Turn Based

Wildermyth RPG Indie Game Review

I just started playing Wildermyth on the PC yesterday. This game is very fun and very challenging. I warn you, don’t get too attached to any of your characters, because it won’t be long before they die. Permadeath is real in this game. You get two chances. First time, your character will be maimed, second time, dead. I’m thinking I have to start all over because my characters just aren’t strong enough for the battle that they’re facing. I’ve tried twice now. Some had already died before that too. read more

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Curious Expedition – Indie PC Game Review

Title: Curious Expedition

Genre: Adventure Game, Rogue Like

Developer: Maschinen-Mensch

Platform: PC, playable over Steam and also right in your web browser, stand-alone DRM free client coming soon

Release Date: May 19th, 2015

Retail Price: $14.99

Where to Buy: Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/358130/The_Curious_Expedition/ or Direct from the official website at http://curious-expedition.com/

Overall: 58 / 80 73% C “Good Game for Girls”

Overview: 8/10 Curious Expedition is a rogue-like adventure game with retro style pixel graphics. It puts you in the role of one of several famous explorers from history and lets you compete for fame and fortune. If you become the most famous explorer, you win, and are honored with a large statue in your likeness.

That is, if you can survive long enough to even return home from your expedition. The game uses some interesting mechanics such as a sanity meter, which when it gets low, bad things begin to happen. Mutiny breaks out among your crew, or random disasters begin to befall the group.

You can restore sanity by eating, drinking, or sleeping. There are also certain units you can recruit, or perks you can receive that increase your max sanity, making it a bit easier to explore without going insane.

There are other resources for you to manage as well, such as fresh water, ammo, first aid kits, torches to explore dungeons, ropes and climbing kits, and numerous other tools to help you discover treasure.

While out exploring you will sometimes enter into battle using various dice (amount of dice and colors of dice are determined by which party members you have with you at the time.)

You can always select from 2 different expedition routes, and are presented with a randomly generated objective to complete while on expedition. You can choose to return home after completing your objective, or continue to search for treasure to bring back.

Your movement speed is greatly reduced when your inventory is over burdened. This will make it even more challenging to manage your sanity and other resources. Terrain obstacles such as sand, snow, ice, mountains, and forests will also slow down your expedition and require careful resource management.

Perhaps the most unforgiving element is if you die, you get one chance to load your auto save, and then that’s it, you’ll have to start a new game. And you will die often. 6 expeditions may not sound like much, but I have yet to make it past the 5th.

The overall experience of the game left me both addicted, and annoyed. I have yet to successfully complete a full series of expeditions. But yet, I played all night, and can’t wait to get home to go on new expeditions.

Pros: Strangely addicting Gameplay paired with retro pixel graphics. D&D style dice-rolls and turn based combat system. Fairly large maps (I typically have to return home without fully exploring the maps). Rogue like elements make it great for multiple replays (but admittedly need some tweaks).

Cons: Normal mode is very challenging… like seriously challenging (There is an easy mode (which I have not tried) and an even more difficult mode as well though so this is not really a bad thing). My chief complaint of Curious Expedition is that there’s not enough choices in places to explore. Maps all feel very same-ish. Scenarios seem to repeat, and even when you get a new scenario, there’s nothing terribly unique about the quest to make it memorable or exciting. Need more maps, more variety in quests, more variety in classes, npcs, treasure, random events, etc. My other chief complaint is there’s no multiplayer mode. This seems like a great game for some multiplayer fun as it does show you how much fame/fortune your competitors are earning. It could even make a great persistent online game with credit going to players for being the first to discover new regions, items, animals, native people, etc. So much potential here for interesting multiplayer options, but instead, your competitors are always controlled by the computer. And lastly, my last complaint is that there’s no Steam Achievements. A game like this would be PERFECT for steam achievements. There are steam trading cards, but no achievements which seems once again like a missed opportunity to add some fun gameplay elements.

Geeky: 5/5 – The retro vibe and random rogue like elements, as well as references from D&D and other old school games make this a blast for all geeks who grew up with fond memories of the 80s/90s.

