Recent reviews by Apsalar

*Steam time not indicative of actual play time*

A Personal Reflection about Why Games are Important

The game that has most been on my mind lately is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I've found myself humming the main theme a few times in the past month or so, and I always feel a saturated pulse of remembered emotion.

I first played Morrowind on the original xbox, which I kept alive for years past a natural end using a soldering iron and a dream. It was a dark time for me, Atlanta in 2000s. I was working 60-80 hours a week tending bar and barely pulling in enough to pay for my studio apartment, my cats, my phone, my food, an occassional xbox or ps2 game, and enough booze to suppress my as-yet-undiagnosed mental illness.

I would get home in the wee hours of morning and play Morrowind, often falling asleep on the couch with controller in hand. It wasn't the story, exactly, though the story is not bad. My life was so painful, and I felt so little control over my circumstances- until I entered Morrowind.



First, the player-guided, emergent, pseudo-sandbox nature of the game's narrative. I could go anywhere and attempt anything, ignoring or engaging the "main plot" however I saw fit. I remember little about that storyline and I kept playing my character for hundreds of hours after its completion. In Morrowind, I had agency over my choices, and I improved at the things I chose to do. When I felt unable to change my world or myself, when I felt unfit for my own goals and dreams- this aspect of Morrowind grew profound, became deeply important to me.

Second, the enormous and diverse cast of characters. So many scripted characters going about their own business for their own reasons. So many stories to be told by the many individuals, so many books to be found and read in the world. Morrowind felt populated by real people, so to speak. Many of the characters have simple tales to tell that illustrate the vicissitudes and banality and struggle of everyday life. This is a world in which everyone toils through their labors day by day, whether a hero comes or not. I saw my life through the lens of toil, and I was comforted.

Third, the sheer alien-ness of the world-building. This is not your typical white-washed, messianic fantasy of a hero's journey set in an idealized medieval Europe. This is Morrowind, and only Morrowind. The Elder Scrolls have returned to a more mainstream fantasy vision and I believe they are weaker games for it. Every step taken in the game was a journey of discovery of new and stranger wonders, and I was in love with each new one. What better place to find solace from our world than in a world so alien to my expectations?

When I catch that music in my head and I get that thrill through my body, that wash of emotions from an immensely upsetting time, I reflect on Morrowind with a sense of deep gratitude for the role it played in my life. In fact, the experience profoundly affected the way I understand and interact with video games, elevating the process from recreational narrative experience to important literary medium and even beloved and faithful friend.

No Drama, Just Reviews

Also posted as part of a discussion about the emotional impact of games at:
APSALAR Blog & Discussion

*key provided by developer for review purposes*


First off, let's get the genre question out of the way. Elysium Blood Games (EBG) is not an RPG (though it uses RPG elements), nor is it a fighting game (though fighting is the central activity of the game). As I hope you gathered from my cheeky header, EBG is in fact a sports management simulator. It has much more in common with OOTP or FHM than it does with, say, Pillars of Eternity. Or with Skullgirls.

EBG is a lite sports managmement sim that is complex enough to be engaging, but casual enough to fit in that perfect "lunchbreak" game niche.

There. Trust me, you will enjoy the game much more if you know what you are getting into up front. If you don't enjoy manager sims or casual games, you might want to think twice before purchasing so that you don't end up posting a thumbs-down review dripping with haterade the game doesn't deserve.


The madness and decadence of "the Empire Before the Fall" is a well-known trope to scholars of history, and one that shows up often in video games. It's an insane moment, during which the masses feel themselves lifted above foreigners and criminals, because the masses witness the bloody spectacle but need never fear they might end up in the ring themselves. It's gluttunous and irrational, to take joy in another's suffering. But it became a tightly protected "right." Seneca the Elder observes that "the populace, defending its own iniquity, pits itself against reason."

And so here we are to make our fortune by facilitating acts of brutish violence. Gameplay is divided into seasons, and each season is divided into day-long turns. As the manager, you get one stat point to distribute among your manager attributes at the beginning of each season. These stats have global effects. Then it's on to the stables. The gladiator population is randomly generated, so names, quirks, portraits, and stats will be different every game. The fighters' attributes are of a type that will be familiar to sports management fans, including the ever-important "potential" attribute. At any given time you may have 3 gladiators in your stable. One gladiator must be designated as the fighter for the day's match. For the other two, you can pay for them to train up attributes, or you may send them on a "soul quest." The choice of quests are each a generated combination of three numbers: risk, reward, and time commitment. They will usually take several days but your fighter will return with some cash and often some improved stats. Or they will get horribly injured or die.

