Churchgoers

I've seen my friends work on this quirky RPG for countless hours. Watching them pour so much heart and soul into every little part of the game makes me happy beyond words to have seen this incredible journey unfold. The end product is truly something special that will stick with me for a long time.

The story uses the simple, yet effective, hook of avenging the murder of a loved one to keep the motivation clear throughout the game. It tells its story though simple texts hidden all over the maps and snippets of dialogue and thoughts of character you pass by. With a lovely soundtrack and a cute stylized world, it is a stunning 2-3 hour experience. Without spoiling the plot, the game tackles themes of religion, myths, abuse of power, and feelings of loss. The gameplay is simple to match its visuals, but very smooth and easy to get the hang of. Definitely worth the money and highly recommended.

Churchgoers is an exploration RPG alike those Earthbounds and your Undertables and yer OFF and so on. I brought and played it thinking that it will be a hidden gem, taken by store description with some original points and fancy stylistic screenshots. It's a bit of eh. Of course it should have more recognition or buyers than it did, being indie and all, but it's not as hidden gem as I though. The graphics are nice, even if they get old by the end of it, with little variety to the style. Sound design, especially the talking noises are great, music is fine enough. But the story and exploration that is the main appeal of such game is... Well, I expected something more. It's a fine quirky RPG from young people of Norwegia and it's kinda cute with some slight focus on recycling and education, I did enjoy the university location, especially trash throwing students. But I expected something more than quirky characters bunching up on "religion is bad". I wanted more complexity in the topic of religion. There may be a hints at more interesting viewpoint of author through the world but they may have been too subtle for me to find or care or be impressed by. And please, I didn't even know what I was doing here until I went to store page to find out that the main hero was out to revenge. I surely was disappointed to see some fancy styled brochure of a pause menu that was showing off symbolism and strange language and a picture of the Banshee, expecing something deeper only to find that there it's just "religion authority bad". And it doesn't feel like separate world of its own mechanic because characters have that err comedic sense of belonging, alike "It's all nice but why am I studying on table by a cliff?" for example. Alright, so a bit of meta humor. A bit too much of meta humor. How can you show off a strange world yet every character doesn't think like they are part of it? Alice in the Wonderlands it's not. Meta humor like that could work but mmm once again, it's a bit too simple and predictable for my taste this way. There are so many ways that this art work could be great but it doesn't go in any of those ways, just remaining a simple quirky work. Of course the story of a student with fursuit was good, yes. Ah, and there is random encounter battle system. Well, it's original for sake of original and it was made purely too simple. There are like only four variations of encounters through whole game that go in same pacing everytime. Resetting health between each one of them. No items. You just avoid things on 3x3 grid until it runs out. Nothing to gain. The effects of "what puzzle item I had selected when I had encounter" does not bring sense of tactical decision making, just that it will happen when it will happen. If anything, such system felt purely as a random punishment, a random pace breaking during puzzling and exploration. Care should be taken before you change or simplify the established cliches of systems, really, they work for a reason. Those battle encounters do feel like random part of a game that doesn't connect to anything. Can't say that it felt like baddie was trying to stop me. And when I came to the end of the game, that baddie wasn't even paying attention to me and seemed to be confused, so a bit of uhhh not quite experience. Overall, ehhhh, it's not a hidden gem, more of first project or amateur work. I still wonder if it was supposed to represent personal view of the authors. But I didn't get quite enough meat that I wished to digest. And here I will slap positive anyway because I have pity for underselling indies, HO! No, I mean, it was still interesting at least, liked the middle part and some latter ones. (Wish I could have easy to access music but meh)

This is exactly the kind of weird indy game I like. I really enjoyed the visual aesthetic and sound design. An interesting story that is subtle about making its points. Key rebinding would be nice.

I cried a lot playing this game, mostly because it's made by my dear friends, who I love very much. Churchgoers is an honest game, and a game I very much recommend playing, if you enjoy short, but impactful experiences. Of course, I can relate to it in a different way, since I know the developers, but I still believe it's worth a shot. The music is touching and calmed me down, and exploring the levels and reading about the world and it's people was soothing. The puzzles can be a little confusing at times, if you don't talk to the right NPCs first, but very solveable after some thinking. If you need something to play and complete in a couple of hours, maybe after a long day at work or school, and you're in need of some alone time, I highly recommend playing this game.

pretty fun little puzzle rpg

epic

Unique vibe, interesting abilities, cool game!!