Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim: Black GOAT of the Woods Edition
I´ve seen this game come up along with some others when I was looking for certain tags.
I looked at it but was not sure if it´s going to be good or not by the pictures you get on the shop page.
However, it got recommended to me and so I finally decided to buy it.
Started it without neither knowing what type of game it is (expected it to be a visual novel) nor what´s going to await
me anyways…
However… starting to play I can say this game is hughe fun. You meet a lot of different characters / creatures.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best CRPG Time Management Games.
SKALD: Against the Black Priory
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1609100/Skald_Against_the_Black_Priory__the_Prologue
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712620/SKALD_Against_the_Black_Priory_Original_Soundtrack_Vol_I/
You drag yourself from the black tides, across the corpses of drowned men, and onto the unwelcoming, craggy shoreline. Gulls cry overhead and the stink of seaweed fills your nose. By some miracle you have made it to Idra. It will take all your skill to survive and unravel the eldritch mysteries of the Black Priory. Pray your sanity holds.
About the Game
‘Skald: Against the Black Priory’ is an old-school roleplaying game that combines modern design and a fully realised narrative with authentic 8-bit looks and charms.
Delve into a dark fantasy world, full of tragic heroes, violent deaths and Lovecraftian, cosmic horror. Explore an engaging, branching story mixed with rich exploration and crunchy, tactical, turn-based combat that will seem familiar yet innovative to RPG fans, old and new.
Do you have what it takes to lead a company of broken heroes from the tainted shores of Idra to the gates of the Black Priory - and beyond?
Features
Lovingly crafted retro-style art:
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Experience a richly illustrated world of authentic pixel art using thousands of hand-drawn tiles and images
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A palette inspired by the legendary Commodore 64 computer.
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Optional CRT filter for that authentic old-school experience.
Deep character creation:
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Build your main character and recruit a party from among a dozen diverse characters, each with their own skill-set, agenda and personality.
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Choose from a dozen classes and backgrounds as well as heaps of feats, spells and equipment as you take your party from level 1 to 20.
Crunchy tactical combat:
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Engage in challenging, fast-paced, turn- and grid-based combat.
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Play it your way, with fully customizable difficulty and feedback settings. Or hit ‘auto-resolve’, lean back, and (hopefully) watch your party cleave a bloody path through their foes.
A richly detailed, living world:
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Explore the vast expanse of Freymark and the Outer Isles and watch your actions spell doom or salvation for the region.
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Focus on the rich, branching narrative… Or live the life of a mercenary and explore varied sidequests and encounters - the plot will wait for you.
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Manage your party as you make camp, recruit hirelings, travel by land and sea, and interact with powerful factions and their visions for the world.
Become part of a fantastic community:
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Skald was made possible by crowdfunding and already has a large, passionate and welcoming community that can’t wait to meet you.
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By joining Skald’s Early Access you’ll have a direct line to the developer, get sneak peaks and give feedback on forthcoming plans and help shape the game into a modern classic.
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We will publish the powerful tools used to create the game in an effort to support and encourage modding and content creation once the game has fully launched.
The Story of Skald: A Dream Come True
Skald is the dream-project of a lone Norwegian developer, AL.
AL missed the thrill of delving into grand, immersive games such as ‘Ultima’, ‘Magic Candle’, ‘Wasteland’ and the Gold Box series. When he noticed the lack of newer roleplaying games that combined the classic (early 90s) charm with more modern game design he decided to take matters into his own hands.
AL set to work crafting the game of his dreams.
A highly successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaign with 700 backers, and a fast-growing community of passionate fans proves he made the right call.
Collaborators
Despite being a one-man company, Scape-IT has been able to collaborate with some amazingly talented people in creating SKALD:
Danny Salfield Wadeson is a UK-based writer & narrative designer who has worked on BAFTA and TGA nominated narrative games such as Roki, Backbone and Duelyst
Twitter: @MadQuills
John Henderson is an experienced fine artist and illustrator and is also a teacher of Art. Whether using dip pen, oil paint or pixels, John’s work is easily recognizable as being highly atmospheric as well as lovingly created. Having worked on many publications and indie gaming projects he is also currently busy with his own project, Wild Wood for the C64.
Twitter: @JohnHen65953721
Scott Hartill UK based artist and game designer. More interested in pixels than anything else. Currently busy developing a PS1 style survival horror in his spare time.
