Ok so, Steam Highwayman
I played for 45 minutes today and so far, if you like these choose your own adventure games with some RPG thrown in then it seems pretty good.
The world is pretty large with a detailed map you can look at (weirdly you can only zoom in and out on it with the slider provided. I'm used to just pinching to zoom, but no luck here).
The writing is good. I've seen a couple grammatical errors but nothing huge so far.
Some towns you enter have a drawing to visualize and they are fine. Nothing mindblowing at all but better than nothing.
You get into Challenges which use dice rolls where you have to beat a number to succeed. Things like hunting for deer or ambushing a rich persons carriage on a road. This is affected by your stats. There's a stat screen along with your inventory and what looks like a faction- level section in the menu l.
The game has not explained any of the stats thus far, and my 2 weapons have stats that while I can tell what they generally are, I have no idea what their practical use is.
You travel through this steamship/Steam barge/Steam carriage medieval world and can play as a Robin Hood type, or just a thief if you'd like. You are set upon the world and it's up to you to find out what you want to do. Lots of options are locked out, needing money or "keywords" you can obtain in various ways. I've gotten 2 of these but they have been no use to me yet. They are listed in your inventory but have no text to describe them at all. I also have a modifier on my character and when I inspect it, it's just a word and I have no idea what its effect is.
On this same thread, I've had many conversations in town with people giving me leads on places to go, specific people in need etc, and the menu has no place for any of this that I can see. This seems to be a huge issue imo, as it's information overload with no way to reference anything youve been told (unless I missed it…possible).
So the game seems well written with interesting lore, but It's all so overwhelming that it feels meandering and lacking any core motivation. This means you can likely shape it however you want, but the lack of information given to you about, well, everything makes it a less than ideal experience. For a game this deep, it deserves to have a robust menu with lots of information you can access to review. This would help make it all less overwhelming.
As it stands, I don't think I have the patience to continue. Some will absolutely dig this. If you want dropped into a huge world that you can do as you wish in, and don't mind having to figure things out yourself (and I guess take your own notes so you know what your options even are) then there is something to like here.
If you want a more guided experience, or like to know what exactly stats do, or want a journal to access all the info you have obtained, then you may find yourself throwing your hands up like me and saying nope…don't have time for all this lol.
play.google.com
