I got this game for full price after playing the demo of it off of the site. Honestly, the gameplay loop is pretty addicting and I really enjoyed the feeling of being a (hobo) adventurer in a desolate world. Generally, while there aren't a lot of them, the small story elements give a nice touch to the world and the supernatural sci-fi blend is special and really sets this game apart. This, like many other roguelikes, is a great game to play while watching or listening to videos on the side so it can feel relaxing sometimes. Crafting and UI is not always very intuitive, but the game gets an entire star from me based on combat alone. It's a unique turn-based experience with brutal Dwarf Fortress-esque injury text and lots of options to plan your moves around. What dropped the score for me is that after playing it for a while, I started feeling like it was somewhat unfinished. There aren't that many items, the enemy variety is kinda small, and the endgame being an memorized, scripted experience doesn't sit well with me in a roguelike like this one, so I haven't even been aiming for it. If this game had some DLC content or updates to it, I would probably not have detratced this point, but I can't really justify $15 for this game when there are many extremely in-depth rogues like this one that are completely free. That being said, it's a mostly positive experience.
My previous experience with Fallen London is what sold me on this game as I wanted to see an example of a game where the story is first and gets all the attention as an aspiring writer myself. Admittedly, the author in me was mostly satisfied and even delighted by the storytelling manner and actual content. The narrative is creative, smart, and has hints of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. In fact, if it were merely a book, or even just a visual novel, I would have likely given this a much higher rating. Unfortunately, this game is severely, horribly reduced by the actual play. It isn't that it's just boring to some types of people, as it will inevitably be. The game actively gets in the way of you discovering it, and the story is kept out of reach maddeningly by aggressively obtuse mechanics. For starters, it's true that the game has not even the slightest tutorial. While this isn't really that much of an issue, as discovery can be great fun, once you build up enough runs to know what to do at the beginning, you run into paralyzing fear later as you may not know how to prevent a bad ending from happening unless looking it up, or may find some advanced materials too confusing to use without outside help. This leads into the next point that the beginning of a successful run and the setup required is VERY BORING. You will have to stall to build skills and read the same few books over and over while waiting for a very long time to gather cultists. The high RNG factor can make even a well-developed run end very swiftly and suddenly, sending you back to this grind. Another massive drawback is that the game's UI is also very poor. If you choose to collect all of your cards at once, they will go wherever they wish. You have to keep cleaning and cleaning for the entire game, and increasingly often. Cards can disappear due to bugs or being hidden under other cards, forcing you to search for hours.
