This game encouraged me to be mean
Interregnum Chronicles: False Prophet Review
It isn’t often that demos manage to impress me, especially when it comes from a previously unknown (to me) developer and publisher, Spacewalkers. But the result of their hard work is a game that feels complex at first but is woven together into a cohesive pattern.
Check out the Steam page here.
What possessed me to choose this game for my very first live stream, I will never know, but I am glad that I did. Technical difficulties and some first-time streamer guffaws (that led to poorer-than-acceptable video quality) aside, there was a lot of content packed into the demo. Even a second playthrough a couple of days later didn’t get me to the end of the demo content.
Be warned though, the game does throw you into the middle of combat as soon as you start the game without much of a tutorial. If you are a veteran of the turn-based tactics genre, it won’t be long before you find yourself blasting away at the bandits, but it does, unfortunately, raise the accessibility bar for newcomers to the genre.
There are three main mechanics at play. The first is the turn-based tactics combat, like XCOM, where you use a set number of action points to do things like move and attack. But it’s a bit different from the modern XCOM remakes as you aren’t limited to two actions: you can take as many actions as long as you have the points to do so. That means, you could make a mad dash across the field of battle to get into position for the next turn, or take multiple shots from a secure location for one of your units.
Every time you attack, you can also gain tactical advantage points, which are a shared pool of action points. Those extra points give you some additional options for making one more attack or running away into cover.
Finally, you can lose action points by being attacked — even if you miss, the attack results in loss of action points for the enemy. It’s a really cool way to provide the player with temporary, non-lethal ways to control the battlefield. You’ll end up having to eliminate them anyway but it does give you options. Keep in mind though, this mechanic works both ways so take care not to get shot at too much lest you find yourself without a turn.
In between the tense, turn-based tactics is a mix of strategic survival (still played out over “turns”) and an event-driven RPG. Once out of combat, you’ll get to travel to and explore the world around you, which is surprisingly full of things to do even if it is a frozen wasteland. It’s on this strategy map that the survival elements will come into play: you’ll need to balance food, fatigue, cold, time, and dangers on the map to decide the best path forward and most importantly, what locations you will loot. You’ll want to loot often because you’ll find valuable items like food, clothing, and ammo, but each action will have you out in the cold longer, potentially exhausting your team.
That exhaustion can in turn have consequences during tactical combat if you are unfortunate enough to have a surprise encounter. There are also groups of enemies wandering the map and they won’t hesitate to make contact with you.
There does seem to be a risk mechanic with looting, where you are more likely to leave evidence of your presence after looting, but I wasn’t 100% sure how that affected what happened on the strategic map. It is quite possible that I haven’t played long enough to experience that mechanic, but it is something to keep in mind.
Finally, you will be faced with choices and skill checks during the events portion of the game. Certain events and actions will require you to make choices, which can affect the morale of your characters. In addition, skill checks may be required (by a roll of the dice), which will affect the outcomes: usually, a successful skill check is accompanied by an increase in your character stats.
And if you are wondering about the title of this post, it is in these events that the game asked…no, encouraged me to be mean (i.e., bully the NPC) in order to get what I want. I was looting what I thought was an abandoned house that didn’t turn out to be abandoned. In my first playthrough, I respectfully gave back the things I had taken, but the game berated me for leaving him be, telling me that his fate is sealed anyway since he was on his own. Calm down game, there’s still room for kindness!
All in all, I liked the vibe and gameplay. There is so much packed in here, even in the demo version, that I am intrigued about the full release currently planned for Q1 2024. I do hope that there is a tutorial in the works to make the game slighly more accessible to those newer to the genre, but I did manage to figure most of things out (with help from the audience during the stream) and a second run through the demo went a lot smoother. I’m definitely going to keep my eye on this one.
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