Twitter : @cluly
Torgeir Fjereide is a Norwegian artist and illustrator. He loves painting mythological and medieval scenes and he’ll take any excuse to paint a bearded man.
Twitter: @TheBrushOfThor
Post Horn Public Relations is a pro-bono initiative created to support talented developers.
Twitter: @horn_pr
Rachael A Edwards hails from England and spends most of her days writing fantasy novels about morally grey characters in worlds filled with mythology, corruption and magic. An avid gamer, Rachael’s love for storytelling began at a young age. She is currently working on a YA fantasy novel and is represented by Rena Rossner of The Deborah Harris Agency.
Twitter: @RachaelAWrites
MementoMoree (formerly known as Paolo Pomes) has been creating art since his late teenage years. Proficient in most types of art, from pencil & paper to highly detailed 4k textures, he’s found solace and pleasure in the retro pixel art!
Twitter: @MementoMoree
Marco Pedrana is a digital and traditional art vagrant. He started as draftsman in advertising and comics, went on in illustration, then painting, then conceptual art. He doubled back on videogame design with Aeon of Sands, creating its graphic, story, and sfx. Lately he freelances as a 3D generalist for indie game and cinema productions.
He focuses on narrative art, regardless of the medium or scope.
Twitter: @marcopedrana
Romanus Surt is the main guy at Graverobber Foundation, the developer behind Das Geisterschiff and Der Geisterturm. He does music for SKALD.
Twitter: @surt_r
Edwin Montgomery is a composer and sound designer for games, films and performance. A long-time RPG obsessive, he wrote the soundtrack for inXile’s remastered 30th anniversary version of “Wasteland”. He has created music and sounds for a variety of fantasy game worlds, including Warhammer 40,000, Game of Thrones and Neverwinter. Edwin does sound design for SKALD.
Twitter: @edwinmyshkin
Read More: Best CRPG Dark Fantasy Games.
Razenroth 2
I enjoyed Razenroth and this game escaped my wish list. Already I am seeing more improvements to the original along with content and story that hearken back to my many hours into the first one. Keep it up Enitvare you have a fan in me.
UPDATE: Game is still awesome.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best CRPG Action Games.
Hey! I am a fellow indie game dev, We have been checking out random indie games on stream so if you want to see the gameplay of it check out here: www.twitch.tv/sfsben
My review:
Things we liked:
-I liked the art style and general feel of the game.
-Gameplay was really fun and wasn’t confusing to figure out what was happening
-Randomness and replayability of the game. I can very easily see myself putting a ton of hours into this game.
-The leaderboards are really fun.
-I liked the different characters and abilities.
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
Super Army of Tentacles 3: The Search for Army of Tentacles 2: Black GOAT of the Woods Edition
THE LOVECRAFT APOCALYPSE IS TOTES ON.
The Old Gods are cold. Calculating. Ever waiting. Ever patient. Slumbering towards that day in which the cosmic apocalypse beckons.
And then somebody just has to pull a Leroy Jenkins and start the fun early.
Perry Hollycraft has been called out of “retirement” (i.e. the death plane known as the Dreamlands) in order to figure out what Old God did what, when, and why. The rest of the pantheon isn’t too happy that the apocalypse has been called early. With Gods fighting among themselves in a bid to take advantage of the situation, and the rules thrown out the window, Perry has more than their work cut out for them. Who do you trust (your party members, probably)? Where do you turn (the available hub areas)? How many endings in this game actually differ from one another (we cut it down from twelve to five, but mileage may vary)? Do your choices matter (it depends on how you define “matter” in the context of a video game)? When will this structure of questions end (now)?
To destroy humanity, they’ll need to save it.
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All the DLC from the non-GOAT Edition! All the Outfits! All the quests!
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The second game in the non-award winning series!
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Broadcast in glorious 1920x1080!
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A brand new, 100% deeper Argument System!
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What’s more revolutionary than a silent protagonist for the first game? How about a COMPLETELY SILENT SEQUEL?!?! LIKE, RIGHT????
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15 party members, ranging from Army 1 party to Army 1 NPCs to newbies!
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More skill options and more attributes!
NOTE: Contains mild language and mature themes such as innuendo, drug use, etc.; nothing TOO explicit.
10% of all sales go towards St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
ZLO
Go in search of the ultimate evil!
Cast out evil spirits with the word of God and the cross.
Prepare for the horror that lurks in this forest and uncover the mystery of the priest protagonist.
