Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest ( PC (Steam) – Adventure, CYOA – 2020 ) + STEAM REVIEW

A blend of CYOA meets VN, Heart of the Forest relies more on the strength of its license than anything else. It is worth pointing out events in the game ARE loosely inspired by actual protests opposing the logging operations in the forest of Bialowieza, Poland. License? Yeah, this is based on Werewolf: the Apocalypse from World of Darkness setting.

We step into the shoes of Maia Boroditch who is on her way to aforementioned forest along with her friend Anya to join the sit-down effort protesting the devastation of the primeval forest. She's of Polish origin with some ties to the region, but nightmares about wolves and the forest itself make no sense. It doesn't take long before the tourist act is over and Maia ends up embroiled in what's actually about to go down. It involves discovering her own history and being inducted into a brand new society she knows nothing about. Awooo, indeed.

I have to admit Heart of the Forest didn't exactly make a great first impression on me. Story is, well, what you see is what you get. A lot of chest-beating and howling at the evil logging company and corrupt politicians enabling it, characters who stand in divided "we kill to send a message vs surely we can use words first" camps, but oddly enough... that's Werewolf: the Apocalypse for you. Big aspect of the license, besides playing as a raging bundle of fur, is the ecological angle where you protect both material and spiritual worlds. It's the latter the game nails far better, in my opinion. Especially as you get vivid descriptions of invoking ancient rites, conversing with Patron spirits and just the alien nature of the forest. Having accompanying surreal art greatly helps with selling the team's efforts. General writing quality is enough to get the job done, though. Some descriptions are relegated to hyperlinks and your character sheet so expect to reference those.

Speaking of which, there's the whole CYOA aspect to touch upon. There are definitely choices affecting your stats and outcomes to decisions that warrant multiple playthroughs. I got the impression managing your three resource - Rage, Willpower and Health - is what truly matters as there's no RNG to contend with. Certain actions increase you abilities so you decide what to focus on. My complaint is game takes until the halfway point to remember it's actually about Werewolves, and then it drowns you in new information. Bit jarring, but as someone familiar with the material it was a relief to finally get. What I didn't like was the pivotal moment of choosing your Tribe, only to get a list of mere FOUR +1 to pick from. Werewolves aka Garou have this entire society I won't go into since you get you a decent primer on it from various characters. As far as it pertains to protecting Bialowieza, at least.

Would I recommend Heart of the Forest? It could've used rich tabletop rules better, but what you get fits within the CYOA framework with its lite approach. As far as I'm concerned game edges into recommendation territory mainly due to its presentation and tackling the spiritual side you might not expect coming from a Werewolf game. Taking just a smidge over an hour to finish it's a really short game, albeit one with replays adding very tangible value.

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Long Gone Days ( PC (Steam) – JRPG – 2023 ) + STEAM REVIEW

Games taking place in the real world, even more so using actual existing countries as such, are surprisingly rare. Add JRPG into the mix and you get Long Gone Days. Is it worth it?

After a very brief in medias res opening we assume control of soldier 716 deep within the underground Core base since he's been selected as replacement leader after current sergeant got himself injured. Not knowing much beyond the fact you serve Father General, you're transported away with your unit on a brand new operation. All wearing Polish army uniforms to Kaliningrad in order to "de-escalate the situation". Well, our boy is a sniper and he quickly discovers those aren't military insurgent heads he's been popping. Inadvertently involving a company medic, our pair pieces together the Core isn't exactly being altruistic, end up on a blacklist and have to flee to save their lives. As they join refugees in the city they adopt names – Rourke and Adair – while hoping to save themselves and get the word out as to what's REALLY happening. Military machine marches on across Europe with both overt means and subterfuge wherever it can.

Don't get me wrong, there's some heavy handed political and moral preaching involved here, especially when you get to Germany with a newly rising political party, but I think the novelty of taking place in our real world is enough to carry a rather straightforward story. It's the kind of setup where antagonist is rather obvious and his "you are the sacrifices I'm willing to make" approach to realize his own idea of world peace is nothing new to genre aficionados. What works is plot taking you across multiple countries, where you're at first lost because your characters only speak English until you find a local, where you get to see the fallout firsthand. From population displacement as they flee an approaching army to a city that's under martial law. Somehow, this makes distractions like side quests all the more cumbersome when someone asks you tear down posters or find lost pets.

Your cast gradually expands as you advance, but aforementioned Rourke and Adair are main characters since everyone else rotates in and out depending on story relevance. I'd say Lynn is the strongest supporting character although that could just be my bias given I picked her for bonding scenes. No hidden agenda on my part, no sir. On unrelated side note: game did not deliver on the romance front if that's what you were looking for. What's available aplenty is survivor's guilt, PTSD and everyone struggling to do something against this seemingly overwhelming organization even governments seem to be in cahoots with. All the while trying to stay chipper. For my taste? It's a bit too much on the activist side where everyone is irrationally eager to jump into the thick of it. Even pick up weapons as normal civilians let alone help total strangers when they admit they're turncoats from the very enemy.

