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 Party-Based RPG CRPG 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:
-
Experience a richly illustrated world of authentic pixel art using thousands of hand-drawn tiles and images
-
A palette inspired by the legendary Commodore 64 computer.
-
Optional CRT filter for that authentic old-school experience.
Deep character creation:
-
Build your main character and recruit a party from among a dozen diverse characters, each with their own skill-set, agenda and personality.
-
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:
-
Engage in challenging, fast-paced, turn- and grid-based combat.
-
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:
-
Explore the vast expanse of Freymark and the Outer Isles and watch your actions spell doom or salvation for the region.
-
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.
-
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:
-
Skald was made possible by crowdfunding and already has a large, passionate and welcoming community that can’t wait to meet you.
-
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.
-
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 Party-Based RPG CRPG Games.
Dread Nautical
Fun game, if you can get over some annoyances. The story is good. The battles are fun.
Bad things:
Low replay value.
Part of your party can get stuck outside of a room when you get “ambushed”. This makes for the annoying practice of “rushing characters into a room at the start of a fight”. Gotta do that as fast as possible… and it is very silly and annoying.
A threat system starts up when you hit floor 10. The game is way more fun without it. I don’t want to think about how to collect loot after a battle in the least possible amount of steps (because threat goes up with every move) It doesn’t make the runs more interesting, it just makes it more annoying, and you have to keep going straight towards the exit on every map.
– Real player with 45.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Party-Based RPG Indie Games.
Dread Nautical bring tactical and survival challenges to play. you can search for supplies and gears. you can choose if you wish to engage the enemies or sneak pass them to complete the floor. I find this game to be fun and challenging. Also who and how many survivors you recruit affect your gameplay in term of food and dividing resources.
– Real player with 21.9 hrs in game
Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
This quickly became one of my favorite RPG’s as well as my personal favorite game in the PAA series, and with good reason. There’s quite a lot I’d like to say, so let’s get to it.
The game takes place 2 weeks after the events of Episode 2, but what’s neat is that you don’t need to have played it to understand the story going into Episode 3, as they immediately give you a summary of prior events upon talking to one of the statues in the Detective Agency. That alone makes Episode 3 easy to pick up and play, and the gameplay will keep you around for the long haul.
– Real player with 105.9 hrs in game
This game was an enjoyable throwback to 16bit turn based RPGs, but with a twist. They improved the combat system by adding some complexity without making it overly complicated. Since the core of all these turned based RPGs is mostly how well and fulfilling the combat is, the majority of this review will go over that section in detail to give you a greater understanding of how the game plays. I broke down the review in bold sections so you can read what is most important or what is most interesting to you in order of importance.
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Fenrir’s Prelude
Good game good design
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
You get what you pay for ,_,
– Real player with 10.4 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.
-
All the DLC from the non-GOAT Edition! All the Outfits! All the quests!
-
The second game in the non-award winning series!
-
Broadcast in glorious 1920x1080!
-
A brand new, 100% deeper Argument System!
-
What’s more revolutionary than a silent protagonist for the first game? How about a COMPLETELY SILENT SEQUEL?!?! LIKE, RIGHT????
-
15 party members, ranging from Army 1 party to Army 1 NPCs to newbies!
-
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.
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.
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
Archaelund
Archaelund is a roleplaying game with deep classic roots but also exciting innovations to bring you the ultimate adventure.
-
Exploration as you remember it: you can play Archaelund your own way. Take your party of adventurers through a vast open world and explore as you wish, find awesome secrets and run into unexpected trouble, get involved in conflicts or just pursue your own goals and discover what lies beyond the horizon.
-
Unique dual perspective: just as the best classics did, you’ll be able to explore the world of Archaelund in immersive first-person, wondering what lies behind each corner of the dungeon. When combat starts, the view seamlessly changes to top-down perspective, and you’ll issue orders to your party, placing them over a battle grid to face your enemies in a deeply strategic turn-based combat.
-
Deep and engaging character progression: a career-based system will have your characters start out as street ruffians, squires, hunters or even beggars; later on you can move into new career, including advanced ones like Knight, Loreseeker, Assassin or Battlemage. A character might leave behind its humble origins, but those days might bring in unique talents to your advantage!
-
Deadly battles with a focus on strategy: a non-inflationist, bounded system will ensure that every battle matters, and every opponent is scary. When your characters advance in levels, you’ll gain new tactical options to defeat your enemies, not just increased numbers.
-
An expansive world, handcrafted in detail: Archaelund is big enough to lose yourself in; yet everywhere you go you’ll meet people to talk to, unique quests to complete, mysteries to solve and, of course, battles to fight and treasures to loot.
Background: the Fall and the Exile
The Andorian Empire united the whole human race under the same proud banner for millenia, until a magical cataclysm brought the Horrors from another world. The Empire and most of the human race was annihilated in just a few days; only a few hundred ships could escape to the savage island of Varannar, a distant imperial colony beyond the western ocean. The refugees endured the hardships and tried to rebuild their old civilization, but never again stood united under the Imperial banner.
The newly founded Exiled Kingdoms bore the scars of the Fall, each of them in a different way. Varsilia, the mightiest and noblest of the Kingdoms, became grotesquely obsessed over Imperial history and preserving its traditions. Ilmarans turned into fanatical zealots of a new faith, while in Thuram, the remnants of the Imperial Wizards established a magocracy that disregards all matters except the arcane, and quickly declined into endogamy. On the west, the Kingdom of Mercia had emerged from the surviving Imperial Legions, establishing a nightmarish rule based on slavery and arbitrary discipline.
The four Kingdoms held irreconcilable views and ambitions, and locked together in a small and hostile land as they were, they often plotted against each other or even clashed openly in the battlefield. It seemed as if a perpetual cycle of war, famine and misery would become mankind’s unavoidable fate.
Archaelund, mankind’s new frontier
The future of the Kingdoms, however, brightened up generations later when a sea route to the old continent of Andoria was discovered, and it was proved that the Horrors were no more. Most of the old continent appeared to be an uninhabitable wasteland, but finally a vast and fertile coastal region was found: Archaelund.
For the first time in a long time humanity left aside the old grudges and obsessions and looked up to the future. Expeditions were arranged, and thousands of colonists, soldiers, adventurers and rogues embarked to Archaelund. The promises of land, riches and Imperial relics excited the imagination and ambition of thousands, from mere farmers to noble second-sons.
The re-colonization of Archaelund went on but the Exiles had to face many obstacles they had not foreseen. The Horrors may be no more, but they left behind a scarred world where eldritch energies and warped monsters roam the lands, and imperial ruins are often an unpredictable arcane hazard. Conflict between the Kingdoms is still very alive, and to make things worse, a subterranean race called the Geldryn (once slaves to the Andorian Empire) now aspires to inherit the surface world, and raise against the Exiles with increasing might.
Despite all the dangers, Archaelund is still a land of adventure and opportunity. Just like many others before, your party of adventurers has finally saved up enough money to embark and sail East. The Silver Star has crossed the Andor Sea for two weeks, when you catch the first glimpse of the ancient land of your ancestors, unimpressed by its mundane visage. Little you suspect that, very soon, you’re going to get involved in a plot that traces back to the terror of the final days of the Empire, and now threatens to destroy the remnants of civilization…