Obscure-- Word of Mouth Games

[GianMarco]

My all time favourite indie RPG is 'Escape Velocity: Nova'.

It was also my first step into the Indie world of gaming, and i can certainly say although I have played many mind-blowing indies, nothing even comes close to this game.

There is a demo available for download, but if I remember correctly it has a time limit. But just buy the game, trust me you wont be disappointed!
With six different paths, it will keep you busy for quite a while!

Heres a link to the web page - http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

And below ive pasted a basic description of the game:

The player starts as a freelance space pilot in a shuttlecraft, out to make a penny in the vast and unforgiving galaxy. The first thing to realize is that there are many ways to play Escape Velocity Nova; this is one of the big appeals of the game. For example, a starting player seeking funds can become a trader or courier, delivering cargo between worlds; become a pirate or bounty hunter, attacking and disabling ships to steal their money, cargo, or the ships themselves; become involved in one of the main story-lines; or even conquer the galaxy by subjugating worlds.

The game has six major story-lines that the player can participate in, one for each of the major factions: Federation, Rebellion, Auroran, Polaris, Vell-os, and Pirate.

Those of you who do try it, tell me what you think

EDIT: If you want a more detailed description visit the games Wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV_Nova

[Rollor]

I very much liked what i read. I've been looking at the screenshots on homepage. All i see is shiny spaceships, nothing bad about that, it just doesn't tell me much about the gameplay ..

Is it all flying around? when you land on a planet/base do you walk around or do you use some menues or something?
Also a saw there is alot of add-on files. Are these worth it for first time players? Will they greatly improve gameplay or is it only cheats and filler?

[GianMarco]

I very much liked what i read. I've been looking at the screenshots on homepage. All i see is shiny spaceships, nothing bad about that, it just doesn't tell me much about the gameplay ..

Is it all flying around? when you land on a planet/base do you walk around or do you use some menues or something?
Also a saw there is alot of add-on files. Are these worth it for first time players? Will they greatly improve gameplay or is it only cheats and filler?

Yes, when you land on planets it has a detailed description of the planet as well as various menus you can use to take on side quests and visit the shipyard to look at upgrading/buying a new ship.

To begin with nothing is shoveled in your face in terms of storyline linearity. You can be a freelancer if you wish, taking on delivery missions or you can get right into it, and make your way into one of the various factions. Of course once you've chosen your path to commit to your stuck with it (you can still do the freelancer missions to get some extra cash if you get bored though.) unless you decide to go rogue an start attacking your comrades in which case you'll be banished. Also some planets have unique missions that will come on offer to you at random IE: Some scientists want help getting to a system to conduct research etc...

As for add-ons, I suggest you play what the game has to offer on its own at first. Get a good feel for it, and then take a look at what the community is offering. Some of the mods flatout change the style of game play to the point where it would be cheating I guess, but a fair few do improve on some aspects on the game, for the better. In the end its all personal preference on what you want in terms of mods man, as i said play the game a bit then decide for yourself.

If you ever get stuck on something in the game this site is a great help: http://www.ev-nova.net/
The Guide covers pretty much anything, and the dudes in the forums are willing to help out.

[Gallifrey]

Well that looks pretty nifty!

How is the game played out? Do you just fly around in a ship and navigate the game via menus, or is there actual character models and places you go to as per your standard RPG?

[GianMarco]

Pretty much, the game is spent moving through space and traveling to different systems. There are no character models in the game, don't let this give you the wrong impression though - there are plenty of different ships! And depending on who you join you can buy faction specific ships which only they themselves can use.

[GianMarco]

Here dudes, thought id post this Galaxy map to show you how massive the game really is. The colored areas represent a certain factions rule over that area of space, btw most systems have about 2-3 (minimum) planets/space stations to land on - if not more!

http://www.stablerecordings.demon.co.uk ... ovamap.gif

[Gallifrey]

I downloaded what I guess is the demo. I get a mission to travel to the Sol system and I follow the instructions the "training" NPC gives me as well as in-game instructions, but I can't actually set the jump point to the system. I click on Sol and the Confirm (or whatever) button remains grayed out.
Am I not doing something right, or is that the end of the demo (all 30 seconds worth)?

[GianMarco]

When you select a system to jump to you have to hold shift and click. If its more than one then select the easiest path, then to jump make sure ur a fair distance from any planets then hit H.

[Gallifrey]

Ok, that works!

The game is pretty neat. I'll have to play around with a bit more, but it's really well done from what I've seen so far. The graphics component is quite minimal, though the text does paint a pretty good picture. I'll admit to wanting to actually *see* more, however. Great sound in it, they did an excellent job there.

[GianMarco]

Ok, that works!

The game is pretty neat. I'll have to play around with a bit more, but it's really well done from what I've seen so far. The graphics component is quite minimal, though the text does paint a pretty good picture. I'll admit to wanting to actually *see* more, however. Great sound in it, they did an excellent job there.

Yeh its defiantly a little gem. The graphics are minimal yeh, but the amount of design where there is any is quite good - the huge amount of different ship types, planets and space stations makes up for it. Of course, the main thing to love about the game is the story man, its a game you appreciate simply because of that

[dagorkan]

For an Action-'RPG' (more like a medieval combat sim) but which is very good, try Mount&Blade (www.taleworlds.net)

[Sabin Stargem]

I personally enjoyed Dark Disciples quite a bit. It is an RPG game filled with puzzles. It is turn-based, with the idea being that your goal is to make enough money to pay off a 100,000 debt in gold to an crime lord. As such, you explore four different areas in an attempt to complete missions to reduce the debt. The game has a top-down 2D graphical style, and the statistics system is fairly simple.

The best part of the game is the puzzles in my opinion...for example, to open a certain door in the jungle, you first had to find an related paper with numbers on them. Looking at the numbers and examining the door, I realized that the door's buttons were in shapes with a number of sides. Circles, squares, triangles, and so on.

That said, the game probably won't appeal to many gamers - the combat is simple, there are no complex lines of dialog, and the stories used are not very difficult to understand. The game is free however, created by an independent developer. Go through the link to find the game, or to check out the upcoming Dark Disciples II.

http://www.darkdisciples-rpg.com/

[mkreku]

I could bore you with a long list, but I'm just going to focus on one game:
Realms of the Haunting. (1997, Interplay)

I still have my old copy..

[Jinx]

I liked Kult quite a bit (my review is here), because it was a game that knew what it wanted to get done and *did it*! Too many games reach too high and fail - there is much more that *could* have done, but I like what Kult actually did.

If only Kult ran on Vista. Alas, I am a sad panda, it looks very cool.