Apollyon: River of Life

Now that the full game is out I can find out what is next, and its more story! Interesting characters interacting with this wild, imaginative world we see through the eyes of the occultist using this board. This is great game, a hidden gem, It draws you in with what seems on the surface to be a card / table strategy game, but soon reveals a rich fantasy story behind the events in the game. The game board has 16 mystical themes, but the "Theme" of the game is an intriguing mix of Cthulhu-like horror and seance-like summoning. It has elements of a choose-your-adventure but goes beyond that with the strategic selection of tokens influencing the outcomes. The game table itself is beautiful and card art captivating to say the least. After playing it for near 100 hours I have learned many techniques to stay alive, yet am constantly surprised by new invocations (stories). Exactly like a great novel, I can't wait to find out what happens next.

I've only dipped my toes into this so far, but I feel compelled to leave a positive review. Apollyon is a text-based adventure game with stat-tracking and a clever gameplay mechanic: the board itself with its tokens. The conceit is that you are an occultic practitioner and you're ready to talk to some spirits/make magic happen/etc, so you set up the big circle board, line up the tokens in a straight line pointing right from the center, and off you go. Each turn you move three tokens in their orbits (as far as I can tell, move the token as much as you want, just make sure to move three separate tokens!) and then receive three cards. Each card has an event - something as simple as "because the sun is bright, token A shifted up a slot and token B shifted down" to something as complex as a short story with choices. The choices can then invoke stat checks, or simply checking your luck, or using an item, or or or... Effectively the meat of the game is the huge amount of text hidden in these cards. You're playing to read more stories, make more choices, try to unlock more lore and items and more, and then - when you are ready - you slide all the tokens back to the line they were in at the start and you're done. Hopefully alive, too. The writing so far is quite good, in my opinion! It's set in a dark fantasy world with lots of evocative imagery and strange creatures to meet and talk to. I feel like I've found a ten volume fantasy epic and I can only read it in a random order, with random pages at my disposal - but that's perfect, I love exploring like this. Everything is interesting. There's more stuff too - new characters to start the game as (that I haven't unlocked), a co-op feature, and more. Again, I've barely even touched this game, but it feels like something I've wanted for so long and only just found. Cultist Simulator vibes, but not written by a jerk and not with frantic plate juggling. There's weird entities out there and I want to talk to them!

If you enjoy struggling, suffering and the occult, then this game is for you. It is hard, you will die, you will struggle and you will lay awake in bed thinking on how to proceed. But man, is it worth it.

Apollyon is definitely esoteric — not only narrative-wise (that is expected), but also gameplay-wise. I've played over 15 hours, unlocked a few rare achievements, and still feel like that dog from the "I have no idea what I am doing" meme. In Cultist Simulator, figuring out the mechanics is a part of the game, and the game's reaction to your actions is clear enough to understand how the things work under the hood. In Apollyon, the feedback is too vague. Or I am esoterically challenged? I guess I should never dabble with occult things in real life.

It is interesting, but for me ramming my head against a wall in an attempt to understand anything when a large part of the "difficulty" curve appears to be navigating down rapids in a rickety kayak blindfolded. Yeah, you can steer the boat but you're just as likely to steer into rocks as well as avoid them. I see that the intent is to have newer players guided by more experienced players in a "coven" through multiplayer which would be cool if anyone was playing the game. Unlocking things with only 1 or 2 "life points" when things can randomly deal 2 damage turn 1 is unfun and if there is a way to avoid this, the game does not actually explain it. As far as I can tell: If the game decides to end your run at any point, you're 100% dead.

So, this game is hard. Staggeringly hard, mostly because the learning curve is insane. But also, I bought this game yesterday and played 15 hours so far. It's well written and clearly has a deep world. The storytelling is non-linear, so you slowly gather glimpses and pieces. But the moment I found a library and managed to gather up some lore .. glorious. The progression mechanic is peculiar, as you only save your progress when you finish a ritual (run) without dying. Getting some cool stuff and loosing it to death can be .. frustrating, especially in the beginning, as the starting character is a lot weaker than those you can unlock. But it also teaches you not to be greedy, keep an eye on how long it would take you to end a run in the case of success and when you successfully end a run with a new unlocked ambition or character clasped in an iron grip ... the success feels so very sweet. Where the ritual token placement was just guesswork and randomness in the beginning .. by now I know what to shift where to enhance my chances, lure out or prevent certain events. There is still much to do and I am excited. It reminds me a bit of cultist simulator/Book of hours storytelling. The part that irritates me a bit are the controls. You can shift the tokens with your keyboard, but cards need to be clicked be by mouse to open and close, which has started to be a bit painful and annoying. With I could forward with enter or arrow keys to be honest. I ran across a few bugs, which caused me to need to end a ritual because I couldnt progress. Luckily, it wasnt a run where I would unlock stuff, otherwise it would be much more irritating. But overall: I'd recommend it, if you are open to dig yourself in, put a note pad/doc on the side to take notes and get lost in an occult adventure. I already told some friends about it to try the coop.

As someone who loved Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, this is definitely hitting the itch of 'I have no idea what I'm doing or what's going on but by god I'm gonna consort with demons' so, yea. Well crafted and a lot of fun and I can tell there's *tons* to pick apart here. Definitely well worth the money and a clear product of love and vision.

Amazing rich world building! It spins something new out of themes all the way from occultism and astrology, to dungeons and dragons and physics. It's so fun to slowly explore this world and uncover how your actions on the table influence the story. I just finished playing the theme where you astral project into various fantastic locations and the suspense of trying to not lose your body, not summon a demon, and solve the puzzle before time runs out, was getting to me! It can take a minute to get your bearing, but once you figure out how some of the tokens effect the board it feels like you have an active hand in the narrative.

I highly recommend this for any who like a board game dedicated to the occult

Good game, a lot of reading so be ready for that. The screenshots seem to be from a previous version of the game. More than anything it feels like playing d&d, which I have fun with.