Redaxium
I believe the there’s just too much shit in this world. Whether it’s video games or cereal, there are endless variations on the same few basic concepts. This has made us complacent: we stay squarely in the middle of our comfort zone, scared of the unknown, unwilling to explore the outer rims of this rosebud of life. Well how about for once you strap in, jack off, take a chance and head straight into the danger zone? Welcome to Redaxium, population: you. Perhaps you’ll discover yourself there. Perhaps you’ll discover that the game sucks. Does it really matter? Only one way to find out.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
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Wasteland Remastered
Originally released in 1988, Wasteland is a pioneering game that established the post-apocalypse genre for computer RPGs. Its success led to the creation of its spiritual successor, the Fallout series. Over the years, Wasteland became a cult classic. This remastered version brings the original Wasteland with updated graphics and audio, plus some quality of life improvements to the current generation of players.
This is a faithful remaster, not a remake. It preserves all the quirks and even some of the bugs (like super loot bags) from the original. Whereas the original game made you reference a “paragraph books” with real and fake paragraphs, which is where the plot is, plus doubling as a primitive anti-piracy measure, the Remastered includes cut scenes and voice-overs by a narrator. All “paragraphs” are now voiced and the paragraph book has become your journal. Another improvement is the auto-recording of found passwords so you don’t have to write them down yourself.
– Real player with 208.1 hrs in game
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I did not play the original Wasteland back in 1988, so this was my first experience with the original. I was playing video games in the 1980s and do enjoy similar games (e.g. the SSI Gold Box games, the Bard’s Tale trilogy), so I am not put off by older games. However, as this game has been remastered, I do feel that it is fair to hold some aspects of the game to modern standards, in particular: the graphics, sound, UI and mechanics.
First off, the game does do a good job of updating the graphics and sound. If you are just looking for the original Wasteland with better graphics and sound, then they did a good job with it. The graphics look clean and crisp while still maintaining the vibrancy and style of the original graphics. If I do have one complaint about the graphics, it would be the reused graphics for the monsters. It was okay in 1988, but for a remastered game a bunny and a rat should not be using the same graphic. The game does not have such a huge number of enemies that unique graphics for each monster would have been prohibitive.
– Real player with 53.4 hrs in game
Workplace Rhapsody
很不错的游戏。建议买来试试玩，非常喜欢。。
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
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Interesting little time management/dating sim game. The art and sprites are pretty original. There are a few points that could be polished and maybe add some saucier H features, but overall its quality is above other chinese games of the genre. I believe this is the first title published on Steam by the dev, I’m certainly in for future releases or more DLCs for this title.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
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
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
Kingmaker is rough around some edges, with a few changes to the tabletop rules that aren’t clearly stated to the player. (If you’re unfamiliar with Pathfinder, it is a variant of Dungeons and Dragons.) A large number of frustrations I have often come from either the interface not being great at explaining when something is different, or not explaining anything at all until you’re in another menu. (A game like Pathfinder really demands a character creation/level up screen that lets you preview your whole build from levels 1-20 just to get an idea of what you’re doing.)
– Real player with 255.9 hrs in game
As a cRPG this is an excellent game - great characters, great companions, great stories - main plot and companions - and a combat system that works.
As a game, it’s a mish mash of systems, ideas and a rigidly enforced ruleset that sadly overwhelms that content a little. It is a massively long game with 6 distinct acts that do not flow one after another, but intersperse themselves with a poorly explained Kingdom building mechanic that ultimately just doesn’t work and really, really gets in the way of the rest of the game. Making numbers get bigger doesn’t really make for a compelling experience, but if you don’t do it you’ll get yourself in a right mess and the game will end. It has no respect for your time as a gamer at all, and will test the very limits of your patience.
– Real player with 209.4 hrs in game
Tower of Origin2-Worm’s Nest
CONS
Bad English translation.
Art quality diminishes as game progresses
Lack of world building
PROS
Decent tentacle/bugs fetish ideas
– Real player with 22.1 hrs in game
Wasteland 3
This is a fun, mildly complicated party-based, turn-based game full of various strategies & tactics, with a large focus on combat tactics. You can play on hard-core mode & min-max everything, or just play casual & have fun with various builds.
The setting is post-apocalyptic, & you gradually fill out your squad of “Rangers” on your team. You mainly choose their weapons & skills, ranging from beefy (or speedy) melee specialists to glass cannon snipers who deal death from afar. Or go in between with pistols, automatic weapons, & machine guns. Skills, aside from the weapons mentioned, include dialogue specializations, explosives, science stuff, stealth (not very fleshed out, but useful for sneaking up on enemies), dealing with robots, taming various animals, etc. Pretty much every skill is useful.
