Разработчик: Choice of Games
Описание
Choice of Rebels: Uprising is a 637,000 word interactive fantasy novel by Joel Havenstone, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
As an outlaw rebel in the greenwood wilderness, you must steal to survive your first brutal winter, or watch your people starve if you can't feed them. Win yeomen, helots, merchants, priests, and aristocrats over to the rebel cause...or turn them into your worst enemies. Will you defeat the army of the Hegemony’s Archon and the elite force of evil blood mages sent to destroy you, or will a personal betrayal put an end to your rebellion when it’s just barely begun?
- Play as male or female, gay, straight, or ace
- Fight as a renegade aristocrat or defiant slave
- Lead your outlaw band as a self-taught mage, a general, or a mystic priest
- Reform the empire’s religion or start your own
- Master the arcane magic of Theurgy and demolish the blood harvesters of the Hegemony
- Find romance amongst your fellow young rebels
- Root out spies, betrayers, and fend off a mutiny
- Survive attacks from assassins, mages, and the mutant Plektoi hounds
Will you gain a reputation as a compassionate idealist or ruthless insurgent? Can your rebels survive the winter and a vengeful army?
How much will you sacrifice to rebel, and save your homeland from an oppressive empire?
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Mac
- OS: 10.13
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04
Отзывы пользователей
Great, but where's the sequel?
Off the back of five playthroughs (of which my player character survived two, one of which with file editing) I'm ready to say that this game easily competes with the very best of the Interactive Fiction sphere for narrative quality and mechanical depth.
Choice of Rebels unceremoniously plants you in the middle of a low-fantasy setting with a soft magic system, centuries of cultural and historical events already having taken place. It prompts you to ask whether you'd like a history lesson for a crash course, which is helpful because the characters will frequently use a lot of language and reference a lot of practices and people that readers will find confusing without context. This can make for a slow start taken as a huge chunk at the beginning, but the information is always there to reference if you ever need it.
Though we're more than likely supposed to explore more of the continent in following games, this one takes place in western Shayard, which is a vassal-state to the Karagond Hegemony. Shayard was apparently in centuries past once a military and economic powerhouse on the political stage, but was subjugated by neighboring Karagond when it discovered Theurgy- An alchemy magic system which uses human blood to do things shoot gouts of flame from one's hands, heal the sick, manipulate gravity to fly, supercharge agricultural output, whatever the author really wants it to do.
Karagond instantly won the arms race, but to keep their control strong they needed a constant source of blood.
They draw this from criminals, traitors, and helots- the slave-caste of the nations.
The player-character is either a Shayardene aristocrat from a very minor and overlooked family or a helot slave. The difference between the two obviously echoes through the entire game, how they see their cause and how others will perceive them.
We're introduced a few characters and to some of the many injustices the Hegemony commits against religious skeptics, nationalist patriots and the helotry, before shaping the protagonist's worldview and skillset before an uprising happens in the town they live in. One way or another, the protagonist becomes a wanted traitor and the leader of that revolt, whether they lead a sanctuary for escaped helots or a ragtag band of outlaws.
Now the synopsis is out of the way, is the game itself worth it?
The majority of the gameplay can be reduced to maintaining the survival of your group and the integrity of your cause. After the uprising happens you become responsible for what may be a LOT of people on the run, and if you want them all to make it through the winter you need to keep them fed and healthy. This can be easy to do if you rob the commonfolk or torch an estate for gold or ambush caravans, but the public is watching and the more they feel your uprising is a danger to them the more likely they are to support their oppressors over you, and the less likely your survival. On the flip side, being overly idealistic at the price of starving is a quick way of having sentiment among your own people turn against you as a leader.
This is where the game is made or broken for people. Getting through the winter seems impossible at first, but when you find the right strategy to pull you through it feels so much more rewarding.
As a leader, your abilities have three points to be allocated to three stats- Charisma, Combat, and Intellect. Two to one stat, one to another, and the third must have zero.
A two in your stat makes you a prodigy in that skill, and a zero makes you a bit hopeless in it. A 2COM 1INT 0CHA character can win duels and lead ambushes incredibly, but you'll want to rely on one of your friends at the negotiating table, or when addressing potential recruits.
The strength of Choice of Rebels is in what you can't do. If you have a reputation for the massacre of the aristocracy you'll draw people to your band who expect to kill nobles, and will be very upset if you start trying to broker deals with the more reasonable ones.
If you rely too heavily on others in your band to get you through hard times you can't be surprised when people take their orders over yours.
If you've been starving yourself to barely meet your food storage quota for the week you can't win that fight against someone who's full and rested, no matter how good you are with your staff or sword.
If you haven't won the hearts you need to, gathered the intel you need to, made all the preparations you can, you can't survive when the Hegemony comes for you.
The atmosphere is tense, the people around you bitter and afraid and angry, but when you lead an attack without taking losses or close that deal you've been trying to strike with the merchants' guild for weeks or have a mother who's life you've continually saved and protected name her child after you, you remember that you're not helpless.
I think it's pretty neat.
Give sequel.
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Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Choice of Games |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 23.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 91% положительных (122) |