You can also use cash to purchase or repair weapons for your fighters, upgrade your stables with permanent buffs, upgrade the stadium to seat more people, bribe an opposing gladiator, or, my personal favorite, place bets on the day's posted matches. The stadium provides odds for each bracket and you can bet 100, 250, or 500 on each match (or zero if you're not the betting type).

The game's secondary currency is influence, which you may use to publicize your fights in hopes to increase attendance and payout. More importantly, you can use it to purchase randomly generated stable-wide buffs that last for a specified number of turns. There are so many different combinations of these it makes for great fun.

Now that all your stable business is concluded, it's time to fight! The fight is turn-based and you may recommend a technique each turn or you can give a general recommendation for the match and watch it play out. These fights are heavy on the RNG, but instead of walls of math, each turn generates a blow-by-blow narrative of the fight. It's a really nicely done feature. I asked the dev about the lack of explicit math and they said that this technique encourages immersion and discourages min-maxers. Though I sometimes like to see a game's math-guts, I do in general agree with them. Certainly it was the right choice for this game.

This goes on until the season has been played out. If you've done well, one of your fighters might get to fight in championship rounds for big rewards. Between seasons you get to use your stat point, and then try to get the fighters you want to keep to stay with you by flashing money under their noses. Fighters who have had a particularly rough season or who feel they've outgrown your enterprise will refuse to negotiate and just leave your service.

Then it all begins again! I have found that one season, depending on how many days you've optioned for it to be, lasts between twenty minutes and an hour, making EBG an excellent game to hop on when you only have a short time and still have a satisfying experience.


No Drama, Just Reviews

Templar Battleforce is a polished indie turn-based squad tactics game with base building and RPG elements, set in the Trese Brothers' original Star Traders universe. It's a great game by a great developer. The Trese Brothers, long-time veterans of tabletop tactics games, got their start developing games for smartphones. They have since produced numerous games exploring multiple genres in a short handful of years. Templar Battleforce represents a return to their stated mission: the creation of high-quality, multi-platform RPGs and Strategy games, supported by strong community involvement and a commitment to lifelong game updates. All of their games fulfill this vision in some manner, but Templar Battleforce checks every box. Furthermore, in creating Templar Battleforce, the Trese Brothers have used the lessons learned over their first few years as a fledgling studio to re-envision and re-invent the spirit of one of their earliest games- Templar Assault. It's a great feeling to play a game that is an indie dev's dream made real.


Before I discuss gameplay I'd like to address a common criticism of both the Star Traders universe and the Steel universe (Trese Brothers' fantasy setting). The Trese Brothers have time and again explicitly recognized the Warhammer and WH40K settings as major inspirations for their work. They also acknowledge many other sources of inspiration for their original settings. Are the Trese Brothers' settings derivative? Yes. Does that make their settings rip-offs? No. Point me if you can to a fantasy or spce opera setting in a game that is not derivative, because I've never seen it.

The Trese Brothers settings combine common tropes in original and compelling ways, building an internally consistent universe on the foundation of inspiration. Yes, some devs cut & paste together bits and pieces from popular settings. The result is a lazy pastiche of improbable bedfellows, without depth or heart. The Trese Brothers are clearly heavily invested in their settings, and as a result the world-building is unique, coherent, and immersive.


Gameplay is divided into two primary components: missions and combat, and HQ activities. The game features features a branching storyline that is tense and dramatic without being overbearing. You will encounter story dialogue during most missions, but it rarely lasts longer than a handful of sentences. The combat is top-down and grid-based. Each Templar has a set number of Action Points (AP) and Movement Points (MP) derived from their base attributes. The bottom of the screen displays an action hotbar, portrait, and HP and Heat bars for the selected Templar. Actions use AP and generate Heat. If MP is available acting will consume that as well, so it's often prudent to move everyone first and then go back have each one act. If the Heat meter fills the Templar will not be able to use hotbar abilities. If it overfills they will take damage. Luckily, taking no action dramatically cools the armor. Cover, line of sight, smart ability use, and overwatch are key elements of success. The math feels polished, precise, fair, and detailed. Many maps contain multiple main and secondary objectives; you will rarely play a "Kill All Enemies" mission.

Between missions you manage your squad at the HQ screen. It looks like a base-building interface but there's actually very little of that. Instead, this is where you choose how to level each character, hire new characters, and requisition new items and abilities. It's a class-based paradigm, with each class having access to unique skill trees and equipment. Each level attribute and skill points are distributed manually, allowing for enormous flexibility and diversity.

Perhaps my favorite piece of the HQ experience is the requisition tree. You earn RP by completing objectives, which you can then spend on an astounding array of global unlocks. Many of the unlocks are class-specific, and the skill-tree paradigm means getting the unlock you want first requires unlocking everything below it. This is where the game requires careful consideration of your own gameplay style- you can't just unlock everything, you have to choose. Of course this aspect also adds to the games replay value.