– Real player with 417.7 hrs in game
I’d highly recommend it. It most definitely feels like a combination of X-Com style combat and Fallout post apocalypse atmosphere. I very much enjoyed the story, voice acting, music and plethora of choices. I liked both DLCs because they both added time to the game, blended well with the main story AND added a new mechanic in each case. I did three full sessions with a good-ish and bad-ish run on Ranger and a November Reigns min-max playthru on SuperJerk. Once you get a feel for the game, it becomes much easier. I learned new things in each playthru too about both game mechanics and story choices. I was pretty impressed with one in particular where I found out about a special type of armor you can get. In my last playthru, I tried to get it but because I pissed off the wrong group of people earlier (which I never thought would matter), they STOLE it from me later. I was both bummed I didn’t get it and happy it was a “thing”.
– Real player with 247.1 hrs in game
Dungeon Rats
Dungeon Rats is a pure combat game set in the universe of Age of Decadence. Like it’s predecessor, it promises to force players to make hard decisions and weigh every tradeoff.
The first thing you’ll notice when playing the game is the excellent, atmospheric music, almost perfectly complementing the game’s main menu screen. Most of the in game scenes, however, err towards too dark for easy visibility, even somewhat hindering playability.
While shallow in comparison, the conversation trees are highly reminiscent of Age of Decadence’s conversations; detailed, lore-heavy, full of unsaid implications, which were one of the best qualities of AoD. Unfortunately, as Dungeon Rats is extremely linear, it could not embrace the full scope of these conversations.
– Real player with 106.1 hrs in game
Important Note: I played through Age of Decadence several times before playing this game, so my experice may vary to yours. I only played this game on “Hard” (default difficulty) and “Solo Mode Hard”.
Overview:
The game consists of approximately 50 battles, which are set-pieces. There are no random encounters. This makes it a game about learning what the encounters are about. Playing the game for the first time was challenging and I did not learn my lessons that defense is more important than offense. I also learnt later that it is ok for some of the early companions to die (although you don’t want it to happen often).
– Real player with 93.6 hrs in game
PP Puncher
So far so good. The PP punching is quite intricate and I have not played this game nearly enough to fully understand and appreciate this game. I would spend 1000000000000000000 franc on this game if I needed too but its free because French people are bad at the economy. Sadly I dont know if I will ever have enough hours on this game to understand every part of it. The lore is so deep and the gameplay is truly souls like and fun. Will update at 100 hours.
100 hour update: This game has truly made me evolve from the soulless human I used to be to a PP punching ape. Your missing out if this game has never graced you with its presence. Dont be a loser like I was. Be a PP puncher dont be a PP Muncher. Amen.
– Real player with 107.8 hrs in game
Best game I’ve ever played, it beats all the games I thought I loved.
Can’t get enough of punching, 11/10
On a genuine note, this game is silly and a lot of fun. :D
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
ATOM RPG: Post-apocalyptic indie game
After spending over 150 hours and an almost complete playthrough on this gem of a title, I thought it needed to be known what future enthusiasts may encounter when purchasing ATOM RPG. The game itself plays like a hardcore, top-down, turn-based, open-world RPG, with a degree of emphasis on survival elements (namely an in-game arbitrary hunger attribute). For some, this already may feel like a turn off due to added complexity, but for those who enjoy a challenge, then this is the game for you.
! Be warned though, this game is hard, especially in the early stages.
– Real player with 165.8 hrs in game
I have recieved this game as a gift from my friend, as I bought him the game first. As much as I played this game since May this year, I don’t feel like this game is truly polished after 1.0 release. I’ll keep updating this review as I’ll keep re-exploring the game, as well as the game patches will be coming out.
BALANCING
Welp. There’s none.
But to be serious - if you haven’t played this game before - prepare to get your ass kicked. A lot. Permadeath mechanic is okay in games that are balanced, but ATOM RPG isn’t one of them. You’re the most agile and the strongest character in the post-apo Russia? Well, too bad. Everybody has been training kung fu since age of three, and you’ll get kicked and punched to death pretty easily. Somehow, common civillians and elderly are stronger than actual bandits or cultists (which it would make you think they’re ones who should be stronger but that’s not the case. NPCs are also magicians that enchant their bullets and blades, making them seemingly deal more damage than you’d be capable of (even if you met the requirements!), resulting in a scenario where you’re one who is in a leather suit armed with hunting rifle but dying to a bandit with nothing but his underpants and a zip gun.
– Real player with 155.7 hrs in game