Vagrus - The Riven Realms

Vagrus - The Riven Realms

Genuinely good. Multiple ways to play through, interesting conceits and brutal treatment of mistakes. A player really gets the feeling that their choices matter to their future and no decision is taken lightly, whether in the scripted events or even in just where to go. Great game to replay using different builds and goals, which adds longevity. A really good strong start form the devs, they should be proud of their product. I hope they continue to build and improve.

Real player with 496.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Dungeons & Dragons Story Rich Games.


Vagrus is for particular tastes. Do you want an open world trade-simulation oriented RPG with a lot of content, almost all of which is delivered through text? Are you ok with playing a character that never appears in the game except through choices and effects you make on your trade caravan, your companions, and the factions you fight or ally with? Are you ok with these choices changing the course of the overall story only in a limited way, so the bulk of your player effect is in how you choose to advance your caravan and companions and not how you destroy an enemy or change the world? Most of the big moments in the game are finding out about something that is going on, but being unable to completely stop it. Sometimes you can’t effect it at all. But, you learn, and in almost every way in Vagrus, knowledge is power. The user interface is wonky, the gameplay is deep but takes a long time to get your head around, and currently the Internet will not answer all of your many questions about how the world works. You’ll need to figure quite a bit out for yourself. Does that sound fun? give Vagrus a try.

Real player with 286.4 hrs in game

Vagrus - The Riven Realms on Steam

TRPG Workshop

TRPG Workshop

Driven by their intense zeal for making an easier-to-use and more user-friendly online TRPG platform providing players more freedom, these veteran gamers develop TRPG Workshop. It is deemed as a comprehensive TRPG auxiliary platform that gives players a great degree of freedom. This means that TRPG Workshop almost contains all the functions needed for TRPG games and renders a visible and simple solution.

  • Interactive Visualnovel-like gameplay brings more engaging game experience

  • Act as GM, Player or Spectator

The GM and Players in a single room have different abilities and rights including visible methods to throw a dice or switch the background – all for your convenience!

  • Check visible profiles in game anytime

  • In-game map editor

Share maps via Steam Workshop or other ways. On a map, there exists the Fog of War blocking your vision, little Tokens representing your characters, and even different accidents that may take place to change the world.

  • Replay your game when it ends!

Every game in TRPGWORKSHOP will be recorded. Any choice you have made and any throwing of dice will remain unchanged. Logs are replayable and shareable.

Rulebooks are supported. Share them with friends or on Steam Workshop!

  • Share and re-create

Steam Workshop will be fully available for TRPG Workshop. Backgrounds, character illustrations, map, map resources, scenario mods and even rulebooks or character cards are all free to customize and share on Steam Workshop at will.

Powerful resource manager is also supported for TRPG Workshop. Just one click to sort out your creations as easy as blowing off dust.

  • Future

Apart from various built-in resource packages for the platform, we are engaging in developing many convenient functions including QuickNote, voice-to-text log or even illustration production and facial capture for Live2D visual characters.


Read More: Best Dungeons & Dragons Level Editor Games.


TRPG Workshop on Steam

Low Magic Age

Low Magic Age

TL;DR: The game is a fun grind, but it is not well balanced.

I have about 90 hours in the arena and about 10 in the adventure mode. I have raised a party to around level 100 in the arena. I am recommending this game with some suggestions for the devs. I hope the devs will implement some change so the player feels like they are growing more powerful as they level up, instead of feeling like they are barely holding on and crawling towards the inevitable moment when they will no longer be able to beat a single encounter.

Real player with 136.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Dungeons & Dragons Turn-Based Combat Games.


Well as of the date of this review we are still awaiting the Campaign Mode to be implemented. I am hopeful from what the developers have shown recently that it will be at least released sometime this summer. It might even be close to Fall before we see the full game come to be. Even so for $6 I still recommend this game.

Right now we have what is called “Arena Mode”. You take a pre-made party or create a custom party to be placed (by the game) as a group on a random map to fight one wave of monsters at a time. These waves are chosen by you as the player and can contain random kinds and numbers of mobs. The waves range from easy to difficult. You get to choose what difficulty you are comfortable fighting against which is nice. After each battle, if your party prevails, you get a certain amount of gold based on how your characters did in the battle. If no one in your party dies you get bonus gold. You also may get a piece of loot or two. After each battle you are also given a chance to buy and upgrade equipment for your party, which is randomly generated, if you have enough gold. You can also level your characters once they have achieved enough XP to do so. The rules mainly try to follow the 3.x DnD ruleset. And it does a pretty decent job of doing so. With each of your characters gaining higher Feats and Talents as they progress. The magic system is different as there is no mana involved for any spells that are cast. Instead you have a cooldown period for each spell. Some do not like the way this mana-less sytem plays but I love it personally. There will also eventually be crafting available which is nice.

Real player with 64.0 hrs in game

Low Magic Age on Steam

Fantasy Grounds Unity

Fantasy Grounds Unity

The Skinny:

Easily one of the best programs on my computer and just keeps improving itself. More detailed below.

The Thick of thing:

I began looking for an online resource to start playing Pathfinder remotely, as I only knew a handful of people who played and they lived all over the place. I started with Roll20 and stayed there for a year. During my tenor there I had to keep restarting things on every new game I made. I could not use the same assets without bringing them in again to the new map, and eventually started paying subscription to gain abilities to automate and utilize the feature that made life easier. Content creators were great (independent artists and such) but I began to realize the subscription model was going to make me pay more than any other game I owned. So I started looking at ‘competitors’ which I learned there were many.