If you've enjoyed other Trese Brothers games, you will definitely enjoy this one. And as always the Trese Brothers offer the game attentive and continuous support. I don't know of any other studio as endlessly committed to improving every product they release. If you are new to Trese Brothers games, Templar Battleforce is a great place to start your journey.

I recommend this game for all fans of turn-based squad tactics or of space opera RPGs. I also recommend this game to almost anyone else, because it both imminently accessible and thoughtfully compelling.

Templar Battleforce: 8/10
Trese Brothers: 10/10- an all around class act.

No Drama, Just Reviews

*This review focuses on lyrical consideration rather than literal assessment. For detailed game information and analysis I recommend StarWraith's Evochron Forum.[www.starwraith.com]*

...found in a pile of chipped glass.

Space, the vast tapestry of the night sky, became a personal symbol for me at a young age. I remember lying in the meadow over the hill behind our house, far enough away from any human activity that I was able to feel truly unanchored, adrift. It was just me, the stars, and the soft rustle of the wind through the goldenrods. I soon discovered science fiction novels and video games, through which I experienced clandestine trysts with the stars. I still see space in this way- a symbol of my desire for true freedom and self-determination, a concept that is both idealized and impossible.

At its best, space simming gives me a chance to immerse myself in a dream, intoxicated by the delirious mixture of total freedom, relentless peril, and unflinching solitude. I've never been able to get into the more linear, mission-based style of space sims (Wing Commander, Freespace). And frankly, as a youngster, I saw the commercial success of these games as a mark against their integrity and worth. I played them once and never played them again, resenting the obscurity of the gameplay experience I so loved. Take as counterpoints Space Rangers or Star Control, games I continue to play every few months, many years after I first encountered them.

The rising Indie Era carries with a glut of new games identifying with any number of formerly niche or fringe markets, with the idea that these new games are made by people who like to play them. Suddenly those sacred tropes are everywhere: start as a nobody with a tiny ship, trade and fight your way to fame and fortune however you see fit. Travel from base to base, help or hinder factions, explore the vastness and exploit whatever you find. I am giddy as I scroll through the many new titles built on this common formula.

But, as we have been forced to learn, the Indie Era has a darkside. For every labor of love built by caring craftsmen, there are five unruly messes abandoned without a second thought. I know that life happens, and building a game is tough- but unfinished is unfinished. I've had high hopes for a few- Drifter, Jumpdrive (formerly Paragon), etc. But alas.

Even the multi-million dollar powerhouse Elite:Dangerous often feels half-finished.

...and let all thoughtful citizens sustain them

My first few hours in E:L were a revelation. I had the same thought so many times it became a mantra: "One man and a contracted artist achieved in a year what Frontier hasn't in 30!" Planetary landings even on atmospheric planets, modular ship and utility construction, escort jobs, etc, etc. Elite:Dangerous is an amazing game, no doubt, but the difference between Frontier and StarWraith in terms of intent and delivery is astounding. If ED is the sleek, high-design chair you ordered online from Ikea, then EL is the sturdy, simple chair your nephew made for you in his workshop out back. StarWraith values craftmanship and community involvement over glamour and the clink of stacking coins.

EL is a loving answer to all the issues we had with its predecessor. Every system is improved. The sim physics are tighter. Missions are more complex, more diverse. The hired artist designed new and more adept ship and object models. There are far more items comprising a far wider range of uses. And, one of my favorite points, the activity of AI entities and regional markets are more responsive to player choices and actions. he game universe is procedurally generated and expands on demand, allowing for ever greater voyages and adventures that are entirely unique to the individual player's experience.

If you like space sims or space at all, buy it. If you appreciate craftsmanship and community involvement from a game studio, buy it. If you just want to give a true artist the support he needs to practice his craft, buy it. History will remember Evochron and StarWraith as major contributors to the space sim genre.

No Drama, Just Reviews

**Steam hours not representative of actual use; I do most of my writing offline**

NimbleWriter is the newest addition to the very small selection of applications I keep on my dedicated writing machine. That machine is an old franken-laptop with the hardware stripped down and streamlined for portability and endurance. The OS and software are equally as sparse to minimize processing delays and opportunities for distraction. My other writing apps are Apache, Notepad, Scrivener, and Ommwriter. I've used all of them extensively over the years but NimbleWriter has distinguished itself already as the most effective writing tool I have ever used. It has the ability to almost exactly meet my needs and desires as a writer, some of which I only discovered while in process with NW. I bought it during the summer and come November it was my primary tool for this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

But why all the fuss, you ask? Why not just open up Apache on my gaming rig and process some words the old-fashioned way?


