Epic Tavern
Epic Tavern is a fun and interesting combination of management sim and tabletop RPG. After the tutorial, you start each day off at your tavern. You talk to your customers who usually have pretty interesting story lines, learn of new quests, serve them food and drinks that they may or may not like, get them super drunk, and build your relationships so that you may hire them to do your bidding. At the end of the day, you equip your heroes and send them out into the world on adventures that may only take the day, or it may take several. The success of these missions (and the events on the way) is based on the skills of the heroes and a few rolls of the dice. Many adventures have multiple approaches available to choose from to best fit the skills of your heroes, which means there’s a pretty good reason to play it a few times. After all your teams of heroes have finished up, they go back to the tavern for more alcohol abuse. Wash, rinse, repeat.
– Real player with 372.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Management Games.
At the heart of EPIC TAVERN is a lack of focus on what is trying to be and executing both game subsystems. On one hand it is a tavern simulator with resource constraints. On the other it is a random event generator in guise with “sometimes” good story elements. You as the bar-keep are tasked with navigating both of these systems. Each subsystem has a wonderful loading screen that is viewed over and over as the game loop progresses.
You can recruit and level up your stock of adventurers in tavern play and then take them out on the road rolling dice. During dice rolls there is the “safe bet” and the “risky” chance to choose from. Even though there are about 5 “actions” to choose from it only boils down to two real choices in its current implementation.
– Real player with 202.0 hrs in game
Fate of the Storm Gods
This is one of the most disappointing Choice of Games I’ve played.
For you to influence various plot pivots, you need very high stats. Not only does this not given you much wriggle room (if you feel a choice the writer has given to boost a stat doesn’t fit with your character); it also assumes you can also understand how each choice will affect which stat (which is often far from clear). All those kills any feeling of agency I felt I had at the most pivotal moments.
And on the less plot-consequential side of things, I was disappointed with the romance options. Apparently, there were very few opportunities to pursue anyone you might be interested, and they competed with other options (ones that often felt more sane in context). In other words, rather have a range of options to resolve of the choice of whether and how to enter a relationship, you had to choose between those triggers and options to learn more about the world. As you need to understand the setting to make choice to affect the plot, that’s a terrible trade-off to make your player make.
– Real player with 287.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Text-Based Games.
Fate of the Storm Gods is an interactive novel with a unique setting. Step into the shoes of a Weather Builder as you fight to stop the unbalanced weather anomalies. Pick your gender, your appearance and grab some hiking boots cause you have quite the journey ahead of you.
Plot: Fate of the Storm Gods had such an amazing plot- in theory. The Idea of being a Weather Builder sounded exciting and was an idea that I hadn’t come across prior. Sadly, in reality, it felt like what was being offered was a mismarketed story. Weather Builders felt far more like a form of Elementalists than divine beings that control the weather; yes, you do get to manipulate massive storms and throw around lightning but you also have control over fire and earth, albeit with the help of artifacts but still.
– Real player with 16.8 hrs in game
DreamCatcher: Reflections Volume 1
Short, but interesting. Cute imagery, and overall it’s a lot of fun. I’ve spent more on things that were a lot less fun that this read was.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction 2D Games.
Faerie’s Bargain: The Price of Business
Where to begin.
Ultimately, I wish I could give them a meh review, rather then a straight thumbs up or down. I really wanted to love and enjoy this title, being a fan of magic, folklore, fantasy, etc. But in the end, I’ve had more bad then good.
To begin with, the story at times is very dense with unfamiliar terms and strange convoluted choices. Halfway through the first chapter, it was so hard to really understand exactly what was going on and what my choice options would do that I resorted to reading the coding just to get a better idea. But even that became a convoluted mess, as the labeling for choice stats and their effects is so odd that even with the code guiding me, I never really knew what outcome I would get. A seemingly obvious devious decision (even using the term devious in its text) would fail despite my devious stat being higher then my forthright! And a choice you think would obviously boost a stat (like being compassionate), at times instead boosted ambition. Making it really hard to know what the heck result you could expect to get. Couple that with very convoluted writing at times, and by the end of the faerie merchant council, I was so tired of the story that I had to quit just to give my brain a break after realizing the story was STILL going.
– Real player with 13.0 hrs in game
Steam forces us to select a positive recommendation or a negative judgement : there is no option to be neutral, hesitant. Consequently, I do not wish to be a nuisance to a developer’s sales by selecting a thumb-down option. This game is an example of a product I am hesitant to recommend, but also, hesitant to reject. I may only give my very personal, subjective feedback – opinions not applicable to all types of players.
I am mostly an emotional role-player, so, to enjoy a game, I must feel immersed into my game persona – as soon as possible.
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
Gloom and Doom
Dude, this is so cutting!
I had so much fun playing this game. Well, that’s not quite a surprise to me, seeing as I was already predisposed to like it as soon as I read the description: “90s outcast movies” quirky, but oh so human, supernatural characters, “a dark coming-of-age story” against the backdrop of looming apocalypse, comicbook style visuals…But beyond that initial hook of 90s nostalgia, loads of pop culture references and familiar tropes I found much more - a careful look at depression, loneliness and alienation, being stuck in a loop with no exit, themes of free will vs destiny, choices and responsibility, and a central heartwarming relationship between two unlikely protagonists.
