Fabled Lands

(DM) You successfully rolled to evade, and are inside at last (Player) Nice! (DM) There's an ominous portal. You can walk through or turn back. (Player) I'll risk walking through. (DM) Roll your magic skill to see if you can keep from getting messed with (Player) *rolls* (DM) Another success. Hmm... (Player) Nice! (DM) Yeah... nice... BUT... (Player) But... what? (DM) A solid door closes behind you! You're trapped in a room with no way out! (Player) Ok, do I get to roll for...? (DM) And SUDDENLY.. you start SHRINKING! (Player) What? (DM) Lose all of your money and belongings ... except keys, b/c they fall off you (Player) Dude, are you kidding me right now!? You can't be serious! (DM) You find a hole to dive through in your small form, roll to escape (Player) Well, you don't give me any other options, so...*rolls* (DM) Another success... well, you take damage anyways from a bug that bites you (Player) DUDE! I was SUCCESSFUL! C'MON! (DM) The hole leads outside. The spell wears off and you return to normal size (Player) Well, I'm heading back in, because I need my money and stuff! (DM) Sorry, the door is sealed, you don't have the key, and don't know where to get it (Player) *sigh* (DM) You're in the frozen wastes, take 1 damage per move, since you lost your furs. (Player) *face-palm* (DM) Just go check your stash at town. You did keep spare equipment, right? (Player) NO! I DIDN'T REALIZE I'D RUN INTO AN EVENT THAT TOOK LITERALLY EVERYTHING FROM ME! (DM) Oh.. well.. (Player) And I can't BUY more gear, because you just took ALL MY MONEY, TOO! (DM) Well, you're gonna have to figure a way out of this. Take 1 damage. Tick-tock. (Player) *crumples up character sheet and leaves* (DM) WAIT! I thought we were having FUN! Fabled Lands plays like a mash-up of old-school D&D letting you wander an open world of adventure, but leans in on abusive encounters akin to Choose Your Own Adventure or Fighting Fantasy books, too. What I narrated above was literally one of the encounters in the game. Other such encounters are... - You move to a random road to travel, rolled a low dice score, a thief steals ALL OF YOUR MONEY - You failed a roll or didn't choose the right option, so you INSTANTLY DIE - You choose to face the monster thinking you'll fight it. Instead you INSTANTLY DIE - You chose or rolled poorly on an encounter, so you PERMANENTLY LOSE ATTRIBUTE POINTS I'd say there's like 5% encounters like that. So, it's not pure brutality the like Steve Jackson Firetop Mountain or Sorcery! games. But, it throws an encounter at you every now and then that makes you want to punch someone in the face for thinking it was a good design decision. By contrast, sometimes you'll LUCKED into something on the opposite end of the spectrum: - You're doing what you thought was just some routine exploration, Here's 3000 GOLD! (wut?) - You were off messing around over here, Here's an AMAZING ITEM (um...) - You did a few actions to just explore, Here's +1 (or more!) TO AN ATTRIBUTE/SKILL (whoa!) Most of the time you'll be wandering around exploring, following up on clues, maybe chasing a quest, and those will end with a few skill checks, maybe some combat, and some looting. Pretty standard D&D'ish stuff. But, every once in a while, the game will just shaft you HARD on something, or just drop a windfall into your lap out of the blue. And the contrast is very stark compared to the rest of the game.. like there were 2 people writing the game, and one was all about the Steve Jackson abusive adventure books while the other person was about the old-school Red box D&D gaming experience. And the two mentalities clash. Other gripes about the game... - The character classes are not specialized enough, having way too much generalization and overlap amongst them. I started a warrior. His combat ability helps in fights. But, his high sanctity (holy ability), scouting (forestry) and charisma have been saving his bacon right and left making him role-play like more of a skald warrior-poet druid guy. That's cool and all, but not what I thought I was getting into. There's an archer/scout character that just starts with more scouting and less combat skill. But, I'm pretty sure it plays the same way, b/c the high levels on the overlapped skills. - Poor tutorial has you bungling around with items at start (eg: didn't know I was supposed to equip holy symbols, compass, etc to gain their benefits. Thought I just needed them in my inventory). - Limited inventory space turns into inventory micro-management after a while, and there's a LOT of one-off items to carry for very specific areas - You fail a quest, it's OVER. No redos. Even on filthy casual mode. - The game never shifts to dungeons or other maps. It just turns into a text adventure game when it has you explore woods or dungeons more. You're supposed to start taking notes to figure it out, or maybe have found some clue some place else to help you know which options to choose. It kind of distracts from the "see your guy move on the map" when suddenly you're "here's a lot of narration, now 4 options and more that branch off... good luck!" - Limited spell / specialization slots means you need to synergize your character build, but, until you find the expensive scrolls/books to do so, you might find out you put together an awful build, and have to waste tons of time and money trying to find the stuff that will synergize better - The pacing of the first mainland area is great, easily finding quests to go on. But, further areas feel bland, as tavern rumors don't lead to much, and quests feel fewer and further between. Feels like the game was padded with good early content, so professional reviewers that only play a few hours will give it raving reviews while real players playing it through to the end will find the mid to late game content sparse. This is the kind of game I wish I could give a "meh" to. 90% of the time you'll probably be having a good time. It's that 5-10% of the time when the game feels like it's being an absolute abusive jerk to you that will have you questioning whether to proceed. The game REALLY needs to have a more dire warning before beginning that it has drastic situations in it that masochistic players might fine entertaining while filthy casuals won't. Or, better yet, if the player is using filthy casual "explorer" mode, disable the insta death, etc stuff. If you play on "explorer" mode it can feel like table-top Skyrim, b/c you can start to specializing in a lot of things (my warrior is becoming quite the jack of all trades, master of all when it comes to magic, cleric stuff, thievery, etc). If you play on normal or hard mode, then you'll face more hardship, more failed rolls, etc. It'll start to feel more like abusive D&D or Fighting Fantasy stuff. There's an ironman mode, too, for the really masochistic. In all of these except maybe Ironman mode, you can quick-save before making a roll in order to reload and cheese it until you get the result you want. So, this is the part of the game that lets the player be more abusive to it. You can play the game as-is and accept all consequences thrown at you. Or, you can save scum things to get only the best results (subjective, depending on who your character is). So, there is some player restraint involved. Overall, I give it a reluctant thumbs-up, b/c if you don't have your own D&D group to play old-school BECMI with, then this is the next best thing.