If you've been following my reviews you probably know what comes next. That's correct we are going to explore some context so we can place NimbleWriter in relation to my experience and in relation to other writing apps and the writing process in general. Hopefully this will reveal some insight into NW's value as a product and as a tool.

I love writing. I love language in general, the binding and transmission of our experiences by way of an unending chain of symbolic interactions. Writing has been very important to me since I was a child, and I have worked very hard at it over the decades. But my imagination has always exceeded my abilities. If you didn't know before reading this I struggle under the woolen haze of Attention Deficit Disorder- Inattentive Type. To put it fondly (though people close to me discard that fondness pretty quickly), I am an incorrigible daydreaming. I am incessantly drifting. I'll play 5 different video games in two hours.

The history of my writing is a tale of almost finished novels accidentally recycled, collections of poems sorted and re-sorted but never formatted or delivered, charts and maps and diagrams that my friends or family took and stored somewhere safe when they saw that my attention had moved on.

Insights from experience inspired me to build my dedicated writing laptop. All I can do with it is write. Because I've learned that when I open Apache on my gaming rig, I'll start flipping to webpages, then games, then back, and I will spiral futilely until something else ensnares my curiosity and I walk away. When I open up my writing machine, my only choices are writing apps. And the portability and battery life make it possible for me to relocate anytime my perception starts to clutter.

To explain why NW is so effective for me I'll have to tell you a little about each app and then draw some comparisons between them and NW. I will attempt to describe things in a way that is clear and helpful even if you don't have experience with any of these other applications.


Apache is a wonderful open source alternative to MSOffice. As such, I find it primarily useful for creating office documents such as memos or announcements. I don't ever use it for my creative processes. Notepad is there so I can knuckle down and bang out some XML or lua, get something ready to export through an ethernet cable later on. I find once I have the overall structure and a draft it's much easier to test and revise; I spiral if I try to do it bit by bit with constant testing.

Scrivener was the first dedicated creative platform I got and I used it exclusively for a long time. It has many powerful tools and customization options. You can have numerous documents of different types under your project's directory tree, which is usually clearly displayed on the left side of the screen. I make a subfolder for the narrative, and then within that a unique document for each chapter. Another folder might be populated with Scrivener's unique note-card style documents, which can be viewed at once as a series of index cards or individually as word processing files. There are many others. And at any time Scrivener will connect and format your chosen files and export them to one file. All of these different features can be open at once and arranged around the workspace. The word processing window is very plain but the others have graphical flavor such as corkboard and shadow effects. I eventually discovered that I had the most success with Scrivener when I closed everything except the word processor and just wrote one long document. The virtual clutter of the other tools paralyzed my creativity.

Ommwriter was my second app and the opposite of Scrivener in almost every way. Ommwriter employs a full-screen dedicated word processor composed of soothing colors and soft but gratifying feedback sounds. And that's it. The developers set out to create a distraction-free writing environment, and they succeeded. But it just wasn't quite there for me. My taste in color environment is in constant flux and Ommwriter only has a handful of pastel-type themes that quickly bored me. I also discovered that I need some level of metadocumentation connected to an accessible from my writing platform or I lose my target completely.

If Ommwriter is trancendental meditation, then Scrivener is a Catholic rosary prayer. In this analogy NimbleWriter is Zazen technique: calm and focused, yet grounded and practical. NW hits the middle road between the other two and achieves what is for me an almost perfect balance between utility and clarity. Furthermore it's almost infinitelycutomizable and is supported by an active and devoted community. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to use this wonderful tool. And it's only 9.99USD.

No Drama, Just Reviews

***Retro scanlines and curvature can be customized or toggled- don't dismiss the game because of them***
***I've played this game DRM-free since Alpha- Steam time not reflective of play time***


I play lots of JRPGs: retro, modern, indie, AAA- I dabble in them all. Another Star is among the most compelling and original of them I've played in years. Before you dismiss the game based on its apparently gimmicky retro feel, consider that this game is NOT made using RPGMaker and IS made by people who actually played those old games when they were new, and who loved them, and whose lives were affected by that experience. This game is a love letter to a lost friend, a time and place we can never return to but will never forget.

All that being said, Another Star feels fresh and original despite its archaic appearance. I have found the writing especially compelling. The world building is spectacular and immersive, reflected in the dialogues among characters, the excellent character portraits, and the game systems themselves. This is a primitive world experiencing its own Iron Age. Small settlements dot the lush landscape, populated by numerous ancestral clans, each with their own goals and histories. There are allies, uneasy peaces, rivalries, and wars. The central protagonist is son to the patriarch of one such clan. As you can imagine from this setup, a GoT-like cascade of betrayals, deaths, and heroic acts crashes through the narrative.

