Recent reviews by His Imperial Bodgeness

I can't quite find the words to neatly sum up this sprawling game, but with all the developers' diligent tending I think it is now a nearly perfect experience.

A cozy and simple visual novel, this is a less ambitious game than Roadwarden but stimulated the same receptors that first made me love that title. The scope this time is narrower but focused on the most interesting part of Roadwarden - the tribal villages. This time you're on the inside looking out and it fleshes out a part of that world that I wanted to see more of, which I think is pretty much the mission statement for this game. I'll always enjoy spending time in this setting and hope that we see more stories from Viaticum soon.

Really enjoyable! I've played a lot of the Wales Interactive FMV games and the concept for this one feels like it fits their style of game the best - the choices do feel meaningful and the actors have fun with their script. I went back for a 2nd playthrough to see more of it, and along with Late Shift I think this is their best game.

This is the worst of the Wales Interactive FMV titles - bad acting, shallow story, annoying characters, pointless choices, thankfully it was short. Some of their other games are pretty decent so this baffles me.

An interesting mix between social deduction and resource management game in a pretty village stalked by cosmic horror where you are the inquisitor suppressing the unruly. While I found it fun - and very challenging - this tipped over into being blatantly unfair several times and did spoil things. Your ability to manage the 'resources' in this backwater depend on the character traits of your bumpkins (which are punishingly weighted against you) and there are very few ways to make your situation better, besides purification - so why can purification randomly kill villagers when attempted?! I also really dislike that characters can fail to perform their tasks and do the exact opposite of what they are meant to, meaning your decisions are limited towards the end of a season so you can guarantee safety if you need to hit a certain level of a 'resource' - I think there could have been a wider scale of success instead that doesn't punish you as much. The Great Houses opinion of you is also WAY too punishing. If steam had a neutral review option I would pick it, but forced to pick between good/bad there is enough frustration here to warn people off.

A true sequel that builds on the successes of the first title - everything is expanded in breadth, depth and quality from the graphics and environments to the progression systems and the addition of a new campaign. The old enemies, weapons and even a Ziggurat mode are still there - which pleases old fans like myself - but this title is the fulfilment of all the potential the original rogue-lite hyper-fast arena shooter had. The more structured progression this time around is an unexpected pleasure and I'm having lots of fun zooming through its' corridors. Highly recommended and highly addictive.

A great puzzle box brainteaser with a good mobile port. The difficulty is not too taxing and it doesn't outstay its welcome.

A decent follow-up to the magnificent Sunless Sea, it doesn't capture my imagination anywhere near as much but is quite an accessible approach to the world of Fallen London. Lots of small things annoy me and the world feels smaller (and Albion is not a good zone in my opinion) but equally many qol features are much appreciated. I hope they make more games in this line, but sadly it doesn't look likely.

Please make more of these, I haven't enjoyed an RPG like this in years! This is an unyielding, deep, dark fantasy text-based RPG, bursting with flavour and adventure. This to me is what life really feels like in a small rural community - the world zooms in to a level where people can directly see the fruits of their labour: clear a road and you open up trade for a village, make a friend who then passes the word of your good deeds on to someone in the next village, and so on.

The two greatest strengths of this game are its writing and its choice - there is an absurd amount of branching depending on what choices you make and how you talk to the locals, which really gives you a feeling of true choice. The writing isn't florid, but has a very clear style and tone which sets up the tense, distrustful mood of the peninsula as you slowly battle through the wilderness - the world feels alive with its own culture (and villages have their own individual accents), groups have realistic ambitions and foibles, and you very much feel like an outsider.

Speaking of which, your exploration of the world carries genuine and thrilling risk - while there is a map, it starts entirely coated in fog of war; you rely on verbal directions and uncover a rough path one careful step at a time. Your patience, local knowledge and foresight are rewarded more than any other game I have ever played.

With this type of game, there is usually a very real risk of boredom - you have to chew through thousands of words and the pace is decidedly slow - but I found the game's pacing impeccable. You transition from tense path-finding and diplomacy early on to finally emerging into the late game as a political player on the peninsula, all while keeping an eye on the clock as your allotted 40 days on the job bleed away.

Buy this, curl up with a mug of tea and a blanket, and wile away an evening in the vivid Hovlavan wilds.

A thoroughly strange game, combining management, tetris, education and grapes. I think it's excellent. You are the owner of a small vineyard slowly settling into the wine industry and expanding your commercial and technical abilities.

What is striking is the amount of operational info that the game makes available about your grapes at every step, which gives away that this is an oenologists passion project, but the finesse of this system is that the info is totally optional to read and doesn't slow you down. Of course there is pride in tinkering your vines to stretch for the perfect vintage, but also the satisfaction of a well-run commercial arm that grows year after year. The latter does become more overbearing as you plunge deeper into the late game, and I found my vines became more like conveyor belts and the overall fun of the experience was a little dimmed.

After I read the Vice article on this game I don't think this is really a criticism, as it ties in with the story: a small-town tale which pits the bucolic vineyards against Big Business. Inadvertently I think this achieves the gaming holy grail of marrying mechanics to story, show don't tell - to grow your business efficiently you can very easily optimise the soul out of the winemaking. This is probably accidental, but all the same this is a fun game which managed to teach me something about grapes.