Real player with 794.0 hrs in game

Fantasy Grounds Unity (FGU) is a special case. It has a lot of downsides; however, FGU is the only product that provides flexibility, official support, automation, and most importantly regional currency support.

On the bright side; FGU runs on the local machine. The GM can use whatever maps and props he likes. It is also possible to make modules and share them. I can make an entire adventure including images and tokens and just send the file to a fellow GM or move characters between campaigns. I can run 50000 different campaigns and the best of it, once I purchased FGU, it is mine to keep. The official support is also great. You just buy the system once and it is yours. Most of the settings are updated with new features. If you are following a rather popular system, there are tons of adventures and if you are a DIY person you can make your adventures. The FGU also comes with 11 RPG systems and starter info for the most popular syste. Unofficial support is also plenty, there are a lot of unofficial RPG system files out there. You can also port or make your own system. With FGU, the sky is the limit.

Real player with 549.5 hrs in game

Fantasy Grounds Unity on Steam

Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue

Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue

When I read some of the negative reviews about Vagrus on the store page for the full game, I was hesitant about buying it and so I decided to try out this demo. One thing I’ve gotta say is that you HAVE to be in the mood for reading if you want to fully experience and enjoy this game. The first time I launched, I was not in that mood, and boy, I was really having my doubts. After getting bored during the first few dialogues, I decided to put it down and try again another day. Second time launching, I got ready to embrace the adventure ahead of me, no distractions, and it was FANTASTIC!

Real player with 13.5 hrs in game

KENSHI in heavy text mode and turn by turn battles?

A book where you are the hero/leader as a video-game?

Conclusion in comments!

Demo offers 2 game modes:

-A tutorial campaign titled “Pilgrims of the Wasteland” which is in fact the first part of a story-driven campaign.

I completed it in 3 hours or so, taking my time to read tutorial hints and lore texts.

-5 turns in a free campaign, open-world setting.

I didn’t try it, 5 turns (days) seems too low for me to enjoy, also the tutorial has been enough of a test for me, i’m hooked.

Real player with 5.3 hrs in game

Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue on Steam

Fantasy Grounds Classic

Fantasy Grounds Classic

OK, so please read the full review instead of just taking note of my thumb down vote for this game. That was a tough choice to make. This program is a very mixed bag, some wonderful things in here that are blended together with some horrible design decisions.

Context: I use this program as a face-to-face tool for my gaming group, no outside connections. So this review will ignore any feature dealing with that. Also, will not be comparing this to any competitors. My setup is a dual screen PC, with two instances of the program open. One (GM) on my monitor and the second (Player) on a TV laying flat. Players are using miniatures and real dice, while I am using tokens and the program’s dice.

Real player with 1343.8 hrs in game

*** Update as of 3-July-2020****

I’m not going to remove the previous review because it’s all accurate still. That being said, FGU has more features and is better than classic, mostly.

However, even perhaps more importantly…. There is a piece of software called “Foundry” that is LOADS and HEAPS better than every other options out there. You pay 50 bucks for software as the host and it works just.. seamlessly. Check it out, it’s outstanding and incomprehensibly good. People connect via their browsers, but with NO exaggeration, it has 1/50th the load time of FGU or FG, and is so utterly beautiful. Check it out, you will be impressed.

Real player with 530.5 hrs in game

Fantasy Grounds Classic on Steam

Mighty Dungeons

Mighty Dungeons

I enjoyed this little budget game so far. It feels like Heroquest but better. Done 5 of 8 campaigns already in about 5.5 hours. That being said, one playthrough and I think I’ll be done with it. I’m guessing I’ll get about 10 hours tops out of it playing with one of the OP toons.

For the price, if you enjoyed Heroquest as a kid, this is worth.

UPDATE: Underestimated this game. I was playing with permanent death and in the last map of the 7th campaign I was overconfident and ran into a room through a secret door with 8 powerful toons all giving each other gang bonus. First one smacked me around silly.

Real player with 25.1 hrs in game

This game sits in my wishlist for a long time but during this summer sale I decided to buy it. Started with a barbarian to learn the mechanics. Made some bad decision but I am able to finish the first 3 campaign easily. So far so good. I gathered enough points to upgrade so I have increased attack speed, attack and defense for my bloodthirsty barbarian. Rushing through Chaos Gods campaign gives me the first surprise: end boss wipes the floor with me. From 2 hits. WTF? OK maybe I missed something so let’s get back to Skeltor campaign. End boss kicks my butt. Again. What the hell is going on here?

Real player with 20.8 hrs in game

Mighty Dungeons on Steam

Spellsword Cards: Demontide

Spellsword Cards: Demontide

It’s not finished so maybe this review is not fair but it’s not in early access.

I finished only the 1st chapter because the 2nd is not done.

Pros:

  • creative monsters, unqiue enemies

  • long campaign (example: longer than the Northmark’s campaign)

  • autonavigation in quest menu

  • some art is nice

  • gauntlet / puzzles minigames

Cons:

  • the campaign is not polished

I couldn’t finish the 1rst chapter when my hero was a warrior because I couldn’t defeat two monsters (stirred up & in flight),

and I don’t like the slow grind (job board)

Real player with 22.3 hrs in game

Sometimes I think what’s happening with Steam and why there are so many negatives. One reviewer says that ‘it needs a pass over with someone who understands card games’. Really, mate? Dev has just designed the whole card system and is good at it. Dev is often active and updates the game, but it seems that you want to push him away.

The game is good, it has a really interesting character development, cool story and well-designed battles in which you have to tune your deck. It is a deep system, not crossing the line of ‘read the fine print’, check the guide here to see it yourself:

Real player with 12.0 hrs in game

Spellsword Cards: Demontide on Steam