Age of Fear: Total

This is a glorious review from a player who loves the game, but thinks the developer and part of the fanbase is the most unfriendly I ever experienced on Steam. I’m glad I can separate the game from it’s creator. As well I can separate music from the artist and movies from the director. If you don’t want to read about all the drama, feel free to scroll to the review below. A few days ago I discovered this ‘total’ pack of all games in the series so far in my Steam feed. I went to the storepage and was a bit surprised by the triple A price-tag. Well it’s not my business, so I really don’t care and if the developer thinks his work is worth it, he’s free to ask what he wants. Since I already own all the content released so far I was expecting the series merged into a complete pack automatically. This is my experience with all other games with many releases and dlc in my library, so I expected it here. But this wasn’t the case. Even while I already own 10 out of 10 games to make the pack complete I had to pay 33 Euro for it. Advertised as an immense discount for owners of the previous games. I went to the Steam forums to complain and calculated that who paid full price for previous games and dlc in the Steam store for the current listing price without discount invested between 70 and 140 Euro in total. Including the newly released ‘total’ pack that’s a huge amount of something between 103 - 173 Euro’s. Not buying ‘total’ excludes you from experimental beta content in the ‘total’ pack and you were forced to pre-purchase his upcoming 5th game in the series. The developer could respond in a fair and professional way by replying that most of the players bought the previous games on sales and that it justifies the price-tag, but he did not. Within some comments back and forth, accused me of being a troll, a liar, someone who intentionally coerced a developer and being redirected to Steams’ refund policy. When I refused to proof the developer my purchases in return for a free key, I was perma-banned from Age of Fear forums and all my comments were deleted shortly after. Via the ban forms he demand my personal details to take actions against me. What kind of actions, smart enough, he didn’t mention. I think this is a developer in need of some help and some love. I understand the imho partly aggressive fanbase isn’t the regular paying customer on Steam so income is probably minimal. Maybe he’s addicted to something or someone that cost lot’s of money. I don’t know, but I want to ask to everyone who knows this developer personally give him some love and buy his games! Even when you already own them and have to pay twice, and even when he offers to refund you outside Steam in exchange for your personal details. He’s not only representing his own company, but the whole indie scene he told me. The developer dislikes most of his own playerbase. Those faulty players buy games in bundles outside Steam legit or non-legit (which I also disagree with btw), they play his free version too many hours, they complain in forums about pricey offers, they do not use the refund option enough and more. You can all read those aggressive, totally absurd replies in all forums of the series and in reply to many of the reviews. Oh and before I forgot. When he perma-banned me from the forums, he deleted some of my comments. In the ban message above he wrote: Cable, stop deleting your messages, I want to expose you! Trying to make me personally responsible for his miserable sales by my forum comments. [b]Now to the review:[/b] Age of Fear series is a long going series, almost completely developed by a single developer who support his many games and dlc’s over the last ten years. Gameplay and developing wise he is willing to listen to real fans and deliver a very open, wide, fast-paced, turn-based, one of the very few grid/hex-free, fantasy strategy games around. It has many (procedural) random elements, combined with story elements and tactical battles, inventory management and crafting. The UI is really aging. The text is very small and you cannot set custom window sizes and fonts. Java is also slow even on modern hardware and sometimes the game simply feels too rough around the edges imho. In return you get loads of content in terms of items, weapons, units and story elements which is pretty cool. I also can appreciate the artwork since it is at least custom made and not re used from Unity store assets. (It's a Java, not a Unity game btw). Also the random elements they added in the 'Free' version and now also populate the world map in the story modules are both a bless and a curse. There is handholding at one part of the game, but no handholding or world progress on the other part (the random part) which can result in unpredictable rogue-like gameplay for what the game isn't designed in the first place. I simply follow the star system on the random quests until I feel strong enough to do a story quest. But always it's way too simple or too difficult and I quit the game. I always have to ask myself two questions while playing. Am I holding up against my opponents? And what is the overall progress I made so far? In short, I always keep wondering if I don't go to fast into the story modules before I even experienced everything the game has to offer? (For example the crafting part) or do I have plenty of time to do side quests? Is the game ever ending? What happen when I accidentally finish the story module to quickly? I don't want less procedural content, I don't want more handholding, but a simple progress in percentage towards campaign conclusion could be helpful imho. In fighting I do not experience so many units that are underpowered, but I experience some units that get so strong early that I can tank opponents with some tank units while I keep my weaker units in the back. 'Total' brings experimental features like open world maps that combines the many factions of the previously released games and some extra’s like never released content and all upcoming content. That includes the upcoming 5th game and eventually more to come, looking at his track record. Overall the game has its charm, freedom, content and is old hardware friendly, addictive indeed until I run into something unexpected what is way too easy or way too difficult. I think the game is in need of an urgent overhaul and needs a marketing department that respects paying customers. This might be the strangest review of a game you ever read, that’s ok for me, since it’s my full right as a paying customer to raise my voice about the dark side of the developer and part of the fanbase. The comments that will follow by the developer in reply to my review will proof my point. -edit- One of the more important parts I forgot to mention, because I never really pay attention to it in other games, are the sound effects. The voices of soft bleeps on 'to hit' in fights are really nice and addictive, even as the dramatic demise of certain units. Well done! Enjoy!

