Loren The Amazon Princess
This game quickly became one of my Top 5 Favorite Games on Steam. It’s a JRPG-style game from an non-Japanese indie game company named Winter Wolves. This company is mostly known for dating sims and visual novels, but honestly, I think this game is their best yet. (Although, to be fair, I haven’t played all their games yet.)
Important note: The DLC is a MUST HAVE. Honestly, the story would seem very incomplete without it, so if you get this game, get the DLC. This review is also based on having it.
– Real player with 111.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction JRPG Games.
Ok, so the game is not a total fail. It does several things well, but the negative review is due to several factors that I cannot overlook, which I will explain here.
It starts off promising, with customization of stats, distinct NPCs and a nicely stylized art. The story starts off a bit cheesy and cliche, but it does several things well - you are not the main hero but their sidekick, which is immediately nicely refreshing; it boldly tackles the topics of misandry and racism; choices alter the story you experience. Soon after, however these lose their novelty and you begin to realize that while you are the sidekick you still play like the hero - you are their equal in strength and you can easily make everyone like you; the topics I mention could be explored more in-depth but instead the game does not go beyond “everyone is prejudiced, for no good reason, except you, so tell them how wrong they are, without a particularly good reason; and the different paths are for the most part inconsequential.
– Real player with 66.3 hrs in game
7 Grand Steps: What Ancients Begat
Ok, I’ve played this game over a period of years and I’ve stared guiltily at the ‘Mixed’ ratings for about as long.
Simply put, I love dynasty builders, so I’m gonna recommend this game. There are so few games that allow me to try to play through a bunch of historical family drama and this is one of them.
It’s a strange game, to be sure–but in gaming, strange is never a bad thing. But it does mean that this game is niche and just because I recommend doesn’t mean I have any illusions that everybody will enjoy this game. Either you’ll love it or you’ll hate having spent money on it. I don’t know if you’ll completely hate it outright: it’s too hard to categorize. It’s a weird, simple, arcade-style game about an ancient family trying to move up through the ranks. The mechanics have been explained well in other reviews, but the gist is you play out entire lifetimes, getting hitched (or not), giving birth to children that are a pain to feed and keep from hating each other, and you’ll be prompted with all sorts of story events. You’ll often go up and down. An entire arc (pushing through each age, last I checked I think there were about three) would take 15 hours. Plenty of replay value, simply based on choices in story events.
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Abstract Games.
Towards the end of the Copper Age, things were finally looking up for my family. After many years of being bottom dwellers in the social caste system my family discovered the “alphabet” and the art of being a “physician”. This thrust us into the upper middleclass, and my only daughter, Senet, became the best child this family had ever seen. She was above the other children in the village with an absolute understanding of science and literature. When Senet left to discover herself she took a sizable inheritence with her.
– Real player with 20.7 hrs in game
Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind
It’s an excellent game. Surprisingly engrossing graphics, quite a lot of fun to manage your clan, etc. The negatives are… Difficult to cover without some spoilers though. So I’m giving it a thumbs up because as a stand alone it’s a masterpiece. As a successor to KoDP it has definitely gone a bit off the rails. Spoilers to follow so stop reading now.
Yes it’s an amazing game. A couple things to be aware of though, which made KoDP a standout for it’s time but which Six Ages has given up on: unlike KoDP where you were expected to follow the path your ancestors set or you were punished severely, in this one you’re supposed to be “good” using today’s moral compass instead. Seriously. You can’t kill off other tribes, they’re super easy to ally with, it’s almost impossible to lose heros (compared to the original,) you’re supposed to jump on board with everything that’d be attractive to modern sensibilities (slavery is bad, yeah help enemies consistently, etc.) That’s a pretty big departure from the original where if you spit on your clans history you’d consistently be wrecked for it, so yeah. Important to know: Your ancestors were all idiots and the gods actually support going full hippy rather than doing whatever backwards crap those apes cared about. I tried KoDP like that the first time and was shocked how punishing the game was towards applying modern morality to the game. I was dissappointed that all I had to do to be this game on its hardest difficulty was to just disregard literally everything I’d learned about the lore and the world from the original. As long as you’ve never played the original, this is a nonissue; it’s only if you’ve gotten to experience the alternative, where you’re having to make judgements based on how their culture would likely interpret and react to events, that you realize how much actual depth that removes from gameplay.