The adventure begins when a falling star crashes into the wilderness and the clans send their heroes to retrieve it first, hoping it will give them godlike powers to defeat their rivals and secure their longevity. It becomes quickly apparent that the falling star was in fact a vessel from a technologically advanced society. I was immediately reminded of Vernor Vinge's sci-fi masterpiece A Fire Upon the Deep, which, among many other things, chronicles the effects of such an event upon a primitive world. Another Star won't be winning any Hugo Awards, but it does confront the issue with depth and nuance, and it doesn't flinch away from the catastrophic damage and transformative unravelling that inevitably occurs when the primitive crashes against the advanced. It's happened on our own world, again and again. But even while grappling with these themes, the writing remains personal and intimate, such that I always feel invested in the fate of the individual characters.


Ok let's talk a little about the gameplay itself. There is a standard overworld spritemap dotted with settlements and other points of interest- some of which are hidden, so explore. Entering a settlement brings up a menu that allows you to visit the clan's chief, talk to villagers, sleep at the tavern, or shop. Visiting the chief requires a donation relative to the clan's power, but bestows a buff on the party for some time. The responses of the villagers are very interesting and change as events progress and relationships among the tribes evolve. If you find yourself stuck this can be a good thing to do because you may hear an important clue. Also, any "loot" acquired from battle is automatically exchanged for cash whenever you enter a settlement.

Battles. The battle system is excellent. First off, random encounters are usually optional. An exclamation point flashes above your head and you can press a button to engage. However, I would recommend fighting every single battle you can, because dungeons and bosses are often quite challenging and you are going to want every point of xp you can get. There is a standard "fight-skill-item-defend" type menu but its execution is quite different. You only get to select one command and then your entire party fulfills it. For example, if you attack, everyone in your party attacks. Furthermore, they each attack all of the enemies at once. Healing items are dear so most healing comes from a small boost you get from defending- a technique your enemies will also use. Magic is powerful but items are uncommon and actually casting spells costs hit points. Battles take thought and require careful risk and reward assesment and boss fights can be long and arduous but also tense and ultimately fulfilling upon victory. The system is so compelling and so tactically satisfying that I'm hoping others will take note and adapt some of the principles into the tired menu clicking paradigm most JRPGs still employ.

I'm going to stop here because I don't want to over-discuss this game. Part of the joy of a game like Another Star is the wonder of self-discovery.


No Drama, Just Reviews

***CAUTION! THIS GAME HAS A NARROW APPEAL AND WILL NOT BE RIGHT FOR EVERYONE***
***Please do your research and consider your expectations carefully before purchasing***


Let's talk a little about the context that spawned the "whats" and the "whys" behind Kalypso's Grand Ages franchise. Hopefully we'll reach some insights about the games and their place in history.

Kalypso's flagship Tropico games are arguable among the best examples of the citybuilder genre in the last decade, and they've achieved a market saturation so viscous I'm confident in my assumption that you have most likely put at least a few hours into the franchise. Kalypso uses a large portion of its sales capital to reinvest in the constant refinement of gameplay systems. If there's one thing Kalypso knows how to make, it's a high-grade citybuilder. For the most part in the Tropico games the major mangement systems and input-output relationships are balanced and intuitive- but also immersive and challenging. Though I grudgingly admit that at some point Tropico 5's gameplay grew too cluttered and frenetic for me to enjoy. I'm old and I have ADD and I just can't keep up.

Meanwhile, however, Kalypso has been quietly producing, reproducing, and more or less defining the standards for many contemporary mechanics and play paradigms within the somewhat niche genre of historical commodity-management games. If you already know all this, I hail you as a fellow and thank you for keeping the genre alive. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, take a look deep in game list or at old bundles gathering dust in the ether, or think back to deep sales you've ignored. Kalypso developed its systems across three paralell historical franchises: Patrician, Port Royale, and Rise of Venice. These games aren't for everyone, but what they do- a lite but compelling simulation of "Invisible Hand" market relationships- they do very well. Most fans of the genre (myself included) own and play most if not all of Kalypso's contributions. The systems reward gamers who approach situations with some shrewd forethought, who conjure a little extra willingness to grind, and who summon the chutzpah to make a few heavy gambles against the caprice of future markets. Usually this just keeps you in the black but when it all works as you planned, you and your dynasty become fabulousy wealthy, and your organization's trade activities grants your allies prosperity and your competitors destitution. In-game this extraordinary success just means some shifting digits on a little spreadsheet with some fancy historical trims. Maybe that's why this genre in its purer forms is such a niche product.