Sweetie: 3/5 – Although it is very text heavy, a lot of the text repeats and is not very interesting on subsequent playthroughs. However, there are some notable female playable characters that represent real women throughout history, which is just awesome. This game highlights women who did extraordinary things and emphasizes their brains over beauty, making this a great game for young girls.

Gameplay: 7/10 – When the game begins, you select which explorer you want to play as. Some will be locked and can be unlocked through game play to be used on subsequent playthroughs. You will be given a few supplies and some animal and human companions.

You’ll then be shown a map of the world. It will have many expedition points, but only ever 2 at a time will be selectable as your competition will be exploring the other parts of the world. Select one of the two routes and you’ll be offered a quest. You can either accept or reject the quest. I assume if you reject it, you can just freely explore the expedition area without a quest in mind. Or maybe you’re presented other quest options before embarking on your voyage. I’m not really sure.

If you can successfully complete a quest objective you’ll get a large bonus to fame and/or fortune. But if you fail the quest after choosing to accept it, you’ll lose a great deal of fame or fortune as well.

Before leaving the docks, you’re given time to buy supplies, and sometimes you will find new crew members who wish to join your expedition. You can only take 5 members at any time, so if you find new members you wish to recruit, you will have to part ways with someone else first.

While out exploring you are shown a map with perhaps a few areas uncovered, but largely, hidden from your view. You click around the map to move and explore. Points of interest or interaction are designated by a white question mark symbol. As you approach, they will reveal themselves to be one of several different locale such as:

Native Villages: Here you can recruit members for your expedition, buy, sell, trade, rest to restore sanity, compile research, complete various quest objectives, and more. Your likelihood of success depends on the villagers feelings towards you. These are determined by how long you’ve stayed in the village, as well as decisions you make to story prompts both inside and outside of the village, as well as certain class roles of your crew, and any special status conditions possessed by your crew, and lastly, the amount of trading you’ve done with the village thus far.

Caves: If you have a torch, or a class member with “perception” skills (blue dice roll with white eye symbol), you can usually safely explore the caves. If you choose to loot treasure, you may anger the gods, villagers, or spring a trap, but it’s almost always worth the risk, as you can trade the treasure in for fame or fortune after you return home.

Stone Circles: You can use these monuments to reveal more of the map.

Temples and Pyramids: Similar to caves, mostly used as a place to loot treasure which usually has some negative consequences as mentioned above, but still is imperative in raising your fame and fortune which is how you ultimately win the game.

There are different types of maps / expedition areas such as:

Icelands, Jungles, Drylands, Deserts, Mountains, etc. I find the Jungles to be the easiest to traverse. Icelands can be conquered with Snowshoes and sled tickets. Drylands and Deserts requires you to carry more water.

While exploring your food and water rations deplete, and also your sanity begins to dwindle (rapidly). You must eat or sleep or drink to restore these meters. If you ignore them, you will suffer a lot of negative random scenarios, such as killing your crew, sometimes you’ll eat them though which will restore your sanity at least lol.

Encounters with various “monsters” (typically wild animals), happen when you enter an area designated by a red border, you can also see a circle icon representation of the beast in question as he also moves around the map. Should you draw attention, he will likely chase you, and be faster than you. Sometimes it’s better to face your opponents head on. If they sneak up on you, they get a free combat round before you can react.

Combat takes place using various dice rolls. Different items in your inventory, and different class roles of your party members, determines which dice you have available.

Each “turn” consists of 3 “rounds”. Each “round” allows you to either keep or re-roll dice. If you have a combination of dice that result in a combo move, they will shake on your screen. Mousing over a shaking die will show the other dice needed to activate the combo – they will shake too. If multiple combos or other dice had been shaking, their shaking will stop when you’re moused over a die from a combo they don’t belong to.

You can activate your combos each round.

For example, your first roll could reveal that you have 3 dice that activate a combo. You can click on those dice to “hold them” once all three have been held a dialog box will appear – click the box to activate the combo, then select reroll. Your next roll may have another 3 dice that activate a different combo, you can again play this combo in the same way, and roll again for your final round. Each time you hold dice, or activate a combo, however, will remove those used dice from your available dice pool, making it less likely to get good combo rolls as the rounds go on.

