This is an indie game about the French Revolution made by Polish developers. I really wanted to like it due to the originality of its premise but ultimately have to give it a thumbs down because it has too many issues which are inherent in its design. Its story mode is also very frustrating in that you really have no control at all over what happens even if it appears at first that you do. I do credit this for being a worthwhile educational experience about day to day life during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution but you have to do your reading up of the facts separately. Even so I’m not sure that the game is worth your time.

The last time I played a Warhammer 40k videogame was Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, so I guess take this as proof of how much the setting appeals to me as a turn-based wargame. I think there is a difference in scale between the two games with the older one being a strategic level game while this one is tactical. But in a videogame the difference doesn’t matter as much as you’re pushing units around a map regardless. Here you’re playing on the side of the Space Wolves chapter of the Space Marines, which in practice means there is a lesser variety of units to play around.

Continuing on with my run of short games, this is a totally free game that can be easily downloaded on itch.io but will also be coming to Steam soon. As you should be able to see from these screenshots, this is an old-style point-and-click adventure game with pixel graphics. The title itself refers of course to the famous novel by Italo Calvino, which I actually have read a while back due to my wife’s insistence, but barring some minor references the game doesn’t actually have anything to do with the book.

I haven’t played a first person shooter in a very long time and this one is an old game, first released some ten years ago, though this Redux version I believe updates the engine some. I only played it for two reasons: because it was free, one of the many offered by Epic to lure players to try out their platform, and because I actually have read the novel it is based on. I didn’t really like the book either but I do know this game was a hit, spawning multiple sequels so I wanted to be able to compare.

This was briefly popular several years ago but as usual it takes me a while to get through my wish list of games. It’s a very simple game but I really felt like playing something light and quick as a palate cleaner after the monstrosity that was Pathfinder: Kingmaker. You can learn this in minutes and be done with the standard campaign in a few hours.

This game sucked up way too much of my life recently, taking far more time to complete than I expected and completely messing up my schedule. This is of course the famous videogame adaptation of the Pathfinder rules, itself descended from the old Dungeons & Dragons rules. Like everyone else in my generation, one of my fondest gaming memories were about playing the Baldur’s Gate series so of course I wanted more of that gaming magic made to modern standards. Even better, it now officially supports turn-based combat so I can take my time micro-managing every action for maximum optimization.

Here’s yet another small game by some of the same people behind Failbetter Games and naturally since it’s a narrative-based game with cards, how could I resist? Unfortunately this is one game I did not like at all, mainly due to how tediously grindy it is. You’re supposed to have fun by exploring the gameplay mechanics by yourself and learning what cards interactions are possible but I find that as achieving victory takes quite some time and a little bit of luck even when you fully understand how everything works. As such, you’re just prolonging the pain unnecessarily by repeating the same actions over and over again if you refrain from looking things up.