So this series has been very hard for me to recommend until this release. I like them, but I don't know exactly what sort of people wouldn't be turned off by the price or the various issues associated with being made by an indie studio while competing with much higher budget games in the same genre. If you scroll up and check the store page pictures, that's what the game looks like. If that immediately turns you off, I doubt anything I say otherwise will convince you it's right for you. But if you hear me out, I'll try to make the case that this is a lot better than it looks. This game is a turn based tactical RPG with metagaming elements which makes it quite frankly a little weird to play. You have campaign missions (unless you aren't doing a story campaign) where you advance through the story, recruit troops, level up units, give items to heroes, and occasionally make decisions that can branch off a bit. In between campaign missions, you are thrown onto an overworld where random missions and shops pop up, events can happen, and you can visit a player "base" area which offers you the chance to edit your team, upgrade troops, and a few other perks depending on it's upgrade level and what faction you picked. The metagame aspect is kind of important. The game is meant to be a persistent campaign. Once you upgrade a unit, it'll be that way from then on. Once you raise a skeleton, it's added to your team for future missions. If you bribe a unit from a faction other than your own, you can deploy it later on to fill gaps in your faction's roster. You can do missions that used to be associated with paid DLCs to earn extra rewards like minor hero units or troops you can't normally get. That metagame aspect is what ties the game's combat together. You might equip an item which gives your hero a strategy defining ability in the next mission, or start a combat and switch out your entire unit composition on the deploy phase to counter a specific enemy, or you might decide you want to deploy a troop specifically to pickpocket a specific item from an enemy, and if a unit dies it's gone for good. The combat itself is very similar to what you'd expect from a typical SRPG, albeit without a tile system. You have units with special traits and abilities, a variety of spells for most spellcasters, items with special abilities, potions, morale mechanics, damage resistance and vulnerabilities, etc. One thing that differentiates this from other games is it's very much a game of low numbers. 6 health is a lot, few attacks do more than 1 damage, and buff spells often adjust stats by only 1-3 which itself can make a big deal. Previous games let you play as only two factions with two story campaigns and "freeform" campaigns, with the exception of one which only had 1 faction and story campaign. This game ties all of it into one release which will also include future content. The factions actually all do play very different, and there's some mechanics that let you occasionally mix and match troops of different factions. The different campaigns are fairly fun to play around with, and the free campaigns let you try out different heroes than the ones you get in the story campaigns. The writing is often comedic, and the story is usually delivered with a voiced narration. Now the price... I generally think it's pretty dumb to complain about indie game prices when triple A games have had a stagnant 60 dollar price for decades despite inflation, only ending recently. However I do understand how comparative value plays a role. Previous games in the series I might have argued were pretty overpriced and thus a very hard recommendation for me. However this is a compilation of all content in the series. Yes, it's 60 dollars for an indie game, but it's several games and DLC's bundled together and launched with one app. Thus 60 dollars isn't really a bad deal. They even added some extra free campaigns, which admittedly are feature bare, but they exist. You can play as a sandworm, some marines, elementals, or a magician who summons furniture to attack people, as well as a few other options.