Psychological horror inspired by the Silent Hill series and movies like The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project and many others.
Zlo is a story-driven horror adventure game.
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Collect notes;
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Exorcise evil spirits;
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Explore atmospheric locations;
![[Neolithic]To the End](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1519140/header.jpg)
[Neolithic]To the End
TL:DR
This may be the weirdest fever dream you’ve ever had.
Life is full of absurdity
Some Features:
Everything in a classical RPG plus…
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Bizarre adventures.
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First-person gunfight during battle.
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Convert supernatural (or not so supernatural) enemies to be your pets.
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Deployable traps, barricades, and furniture to decorate your home.
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Your very own home with a map editor. ALL MAPS in the game can be edited during the gameplay. Support import/export map to RMXP.
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Magical items and anomalies with their own mechanisms.
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Crafting items from 3D printers.
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Plant and harvest food and…something else.
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Endless procedurally generated quests from mission boards.
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A powerful cheat console that can run Ruby script.
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Minigames! The awesome part of an open-world RPG is, you can get all those minigames for free!
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Frequent updates. Who knows what you can find in the future.
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DRM-Free!
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Highly customizable playing experience.
Risks: (I will be totally honest with you. Thus, I put it here)
1, The game is made with a very old game engine. (For memories' sake)
2, There is only one developer.
3, I am terrible at 2D art.
4, I am not a native speaker of English.
Thus, I provide an honest demo for you. The demo version will update all the way till the game release.
It reflects the current stage of game development in almost real-time.
As the game is one of the first and last RMXP games that’s ever being developed, I’m not exactly aiming to make it something great. (or even sane.)
Instead, it needs to be unique and fun in a way that people can rarely see nowadays, to make people laugh maniacally even in a grimdark world where both the in-game world and the life circle of RMXP are coming to an end.
Story
Welcome to our secret society of [redacted]. We are among the most ancient ones in our line of work.
For a long time, we have witnessed the rise and fall of many others.
The situation is grim, the world almost ended in 2008, 2012, 2015, and 2020.
Some people predict it will keep ending this year, next year, and the year after.
But, well, even if that’s true, even if the ending is inevitable, it is tragic, we are still alive.
So, cheer up! We shall carry on.
As long as we stand, the world shall never fall!
To the end…
Features:
Unbalanced and Unfair
Beneath the facet of the beautiful life people called “normal”, lurks the truth that this secret struggle is never fair.
There are things that can hardly be killed. They may come in great numbers to overwhelm us.
Even when not facing such a supernatural entity, a well-trained Kung-Fu master can still be killed by just a bullet.
But, We Fight on With All We Have!
We have guns and our own magics. We even learned to bind supernatural entities to our wills.
We have tools and artifacts, we have skills ranging from combat to conversation.
If there is a lock that can hardly be picked, try blowing it.
There are always solutions.
You Are Different.
Your arrival was not expected. You were not on any lists. We know little about you.
Show us, who you are and who you will become with all the perks/skills/proficiency you may develop.
We may still stand a chance against all odds with your help.
Lead us…
In This Vast World
Your loyal companions will follow you from ancient ruins to modern metropolis, from east to west.
You will meet common folks we swear to protect, watching them live their “normal” life.
You will discover mysteries, solve them when combat evil forces lurking in the dark.
The Secret History
The story behind this game:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1519140/view/2986431641632413538
It’s the first Neolithic game with English localization that comes to Steam since 2004 when the first game of Neolithic was published in a dark corner of China.
_Comparing to a commercial game, this is more like a memento to the old golden age of RPG Maker XP (when indie games are really indie; when updates are free instead of being paid DLCs; when developers update games for years, even decades instead of abandon projects as soon as it’s no longer profitable; when games are made with passion instead of money-hunger; And, when RPG Maker was not used to just make those cheap adult-only games.)
This is NEOLITHIC!
There are many games out there, made with modern tools and more than 1 developer. They are supposed to be better than mine.
But, they are not. Why?_
Unauthorized Edit Detected!
We also have cats! They are cute. :3
Case 02: Paranormal Evil
Case:02: Paranormal Evil is a casual story driven game about a guy that wakes up in a hospital amidst a zombie outbreak spurred on by cultists in the area. The game features very well done pixel art as well as some anime art of the characters in the dialog cards. Just well executed for the game and gives a charming essence to the experience. The game has you do skill checks of Willpower, Firepower, and Dexterity and items that you can equip will increase the number of dice you can use against these checks against any paranormal evil beings you may come across.
