Greetings Watchers,
Whilst I didn't back it on Kickstarter, I did pick this cute little game up essentially due to its coverage here. The game-play is nice and basic and it plays like a hybridised party-based Eschalon, with obvious nods to both Spiderweb's Avernum and even traces of Ultima's 3-6 in the exploration. I noted Fluent's videos on the game on Steam (kudos for those incidentally!) but haven't fully investigated them as yet eschewing spoilers in quest/dungeon content.
I'm about 10 hours in and have reached a very pleasant level 9. There's an immediacy to the experience which makes it relaxingly cheerful to play, the soundtrack often showing a strong Morrowind influence. I'd even make special note to the visceral sound fx, which give the player satisfying feedback in combat.
Amusingly, some of the graphics remind me of an old online game that my little brother used to play years ago - Habbo Hotel; and somewhat tangentially, there's even an odd little quest involving hobos and whether they should live or die which was certainly different.
However, the writing is probably the weakest link so far, as it is a little juvenile and silly but the feeling of exploring the world, doing quests is still fairly compelling.
I'd certainly recommend it even at this point to indie rpg fans and players of party-based and turn based strategy games. The turn-based combat is straight forward and not particularly deep, but I do like the sense of discovery in finding out where one's party is capable of going. Getting splattered and torn apart by seagulls and crabs for instance in the early levels was especially hilarious!
I went for a party consisting of a relatively standard Warrior/Archer/White Mage/Black Mage and I like having to be conscious of a range of skills spread amongst the group. Admittedly it takes time to get used to percentile spell-failures in combat which will turn off some players, but I'm hoping that with careful stat management over time (wis/int) the impact of this will become lessened.
At this point I would say picklock is an essential skill and I'm enjoying dipping into alchemy and hoarding ingredients for the future. I can tell it's going to take quite a few more hours to develop my characters and fully enjoy the content.
Anyway, just thought I'd share my fun relaxing time with the game so far and see if other Watchers have played/are playing. I find myself more drawn to this than to DA:I at the moment, whose combat I'm really struggling to enjoy.
Ahh well, there's such an elegance and purity in simplicity sometimes.
Whilst I didn't back it on Kickstarter, I did pick this cute little game up essentially due to its coverage here. The game-play is nice and basic and it plays like a hybridised party-based Eschalon, with obvious nods to both Spiderweb's Avernum and even traces of Ultima's 3-6 in the exploration. I noted Fluent's videos on the game on Steam (kudos for those incidentally!) but haven't fully investigated them as yet eschewing spoilers in quest/dungeon content.
I'm about 10 hours in and have reached a very pleasant level 9. There's an immediacy to the experience which makes it relaxingly cheerful to play, the soundtrack often showing a strong Morrowind influence. I'd even make special note to the visceral sound fx, which give the player satisfying feedback in combat.
Amusingly, some of the graphics remind me of an old online game that my little brother used to play years ago - Habbo Hotel; and somewhat tangentially, there's even an odd little quest involving hobos and whether they should live or die which was certainly different.
However, the writing is probably the weakest link so far, as it is a little juvenile and silly but the feeling of exploring the world, doing quests is still fairly compelling.
I'd certainly recommend it even at this point to indie rpg fans and players of party-based and turn based strategy games. The turn-based combat is straight forward and not particularly deep, but I do like the sense of discovery in finding out where one's party is capable of going. Getting splattered and torn apart by seagulls and crabs for instance in the early levels was especially hilarious!
I went for a party consisting of a relatively standard Warrior/Archer/White Mage/Black Mage and I like having to be conscious of a range of skills spread amongst the group. Admittedly it takes time to get used to percentile spell-failures in combat which will turn off some players, but I'm hoping that with careful stat management over time (wis/int) the impact of this will become lessened.
At this point I would say picklock is an essential skill and I'm enjoying dipping into alchemy and hoarding ingredients for the future. I can tell it's going to take quite a few more hours to develop my characters and fully enjoy the content.
Anyway, just thought I'd share my fun relaxing time with the game so far and see if other Watchers have played/are playing. I find myself more drawn to this than to DA:I at the moment, whose combat I'm really struggling to enjoy.
Ahh well, there's such an elegance and purity in simplicity sometimes.