What can I say? Age of Fear is simply one of my favorite indie projects of all time - it's practically bursting at the seams with a genuine love and care that shines through despite its lack of a AAA game budget. I initially got into this series thanks to the first game, Undead King, which was one of the best PROPER necromancer gameplay experiences I'd ever had in all my years gaming, and still is to this day! I've been following it ever since, and had already purchased the majority of the series' available content by the time Total came out. I've marked this as "received this product for free" because I happened to win a contest to be one of the first 5 players to defeat the Sandworm superboss and provide evidence that I had done so. I've supported this series plenty on my own, by my own decision, so trust me, I'm not letting the fact I won that contest decide whether or not I like Total! Without any further ado, I'll get started! Let's talk content! The games all tell a drastically different tale from even more drastically different perspectives, just check out these options! (Note that I'm keeping it vague for the sake of their stories. The writing improves with each subsequent game in the series, especially from 3 onwards!) - An apprentice necromancer ascending into lichdom - A knight of the kingdom safeguarding it from the orcs - An orc chieftain gathering members of his warband - A succubus rebelling against her demonic master and striking out on her own - A dryad escaping a cruel arena to return to the forests - A dwarf warrior building his legend and entourage of mercenaries and fellow dwarfs - A vampire hunter seeking work befitting her skills - A newly established village of Sea Folk building their reputation and forces - A black knight, now out of service after his dark master was slain, seeking new ventures - A civilization of ratmen living beneath one of the human cities deciding it's time for them to make their mark on the world This is all the content of the base games of each game in the series currently available, PLUS ALL THE DLCs, and all content forevermore released for the Age of Fear series. The DLCs each add questlines and extra excuses to get out there and build your forces, beef up your main hero, gather gear, etc. However, there's more to it than that! Total has an open world map version of each of the factions (although Sea Folk were already an open world faction even in the base game for AoF 4), so if you enjoy their gameplay but don't want to fuss with their relevant storylines, you don't have to! Not only that, but these open world map versions of each faction will allow you to choose your hero (main character), as in what their unit type is going to be. Basically, if you played, say, the demon faction, in story mode your main character is GOING to be the rebellious succubus, complete with her own voice lines. However, if you play the demons in the open world mode, you'll instead be able to choose from multiple options for your main character, such as a demon summoner, or various different demon types that vary from being a strong caster to quick-but-squishy to a slow moving bruiser! Imagine this, but applied to all of the factions. Now stack on top that you can hire mercenaries from other races that allow you to access their units, if you so desire, and you'll probably understand what I'm saying by now - It's a LOT of options for you to enjoy! This is only further cemented by the fact that Total gives you access to various unique open world experiences using experimental, strange, or powerful-by-design, such as playing ronin from the east, ancient giants, various elementals, pirates, modern marines stranded in this fantasy land, or the dreaded sandworm! - - - - - So, let's just briefly summarize what I can list off the top of my head for mechanics in combat! Gameplay mechanics in battles range through things like... Line of sight for ranged units Friendly fire if you can't aim your fireballs/explosives/etc. properly Pushing/pulling units with various abilities A morale system that causes units to flee if frightened enough Temporary mind control and permanent enemy unit enslavement All manner of debuffs - poison, freezing, burning, fear, binding/paralyzing, bleeding, and more! All manner of buffs, a list much like the above - heals, shielding, debuff-clearing, and more! A PLETHORA of themes and options for casters - tribal, holy, unholy, nature, sea, and more! Body-blocking enemy movement with your own units Weaponize passive units on each map like roaming giants and man-eating plants Frighten enemy units into fleeing via killing their fellows or casting spells that do so Slow-moving artillery units that deal immense single target damage or do big fat AoEs All manner of mechanics unique to each faction, such as necromancer raising enemy units Effects that function differently depending on if the target is living, undead, a construct, etc. Even more beyond what I've listed! THIS ISN'T EVERYTHING, THERE'S JUST A LOT TO UTILIZE! - - - - - Atop EVERYTHING ELSE I've already listed, there's a plethora of options that you can toggle on/off depending on your tastes, and all manner of quality of life, such as looting all battlefield loot automatically whenever you complete the battle, etc.! If there's a mechanic you don't enjoy, there's probably an option for it! - - - - - This series is lovingly crafted despite what first impressions may tell you. If you're a strategy games enthusiast and love the idea of a game with a whole lotta options added to your belt, and aren't only interested in games with maximized budget sizes and perfectly polished graphics, etc., GIVE THIS SERIES A SHOT! You can, if you aren't sure, give Age of Fear: The Free World a try to see if you enjoy this series. If you enjoy the gameplay there, trust me, Age of Fear: Total is a supremely polished and upgraded experience in comparison, and worth every last penny you'd spend (and ultimately save, vs. buying the series separately!) on getting, if you want sheer replay value above all else. This is a series developed with genuine love for the genre, and even more love for variety! SUPPORT DEVELOPERS WHO CARE!

