Prettier and longer than the free version, this remake still has rather cheap-looking graphics, but it is a lot of fun. Place towers to attack incoming enemies, and reinforce them with three abilities: peasant troops, a meteor shower, and your chosen Hero (only one is available at first, but others are unlockable). You can unlock new abilities through a talent tree and upgrades for towers during the game. Play is linear until after the final battle when a variety of optional battles are unlocked. Various boss battles break the rules; some morph into new forms when "killed." Some ignore the path and march straight across the battle field. This is cool, as is the soundtrack, which isn't long but is full of drums and primal noises. Battles are just long enough for a good break but not so long that you will have to set aside a block of time. Minuses: difficulty seems fixed, even though different levels are select-able. I tried varying the difficulty on a few battles and lost in the same place every time until I developed a better strategy. The last battle in the main campaign is long and has a very limited number of strategies that actually work, making it tedious to beat. By the end of the campaign you will have everything in the talent tree, so making your own unique build is impossible. Also, who is the player and why can he build towers and call meteor storms? The game offers no suggestions. There is, in fact, not much of a story. But still, I recommend it. Try the flash game if you are unsure.
This is a story of a city plagued with drought and poverty. You have a series of characters, introduced with a few paragraphs of text and a list of Traits, who can play a small role in the development of the fate of the city. This is an RPG in the sense that you are asked to make choices, but you can influence stats indirectly by emphasizing parts of their personality as you play. Gameplay consists of exploring the environment, talking to the people nearby, and making a decision about what to do. You play each of the characters as a life-altering decision comes up. As you finish each character's section, their choices influence the city and what happens to later characters. The music is full of pounding drums, with a great beat that matches the characters' walk cycles. Graphics are simple but pleasant, with a bold palette but a washed-out look appropriate for a drought. Gameplay consists of a lot of text reading. Your dialog choices include a tone descriptor, and the NPC has three stats that indicate their opinion of you. These change during the conversation. I estimate this game to be about 2 hours, with room for replayability to see how you can have the fate of the city and individual characters ultimately come out differently. For what it is...an innovative, low-budget indie RPG, it is really cool, and gets everything right. I backed the kickstarter and got what I wanted...lots of choice and consequences, good writing, interesting characters.
The goal of this game is to get your princess to her coronation by beating obstacles (skill checks) in her way while still maintaining the type of princess you think she ought to be. A typical run-through looks like this: sign the princess up for weekly classes, react to events, fail a few skill checks, train those skill up, bumble through 2/3 of the game, SUDDENLY DIE. The princess has many forces gathering to kill her which grow in strength over the course of the game. Every game has the same timeline, but there are a lot of late-game events that can change depending on your earlier actions. To get the most out of the game, save a lot and aim to fill in all the achievements for every kind of death and every kind of ending. This game is very popular among my stay-at-home mom friends because it can be picked up for a few minutes at a time and remains engaging under those conditions. I have also run this game as a forum game. It works because the graphics do not contribute much. They are...serviceable, standard Manga-type art. Everyone looks the same age and has the exact same face shape and stock expressions. Eh. Music is from the public domain. It is clear that not much time was spent on these elements. Despite these things, I've gotten a lot of entertainment out of this game, probably more than any other game I've bought here. It seems to cross over and be enjoyable by almost any demographic.