– Real player with 18.0 hrs in game
I’m not really one for visual novels, but this game has really changed my mind. It was recommended by a friend, and found it amazing with the ton of pop culture references in the dialogue and backgrounds. Simply amazed that this was all done by one guy. It does have some deep themes, but is well paced with its sense of humour. Also loving the art style, its unique and refreshing from the typical anime style. The intro/tutorial has also got to be the most interesting/different (in a good way) that I’ve seen in a long time in any game.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
Furries & Scalies: Super Scary Halloween Spooky Times Part II
It is Halloween once more, and seasonal stores have begun popping up all over!
Manage your team, make sure Halloween is the best it can be for every customer (except the mean ones), and generally spread holiday fear and excitement! Besides the usual crop of employees, there are a few new ones, with new and interesting stories to tell!
Hoping to make this year the best yet, utilize new training techniques to help your fellow employees navigate through many different retail-related hurdles and help many different customers of varying annoyance level. Pick and choose what promotions to deploy, who to do what, and generally do whatever it takes to try to turn a profit.
Wait, do I hear….. jingle bells? Is that…. a seasonal Christmas store on the second level of the mall? What are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future doing here? This is all wrong! It’s not even September yet!
This, of course, means war.
Features
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Manage your team
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Manage your store while also either sabotaging or helping the Christmas store
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Uncover a plot to destroy the holidays as you know it! A capitalist plot!
Northern Blades
ALRIGHT! I was interested in this because of the artwork… And “Key” looks attractive… So you know… Gotta read it + enjoy the visuals!
The music is pleasant, by that I mean it works with the reading. Of course the drawings are really good! I also like how the visuals follow the narrative … For example: Battle damage in a fight – is shown in the images.
OH! The enemies are really creepy. Good work! I like “Key’s” armor and “other look” as well (The transformation).
This is a very short story, but Acts were promised! It obviously ends in a cliff hanger… Which is going to drive me a bit nuts… Because that’s not what I expected… I even replayed it a bunch of times to ensure I got the right ending! I wont spoil it… But ehh… I want to see more of “Key” and know more about the characters!!! And the monsters and everything else!
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
I like it, it is nice, I am looking forward to play more acts.
Quite nice background music and i do enjoy art style.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
The Nine Lives of Nim: Fortune’s Fool
A very charming SIM/Visual Novel hybrid about a cat faerie called Nim who is tasked to search for her prince in a city called Valora.
You have 1 month to increase your stats than can trigger storylines of different Shakespeare characters and get several endings that shapes the fate of Nim. 1 month doesn’t seem like a lot but this game has a lot of storylines, which actually made me interested with Shakespeare’s works. Not to mention a lot of endings and different ending variations that gives this a high replay value. It was enjoyable and addiction to the end.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
A traditional stat-raising life simulation game with interesting new approaches.
The mechanics are very simple, but there is a lot of depth to be found in the different plotlines and how actions affect the game and endings. The protagonist’s three forms as cat, spirit, and human adds a unique layer of complexity.
I definitively recommend this game for fans of the genre.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Furry Shakespeare: Dreamin' of One Lazy Dead Midsummer
Come celebrate Camp Chuckerwood’s 100th year!
It’s Midsummer Night’s Dream meets Friday the 13th, as you work as a camp counselor for the the bloodthirsty, training them to become the next generation of horror icons! The world needs these creatures of the night in order to keep the magic and imagination of the world alive, which is odd, considering these are all slashers and other types of movie monsters.
As Bray the Manticore, you enter Camp Chuckerwood, located on the edges of Lake Quiet Waters, wide eyed and ready to change the lives of your campers. What you get is two Fae Lords in the middle of a break-up, a Sasquatch intent on revenge, a giant wasp doing community service, and a werewolf head counselor at the end of her rope. Also, there’s another, different werewolf at the end of her rope as well, but we don’t want to spoil the entire game for you.
Interact with eight fellow summer counselors and up to four budding legends of horror! Survive the summer play, the summer sportsball game, the typical summer camp horror/slasher experience, and summer rivalries!
Fun is mandatory. Survival is not.
Grave Knight
Under developement, Grave Knight is an interactive RPG adventure inspired by SRD 5.1 ruleset and classical game books, where your decisions weave the fate of the characters and the story. Let the dice forge the fate of your hero and the realm by fighting the Grave knight and his horde.
Grave Knight is a Visual Novel, an interactive RPG-style adventure game, where your choices will determine the path in which the story and characters will develop. Do you save the heroine or let her die? Do you talk to the monsters or face them? Do you take the left or right path? Do you take any chances to save someone, regardless of the consequences or do you let them suffer a cruel fate until death? The fate of the narrative and the world is in your hands (or in the fortune determined by the dice rolls…).
Features
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A Visual Novel with over 70k words
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3 playable character classes
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Fine Art in Painting Style
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3h of gameplay
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Dice roll entry system
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Several Achievements throughout history
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Original soundtrack
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Nonlinear storytelling
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RPG elements (character evolution)
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Kobolds,Trolls and Goblins!
Old Bron
The last to see the group of adventurers entering the Tomb of the Forgotten.
Vivianne
A young tavern attendant who hires an adventurer to find her foster brother.
Liluth
The refugee wizard elf from Rozania seeks redemption after losing all members of her group of adventurers.
Donothan
A brave young man who seeks to become an adventurer and prove his worth.
The Grave Knight
The great evil released by the adventurers, he seeks revenge against those who betrayed him in a past life.
Did you say, Goblins?!?!?!