Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition

Годы идут, а ничего так и не меняется. Разработчикам плевать на игроков, которые просят перевода на другие языки.

World of Horror, но вместо аналоговой Японии - нуарная Америка. Из-за небольшого количества механик может наскучить, но случайно генерируемые события и приятная кривая сложности затягивает.

[h3]What this game taught me is that you can solve almost everything with the help of a dog, a bottle of whiskey, and the Holy Bible – so if you can, you want to be always equipped with them![/h3] A peculiar game about a supernatural Newspaper agency. The city is full of mysteries, missing people, paranormal entities, and as the lead editor, you need to decide where will the reporters go. The cases aren't anything ordinary so you need to be ready for any kind of situation. You will be facing ghosts, zombies, thug gangs, cultists, aliens, barriers, and the most powerful, scariest, devilish of them all - heavy gates and hard walls! You can equip your reporters with many useful items (up to four) right before you engage with an enemy (if you aren't ambushed), you just need to select the right ones - be it a dog, shotgun, gasoline, forensic kit, lockpick, etc. - the selection is rather vast. Their usefulness depends on many factors and can be even slightly luck-based too because what worked one time may not work out again. Every encounter should be carefully evaluated each time and bigger threats should be solved with more powerful tools for which you of course need some funds. You make money by releasing the newspaper every day, the amount you earn depends on how much you investigate. That means that you will be usually pretty tight on cash when we consider that you can upgrade items, raise the skills of your reporters, send them on treatment, hire helpers, or buy some costly artifacts. Skirmishes offer slightly different kind of challenge than the main game. You start with $25000 on your bank account which means you can boost your reporters and items right from the beginning! On the other hand, you are facing three global events that cause penalties in the form of 200% growth of prices, the inability of dog use, higher stats for enemies, lower stats for reporters, and so on (active are only three). When you successfully resolve related cases you turn these into bonuses so it’s always a good idea to solve them first. The bad thing is that you can’t tell where on the map are they hiding (well at least I didn’t notice any distinction and sometimes it took me a while to get rid of them). You earn money the same way as in the main game – by releasing the daily issues, but it will never cover your costs especially when you need to send your reporters to therapy or hospital. So even though the starting high amount of cash looks tempting I advise for some kind of restraint. You will appreciate every bit of your cash once you need to buy the Crystal ball for $2500 which can protect you from ambushes or you need to send your insane reporters on recovery for $1000-$2000 (and I am not counting the regular treatment you will need to provide). Encounters with the enemies are a lot harder than in the main game (even on the hard) and every little mistake will cost you dearly. Each skirmish ends with defeating the main adversary (Azathoth, Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, Yog Sothoth) usually in three stages – it’s similar to releasing the Special issue in the main game - the city gets reset, new cases are added and the global events are yet again against you (yay). If your last stand against them doesn’t happen on Venus you are lucky and [i]only[/i] need to successfully overpower them. Otherwise, you need a space suit that 1) you won’t find; 2) you miss the chance to buy; or 3) you use it in vain in a similar scenario (Jupiter, Alien spaceship). If any of these scenarios happen, well bad luck… you can start again. The biggest flaw of the game is that it's procedurally generated. The cases aren't very coherent, it's just line after line of some random names and events. You won't find any real articles describing the cases when you release your issues, instead, you are presented with the same generated lines you uncovered in your investigation. You are pursuing several cases at once which makes it hard to orient in. Shame, really. When you look aside from the non-existent story and focus on the management side it's actually rather addictive. The game is only saved when you quit the game, which can be pretty frustrating on the harder runs as even the tiniest mistake can sabotage your whole run and you will have to start again. Also, saying [i]practice makes perfect[/i] describes the game pretty well. As suggested by another player in his review, you can make it easier for yourself if you make notes on what was useful during each encounter instead of trying to remember it on your own or depending on luck. Yeah, I went the harder way myself. I think that the tutorial doesn’t teach you the gameplay elements very well, but the handbook is quite detailed and was rather helpful in the end (like that with right click on items you can read more about them and learn for which encounters can they be useful; doesn’t work for artifacts sadly). There is still a lot to be desired though and some of the aspects remain one big uncertainty for me. It feels more like a demo, blueprint, or skeleton of some bigger game. The engine is good but it's lacking the actual soul. Recommended only if you don't mind suffering.

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyiiiiii

meeeh

I cannot get a sense of how to play this.

Poor man's Arkham Horror LCG. No seriously, it's a great alternative if you don't want to invest your life savings in a card game.

Annoying background noise, no tutorial, and the relevant snippets / papers don't know when they are supposed to be in focus. Annoying, at least to start out.

i would love more to this game. its my favorite