As a devotee of both genres I was giddy when word starting circulating about Kalypso's new concept, the "Grand Ages" franchise, which would combine the lessons from their other games into a seamless historical management sandbox. Unfortunately what emerged, Grand Ages: Rome, was a jumbled Frankengame. It was interesting but clunky and unintuitive, a sort of high-concept quagmire with a confused sense of scale and a baffling set of competing paradigms. Kalypso had included almost every system they'd ever made and then threw some more in there on top for good measure.


If GA: Rome is one side of the pundulum's swing, then GA: Medieval is the full swing opposite. Kalypso has eliminated everything but the commodity management sheets and has stripped city management down to a single interface book from which you can either build one of the limited and static improvements or upgrade your commodity production facilities. The rest of the UI follows a similar pattern: icons move around a map and at certain times you interact with various spreadsheets to influence or direct markets and growth.

Don't get me wrong: it's deep and complex and finely balanced. But it's startlingly narrow. Every player is more or less exactly the same in terms of abilities and playfeel. The only concessions to cultural distinctiveness are the local names and complexions of traders and governors. The fact that the map is Europe is completely irrelevant to the gameplay, except that depending on your geography skills you may be able to predict resource placements.

If GA: Rome was a Frankengame, then GA: Medieval is a skeletal golem: its disparate pieces may function together so well that at first it seems a living thing- but it's not. There's little heart and no breath in this automaton. But I am convinced Kalypso will continue their refinement and eventually the Grand Ages we dream of will emerge.

6/10-Conditionally recommended for niche fans and for collectors

No Drama, Just Reviews

I'll start with a quick breakdown of the common gameplay paradigms found in Abyss Odyssey so you understand the basic structure from which the game's extraordinary dream poetry is built. Furthermore, Steam tagging can obfuscate a game's nature as easily as it can enumerate it, so I generally find it helpful to reconcile the competing descriptions.

"Battle is an orgy of disorder." -George S. Patton

At its heart Abyss Odyssey is a brawler. As in any other brawler the player moves through discrete play fields ("rooms") attempting to beat the crap out of, well, everyone. Control is simple to pick up though as you continue to play new vistas of subtleties and complexities to be mastered reveal themselves. Again, like most other brawlers, the game is built to be played with a controller (in fact, a controller is so crucial to this game that it's a condition of my recommendation). One button is basic attack, one button is special attack (also called "light" and "heavy"), and there's jump and block and dodge etc etc- and then there are conditional controls for things like npc interaction. The conformity with tradition makes combat feel intuitive and the controls are extremely tight and responsive.

Then why, you ask, am I getting repeatedly slaughtered by crowds of ridiculously skilled and clever enemies, in what looks and feels like "an orgy of disorder"?

I have two things to say to that. First, in addition to being a brawler, AOd is a roguelite. You will die repeatedly but take solace in the fact that your characters will keep their levels and gold (but not their items) for the next run. The rooms, enemies, loot, etc, are all proceduraly generated from a limited set of predetermined allowable variable combinations. So don't worry about the map too much. Besides, once you get your skills right, a run from start to final boss on normal only takes a few hours (and doesn't "end" the game).

Second, what appears to be chaos is in fact highly refined technique moving very quickly. You'll notice that pressing different directions and using different timing even just with your basic attacks will result in an enormous variety of moves. Your enemies have just as many, and they know how to use them. They are clever. If you stand there blocking waiting for them to come to you they won't. They will either try to get around behind your back and grapple you or they will wait for a comrade with a guard break move to arrive so they can all hack you to pieces as a team as soon as you are exposed. They also will not fall for the same combo more than once or twice, then if you try it again they'll find exploits. What often appears as chaos is actually your enemies coordinating their attacks for best effect. The maps are always different, the enemy combinations are always different...eventually you'll need to think on your toes and be creative about your brawl.

In some ways it's comparable to a very very fast, 2D Dark Souls: every battle has the potential to be fatal. And once I started to get the patterns and the flow of the controls I had that same familiar Dark Souls feeling- that I lost because of human error, but it's in my ability to win.


The setting of AOd is a vaguely Brazilian early 19th century city under which a great...abyss...has opened. Deep down at the very bottom of the pit a mysterious warlock conjures strange shifting realms filled with nightmare creatures. In fact, it slowly becomes apparent that the abyss is indeed a figment of the warlock's dreams...and perhaps you are too. After all, how else do you explain the elusiveness of your own death?

I call it a setting rather than a plot because evoking a fundamentally poetic context for the game is evidently far more important than providing a traditional storyline. If you are looking for a coherent plot arc with a tidy bow, you'll have to look elsewhere. But the poetry! The game drips on the one hand with the heady unease, even terror, of that moment before you're able to seperate the dream from the waking day. And on the other hand, it oozes the narcotic stupor that always accompanies the most ornate dream-nonsense.