– Real player with 152.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Interactive Fiction Simulation Games.
A number of your clan’s children have gone missing while foraging. Your people are anxious for their return. What do you do?
** consult the clan’s spirits
consult a god
immediately send out a search party **
King of Dragon Pass 1.9
Six Ages is a great game. It is basically a streamlined version of King of Dragon Pass with various new systems and all new stories and events. You have to manage your clan, make sure people are fed and happy, please the gods, explore lands close and distant, negotiate with other clans, practice magic, fight, etc. etc. I have heard people compare it to the Banner Saga, which I have not played yet, but I think the gameplay is fairly different. In Six Ages, you do all of the actions above by picking options in the various screens and events, not by e.g. positioning armies or walking around places. There are many, many events, which are beautifully painted scenes with text, where you have to make interesting choices that will effect the management of your clan and the world. There is really no other game quite like it; the genre is unique.
– Real player with 132.1 hrs in game
Wednesday Basketball
Live a year in a small town basketball association. Follow the stories of Fanny, Alex, Remy, Ajiba, Laura, Odile, Benjamin, Amir, Kariem and Meng as the season passes by. Some will join, some will leave. Relax and play some basketball.
Wednesday Basketball is a tactical basketball narrative game. Every week, a group of people of all age and origins decides to gather to play basketball. Every week, stories unfold, and games are played.
In this basketball club, no one is a loser, everybody is welcome to score some hoops and have some fun. But as Fanny’s last year goes by, some friendships will grow and some will break. Who will stay, who will leave, and what will happen to the club? Let’s find out.
Arbitology: Dei Gratia Rex
A Conquest Unfinished
Duke William of Normandy tasted victory at the Battle of Hastings, but not without paying a price in blood. While he afterwards took London and held a hasty coronation, he succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter. His young son, William Rufus, succeeded him — an easily controlled puppet for the other Norman lords.
Meanwhile in the north Earls Morcar and Edwin, with the cooperation of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, propped up their own puppet king in Edgar the Ætheling. These pretenders of the House of Godwin never relinquished their claim on the English throne, though the opportunity to press it has thus far eluded them.
A tense peace descended upon the land. Now, fifty years later, the status quo is nearing its end. Can you, the grandson of William the Bastard, finish that which he began?
Game Features
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Play the role of a young Norman king of a fractured England
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Text-based strategy gameplay
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Balance the interests of competing factions
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Live the best life you can; you will be judged by your legacy
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Meaningful choices with real consequences, not merely a choice of three colors
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Deep, simulation-driven event system
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Judicious use of procedural generation ensures replayability
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Hard historical fiction which rejects fantasy and popular tropes
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Artwork in the style of an illuminated manuscript
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Early music soundtrack based on real medieval compositions
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Words: many fine, hand-picked words
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Conquest and map painting, if such is your fancy
Markov Alg
Very cool puzzler and an amazing value. As previous reviewers said, it is somewhat reminiscent of Rogue Bit, but I found the format of individual self-contained puzzles, to be much more enjoyable. It is a game that requires logic and planning.
The puzzles start off easy taking less than a minute to solve, to some very interesting head-scratchers that take maybe 30 minutes. So it’s nice when you don’t have a lot of time for a long gaming session; you can get into the game complete a few levels (or in case of the later levels, just one), then quit with a sense of accomplishment and also not having to remember too much from one gaming session to the next.
– Real player with 11.4 hrs in game
Very fun game! Some levels are absolute stumpers until you realize that one specific little thing…
– Real player with 6.6 hrs in game
Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf HD Remastered
This is pretty good, provided you know what you’re getting into.
Lone Wolf was a series of fantasy gamebooks written by Joe Dever in the 80s. Since then the books have been reprinted a few times in various languages, and have even been made available for free with the author’s consent on https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Books . If this is not immediately made apparent further down this apologetic review, I loved these books and I’m quite pleased to see their universe transition into video game form. Rather than being an adaptation of one of the books, this game is an original story taking place somewhere between books 3 and 4.
