Gordian Quest. Releasing from early access on 23 June, and I thoroughly recommend it as a fantastic tactical RPG game with options for both narrative campaign and roguelike play.
It was already a great experience in early access. I spent 30+ hours playing it, and I avoid early access if I feel the game is lacking features or content that are going to be critical for the best experience.
What does it offer?
Turn-based tactical battles with a wide range of actions, synergies & tactics
Extensive hero development through stats, skills, talents & equipment loadouts, which combined together deliver a deck of action cards that each hero brings into battle
Multiple hero choices, with the difference between their gameplay being very significant, similar to the difference between Trials of Fire heroes and the Slay the Spire heroes i.e. unique cards and abilities and development.
Roguelike / endless mode gameplay, very much like Slay the Spire in its ‘act’ and ‘branching path’ structure
Story mode gameplay, with a full four chapters within the 23 June release
If you like these, which I do, I am going to bet you will like this too given similar gameplay elements - Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Trials of Fire, For the King.
I might even pitch Gordian Quest as a bit of a mash-up of elements of For The King & Slay The Spire, but it is very much also doing its own things too.
I’ve been playing this for ages in Early Access and it’s always been fun, but it gets super grindy and the Act (I’ve tried the first two) are way too long and feature way too many battles. At least in EA. I haven’t touched it in almost a year at this point, so I’m hoping it’s a lot more polished with regards to the actual campaign pacing. The map and number of combat nodes was just wild and most of them were trash mobs. Fun, but ultimately just too much of a good thing. And that was just a single Act, let alone playing the full version of the game presumably you’d take one party through, what, four acts? If each one is 10-15 hours of the same party with incremental upgrades/leveling I’m hesitant to recommend this, under normal circumstances.
However, for $20 even if they still have that pacing flaw, it’s a really fun game to play around with until you get bored and want to roll up a new party and try new classes. I don’t really believe this will still be an issue - I’ve half-way kept up with updates and a lot of the game looks different/improved upon for example, including skill trees, which were fun but annoying and now look really well implemented - so since it’s not an expensive game but it does have a lot of content (even a year ago I felt it did) this is probably worth picking up.
Verily, these have changed a heck of a lot through EA, I think for the better. As a way of enabling RPG character development, they are rather novel.
Instead of a “tree”, you get grids with nodes. Within one grid, to unlock any given node, you need a connection to an existing unlocked node. At certain level ups, you then get entirely new grids, and choice between different grids, and where to orient the new grid to attach to an existing grid.
So you might choose to place a new grid close to existing unlocked nodes on an existing grid, awesome, yes? But wait! The best nodes on that new grid might be on the other side of that grid relative to the location of the unlocked nodes on your current grid. The tyranny of choice!
I’m still in Act 1, and the grind is getting to me. I’m considering dropping the campaign and just playing in Realm mode, which seems a lot more enjoyable
Which means that if you’re complaining about grind, something about the gameplay isn’t working for you! What is it? Are the battles not fun, I mean gratifying? Are you basically on autopilot clicking “attack shoot spell” until battle is over? What is it?
Definitely diving back into this. Meant to do a long stream today, but dealing with Covid booster symptoms and bereavement together has left me not really wanting to play just yet.
Well that’s a new one, I think. A game that is out on both Steam and GOG hits 1.0 on Steam but is still waiting to update on GOG. Potentially for weeks, according to the devs. Friggin sucks.
GOG has had delayed updates in the past, but they’ve been for games that already were at 1.0, and usually the delays seemed to be due to disinterest from the developers, not an actual intentional choice.
