Recent reviews by Nonbinary

fun game that i am glad i found. there is a good diversity in questions and categories. there is also a workshop adding more question categories, but so far i have played about 10 games unmodded and have not seen any repeat questions. the bots are also fair and unpredictable if you play alone. feels like real players, though you get the most laughs out of playing with friends

the game has a lot of depth for those that like stats n stuff. lots of procedural generation. everyone is opinionated about everything to help progress story and they act on their own will. your nobles will petition you for demands and needs, and the social burden falls on your ruler. lots of easy customization for those particular about their game experience. it can be a sandbox and it can be a roguelike. there is no definitive defeat in the world. if you lose you can move unto the next run in the same world. the story is continuous. no true restart needed for hardcore fans. the game is lgbtq+ friendly and is treated as a difficulty option (neat). also optional if you cant relate

devs are super nice and responsive, good work ethic, and engages with the community. fun to hang out with on discord, engages with mod creation, and they love to hear about your experiences with the game

detailed analysis of the game further below. i have only put 3 hours into the game as writing this, so the analysis should be taken lightly and might get updated over time

general pros:
* lots of game mechanics, detailed crafting, modifying, use of prisoners, hideout management etc
* detailed characters choices and stats
* seems to be a good variety in equipment
* the character reactions in combat are entertaining, same with the reactions to the 'old world' here and there
* feels complex and interesting to learn
* the developer cares about the players experience as well as their concerns with the game
* difficulty ranging from forgiving to punishing
* did i mention all character stats matter?

general cons:
* the ui and its tabs are very scattered. hard to remember what some of them are for
* the combat is a strange choice between trying to kill or avoid getting killed, but never both, and in a lot of variated but unnecessary ways. you can only choose one option per round
* learning the ui and understanding how to interact with the worldmap can be daunting at first. it feels a bit fast paced

personal pros:
* i love procedural generation. this game offers a lot of it
* i like the streak of games this dev has made and the reliability he has shown, so i am already keen with this one

personal cons:
* the bright contrast of deserts personally makes me dizzy. not the fault of the game itself though
* the game does *feel* complex in the randomness and choices, but its a vague feeling for me that is hard to grasp. i cant to get immersed with it yet

when i first learned the developer was making a post apocalyptic game, i was a bit disappointed, its not the genre i am usually interested in. when i learned it would be about playing as a bunch of brigands, i was more curious. i have been playing battle brothers and saw the possibilities of changing the narrative from somewhat good to definite evil. when i saw it looked like battle brothers too, i was intrigued to play it

well its not exactly like battle brothers. you pick out targets on the world map, you trade with towns and manage your crews equipment and skills, random events pop up, and you do have a hideout like brigands in battle bros, and there is an end game event that will be tough, but thats where the similarities end. the movements are a bit different too, since you dont click on areas or parties, you bump into them to activate them. its a minor detail, but worth mentioning anyway since it confused me at first when i tried to chase down caravans. the closer you click to your party, the slower you move, so you want to click far away from the caravans to actually chase them down.
other than that, here is what the game is like.
you manage a hideout which you start close by on the worldmap and you have to keep it safe and hidden. you upgrade its defenses, build structures for different benefits, manage its stock of resources, and you can add or take from your crew staying there defending it. you need resources to upgrade and build though, as well as certain prisoners. the resources you mostly find lying around the worldmap. collecting those slightly lowers the morale of your party, cause its tedious. raiding caravans raises morale, cause its fun. and it gives special prisoners. getting drunk is also fun. so you need water, meat and beer to keep your party happy. you can break down equipment you looted that you dont need for more resources. you have to be careful returning too often to your hideout to stash these resources, it adds to the risk of being compromised. everytime you raid a caravan you increase fear, which is like a different kind of currency used to having it your way, i mainly used it to make up laws through a wheel of fortune when i played. you also increase the vigilance of settlements, which adds risks making them increase their local defenses or send out detachments to hunt you down (if i understood it right, didnt matter yet while i played). eventually you want to take over these settlements and turn them into hideouts which you will upgrade as well, eventually taking over the wasteland. its pretty engaging and an interesting goal that does not feel linear or forced, you have enough to care about inbetween


the things i dont enjoy so much about the game yet, is the combat, character info and scattered ui, and i will explain why.