If you survive, you may be given items, or fame and fortune. If you should die, you will be taken back to the main menu where you can reload your game. Should you die again, when returning to the main menu you will notice there is no longer an option to continue and you must start a new game.

Also as you explore and fight your way to glory, you will be able to promote your party members to make them stronger. There are also numerous random events that may impact your party members’ skills, stats, and abilities.

Return home with your treasure. You can choose to donate to the museum for fame, sell for fortune, or hold onto various items. When you return home you’ll also be presented with any applicable quest rewards and allowed to select one “perk” from a handful of randomly generated ones. Some of these perks are really neat and significantly alter your gameplay, such as allowing you to do culture studies on native tribes, giving you additional dice rolls, permanent boost to max sanity, increased viewable map areas, or more benefits. After choosing your perks and preparing again for your next adventure you’ll again have an option of 2 expedition areas to explore and be shown a random quest.

Survive all six expeditions and have the highest fame to win the game.

Story: 5/10 – You write your own story. This game plays much like Oregon Trail, Horizons New Dawn, or Banner Saga, so if you’ve played any of those, you have an idea of what to expect here. Unlike Banner Saga, however, Curious Expedition is not very well written, nor engaging, simply because it is almost too random, and at the same time not random enough, so that when you hit subsequent playthroughs, it becomes a bit repetitive. I know the game is only just now at patch 1 point something, but after being out for 2 years now, that’s rather concerning too that there hasn’t been more big content updates. It needs more scenarios and random events, but even that can’t save the story because of the nature of the brief random encounters and quest. Lacking a central story, does not detract from how fun and enjoyable this game is, but for those looking for a solid story and great characters, look elsewhere.

Characters: 8/10 – There are a lot of randomly generated characters including various races, classes, genders, likes, dislikes, stat bonuses, ailments, and little quirks, that really make your party more interesting. There are a few, but not many, scenes that may endear some of these characters to you, but most of the time, they are of little consequence from a story standpoint. As mentioned earlier in the review, I am quite pleased to see the inclusion of many female and minority historical figures as playable characters. Curious Expedition is a great game with great rolemodels and unique characters inspired from historical events.

Graphics: 7/10: Pixel graphics are hot right now. I understand they’re not to everyone’s taste, but as an older gamer myself, I enjoy retro feeling games such as this. I did deduct a few points in this area though simply because of the “sameness” of all of the maps / areas / npcs / etc.

Sound: 6/10: The soundtrack is also extremely retro which gives it a fun 80s feeling with lots of nostalgia. But ultimately, the soundtrack is just not too memorable overall.

Replay Value: 9/10: Although it desperately needs some more variations, more options, and more items, npcs, places, and skills, the game does indeed present a fun randomly generated gameplay element that makes each playthrough unique. The challenge of the game also dictates the need for subsequent playthroughs.

Overall: 58 / 80 73% C “Good Game for Girls”

Other Games You May Like

Include Horizons New Dawn on SNES and Oregon Trail Classic or Banner Saga on the PC. read more

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Kodokawa | PS4 | PS Vita | JRPG | RPG | Strategy Game | Japanese Mythology | Japanese Folklore | Roleplaying Game | Anime

God Wars, New JRPG Strategy RPG Game, Heads West for PS4 and PS Vita in 2016

Kotaku covered a news scoop regarding Kodokawa’s latest upcoming JRPG, God Wars: Toki wo Koete (translation: God Wars: Beyond Time). You play as a girl, which makes this game highly relevant to my audience here at Geeky Sweetie. She’s a priestess named Kaguya, who has been chosen as a sacrifice to the gods, by her own Mother (the Queen).

People who are quick to criticize weak willed characters, especially females in gaming, will appreciate this lead role, who manages to escape her ill fate, and has a spunky and opinionated personality, enough so that she rebels against her mother, and her kingdom.

She does not just accept authority, from her mother, the queen, or even the teachings of the gods. Instead she sets out on a Journey to find her own answers and make her own decisions.