– Real player with 49.9 hrs in game
As I grew up I loved to read book’s that took me on journey’s to far of place’s that I could only dream of in my imagination,so I started reading R.E Howard,H.G Wells,H.P Lovecraft and the like and then I came across a book called “WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN” and then I was hooked on the choose your own adventure style of books right from making my first decision and in turn effecting the story.
Then one day I was down my local bookstore looking for the next FIGHTING FANTASY book scouring the shelve’s and I came across the first book of the LONE WOLF series (which happened to run for 28 book’s) FLIGHT FROM THE DARK,I picked it up and was taken in by the artwork and the description written on the back of the book.
– Real player with 25.3 hrs in game
Football Drama
I’m not a football fanatic (freak) however the original and poetic approach to this subject has intrigued me almost immediately. The story is set in a fantasy (imaginary) and magical championship in which the player takes on the role of the coach Rocco Galliano. In order to improve the score of the Calchester Assembled the player will need to make the right choices and can do so only by identifying himself to Galliano’s troubling life.
This is a game of choices and experiences shrouded in an aura of mystery right from the start. The gossip, the simulations and the tone of the matches are hilarious.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
Football Drama
In this game, I reached the final credits extremely quickly. Yoga instead of the first training session for my team and going to the bar to strengthen team spirit looked like a great decision, but something went wrong… Perhaps the owner of the team did not appreciate the subtle trolling in his address, in short I was fired. The second playthrough was more successful but less fun and it uncovered rather serious flaws.
Football Drama consists of 2 major parts – turn-based football matches and choice-based storytelling. There’re a lot of references to real people (you’ll meet several recognizable personalities from the football world and also Pier Paolo Pasolini) and references to clubs/situations and the storytelling part is good enough to entertain and catch your attention. On the other hand turn-based football matches become boring rather fast and almost unaffected by what is happening in story.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
If you’re a fan of the old Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks from the 1980s, a fan of fantasy boardgames , a fan of the sword and sorcery genre in general or better yet, all three, then this game would be right up your street.
Anybody who has played the original 1982 Gamebook on which this game is based will enjoy all that is familiar here as they tiptoe past sleeping orc sentries, take on sadistic goblin torturers, barter with the grumpy ferryman at the underground river, face down a fire-breathing dragon and even tackle the infamous Maze of Zagor itself - not to mention the final showdown with the titular Warlock. All of this is accompanied by the original illustrations by Russ Nicholson - which can now be viewed in colour if you wish (just click the picture to switch between monochrome and colour).
– Real player with 65.8 hrs in game
An excellent adaptation of the grandfather of gamebooks. Rather than making a straightforward gamebook adaptation like they usually do, Tin Man chose to deviate from their usual formula and make something that’s closer to Inkle’s Sorcery! - expanded and modified story, heavily tinkered gameplay. It works really well.
- They kept the original Russ Nicholson illustrations and commissioned Russ Lolwordfilter Nicholson himself for new ones. I have trouble writing the rest of this review because of how I love his work.
– Real player with 24.8 hrs in game
Pendragon
_### Quick Overview
Imagine a game of chess where each of your pieces has its own little story and agenda. Each piece would also like to see its story to the end, but you, as the player, know that will not always be possible. Sacrifices have to be made. And stories will change and adapt because of them. Some will be cut short, some will be epic, but most of them will have to face tragedy sooner or later.
For those needing comparisons, think more Into the Breach than Banner Saga._
– Real player with 35.1 hrs in game
Pendragon has captured my attention in a way that very few games manage.
I describe this game as a chess-like narrative roguelike.
The roguelike aspect is straightforward, with each run following the same general structure : choose a hero and make your way to Camlann to aid King Arthur in the fight against the evil Mordred, dispatching enemies and recruiting allies along the way.
Mechanically, it is not a game of chess, but it is a very good analogy to get oneself into the mindset required to play Pendragon effectively - in order to be successful at the higher difficulties, one must be thoughtful in the moves they pick, their potential consequences, and how the enemies may react to them.
– Real player with 22.0 hrs in game