SKALD: Against the Black Priory is probably my go-to hidden gem. I keep nagging about it but it made a big impression on me. The writing was particularly impressive, with good prose in a distinctive tone and interesting world building plus some cool cosmic horror and Lovecraftian undertones. Beautiful pixel art - especially the splash screens - and some very nice CRT emulation filters that I recommend using as they really bring the look of the visuals together. Very fun - if a tad simple - turn based gameplay, plays a bit like a retro RPG but without the clunk. Appropriate amount of character customization for the length of the game with small skill trees, background choices and dice rolls in dialogue to make you feel like your character is your own. At around 20h it’s a pleasantly short experience for a CRPG too, and what’s nice about it is how concise it is - there’s no filler and no grinding.
Esports Godfather was by far my surprise hit of last year. Came from absolutely nowhere and really charmed me, and I still think it’s criminal that it’s so underrated. The name is nonsensical yes, and at first glance you probably think it’s a gimmicky word soup: MOBA-themed deckbuilder/autobattler/management game? But trust me it plays way, way better than you think. Yes, the translation is not great. Yes, the AI could use work and the game really isn’t all that hard. But god damn if the game just isn’t so much fun to play. From building a deck full of players and card combos that work with your preferred heroes to draft to fiddling with the Backpack Battles-esque block-rotating training minigame (that gets increasingly complex) the game is just an absolute blast. You get all the goodness of a MOBA but without any of the toxic teammates!
The post launch support has also been fantastic, and I’ve been meaning to return to it for quite some time now as they keep adding new mechanics and features. They did use AI art for the player portraits, but claimed to have trained the model on their own art? Do with that what you will. The art for all the rest, like cards and heroes etc is human made.
Everybody knows about What Became Of Edith Finch, but I want to talk about Giant Sparrow’s other game: The Unfinished Swan. This is such a charming little light puzzler/exploration game with a fantastic picture-book aesthetic and a lovely story about loss, creativity and discovery of the unknown. The art direction is absolutely immaculate and there are several interesting mechanics at play that I found real joy in using to explore. The paint-splashing in particular is very unique and worth experiencing on its own, with perfect ludonarrative resonance of filling in this unfinished world. It’s a short and linear game - you can probably finish it in one sitting on a weekend - but it doesn’t need to be longer. A beautiful and surprisingly emotional journey that’s stayed with me for quite a few years now.
I didn’t fiddle with them and just played on default, but SKALD has very extensive and granular difficulty settings. I forgot to mention that. You can tailor the game to be as easy as you want it I think, and I even think it has built in cheats to like, win combat instantly with the console you can bring up with the Tab key.
SKALD: Against the Black Priory is probably my go-to hidden gem. I keep nagging about it but it made a big impression on me. The writing was particularly impressive, with good prose in a distinctive tone and interesting world building plus some cool cosmic horror and Lovecraftian undertones. Beautiful pixel art - especially the splash screens - and some very nice CRT emulation filters that I recommend using as they really bring the look of the visuals together. Very fun - if a tad simple - turn based gameplay, plays a bit like a retro RPG but without the clunk. Appropriate amount of character customization for the length of the game with small skill trees, background choices and dice rolls in dialogue to make you feel like your character is your own. At around 20h it’s a pleasantly short experience for a CRPG too, and what’s nice about it is how concise it is - there’s no filler and no grinding.
Esports Godfather was by far my surprise hit of last year. Came from absolutely nowhere and really charmed me, and I still think it’s criminal that it’s so underrated. The name is nonsensical yes, and at first glance you probably think it’s a gimmicky word soup: MOBA-themed deckbuilder/autobattler/management game? But trust me it plays way, way better than you think. Yes, the translation is not great. Yes, the AI could use work and the game really isn’t all that hard. But god damn if the game just isn’t so much fun to play. From building a deck full of players and card combos that work with your preferred heroes to draft to fiddling with the Backpack Battles-esque block-rotating training minigame (that gets increasingly complex) the game is just an absolute blast. You get all the goodness of a MOBA but without any of the toxic teammates!
The post launch support has also been fantastic, and I’ve been meaning to return to it for quite some time now as they keep adding new mechanics and features. They did use AI art for the player portraits, but claimed to have trained the model on their own art? Do with that what you will. The art for all the rest, like cards and heroes etc is human made.
Everybody knows about What Became Of Edith Finch, but I want to talk about Giant Sparrow’s other game: The Unfinished Swan. This is such a charming little light puzzler/exploration game with a fantastic picture-book aesthetic and a lovely story about loss, creativity and discovery of the unknown. The art direction is absolutely immaculate and there are several interesting mechanics at play that I found real joy in using to explore. The paint-splashing in particular is very unique and worth experiencing on its own, with perfect ludonarrative resonance of filling in this unfinished world. It’s a short and linear game - you can probably finish it in one sitting on a weekend - but it doesn’t need to be longer. A beautiful and surprisingly emotional journey that’s stayed with me for quite a few years now.
I really suck at CRPG and I got stuck early in BG3. SKALD looks interesting and I am hoping it is more simple than BG3. Might give it a try. Thanks.
I didn’t fiddle with them and just played on default, but SKALD has very extensive and granular difficulty settings. I forgot to mention that. You can tailor the game to be as easy as you want it I think, and I even think it has built in cheats to like, win combat instantly with the console you can bring up with the Tab key.
Perfect!
I hope you like it as much as I did! And happy cake day!