it all age of fear in one bundle as well all future one. I recommend trying out age of fear open world for free to see if you would like this.

ugh

The Developer has gone around steam and did something in the code to specifically prevent me from playing any of their games (such as ones I've purchased in the past that are no longer steam refundable), ignoring steam procedures and policies. I specifically, and really only, purchased this game to further test that the developer coded the game to specifically block me. If it wasnt blocked then I wouldnt have gotten a refund. To think, if they hadnt then they would have gotten 50+ bucks from someone who doesnt like them. There is also ALL of this craziness https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198132427673/recommended/431700?snr=1_5_9__402 7/30/2025 Its been a while, since the original drama is on my steam page I ended up poking around to see were les has gone. there is, yet again, another deeply erronous thing Les has said... not that it matters a lick. "Then I reported you to Valve who cleaned up your previous drivels and explained that you legally don't own my games." Valve only had me delete the names of the grey markets (as shown in the link I posted) and Les clearly doesnt understand how steam works. of course I dont legally own any of his games... no one owns games on steam, we lease/subscribe them. Maybe Les is intentionally playing on words or just doesnt know, no clue. but regardless... my keys have never been revoke by steam. I can still access the games I legally purchased and steam has never removed any of my games ever. I have never given Les info on any of the purchases I made with regards to their games because I am more than certain in all their ferver and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... theyd do more than just block my steam ID from their games java servers... theyd probably revoke my cd keys as the dev and id be out on all ends. I dont trust les, for obvious reasons, and hope my reviews have saved people from the same drama and nonsense I have suffered.

Top-down token based RPG with excellent turn-based tactical combat on a gridless field where your team is given the turn and execute commands with your troops be it melee humanoid or magical creatures or animal soldier or varying shades in-between; you then watch the AI take their turn in similar fashion. This is the entire package of games and has 24 individual campaigns of varying length, it even has multiplayer but you need another grognard for this as it is direct connect. It will last you many hours and many years if you play games similar to this. If you watch the gameplay trailer, you will know exactly what you're getting if you've played a TBT game. I have seen some in forums balk at the price, but I agree with the developer and say that by the time you are finished with the game, you should get at least a cost of $0.50USD an hour out of it and then some. There are to my understanding (editing will occur if corrected by the dev) going to be [i]even more[/i] campaigns added to this base module as well. Lastly, I bought this and was having a grand old time until I encountered a bug in a few battles, so I reached out to the developer and told him what was occurring and over the course of ten private emails, my logs shared with him helped him figure out what was happening with my wonky system and within days a new patch appeared and the problem was resolved. You cannot get anything remotely similar to customer service from AAA game makers. I'm gonna be a fan of this guys work until he quits.

