This is a hard one for me to rank because while there are a lot of things about it that are extremely my shit, there are also a few aspects that just aren't, and left me not entirely loving my time with it. But despite the somewhat "average" score that I'm giving it based on my personal enjoyment, I want to emphasize that this is very much NOT an average game. It's one of the most unique, clever, weird, and daring games I've played in a long time, and I will always deeply admire it for that.
Genre-wise, this game is almost uncategorizable. It looks like, and to some degree is, a first-person party-based dungeon-crawler, but having literally just played Legend of Grimrock (one of the most “one of those” kinds of games ever made) a couple weeks ago, there’s not much that these two have in common outside of some surface-level similarities in movement and exploration. This is a game all about typing, and it borrows from “Typing of the Dead” style typing combat, text-parser adventure games, and word games in a wholly unique blend of keyboard-based gameplay. Combat is in real time by default, and requires you to type in commands based on your party’s set of abilities, and the result is frantic typing while attempting to strategize synergies. You uncover new abilities by guessing the new words that pop up next to your character’s portraits that slowly fill in Hangman-style as you defeat enemies, solve riddles, and…fish! You interact with NPCs, and really everything else, by typing as well, and it can be fun testing out what words have specifically programmed responses.
It’s a brilliant concept, and is mostly pretty fun in execution. Interestingly enough, I think I was having the most fun with this game when it felt more like a typical RPG rather than a word/riddle game. Grinding through dungeons, eating all the bugs I could find to add to my stock of souls, “leveling up” by uncovering new abilities and adding letters to my character’s names, spending enough time with the combat to actual figure out some reliable tactics rather than freezing up and forgetting any commands my party responds to (thankfully, you can pause the combat at any time to check your character’s list of abilities).
I think where I struggled the most with this game is in just not feeling like I’m on the same wavelength as it with the riddles/word puzzles. A pretty regular aspect of the gameplay is opening up chests, where the Cryptmaster gives you a number of chances to ask questions and receive vague answers in order to guess the object inside, and talking to skulls, who ask you to solve classic head-scratcher riddles. In both cases, I so often found myself struggling to come to the right answer and just feeling kinda dumb as a result. To be clear, the game offers very thoughtful and generous accessibility options for these parts of the game, which I absolutely took advantage of, and feel very grateful for. They’re the reason that I merely have some ambivalence about the game, rather than set it down entirely out of frustration. But it still left me with the feeling that this game was just not entirely “for me.”
This feeling also came up with what I sensed to be the relative slowness that I discovered new abilities. By the end of the game, I still had less than half of all of my characters’ abilities/lore filled out. Thankfully, it was still pretty doable to face even the late-game enemies with what I did have, but it once again reinforced the feeling that there were aspects of the game that just weren’t quite clicking with me. I want to emphasize that I fully recognize this is a “me” problem. The game really does go out of its way to accommodate various player proficiencies. I’m not saying any of this out of actual criticism for the game; rather, I’m just attempting to explain why I personally didn’t have an overwhelmingly positive experience with it.
What pulled me through the game, besides the many aspects of the gameplay that I actually did click with, was the consistently entertaining writing. This game is FUNNY. Like, anywhere from “ha, clever bit” funny to laugh-out-loud jokes. I guess there were a couple that didn’t land, but it’s still pretty impressive to get me looking forward to each new NPC interaction to see what new silly or witty or weird places the story would go. I found myself getting pretty invested in where it would all land, and I appreciated that the final decision it leaves you with feels legitimately like a tough one to make, but it also doesn’t feel like the choices are equally good or bad, despite the fact that there is ambiguity to the results of each one. I tried both because it’s so easy to go back and do it again after the game ends, and it reinforced for me that I think I made the right decision the first time.
I think writing all of this out and reflecting on my experience with this game made me appreciate it even more than I did while I was playing it, honestly. Just an incredibly idiosyncratic and cool thing, even if not every aspect of it entirely worked for me.
Genre-wise, this game is almost uncategorizable. It looks like, and to some degree is, a first-person party-based dungeon-crawler, but having literally just played Legend of Grimrock (one of the most “one of those” kinds of games ever made) a couple weeks ago, there’s not much that these two have in common outside of some surface-level similarities in movement and exploration. This is a game all about typing, and it borrows from “Typing of the Dead” style typing combat, text-parser adventure games, and word games in a wholly unique blend of keyboard-based gameplay. Combat is in real time by default, and requires you to type in commands based on your party’s set of abilities, and the result is frantic typing while attempting to strategize synergies. You uncover new abilities by guessing the new words that pop up next to your character’s portraits that slowly fill in Hangman-style as you defeat enemies, solve riddles, and…fish! You interact with NPCs, and really everything else, by typing as well, and it can be fun testing out what words have specifically programmed responses.
It’s a brilliant concept, and is mostly pretty fun in execution. Interestingly enough, I think I was having the most fun with this game when it felt more like a typical RPG rather than a word/riddle game. Grinding through dungeons, eating all the bugs I could find to add to my stock of souls, “leveling up” by uncovering new abilities and adding letters to my character’s names, spending enough time with the combat to actual figure out some reliable tactics rather than freezing up and forgetting any commands my party responds to (thankfully, you can pause the combat at any time to check your character’s list of abilities).
I think where I struggled the most with this game is in just not feeling like I’m on the same wavelength as it with the riddles/word puzzles. A pretty regular aspect of the gameplay is opening up chests, where the Cryptmaster gives you a number of chances to ask questions and receive vague answers in order to guess the object inside, and talking to skulls, who ask you to solve classic head-scratcher riddles. In both cases, I so often found myself struggling to come to the right answer and just feeling kinda dumb as a result. To be clear, the game offers very thoughtful and generous accessibility options for these parts of the game, which I absolutely took advantage of, and feel very grateful for. They’re the reason that I merely have some ambivalence about the game, rather than set it down entirely out of frustration. But it still left me with the feeling that this game was just not entirely “for me.”
This feeling also came up with what I sensed to be the relative slowness that I discovered new abilities. By the end of the game, I still had less than half of all of my characters’ abilities/lore filled out. Thankfully, it was still pretty doable to face even the late-game enemies with what I did have, but it once again reinforced the feeling that there were aspects of the game that just weren’t quite clicking with me. I want to emphasize that I fully recognize this is a “me” problem. The game really does go out of its way to accommodate various player proficiencies. I’m not saying any of this out of actual criticism for the game; rather, I’m just attempting to explain why I personally didn’t have an overwhelmingly positive experience with it.
What pulled me through the game, besides the many aspects of the gameplay that I actually did click with, was the consistently entertaining writing. This game is FUNNY. Like, anywhere from “ha, clever bit” funny to laugh-out-loud jokes. I guess there were a couple that didn’t land, but it’s still pretty impressive to get me looking forward to each new NPC interaction to see what new silly or witty or weird places the story would go. I found myself getting pretty invested in where it would all land, and I appreciated that the final decision it leaves you with feels legitimately like a tough one to make, but it also doesn’t feel like the choices are equally good or bad, despite the fact that there is ambiguity to the results of each one. I tried both because it’s so easy to go back and do it again after the game ends, and it reinforced for me that I think I made the right decision the first time.
I think writing all of this out and reflecting on my experience with this game made me appreciate it even more than I did while I was playing it, honestly. Just an incredibly idiosyncratic and cool thing, even if not every aspect of it entirely worked for me.