The character design is a perfect fit for the setting- beautifully hand-drawn and styled after the posters and ads of the French Post-Impressionists of the 1890s (think Toulouse-Lautrec) but augmented with a far richer and deeper color palette. The levels are lush and overwrought, depicting feelings and sensations more accurately than places and materials.

I'll stop here before this becomes a master's thesis. I hope it's clear by now that I have added this game to my list of games that offer very strong evidence for my assertion that video games are a legitimate and important literary medium.

Highly recommended. But this game is hard, and...eccentric. A lot of the early criticism came from mistaken expectations about its paradigms. But it's also really beautiful and poetic. Most importantly, it's quality work that is both engaging and enjoyable.

EDIT: I realized rewatching my video I should probably mention the enemy soul capturing mechanic. There are 3 main playable characters (1 start, 2 unlock) but if your level is far enough above theirs you can capture the soul of any enemy in the game. Once you've captured a particular creature that soul will occasionally appear for sale at shops. At any time you can only hold one soul, but you can take its form at will. The soul-form has its own lifebar and the soul is yours until you drop it or its life is fully depleted. If your main character dies, besotted soldiers will give their lives in an attempt to reach an altar and revive you. So in most cases you effectively have three life bars to go through before game over.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=506817422

No Drama, Just Reviews

Before I get into specifics about the game I want to highlight something very important about it, something that in contemporary games is often so drowned in an abyss of complexity and glamour that we forget to even reflect on it: Road Redemption is FUN. Every single time, without fail, laugh-out-loud duck-and-flinch old school video game FUN. I spend most of my game time in that aforementioned abyss, straining my intellect and grasping for immersion. Road Redemption has taken its place in my apothecary as a balm, a revitalizer for my spirit, after such sessions.

This game flashed by on my front page for weeks before I really looked into it; I didn't look too closely because I figured it was some sort of glorified street-moto Trials clone. What opened my eyes to it was a search by tag "Permadeath." I'm a big fan of permadeath mechanics in general so I became ravenously curious and dove into a game forum spiral,


Turns out, at its core, Road Redemption is a fiercely indie, happily absurd, fresh, new, and ridiculously satisfying roguelite. Let me clarify by discussing the major gameplay elements.

The loose premise is that you are a gang biker trekking across USA, west coast to east coast, for some reason that somehow involves a boss level at the end. RR does not for a moment pretend to have a rich and nuanced plot. The trek is divided into more than a dozen stages that take between five or ten minutes each to complete. Gameplay is traditional 3rd-person motorcycle race style with the control schemes to match (this will show my age, but it reminds me fondly of playing Road Rage in the arcade back in the day).

So how is it roguelite?

First off, each playthrough is entirely procedurally generated- the road maps, terrain, and absurdity variables (sometimes you'll get a level with "hallucinogenic chemical zones" that are filled with bright colors and cars falling out of the sky, other times the whole course is made of skyscraper rooftops, etc, etc); the enemies, their names, attributes, and gang affiliations; the weapon and item drops; and the game type for the level (for example, one level may involve getting the police to really notice you, another will be about smashing a rival gang, another will be a simple race).

Second, Road Redemption uses the modern meta roguelite paradigm that more or less rules the genre at the moment. You permadie again and again and again but you can earn xp during your playthrough that can then be spent on permanent meta-perks like more health per level or higher base melee damage. It's more challenging than some of the examples out there, because if you don't earn enough xp to buy a perk, all that xp dissappears. Nonetheless, bit by bit, I find myself (sometimes) stringing together more and more levels before the inevitable fatality (other times, I just die- but man is it a fun ride).


RR shows great economy of design. It's indie in the beautiful way only our age allows and it does not strut like it's AAA. There is no chaff, no filler. It doesn't pretend to be something great or profound. In fact, if anything, it is proudly and defiantly banal. And therein lies the magic, that special something that makes a game fun with no pressure and no strings. Just FUN.

And in our lives of overwork, overextension, and exhaustion= I have to say I really appreciate that.


No Drama, Just Reviews

***Also, SHOVEL KNIGHT***

My first night playing E:D my reaction was one of bleak disappointment. I’ve learned to manage my expectations of games that come with a lot of hype but that doesn’t always do much to soften the blow, especially when we are dealing with one of my favorite genres. I kept thinking, “I waited 30 years and paid $60 for Euro Truck in Space? Seriously?” Unfortunately many players have never moved past this stage. The basic gameplay at first does seem only to consist of navigating menus, watching some warp animations, trying not to crash while trying to park, repeat.

