Choice of Present

The last couple of years I treated myself to a small Christmas present from Steam or GOG. That’s how I got Anchorhead Illustrated, Samorost 2, and Hadean Lands.

I’m in a bit of a pickle this year. I’m not sure what to choose.

I know from this forum that Disco Elysium is great. I’ve had my eye on Inkle’s Heaven’s Vault or 80 Days for a while too. And there must be many more high quality narrative games out there.

So, dear Intfiction, what are your suggestions for relatively low-priced (15 euros max), high quality IF or IF-adjacent** predominantly text-based games I could buy myself for Christmas?

There is one game I found when browsing last year and almost chose instead of Hadean Lands. Of course I forgot its title…

It was a long text game with beautiful hand drawn pictures (no animations). I remember drawings of wide nature landscapes.
It must be quite old because the descriptive text said that it was mostly overlooked when it came out, but might now find its way to the new text-based gaming community.
I also have a feeling that it’s about either prehistoric people or native american people (or their fantasy counterpart). This could be my mind filling in some blanks with wishful stuff though.

Curious about your thoughts and recommendations.

**By which I mean games that you would confidently post about here, without feeling the need to preface your post with “Yo guys, this is actually not IF at all. I’m not even sure why I’m talking about it here instead of on DOOMDUDESFORLIFE.COM.

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Recommendation: Overboard! by Inkle

Mystery game: maybe King of Dragon Pass ?

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King of Dragon Pass smells very similar, but I’m not having the * -click- *. It does look great though!

I’m really impressed by all Overboard's prizes. In fact, the entire Inkle catalogue looks great.
But Heaven’s Vault is the only one described as “archeological science fiction”! !
I mean, how does one top that?

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Pentiment has been getting great reviews and seems very IF-adjacent, but I haven’t played it yet. (And it’s been released very recently, so there might be price drops in the future.)

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You could take a look at the well-regarded Thaumistry, which is only 3,29 €. I own it, but haven’t yet found the time to play it, regrettably.

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Thaumistry is one of my favorite games. It just clicks for me. Most enjoyable.

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Thaumistry! Of course! Thanks.

I’ve been confusing it with Sorcery!, which also seems a great series.

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Yeah, Sorcery! is fun, too! I loved the original gamebooks, and Inkle did a great job converting them.

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I’ve only played the first two Sorcery! games, but I gave Sorcery! 2 a five star review. Amazing.

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Disco Elysium actually fits my probably controversial definition of Interactive Fiction (though let’s not sidetrack Rovarsson’s nice thread debating that), so I can recommend it in good faith.

All the games mentioned so far are well regarded. You may well play them all eventually, which could alleviate any pressure associated with the choice at hand.

I don’t think you can go wrong with an Inkle game.

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I’ve not been sitting idly by while you guys did all the work.

These two have grabbed my attention:

Any thoughts?

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What Remains of Edith Finch is IF adjacent for sure, so it may be outside your preferred zone, but it is SO GOOD. It blew me away.

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Inkle games such as 80 Days play well on an iPad.

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I’ve been investigating King of Dragon Pass in depth (i.e. I looked at all the pretty pictures and went to its Wikipedia page) and you’re right!

Thank you!

Overboard or Sorcery by inkle is great, but if you’ve not tried 80 Days it’s the glorious masterpiece everyone says it is, and very re-playable.

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What Remains of Edith Finch looks like I would enjoy it. (If one can use such a word for a game like that…)

While we’re on IF-(-far-)adjacent narrative games with emotional impact, I haven’t finished Life is Strange yet, but it’s touching and immersive. With time-manipulation mechanics to boot!

Life is Strange: Complete Season on GOG.com

It’s been too long since I played. Somehow graphic games have a higher jump-back-in threshold than IF for me.

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My favorite IF that I bought recently was Night Road (ChoiceScript), but it’s a Vampire the Masquerade licensed game, so if you’re not into VtM it may be less interesting. I enjoyed it a lot, though.

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I would also recommend What Remains of Edith Finch and Life is Strange (first original season and before the storm anyway, not played later releases), though neither are text games.

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I haven’t played either of these two but they look IF-adjacent and fun. Hopefully somebody who has played them can chime in. :slight_smile:
*

  • Cultist Simulator

I reviewed Strange Horticulture a while back: Zarf Updates: 2022 IGF nominees: miscellaneous

As for Cultist Simulator, the developer is not a person I want to support any more.

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