whats wrong with the combat?
for the combat, the several choices you have within one round for each character feels unnecessary. for example you can choose to do a normal attack, a heavy attack, a hit to the eye, a wild attack, a devastating attack, and some other attacks i forgot the name of. you get the idea. the biggest difference between them is the hit chance, damage and some debuff and how many action points they cost, but i see myself only switching between a heavy attack to lower their health and a standard attack to finish them off, and ignore the rest. but that is just the choices of attacks. then you can choose to go in defensive stances, or heal up some points, or increase your armor rating, or activate buffs or activate skills your character learned... it all would be fine if it was not because every single action you pick can only be done each round. so you can choose to increase your armor, but that means that character wont attack until the next round. the healing also only matters if you are lucky that any opponent, or that the opponent is lucky that any of your guys only land glancing blows or miss entirely, otherwise you will lose more health than you healed back in one round. when you have this many options for each character in each rounds, its easy to start ignoring them and just pick the obvious choices. the opponents attack also go by in a few seconds, you may not realize what they just did. but if characters can do more than one action each round, i will see most of this complaint invalid. more visual responses to whats going on would also be helpful and make combat more engaging to look at

hows the character info?
in the other games the dev made, i liked the many stats you could choose from. they all mattered. and they do too in this game. but its really hard to see them through. there is not much info visible on the character window, so i care less about these stats and the character backgrounds. i think the character equipment and appearance displays really nice. but something like illness and wounds im not really paying attention to, or which stats are weak or strong. i am not paying much attention to them leveling up either. i dont recommend 'letting the gods decide' on the character skills, it will go over your head what has changed, and you dont really care who levels up. i dont really feel it in combat either, what the characters weaknesses and strengths are as much as i used to in the previous games from the dev

whats with the scattered ui?
i think there is a simple solution to the ui problem, in theory. most of them should be collected into tabs in one window, instead of being separate several buttons on the side of the screen with their own window. that alone makes it feel too much. it would also be nice if there is text showing what the tabs are, or better icons explaining it, its a little too vague. the topside of the ui is much more composed and simple and way easy to understand. the left row is mostly the frustrating part of it. there are also icons within the tabs that dont really show what they are for until you figure it out by hovering over them, there are also other icons or texts that could use a description. the ui might be my biggest issue with the game, currently making it hard to sink into it


for me this game is more of a 50/50 than a positive recommendation, there are a lot of things that i think needs to be worked on. however, the developer is very attentive to the players wishes, needs and ideas, you can help influence it to be a game you enjoy, that is the main reason why i dont regret buying it

its decent.

IF YOU IGNORE that you bought a big advert, and the game shoves it in your face what you do not own yet despite having purchased the product proper. you can, for the most part, ignore this, so i did, proudly. games like these... they just fail to convince me to buy their micro ♥♥♥♥♥♥ penises. though a feeling will eventually creep up on you that you did still buy an expensive dlc, and the game needles you to buy the base game in chunks anyway. *rude*

while you may succeed in ignoring this in-game advertisement, it will dawn on you that the content of the game is still not worth the price. as in overall. its a mixture of genuine creativity, ideas and an overly genuine laziness and incompetence with those ideas, with the latter flooding your brain very rapidly. the text and lines have abandoned any ancient touch or medieval feel to them, too quirky/witty or modern, yet still remains in its seriously autistic bethesda writing. i dont know how they did that. its boring at best. the animations feels barely professional, and the lines are highly inadequate and the responses you make are severely autistic. "go get the book of black magic from the dank elves in that room to the left."
"i will go get the book of black magic from the dank elves in that room to the left."
"good. im glad you are an autis- that i can count on you and i appreciate your loyalty and i dont take advantage of you. you are so naiv- i mean brave. good luck"
bet this what you cashsnitchers thought about me all along before you even got me in it, indeed? well played ya fleecing bastards.

