Recent reviews by AVOOZL

Heavily inspired by the 90s game from Sierra "Jones in the Fast Lane" - and just as fun as that one was.

Race to be the best consumer/wage-slave. Gain happiness by buying stuff! Get an education to unlock better job opportunities. Work work work to stack up cash.

Simple to pick up and a lot of fun. Each game lasts about half an hour on the "Long" setting, great for a quick round of fun, or dangerous for "just one more game before bed."

Surprisingly fun classic grid-based dungeon crawler. Easy to see the inspiration from games like Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry, or Might & Magic - and I mean that in a good way.

Great level design with mazes that are fun to explore. Once you've beaten a "tier" of the dungeon you can revisit a procedurally generated small version of it to revisit a boss for an extra loot drop, but the main game levels are all hand designed and well thought out.

Enough variety in classes to lead to some fun decision-making on party composition. Do I go heavy on melee and buffs, or on direct magic damage? All heavy armor on the front line, or a medium armor high damage class? One class is relatively weak in terms of damage, but adds great utility in the form of extra loot and gold drops.

Each class has unique skill trees to fill out as you level, and can be respecced for a hefty gold fee. Hitting a new power tier when you unlock a new skill feels great.

Some unique "special move" resource management that varies for each class. Some classes use Mana in a traditional fashion - leave the town at full MP, manage its use as you explore, when it hits zero you're headed back to town to rest. One class uses a WoW Warrior Rage inspired mechanic; on turn 1 he has 0 rage and is going to use the base attack, but as he receives and deals damage his rage meter increases and on prolonged fights he'll start dealing major damage with special attacks. Other classes use a WoW Rogue Energy inspired mechanic - they come out of the gate strong with full "Focus", but if they fight lasts more than a couple of turns they'll be using the base attack while they wait for their energy to refill. Still another gains his special resource when others use MP - another turn 1 auto-attacker, but if your mage casts a big nuke, he'll have a full resource bar on turn 2.

Your party shares another resource bar that fills slowly over multiple fights and can be used in a few ways. A single point will enhance a single character's ability, giving it both extra power and "first strike" on the turn - great for a crucial heal. A few points will enable more powerful special moves, like "all front liners get an extra free attack." Or you can fill the whole bar and dump it all into a Summon ability powerful enough to instakill an entire pack of trash, or do major damage to a boss. All told it leads to some interesting strategy decisions - do I guarantee that my heal lands in time on this fight, or save the point for the upcoming boss?

I have mixed feelings about the art direction. Most dungeon art and enemy design looks great. Some character art looks borderline deformed. The final tier of the dungeon (the purple maze shown in the title shots) looks like an unskinned early polygon game in the 90s.

All in all, it's a great little game, and I highly recommend it.

A fantastic self-contained RPG. Some systems could be fleshed out a little better, but the combat and the magic are very satisfying.

The plot and setting are grim, Lovecraftian, and entertaining.

Once I beat it on Normal I immediately started a new game on Hard, which is a good sign to me that it's something special.

This game might have niche appeal, but I enjoyed it a lot. If you're a fan of classic first-person grid-based RPGs like Might & Magic or Wizardry, this one's for you.

TL;DR - This game is excellent, and you should buy it.

I have a complicated history with this game.

I'm a huge fan of the old Quest for Glory games, which you might already know if you recognize my avatar. I found an email address for Corey Cole back in 2012 and wrote an email suggesting that they do a Kickstarter campaign for a new QFG type game. I was shocked to actually receive a reply. He told me that they were considering it and planning towards it.

Later that year, the Kickstarter campaign for this game launched, and I chipped in. On the final day of the campaign they were still short of the goal... so I increased the size of my contribution. I personally bumped it over the finish line. I felt like I had done a good thing, and I was excited to eventually get a successor to QFG.

Development dragged on... and on... and the original release date slipped.

...and then they asked for more money, in a 2nd Kickstarter campaign.

...and then I read that the husband & wife team had mortgaged their house to fund the game.

By that point, I felt terrible. I had a lot of guilt around contributing to miring two of my idols in development hell. The thought of them losing their house and having their retirement impacted felt horrible.

Am I overstating my influence and importance in all of these events? Yes, absolutely... but that's how I felt, and I couldn't escape the guilt.

I couldn't bring myself to read the Kickstarter blog updates any more. I never played the early betas that I had access to. When the game finally came out a few years ago, I couldn't bring myself to play it. I worried that it couldn't possibly live up to the hype in my head. Most of all, I wasn't ready to risk the emotional impact if I disliked the game.

A couple of weeks ago I decided that it was time to finally play it.

I feel like an even bigger idiot for putting it off.

This game is *outstanding*. It has everything that I enjoyed in the QFG games. The writing is excellent. The characters lean towards well worn archetypes, but they are relatable and well fleshed out. The plot is interesting, and leaves several threads unresolved for a potential sequel. It's full of cheeky humor. The stats-building component is surprisingly fun and rewarding. I loved the QFG games in spite of their clunky combat, but the combat in this is both fun and rewarding, with dozens of gadgets that can turn the tide of a fight.

And here's the main point, something that RPG fanatics are always clamoring about - YOUR CHOICES MATTER. The way that you handle certain events impacts the plot of the game. Characters can DIE if you do not save them in time. There are multiple ways to solve almost every quest. The other characters in the game will solve some quests if you fail to! It feels like a living, breathing, interactive experience.

I have nothing but praise for this game. I feel like a fool for not pouncing on it the day it was released.

Please buy this game.

I picked up this game years after the fact, but I wish that I had it when it was new because that would have been an extra 10 years to enjoy this amazing game.

If you like RPGs, try it. The magic system is dynamic, complex and fun, fighters stomp face, lots of interesting hybrid classes, tons of character-building decisions to make... the list goes on. A cool world to explore, tough fights to save and retry a few times, or an Iron Man mode if you're feeling hardcore.

Simply a fantastic experience from start to stop.

Every time that I think I'm done with this game, finally bored with it, it finds a new way to amuse me. It has a rare combination of silliness and complexity that just keeps bringing me back. If you like a challenge and you miss the humor that was a hallmark of so many PC games in the 80s, give this a chance. It's cheap, it's funny, it's great for min-maxing or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around; it's hours of good times.

This is an outstanding game. Highly addictive "just one more turn" play; easy to wonder where the hours went.