but then this is Piece of Voxel, who make a living stealing other people’s work and trying to sell it on Steam as a scam. What’s that? Oh yes:
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
EVOLUTION - Versicorae Domlion
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Hybrid between a 90s inspired RPG and a Visual Novel.
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7/10 hours of gameplay.
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Experience the connection between five different stories set in may 1938.
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System based on riddles and strategic fights against horrible creatures.
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Gloomy pixel art and hand-drawn graphic.
EVOLUTION - Versicorae Domlion is a hybrid horror video game between a Visual Novel and a RPG.
The player will have the opportunity to experience four different stories, different depending on the character chosen, to finally compose a single great story. To advance, you will have to find out why Cathrine, Michael, Arthur and Anne were chosen by the mysterious Alexis and help them resolve their inner conflicts.
The game offers, in addition to the rich storyline, the opportunity to visit the city of Gris to get to know its inhabitants, enhance the skills of each individual hero and to face dungeons guarded by fearsome monsters.
Lightsmith
A good little game which has that great element where you are not sure what comes next, or how to get there, but you want to find out. The fact that there are not many instructions means you need to learn how to do everything through trial and error and the reward feeling when you do is very nice. The black and white imagery is stark at first glance, but after a while you begin to be one with it, even feeling like you live in the dark with them (especially if you play this game in reduced lighting). This effect of not being able to see the whole map adds to the feeling of new elements revealing themselves and also challenges you to remember where the heck you are. Little hint: don’t leave the game when you’re in the middle of nowhere, you’ll never remember where you parked yourself or how to get back!
– Real player with 101.0 hrs in game