elder scrolls combat has never been good. its okay. the execution in this game is alike, and the old mmo combat style feels decent enough. you could argue its lazy that they didnt even try to improve the old bethesda style, and you could argue that too many years have passed and its still the same simplified hit and dont be hit bs. you could also pretend like its nothing. there is after all enough already to complain about. so whats the point. give in to the stockholm syndrome. keep your filthy mouth shut. you gave me your money, now take up my offers. you want more dont you? you know i own you now dog. you asked for this, now eat up our candy crown store. eat it up you filthy customer, i say eat it. stupid dog

no matter how many expansions you stuff into it, i dont think you can buy this game into something more fun. i dont think thats how it works. though the game tries to make you think so, its very lazily and greedily accomplished. price tagging the tenth race. selling each land worth a base game. loot you cant make use of until you bought this or that addon. please spare me. oh and dont buy that horse for real money for the sake of traveling please. your money deserves better. show some respect for your cash, because this game will not do it for you, it will pee on it.

i got the game on sale worth an indie, yet i somehow still feel ripped off. i put money into advertisement aimed at myself, not entertainment. minimum fun. one cannot wrap their head around how anyone in the studio falls asleep content at night. i would feel like a piece of pineapple pizza if i were them. someone in their crew is narcissistic, no respect for customers needs. eats terrible food and no respect for the value of entertainment. but somehow got put in the position of managing sales. why, they must all be lizards devoid of love and life. screw your cold hearts and your soaked pineapples. my big glorious ever-beating heart goes out to those unfortunate that bought it on its release, thinking it was worth the big aaa price, and then got jammed into a thieving monthly pay too. their avarice is reigning supreme, devoid of understanding and compassion. oh the aching. these stupid hoes think aaa is measured in graphics, aint it right stupid hoe? this monopoly is oh so sorrowful. the graphics are undoubtedly not that impressive either. now. did anyone want to buy that rusty dagger i have on sale? i know. it looks like a branch. but thats part of the lethality.

do excuse me while i go clean off the newly settled grease on the pages of my dictionary

A is for Allah, nothing but Allah;
Ba is the beginning of Bismillah;
Ta is for Taqwa, bewaring of Allah;and Tha is for Thawab, a reward;
Ja is for Janna, the Garden of Paradise;
Ha is for Hajj, the blessed pilgrimage;
Kha is for Khaatem, the seal of the prophethood given to the Prophet, Muhammed

Da is for Deen, Al-Islam, religion with Allah since time began;
Dha is for dhikr, remembering Allah;
And Ra is for the month of Ramadhan, ohh Ramadhan;
Za is for Zakat to pure our greed, when we give our money to those in need;
Sa is for Salamu alaikum, peace be with you wa'alaikum assalam;
Sha is for shams, the shining sun, which Allah placed for everyone;
And Sua is for salat, for when we pray facing him, everyday, facing him, till we meet our lord;

Allah there's only one God and Muhammed is his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;

Dua is for duha, the morning light, the sun has turned from red to white;
Tua is for tareeq, the path to walk upon;
And Dhua is for dhil, a shadow;
And Aa is for ilm, the thing to know, to make our knowledge grow, in Islam;
Gha is for ghaib, a world unseen and that we know is not a dream;
Fa is for, the Opening, Al-Fatiha;
And Qua for the Qur'an, the book of God;
And Ka is for kalima, a word we're taught to teach us what is good and what is not;
And La is for the beginning of La ilaha illa'allah;
Ma is for the Messenger Muhammed-ur-Rasoolillah.

La ilaha illa'allah, Muhammed-ur-Rasulilllah;
Allah, there's only one God and Muhammed is his Messenger.
Allah, la ilaha illa'allah;

Na is for nawm, the sleep God gave to give us rest after the day;
Ha is for the Hijra, the journey that, the Prophet made;
And Wa for wudu before we pray to help us wash our sins away;
And Ya for Yawm-mid-Deen;

Allah, there's only one God and Muhammed is his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and Jesus was his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and Moses was his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and Abraham was his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and Noah was his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and he created Adam, and we are the children of Adam.
Allah,La ilaha illa'allah;
Allah, there's only one God and Muhammed is his Messenger.
Allah, La ilaha illa'allah.