Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition

 

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Game: Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition Genre: Indie, RPG Developer: Behold Studios Publisher: Paradox Interactive Release Date: Jun 18, 2013 Platform: PC / Windows 7 Overall rating:  9/10	Graphics: 9/10 Controls: 9/10 Level/Puzzle Design:8/10 Sound: 9/10 Story: 8/10 Replay Value: 6/10 Community: N/A

 

Review

In Knights of Pen and Paper you play the role of… well, players who take on the role of characters, who take part in a pen-and-paper RPG.

If you ever played good old pen and paper RPGs, then you’ll probably love the game and the things it will remind you of. Fights are turn based, everyone can gain experience and level up, you have props and aids to up stats, and more people can join your party as you progress through the game. There isn’t really much of a story aside from that, other than advancing and taking on quests… yet that doesn’t seem to be a problem in this game.

Like with Evoland, my enjoyment of “Knights… ” is based more on the fact that it reminds me of “good old times” as much as on the type of humor the game uses through it. The way the characters talk really makes you feel like you’re there playing with friends (or at least, like your character is there, playing with his or her friends). There’s also plenty of pop culture references throughout, which makes my geeky side smile whenever I come across them.

Unlike Evoland, however, this one is a longish, drawn out game in which you have to grind your levels up in order to advance, which is always on the lesser side of ‘fun’ for me as it becomes repetitive and tiresome after a while. Despite this, it’s a game I quite love. I’ve found myself playing it both, for a couple hours straight, as well as just picking it up when I have nothing better to do or have to waste a few minutes, to do a small fight or side quest. The fact that you can save whenever you want makes this particularly easy, ensuring you can grab it and drop it even on your busiest days.

The art and music style are rather nice (if a bit repetitive) – the music fits the pixelated style fairly well, by which I mean it’s 8-bit style of music. The controls are super easy to learn and use.

The game is very light and I’m willing to bet plays well in any type of computer, seeing as it works in both my desktop toaster and my netbook. If parody games are your thing, or if you miss pen and paper RPGs, I definitely recommend you give this one a try!

Someone pointed out to me that there IS replayability n trying different characters and finishing as fast as possible, but you CAN make the game last and change the characters during the same game, so if you’ve already done that, it’s kind of pointless to re-play it.

Evoland

“I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the… Let’s just say I had trouble sitting for a while.”

 

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Game: Evoland Genre: Adventure, Indie, RPG Developer: Shiro Games Publisher: Shiro Games Release Date: Apr 4, 2013 Platform: PC / Played on Windows 7 Overall rating:  9/10	Graphics: 10/10 Controls: 9/10 Level/Puzzle Design:5/10 Sound: 7/10 Story: Hard to say Replay Value: 2/10 Community: N/A

 

Review

Evoland is as much a small parody as it is a game of it’s own. It borrows heavily from other RPG games and classics (such as Final fantasy and Zelda), meaning mostly that it mocks them in that loving parody way. The game story is pretty… simple. Big evil destroying world, you must go and defeat it. Along the way, you evolve… not in power, though you do get to level up.

 

The selling point of Evoland is the “RPG through the ages” bits. You start off as a pixelated character in a plain world with no enemies, and as you find chests, you start earning things. Such as enemies, the ability to level up, town citizens, pixels, and yes, 3D with nothing, then textures, and finally HD definitions. Combat is both action based and turn based; during world map encounters you will have turns, and during dungeons you will be fighting real time.

 

The game also has one card minigame for your enjoyment. While the story is nothing to call home about, the evolving aspect of the game is fun. The graphics, even when you’re just playing your pixel form, are really quite cute and very well done. The world is nice too, although the puzzles/level design/secrets are not really too difficult and everything was far too visible. I don’t think they were meant to be difficult, though. The music I was not a fan of, however, it evolves as you do as well and seems to match the game perfectly, so thumbs up on that. The story is also very short and the replay value is really null unless you want to go back and do 100% achievements (which are also not terribly hard to get, but I frankly couldn’t be bothered to go search for them).

The parody aspect also makes it fun if you love these type of games and have a good sense of humor (see quote above and on image below for an idea of the type of humor). Actually, this was the one thing that made me rate it so high – I had great fun discovering all the chests that made the land evolve and gave me things that had funny captions, or talking to townies and seeing what they would say.
I do have to say though, the battles do get a bit annoying after a while, and once you’ve unlocked everything and seen all the world has to offer, there’s really little reason to keep playing, too.

There’s not much else to say about this game.
Did I have fun? Yes! Exploring was fun, fighting was meh (there’s really not much you can do, just attack and heal). I will full on admit I quit halfway through the last boss not so much out of frustration, but because there was really little else to do but beat him.
Does it get boring if you take it seriously? Also yes. Don’t even bother grinding your levels, it will not make a difference.
Is it worth full price? Don’t think so.

Finally, if you like this type of game and get it on sale, it might be a fun little game to spend some time on for a funny, nostalgic ride into the past. Otherwise, I would recommend you pass.

Lakeview Cabin

 

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Game: Lakeview Cabin Genre: Indie Developer: Roope Tamminen Publisher: Roope Tamminen Release Date: Mar 25, 2015 Platform: PC / Played on Windows 7 Overall rating:  8/10	Graphics: 8/10 Controls: 10/10 Level/Puzzle Design:8/10 Sound: 9/10 Story: 8/10 Replay Value: 8/10 Community: N/A

 

Review

10/10 would zip down a line into a working wood chipper again.

Ahhh, Lakeview Cabin. I was the lucky winner of this game on one of the steam groups I belong to, and I was pleasantly surprised with the creepy pixelated experience.

Really, the game page says it all:

Quote

”Relive the horror movies of the 70’s and 80’s by answering the question: What would you do if you found yourself in a slasher film?”

And that’s exactly what the game is: A perfect, pixelated representation of your typical horror movie of the 80’s. There you have the girls with their lovely hair, and the boys with their handsome beards, and the creepy lake, and the cabins, and the creepy nude stalker…

Wait, what? o.O

The game is a horror/comedy/parody/adventure type of game. Your goal? To prepare yourself to survive the creepy, murdering monster as long as possible. Or, you know, you could just hide forever.

There are several characters for you to deal with, and switching between them is super easy.
You get to explore the cabins, find items to aid you with surviving, places to hide, and weapons to use against the horrors of the night. Whenever you get hurt, you actually… get hurt. As in, you miss a leg and you’ll be hopping down that pixelated grass on one leg while bleeding off. the game spares no expenses in the pixelated gore.

You can also kill yourself, kill others, and promptly die when you’re the only one left to face the evil from the lake. There’s more than one way to kill or be killed, and exploring them all is as fun as playing the game as you should be.
And you know what’s more satisfactory than surviving? Not giving the monster the chance to kill you all off, by doing it yourself first.

The game is mostly funny to play, but it also, despite being just pixels, manages to be sufficiently creepy as to unnerve you.  The replayability is fairly decent, as you can just replay it to see how many different ways you find to survive, whether you can kill the monster at all, and how long you can last.

If you’re into a bit of pixelated parody horror, give this one a try! Be warned, though: If you want to play this as it’s intended (as opposed to killing everyone yourself, actually laying traps out for the evil thing), be prepared to be a bit frustrated at the time constraints until you get the hang of what to do.

Looking forward to future episodes!