I wish there was more to say combat-wise here, but it's classical turn-based affair presented in first-person perspective. Grounded setting means the most outlandish enemy you'll fight is a drone, but what enemies exist are neatly presented. Character art gets a budget bump compared to typical pixels you'll see in the game world. If there's something worth pointing it's that encounters are fixed and there's no concept of leveling up. Most battle rewards include a choice between a curative item or restoring SP which you use as resource for skills. You acquire skills when story progresses past certain milestones. What I'm trying to say is, Long Gone Days isn't some systems-heavy dungeon crawler, but rather quite the opposite. Just remember to stun and/or blind enemies for easy wins, even boss battles with their enormous HP pools. You do get to play around with character equipment as far as customization goes, but you'll have to make do with what you find out there.

Would I recommend Long Gone Days? Well, I was on the verge of giving a proper TL; DR review, but quickly realized it would be a padded overkill on my part. Taking about ~10 hours to finish, and getting a bad ending because I think I concluded some battles too fast to get dialog choices, this is not a long investment if you're remotely interested in the premise. As the opening splash screen will inform you, this was made in Unity Engine but you could've fooled me and said RPG Maker was involved in how it plays. Some really nice assets and even higher fidelity "animated" scenes for pivotal moments.

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Citizen Sleeper ( PC (Steam) – CYOA, RPG– 2022 ) + STEAM REVIEW

I was going to call Citizen Sleeper a CYOA, but at its core this is more RPG territory. After all, you're selecting options informed by narrative as well as mechanical backgrounds that result in decisions when they matter, at least as far as they pertain to your character. Speaking of...

You step into the shoes of a Sleeper, a digitized mind in an artificial body, as you wake up in a daze on a failing space station. Erlin's Eye stands at the edge of interstellar society and has become a focal point of sorts. Lost in your memories and making connections with various individuals, you also realize things went astray, both on Erlin's Eye with its vying factions and a much wider corporate collapse that preceded everything. Everyone has to make dues, and Sleeper has an additional problem - your body is rapidly decaying, and only your corporate owners have the stabilizer that can press STOP on the expiration date.

Citizen Sleeper is a rather straightforward game where you manage two key resources: the condition of your body and Energy, which fluctuates at a much faster rate. Yes, there are cycles that you plan your actions around, but the game itself is not timed... few instances notwithstanding, and even those don't result in a game over. You better become acquainted with d6 fast because rolling dice is your primary means of interacting with the game. There are five Skills in the game, right? Well, since there's no combat to speak of in this affair, completing Drives, aka character-related quests, nets you upgrade points you then allocate to those Skills. What THAT translates to are perks. Like the invaluable "let me shuffle my entire hand to get a chance at better dice" one, but also determining some Skill tresholds and generally making rolls easier up to +2 bonus. Your Condition is extremely important, as it is divided into five segments, and the worse it gets the fewer dice you have available in the cycle. Let's just say acquiring some stabilizer should be your primary concern, and since that's tied into accumulating money you have an incentive to actually do things.

Which could land you in hot water since you end up in this Sims-like loop of trying to balance your needs: when to go eat for Energy, when to work for money, and how to optimize your Condition, between actually doing the narrative content, which is the main draw. The simplest way to imagine how Citizen Sleeper operates would be to visualize all locational and character actions as reputations that require multiple repeated actions on your behalf to advance. Say you need money. So you go work at the bar, and each "shift" is a separate dice rolls with relatively easy difficulty. On success you net yourself X amount of money, and on failure you get less, with neutral being somewhere in-between. But as you're doing those shifts, something like "get to know the locals" progress pie is filling in the bottom with every success. You only get to fill it once, and after you do a unique event tied to that place happens. Perhaps you meet the cute owner who has her ideas about having a distillery, and she ropes you into helping, which activates another chain reaction. Almost the entirety of the game is structured in this manner; even if it sometimes involves tangible resources you have to provide, sometimes you just have to wait a particular number of cycles, sometimes individual events are timed albeit never too tightly, etc.

Until the very end, when you've dealt with your problems, have completed most of the Drives, and are flush with money/stabilizer, there's this careful dance going on with choosing where to go and what to do next. I was surprised by how certain Drives can give you a possible ending without much fanfare. Endings you can refuse, mind you. Three episodes added post-launch are worthy additions you might want to hold off on until you're comfortable with your Skills and resources. Keep that scrap on-hand, Sleeper.

Unlike my usual ramblings, I've barely touched on the narrative because it's best experienced firsthand. There's some great writing here with characters packing their own stories from every walk of life. Even setting itself is a puzzle to work out. I haven't even mentioned the station's Cloud which provides a separate layer of hacking and dangers that go with it, for example. The art style they went with for character portraits is just wonderful and meshes natively with the ever-looming model of Erlin's Eye in the background. Presentation elevates this game far above "just RNG and text".

For what was supposed to be a short review, this certainly went on. Would I recommend Citizen Sleeper? A firm yes.