And yet, while I kept repeating this thought to myself, I kept playing. In fact, the more I played, the more I wanted to keep playing. At the time I could not identify what was happening. Shouldn’t I be packing this game up and dismissing it as another instance of hype without substance?

What I realize now is that the game was operating on me on an unconscious level. Tiny details from every corner of the experience combined with flawless internal consistency to build an emergent narrative structure somewhere inside of me that I was not even aware of until I was already a part of it. I’ll give you the four examples that, in order, brought me around to recognizing how huge and emergent the E:D universe is and how immersed in it I had already become:

When you request docking clearance at a facility, they give it to you in the form of a spot assignment and a timer. So there I am trying to park my clanky old VW Rabbit of a spaceship on this backwater industrial platform, scraping it against the walls, generally not succeeding- and the timer runs out. And I get a communication from the facility. Move along, your spot is forfeit, you’ve been assessed fines and you won’t be welcome back until they are paid.

A few hours later, I’m hurtling across a solar system towards a facility orbiting a gas giant. I’m cruising at maybe and average of 150c. The planet is between me and the facility and as the gassy behemoth grows in my viewport I notice something- my speed is dropping. I haven’t throttled down. What the hell? Several more runs and my suspicions are confirmed: the closer you come to gravitic bodies, the less you are able to break the speed of light. Furthermore, clip too close to a sun and it will anchor you, causing an emergency drop into real space and a seriously life-threatening situation.

Much later, still playing, I’m running a courier mission to a huge station in a densely populated area of the galaxy. To get to the entrance port I need to fly around to the nightside of beautiful M-class gem...and I notice a twinkle in the corner of my viewport. I activate head look and turn my gaze that direction. And there it is. The nightside of the planet is aglow with a sparkling network of living cities. It took my breath away.

Here is where things really got serious. I go online checking supply and demand stats and I make a handful of runs carrying foodstuffs from this certain fringe base just within exploitation radius of the Federation. Well it turns out a lot of other commanders got the same idea, and the base’s food supplies are gutted. Next thing I know, I’m returning for me- and someone tries to interdict my ship into real space. Which is terrifying. I find an escape vector and make it through safely, only to find my scanner alight with “conflict zones.” Messages start pinging into my comms. Things like You should not have come back here and There’s nothing left here except blood and We won’t let it end this way, we will die free. When I finally make it to the facility and land, I find out that a different minor faction unique to the base has taken over operation. In other words, it would seem, faced with starvation, they staged a coup, and ignited a civil war with the Feds. Incredible.

No one, certainly not the game, explained these things to me. These are things that I learned about over the course of my journeys. The game is absolutely rife with these sorts of details: available, amazing, and yet existing without fanfare or gimmick. They are simply part of the way the universe works. By the end of these events I realized I had left my Euro Truck impressions far behind. In fact, I had become thoroughly immersed. I felt like I was truly sailing the vastness between the stars, one small part of an enormous world- a world far huger than I will ever be, that exists regardless of my interaction. This recognition was nothing less than humbling.


Which brings me to my next point. E:D is not a roleplaying in the sense we usually think of these days. You accrue reputation levels in various ways, but there are no character stats, skill trees, experience points, or anything like that. And yet this game is easily the most complete RP I’ve had the pleasure of playing in a very long time. So how can that be? It happens because the game is almost complete indifferent to the player.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the result is that all meaning has to come from within. This is no Elder Scrolls, no one is going to tell you you’re here to save the universe. And to be honest, in the games where someone does say something like that, I don’t feel special. In fact the RP is largely broken because everyone gets that line. In E:D your decisions are yours alone. And personally, I have watched CMDR Paklo develop a character organically when faced with the many decisions that are technically easy in game but they are difficult in a subjective moral or ethical sense. For example, Paklo refuses to participate in the slave trade. From a practical standpoint slaves are just a number on a spreadsheet in terms of gameplay. But over time I’ve become invested in Paklo’s path through life- and Paklo will not trade slaves.

The world is emergent in such a way that these sorts of decisions happen on a much larger scale as well. I’ll give an example. Having become disillusioned with the Federation I recently pledged my fealty to the Imperial Princess Aisling (aka Space Khaleesi), an outspoken critic of the Empire’s historical condoning of the slave trade. A group of commanders, of their own volition, have banded together at various spots along trade routes known to move slaves. From these spots they interdict ships, scan their cargo, and if they are carrying slaves, destroy them. This activity does not occur at the game’s behest. It is 100% organic roleplaying at its finest.

So to conclude on the merits of the game alone, without addressing Frontier’s business ethics- 9.75/10, the highest number rating I have ever given, absolutely essential.
No Drama, Just Reviews

*steam awards*