A TBS where you raid caravans, build up a hideout and trade/craft.
Good:
- there is a meaty RPG system of character leveling, equipmentA TBS where you raid caravans, build up a hideout and trade/craft.
Good:
- there is a meaty RPG system of character leveling, equipment and stats
- the game does well in presenting the purposeless and self-destructing evil that a life of a raider or a pirate is
- the world is randomly generated, so no playthrough is the same
So-so:
- graphics are functional: detailed 2D with no animations. That's passable for an indie TBS
- the theme of playing "for the evil side", while fresh (I haven't seen a game like this), isn't particularly enjoyable after you get what this game is about. I guess the game would have a more lasting appeal if it allowed the player to decide if he wants to be good, neutral or bad, like it's typically done in 4x games like Civ. E.g. if the player just had a settlement where he produces and trades something and then has an option of attacking neighbors, expanding the empire etc - the game would be more satisfying. But as it is, you're given control of drunks who want "an easy life" and even don't want to scavenge or produce anything themselves, choosing instead to depend on slaves.
- the whole thing doesn't even feel realistic: with caravaneers getting slaughtered in dozens on a daily basis, the already poor wasteland population would just die out and wouldn't be able to support so many parasites. On the other hand, if the wasteland is so rich and populous, the caravans would just have bigger detachments of guards. I know that they needed to have many weak caravans so that the player could grind and level up the party...
- despite all the complexity of the characters' parameters and perks, combat feels repetitive and lacks planning or depth. Partially it's because the soldiers can't move on the filed, and there are just 2 lines of them: melee and ranged. Maybe it's also because of the initiative-based turns of the soldiers. But more likely, it's because attacks happen at 50% or even 30% hit chance, with many misses and widely varying damage - this makes you feel you are simply watching what's happening instead of having any real control. You can't even see the composition of the enemy party when deciding if you really want to attack them - adding to the randomness.
- the music and the texts, while conveying the atmosphere of meaningless evil and despair well, lack variety and thus get boring in this non-changing tune. Just for comparison, take Fallout 2 and check how many different themes it had. Or Underrail (it's an indie title)
Bad:
- while the strategic part of the game and the GUI screens are explained in much detail, there is not much explained about the combat part. A new player could actually run into a party of other raiders that's much stronger at the very beginning of the game and lose without even understanding what's going on.
Unless you specifically enjoy the idea of playing out Negan from The Walking Dead slaughtering an endless, magically replenished stream of innocent civilians, this game ends up a rather average TBS with a short-lived novelty effect but too much randomness in its somewhat overly simplistic battles.… Expand