Japanese history, folklore, and mythology are at the heart of the story. Sawaki Takeyasu (famous for his creature work in Devil May Cry and Okami) will be in charge of monster design once again for God Wars Beyond Time.

Gameplay consists of turn based and grid based mechanics similar to those in other JRPG strategy games such as Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Tactics Ogre. Check out the official trailer below.

According to Gematsu, God Wars will feature over 30 job classes, 200 weapons, and 600 skills. Gematsu also provided some more storyline details, stating that the game is intended to blend Japanese fairytales with historical events to reimagine the coming of age of some of Japan’s greatest historical figures.

Gematsu also notes that the characters are designed by Mino Taro (famous for character design in Love Plus) and a narration by Japanese actor Shiro Sano.

 

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    oreshika | oreshika 2 | tainted bloodlines | ps vita | ps tv | multi generational | jrpg | offspring | breeding | generations

    Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines Review for PSVita / PSTV

    Disclaimer: My review is based on the demo version. Sadly, I’ve yet to play the full version but will update this accordingly (if my views change) once I’ve purchased the full game.

    Title: Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines

    Genre: RPG

    Publisher: Alfa System / Sony

    Release Date: March 2015

    Where to Buy: $19.99 on Amazon.com

    Geeky Factor

    Sweetie Factor

    Overall: 64/80 80% B- “Very Good Game For Girls”

    Concept: 10/10 The concept here is very fun, you can check out what I think of the Gameplay and Customization below which are really the highlights of this game. The concept is that you and all of your ancestors and descendants have been cursed by someone so that they will live a very short life and also never be able to reproduce normally – instead they must reproduce with gods and demons. The game is fast paced and your characters do die quickly which forces you to keep breeding with the gods to make new clan members. You can pass down heirloom armor and the armor gets new powers as it is passed down. Combat is turn based and there is also a city building element to the game. Read on to learn more about each of these features.

    Story: 6/10 I did not get to see much of the story during the demo; but from my limited play time, it does not seem to be very story driven and seems more like a dungeon crawling hack n slash experience. There is a loose story there; about your family being cursed and only able to live for a max of 2 years (my main character died at 19 months; so they don’t always even make it to 2 years). Your family is chosen by a god to be reincarnated and you are given a chance to learn about and take revenge on whomever it was that cursed your bloodline. The god uses a sacrificial girl with magical abilities named Nueko who can bring herself back to life after she dies. From what I read about the game online, it seems that this Nueko becomes the main focus of the story; and that the story does not focus on your clan or your cursed bloodlines, but instead on protecting Nueko. Because it does not focus on your character or clan, many gamers feel the game is less personal and less immersive, and that their characters are only minor characters to the plot and story. This is just based on hearsay and not my own experience, so take that with a grain of salt too. 🙂 This is actually the 2nd game in the Oreshika series, but it’s the first one we’ve gotten in North America. I’m not sure if the story is at all connected to the first game or not.

    Gameplay: 10/10 Gameplay is really unique in this game. I had a lot of fun in my brief time with the demo. The most unique thing obviously is that your characters live only a very short time so you are forced to mate with numerous gods in the game to create new offspring and once your player character passes away, you select one of your other clan members to take over as leader. Certain gods come and go at different times, and other gods must first be unlocked in various ways (sometimes by equipping certain items or killing X number of monsters etc). The customization is amazing allowing you to customize everything from your appearance, to class, abilities, offspring, and even the town. (you can read more about that under my section on customization). And the combat experience is also fun. There’s a roulette like wheel that appears and will determine what loot is available. You have the option of killing all enemies or just killing the leader. Sometimes if there’s an item you really want it’s best to go straight for the leader, because he will sometimes run away with the loot. You can take up to 8(I think?) characters into battle at once. Some can attack any row, others can only attack front or back row depending on their placement on the field. There’s also 8 classes to choose from each with their own fighting style. Most of the fights I encountered in the demo were too easy/dull but the demo forces you to play on the easiest game settings so I’m not going to deduct points for that. The monsters are visible on the screen and you can avoid combat or sneak up on the opponent to get an advantage. Everything you do advances time by one month. If you choose to mate with a god, one month passes, if you choose to explore a dungeon, one month passes (sometimes more, as you can choose to keep exploring or return home at the end of each month in a dungeon). Because of this, it’s a very fast paced game, and there is always a sense of urgency and pressure on the player to make the best decisions. Also later (not available in the demo) it is said that we will be able to visit other players’ towns and other cities and dungeons too. Taking pictures also seems to be a high focus in the gameplay – I haven’t figured out why yet – there’s even the ability to share the pics you take over social media from within the game. I don’t know if the pictures serve any other purpose though.