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
Story
You play as Marty, a boy woke up from a coma only to find himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Marty befriends a girl, Sally, who looked after him while he was comatose, but then she gets kidnapped by the Cult of Gla’aki. Despite being an ordinary guy, Marty has to fight his way through the undead hordes inorder to save Sally and escape the hospital.
While the story stands well on its own, it feels a lot different from the other games in the Physical Exorcism games thematically. For one thing, Marty and Sally are written as traditionally sympathetic protagonists, unlike Brucie, Jade, and Lucy, who are written as darker protagonists that most people wouldn’t cheer for. Also, while Loser Reborn tried to deconstruct the wish fulfillment of Isekai stories, I feel that Case 02 plays the wish fulfillment of the zombie apocalypse genre straight.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Loser Reborn
What?!
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There isn’t enough variety of class options. There is Knight/Samurai, Wizard/Wu-jen & Rogue/Ninja to bring to a total of six. Problem is there is no differentiation between, say, a Knight and a Samurai. Only the starter skill is different. And the usual normal class traits don’t really apply here–a Warrior/Samurai in Loser Reborn is a “supporting class” and Rogue/Ninja are more of a “attacking class”.
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Throw-away plot with typical plot-holes of anime.
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Equipment Balance Issues: MC can be K’O in one hit. To explain: equipment can be either conducive or combustible–meaning you have to be very careful how much “weakness” stacking you are doing. Combat is about memorization; for example: one class is more inclined to use fire-tribute skills than physical attacks or a foe is more resilient to physical damage but more acceptable to magical damage.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
I can tell that the developer of this game put in so much love and effort into this game.
This short, yet extremely difficult rpg game is basically inspired by the isekai trope of magically teleporting the player into a fantasy world on the brink of annihilation. There are basically three classes: Knight, Mage, and Rogue. The Knight specializes in tanking for his team mates, the Mage uses spells, and the Rogue is fast and focuses on debuffs. The goal of your mission is to defeat the Dark Lord who is threatening to destroy the entire kingdom or world thing. You are assisted by your harem party of brave heroes to defeat him.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Just to preface this, I have played virtually every adaptation of Lovecraft in video game format. It’s one of my favourite fictional universes and the concept of otherworldly horror is one I am yet to find tiring. Below you will find many reviews of the game complaining about bugs, lack of polish, performance bla bla bla. As other RPG fans have, I have had to suffer through these things for many years in order to experience some of the best this genre has to offer. In the defence of the team that has put this together, I think that this is a noble effort for one of the hardest things to properly implement - a reactive RPG that is able to anticipate the different paths players will want to go down.
– Real player with 90.7 hrs in game
Update 30th Nov 2019: The game has been out for more than two months and there still has been no major patch addressing the numerous problems. Until the devs have taken care of at least some of the worst bugs, I can’t recommend the game at the current stage.
Stygian is definitely not a game for everyone, not just because of its theme, but also because it is both a gem and a train wreck at the same time. It is, in my opinion, the best Lovecraft game so far made, even better than Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. But it is also largely unfinished and riddled with bugs (at the time of its release).
– Real player with 52.7 hrs in game
Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim
EDIT June 20, 2016: The New Game+ DLC is here!
The DLC improves the game a fair bit in my opinion. I am a sucker for dating sims, as my library can attest. This one keeps it interesting by not letting you date everyone at once, and having the characters actually mention something about it. Unfortunately, no one appears to be polyamorous, but there’s definitely more than just heterosexuality, which I know a lot of people look for in a game. The quests here are still just as ridiculous, but I grew even more attached to characters, especially ones I didn’t know you could recruit in the base game! It’s zany, keeps the humour, and lets the player in on the inner thoughts of various characters. Also university is always a fun setting to play a game in.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
Review with accompanying screenshots and video at Sinical Network
I received this game for free as a curator connect offer for my group Visual novel, JRPG, Anime, and bought the DLCs with my own money. Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim is a supernatural parody visual novel with RPG elements by Stegalosaurus Game Development. It features a female or male protagonist by the name of Perry Hollycraft who is tasked to lead the Deep Ones (subterranean dwellers living in a remote volcanic island) to conquer the inhabitants of Innsmouth, a small coastal town in New England.
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game