Played: Rage Quest: Disciple of Peace
Minor spoilers.
Ignore the game title. It’s awful and doesn’t have much in common with the game.
In the game you must balance your Rage against the Discipline. There is no Peace parameter in-game, but Discipline sorta represents the inner peace… it’s a small stretch but still needs some explanation. You can abandon the mentioned Quest several times in the story, and one of the play styles contradicts the Disciple word.
So what happens is this: the game barely sets up the scene and the first choice is to run away or stay. This is all I have to rely on:
What is left of your memory is slipping away. You do not know where your brothers and sisters are going, but you know that there will be no return.
The lack of context is a recurring theme. I have to guess about the effects of my actions as far as I can spot fantasy clichés. If my guess is right, it’s boring. If I guess wrong, it’s disappointing because maybe I wanted to do something else.
The choice phrasing is odd. Here’s an example (click to reveal):
[…] “My brothers and sisters! In the monastery I was taught to suppress my violent urges—but those teachings did not save us from the human raiders. Now I will return to the true orcish ways, embrace my rage, and destroy those who wronged me. Of you I ask only one more thing—let me tear out the throat of the human leader myself!” […]
It’s so sudden I had to stop and replay that bit again to catch if I understood the word “say” right.
The presentation is decent, and it works on mobile phones. The cover art, though, is about as helpful as the game title.
Once I went past the first third of the story, the game became much better. The mechanics are easy to understand and fun to control, and the story went past “what I’m doing here” to a branching “let’s crush our enemies, yea or nay?”
It was entertaining until the end where a single vague phrase ruined my whole playthrough.
I think RQDoP would be a good game – but only after a session with a demanding editor.