Another favorite game I've played both before and during my vacation this year is 80 Days. This is actually a phone/tablet port but I would never have known that from playing - the PC interface is clean, and I think they did add some content to take advantage of the available storage.
This game is just different and original. I could compare it to a "choose your own adventure" book but that doesn't do it justice. There is no combat system, but the choices are a not as simple as picking an option from a nested tree of lists, and include balancing your finances and your baggage space (more bags carry more stuff but can cost extra to carry on some transports and are just not allowed on others, especially the fastest and most experimental ones) as well as choosing both routes and what to do as events unfold in each city.
You play Passepartout, the valet, who really runs the expedition. The gentleman made his bet, but it's the gentleman's gentleman who does all the work, and when the gentleman does make a decision it's usually a complication for his poor valet's plans.
It's also an amazingly gentle game, though you may see plenty of descriptions of inhumane activity depending which cities you visit and which parts of them you explore. The game's world is steampunky (Verne-esque, of course) but the addition of those fantastic technologies to the boiling of what was already a planet full of change and reactions in the real world makes for a place worth visiting over and over to explore.
There is one enormous stupidity in the game, though, and it's nearly a game-killer for those of us with limited gaming time: Every time you start the game you must not just wait through un-interruptible credits screens (ugh) but also click through some extra set-up narrative, also un-skippable. It's an enormous discouragement to starting a game.
Worse, it's intentional! The game designers want to discourage players from restarting if they make a bad decision instead of seeing where the narrative might take them; that's a reasonable goal but punishing every player on every game start is the most asinine way to to it that I've ever seen. Did it ever occur to them to instead include a "quit" button and put in an explanatory "are you sure" dialog on it?
This game is just different and original. I could compare it to a "choose your own adventure" book but that doesn't do it justice. There is no combat system, but the choices are a not as simple as picking an option from a nested tree of lists, and include balancing your finances and your baggage space (more bags carry more stuff but can cost extra to carry on some transports and are just not allowed on others, especially the fastest and most experimental ones) as well as choosing both routes and what to do as events unfold in each city.
You play Passepartout, the valet, who really runs the expedition. The gentleman made his bet, but it's the gentleman's gentleman who does all the work, and when the gentleman does make a decision it's usually a complication for his poor valet's plans.
It's also an amazingly gentle game, though you may see plenty of descriptions of inhumane activity depending which cities you visit and which parts of them you explore. The game's world is steampunky (Verne-esque, of course) but the addition of those fantastic technologies to the boiling of what was already a planet full of change and reactions in the real world makes for a place worth visiting over and over to explore.
There is one enormous stupidity in the game, though, and it's nearly a game-killer for those of us with limited gaming time: Every time you start the game you must not just wait through un-interruptible credits screens (ugh) but also click through some extra set-up narrative, also un-skippable. It's an enormous discouragement to starting a game.
Worse, it's intentional! The game designers want to discourage players from restarting if they make a bad decision instead of seeing where the narrative might take them; that's a reasonable goal but punishing every player on every game start is the most asinine way to to it that I've ever seen. Did it ever occur to them to instead include a "quit" button and put in an explanatory "are you sure" dialog on it?
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