Age of Fear Total adds all the campaigns in the series in one place plus some experimental ones like sandworm, etc. its nice to have all my saves in one place :) play age of fear Free world first and then if you like that, get this bundle. its the most bang for your buck. thanks for the fun times! can't wait to see what comes next.

I like Age of Fear. I like it a lot and I'm gonna talk about why. First off, I really respect tiny indie games made by one person. This is a clear passion project complete with programmer art and stock sound effects I've heard in other games, and yet he's also gone back and commissioned better artwork for units over the years, as well as put in the effort of hiring voice actors to read the story cutscenes. We can discuss if the effort has been worth it, but - hey. I like seeing games made by people who care, especially after way too much time in the steam queue finding shovelware that was made for a quick buck. Second, I adore small scale tactics. X-COM is one of my favorite games, along with Strain Tactics. I love leading little squads around and relying on positioning and skills more than worrying about strategy. This game is full of that: you have about 9~ units in your squad and that's the limit. Third, oddly enough, the price structure? These games have been around for over a decade now and been in bundles and you can get them really cheap - or straight up free, in the case of this standalone demo thing. And then on top of that, the TOTAL edition I linked above? That's the entire dang series slammed into one launcher alongside a promise of all future content for free. That's a lot of games with full story campaigns! So - Strix you've been typing a lot but you haven't explained what this IS. Age of Fear is a small squad tactical turn based game with rpg mechanics and metaprogression. It has top-down graphics (which are odd but work) and some of the feel of a tabletop wargame. Movement is Phantom Brave / Makai Kingdom style - every unit has a circle around them that's how far they can move, and they can go anywhere in it once per turn. Your entire army moves in one turn, and then the enemy army moves in their turn. Units attack in standard fantasy rpg fashion - melee attack (for a percentage chance to hit), or use a skill (magic costs MP, etc) and that's the basics. Units standing next to each other can physically block the path - which is vital for protecting squishy casters. (Especially as casters cannot cast while next to an enemy unit!) What takes this simple setup (fun in and of itself) into really interesting is the sheer variety of units and synergies. I mean, the dev has had a decade to add units and balance them, but there's over five factions and plenty of weird units. So it's fun seeing what kind of weird matchups you can get! Additionally, the game structure itself is neat. In story campaigns, you can follow the main quest or get distracted by the oodles of procedurally generated battles ("this area is the swamp, so it's full of goblins! fight!") - I'm still playing around with this, but the dev tells me that most players spend about a third of their games doing this - but it's possible to ignore it entirely and beat the story - or go wild and grind forever and steamroll everything. Story quests (and procgen quests) scale to your level somewhat, so it's flexible. Your other option is - yes - full sandbox mode. The open campaigns are just that, where you can do whatever you want forever. (There's also multiplayer? Wild!) Okay I'm getting too long winded. Last bit! RPG mechanics. Units can level up, get promoted, equip gear, evolve into other units, etc. It's flexible and neat! This also means that you're incentivized to keep units alive and not just replace them as you go. Unless, of course, you're a necromancer (like I am, in the first story campaign...) and skeletons are free. So is raising the bones of your enemies. >:D So far I'd say the writing is passable to okay, not great. The voice acting is neat. While I'm curious about these stories, and I do love that there are neat branching paths - I died in one level and it wasn't game over, my hero unit actually became a whole new class and the story altered itself - I never lose track of how this is a game you're playing for the mechanics first. Which are solid and fun, imo! That's Age of Fear and I'm enjoying it and want to put more hours into it!

A true labor of love. Short-play time, but I've had the pleasure of playing earlier parts/aspects. I look forward to 100's of hours of game-play. And if the price seems a bit much - you're getting everything - not only that the developer has made (in the 5 game series) but what comes in the future in this series! When you think of it that way, it is actually a tremendous, tremendous deal. Will update with additional impressions! Right-click functionality could maybe be beefed up (tool-tips) or whatever, but overall, just so impressed!