I've bought this game ~2 months ago and I really enjoyed it even though usually don't like visual novels. I got it because I adore Goethe's masterpiece but my personal rule is to never compare any Faust-related game to the book. Otherwise I doubt I would enjoy it because nothing, absolutely nothing is like Goethe's Faust. And actually Soul Gambler is not really that much related - the main character's name is Faust and it's about selling a soul (but this time only in parts) and I think that's it.

The story itself was interesting. It's divided in several chapters and even though your starting and ending location is exactly the same the actual content depends strongly on your decisions (including those in previous chapters) so there are a lot of possibilities to explore. What's even better - at the beginning you can distribute a few points for your stats (four of them) and you may get them increased or decreased during the game - and they allow you to choose some special options during the game so every time you change your character your options may be different. So there are a lot of possibilities to explore and a nice number of various ending, including total disaster, semi-total disaster, defeat but with a glimpse of satisfaction, bitter-sweet victory and of course the best ending (which is not as trivial as they usually tend to be!). So yeah, I was really motivated to learn about everything and I had a blast playing it.

The game is not flawless, some drawbacks come from the nature of a genre - to explore everything there will be parts that you will have to repeat several times. A more serious issue is that the game apparently wasn't playtested long enough. For example you can trigger the same part of conversation during the same dialog and your character will be surprised twice after hearing some news. If you are stubborn long enough and refuse to sell even the smallest part of your soul you can still end up in a conversation where your character will explain how he was feeling when he was selling a part of his soul. How did he know that if he's never ever done that? Yeah, perhaps it's not a very big mistake (and your choices must be a bit weird to create such paradoxes) but I think visual novel definitely should not have such mistakes.

All in all I really recommend it to everybody who likes visual novels!

Thank you for your feedback :) . Awesome :). Im not a HUGE fan but i do like the occasional visual novel so ill give it a go :). Especially since other competing offerings i see on Desura..many are like 25 bucks+ (i actually wonder why the pricing is so high for visual novels....)

You are welcome :) Just don't sell your soul for stupid things ;)

Is Soul Gambler the one that requires Internet Explorer to run?
I remember reading something like that about a VN recently.

I don't think so. I've opened the game and task manager and there was no iexplorer.exe process. Then I turned off IE and the game still ran without any problems.

Ah here it is, they mentioned it on the Desura page.

Heh, that's a bit strange because I did turn IE off and was able to play the game... maybe turning off IE means turning it off only a little bit, namely that the shortcut icon disappear from the start menu ;) Or IE is needed during installation only... frankly, I don't know :)

I decided to give the game a go, and it was a nice little game with an okay story.
It does though need the internet enabled (I have no IE on this computer) otherwise it just throws an error that it cannot connect to 127.0.0.1
I always thought that was a ping back address.

So it seems it requires Internet Explorer 9 to install. And IE9 is not compatible with XP. So the game doesn't even install on XP.

Not sure I follow - does the part I highlighted refer to an active Internet connection of only Internet Explorer to be installed and enabled?
Since you don't have Internet Explorer, does the game install and run after the error or is the error game-breaking?

The dev's comment on the game's Desura page makes it sound that without IE it's impossible to install and play the game.

New one is up

Copod

"Copod is a roguelite where you have to survive as a small creature in a strange world. All you want is to find a flower to impress your mate so you can continue to the next generation, but there are many other creatures that are in your way. Find eggs to hatch fellow Copods to help you out or sacrifice them for more health. Kill and scavenge for varied powers that you give you a temporary abilities and get evolutions to improve your odds of survival.

Copod Version 0.4 is out now!
In this new version, I've added the ability to customise your game run.

By simply toggling the game settings, you can change the way Copod is played. The Ethereal setting combines your soul count and health bar together while Pellets lets you shoot pellets rather than dashing into enemies. You can even mix and match them to make unique runs.

I've beefed up the evolutions too. They make a far more noticeable effect on your performance and abilities. There is also a new evolution that lets you spawn your own followers by killing enemies.
BY: Ben Perry"

Linux/Windows/Mac
BTA = OST
Desura...

It installed and does play without an active IE. Yet it will not start on machine without the internet being turned on, if I just disconnect the wire then the game throws the error..

That's probably due to the way the game is coded, though a better answer or thorough explanation would require the dev's input.

Thanks for the reply.

This new Copod game looks promising, bought :D

Siege of Turtle Enclave
"
Siege of Turtle Enclave is a turn based strategy war game with real time battles, it's set in a vibrant and inviting fantasy world where the last remnant of a nation of turtles valiantly makes a stand against the ravaging hordes of corrupt owls which have wrested away most of the turtle's homeland.

Over the course of the game players will research technologies, build up their settlement, train armies, and fight their way across the map in an attempt to overthrow the enemy warlord in his keep. Along the way, players will find goodie huts, collect resources from the map, and recruit powerful heroes to fight alongside their armies.

Each play-through will be different, as the campaign map is randomly generated at the start of each new game, adding to the game's replay value.
"
BTA - - Special Edition that is not available on Desura


It looks like it could be fun, but the BTA being the entire game again as the SE is a little odd.