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    Graphics: 7/10 The thing about the graphics is that they are VERY stylized; they are intended to represent ancient paintings and scrolls from Japanese history. Therefore, you can notice a very “painter” like feeling to the graphics, including thick brush strokes and uneven coloration. This is intentional; similar to how Ghibli chose to use a similar technique while animating Princess Kaguya. If you’ve ever seen that film you’ll understand what I mean about the artwork in Oreshika. It’s not “ugly” but it’s definitely “different” from what most modern RPGs aim for.

    Also the ability to put your own face into the game with the PS Vita camera can create some pretty ugly characters even if you are average to above average looking yourself lol. Luckily, the characters can also be manually created to get something more pleasing.

    There are some very cute characters. Your servant and guide through the game, a little weasel girl is totally adorable. And some of the gods are sexy / beautiful.

    All of the graphics have a distinctive anime feeling, and there is a huge amount of customization too in this game. (both of which are things I typically look for in games to review here.)

    In battle, the graphics look pretty good, but I think some of the monster designs are rather ugly; (but hey they are monsters after all); there’s also a lot of recycled artwork, that’s been recolored for different monsters; red crab, blue crab, black crab, gold crab, green crab, etc. The special effects and abilities are also not very pretty or impressive in battle, which is a little disappointing.

    Music: 7/10 The music, like the graphics, is intended to invoke feelings of ancient Japanese culture. It’s very asian sounding, which may not be to everyone’s tastes. I personally don’t care for a lot of the tracks used in this game; however, because it is very fitting with the theme and story of the game, I still graded the music fairly high.

    Voice Acting: 8/10 I like the voice acting in this game because they kept the original Japanese voices in tact. Most of them are quite good; I do get confused by the main “God” in the game; I still haven’t decided if it’s male or female – It kinda sounds female, and it wears a lot of pink (maybe because I chose that for my own clan’s color?) lol. In the opening animation, I think “he” was wearing armor that showed off his pecs, so I am pretty sure he is male, but he is very feminine sounding/looking. I don’t care for his voice actor; but I guess a more rugged voice wouldn’t fit his somewhat androgynous appearance. I love the weasel girl’s voice actress she is super kawaii sounding! 🙂

    Customization: 10/10 For sure, customization is where this game shines. You spend a long time initially making your first character, with the ability to either use a photo of your own face to try to generate a character that looks like you; or the ability to manually make any kind of character of your dreams, by selecting from over 20 different hair, eyes, noses, face shapes, and then further fine tuning your selections using slider mechanisms to control placement, height, width, depth, spacing, etc. Then you move on to choose your class and are shown a description of the different fighting styles. I chose lancer; but I ended up having the most fun attacking with my dancer later on. After you make your first clan member, you get to make 2 other clan members to fight along side you. I just went with the pre-generated options here, and selected their classes, but I think (could be wrong) that you can also customize their appearances as well. (but I was tired of customizing and just wanted to play the game lol). Because your characters die easily/quickly (my first death happened at 19 months which occurred less than 1 hour into the game), you must mate with the gods to produce new offspring. The children will take a genetic combination of facial features/hair/skin etc from both their human and god parents. You even have the ability to get demon looking or god looking children or animal children etc in this way; and then their traits are passed down when they mate also. And not only do you get to customize the characters, but also the town in which they live, by investing in different shops or boosting different aspects of the city, and inviting new shops, and unlocking new items, or new activities that you can undergo while in town, So really the customization is amazing in this game. It’s what makes the game so much fun.

    Overall: 64/80 80% B- “Very Good Game For Girls”

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