What Knights of the Chalice 1 and 2 do very well is to distill the complexity of the ruleset — the "more than 700 Spells and Psionic Powers" and make it approachable. All those many different things could easily be daunting, but KotC is great about having in-game explanations for everything. Tooltips in the UI and descriptions of every spell, skill, race and class. Complexity done well can make for a deep, absorbing experience, and it results in a lot of depth here. It's important to note that KotC is designed as a platform for which the game's designer — as well as other players — can make additional "modules" using the engine and graphical assets. Each module is meant as an individual adventure. The game comes with a great module, Augury of Chaos, that has engaging and awesome level design. There is already a community of players making their own modules for the game, too. You can find them in the forums on the Heroic Fantasy Games website. That is KotC 2's value proposition: you get not just one game, but a platform with which to play many more games, or even to make your own for others to play. This is probably as close as I've seen to a pen & paper RPG experience in a single-player game.
Vagrus plays like a rich & literate single-player board game, where you hold together your caravan and try to thrive in a hostile environment full of interesting creatures and factions. It's very easy to become absorbed in the world-building. The writing and artwork meld together well. Normally I would say that I don't even enjoy crew maintenance mechanics, such as morale and feeding, but in Vagrus I somehow do. It feels like an earned part of exploring this world. At this point, I kind of want to hold off on continuing to play Vagrus until the game is finished, but I keep finding myself coming back to it anyway.
I'm not against walking simulators, but they need to have a lot going for them in story, characters, and general mise-en-scène in order to justify their existence. Tacoma does successfully construct the atmosphere of an abandoned space station. You watch recordings of absent characters and are then able to interact with objects and computers they've left behind to piece together their lives and motivations, and what ultimately happened to them. However, the characters don't have a lot of depth or personality. They are all unambiguous "good guys" who care about each other and their families back home. In fact, the game very quickly sets up the dynamic that everyday people (and the labor unions that represent them) are Good, while corporations are Bad. The player is reminded of this at every possible beat-you-over-the-head-with-it opportunity. I kept playing because I was curious if I would be given the option to pick sides, to decide whether to make a selfish or an altruistic decision. Spoiler: There is never any choice. Having a modicum of player agency could have improved the game, of course. But even with no influence over the story's direction, it could have benefitted from some nuance. A sympathetic corporatist character could have been interesting. Instead, having just finished it, I ask, "Really? That's it?" A predictable short story, and not much else.