Refunded. I am ok with some RNG but come on. Get a quest to go hunt a beast. Go look for it. Fail an unmodified roll to be put to sleep by some gas in an ambush. Sent to prison. Fail a roll to escape prison, die. Really? Like a failed roll should give me some combat disadvanatge not just send me to prison than kill me. No ability to prepare for or fight my way out. No alternatives, just 2 relatively hard to pass failed rolls, death. Not even like 1 out of 20 rolls. Like 3 out of 6 rolls. Like really, just horrid design and experience. Waste of my time.

The key thing to remember when playing this game: this is a faithful digital rendering of a very elaborate gamebook series that was initially published in the 1990s, and it plays like a 1990s gamebook. It's a book over which a developer has layered a beautifully illustrated interface. I do not play the game the author intended. I save-scum like crazy, but the game really does offer you many ways to mitigate bad luck and avoid perma-death. That said, either way you play, there is a huge text-based world here and it is a magnificent accomplishment. If you go into this game understanding that it is a gamebook and not a CRPG, then I think you can have a lot of fun like I did.

I really wanted to like this game. I like the overall design. Unfortunately it's just too punishing. It's designed like an old-school "choose your own adventure" book where every wrong path results in story-death (i.e. no chance to overcome a hard combat or anything, just death). The result is that you have to constantly save-scum in order to make any progress.

The game is legitimately fun. I've had a fun time playing, and will continue to play. That said, there is a single issue I have with the game that prevents me from giving anything higher than a 9/10. It is far too easy to lose everything you carry, and most of your coin, on sheer dumb luck. It is a bad gaming decision, and makes certain actions completely worthless to choose. Yes, you can gain everything back, but I've lost too many magic items to bad design to go higher than 9. Love the game, love the story, hate a single mechanic that actively ruins the experience for me.

Game needs you to carry dozens of items including quest items. But then only gives a tiny purse. The developer gets a kick out of making their game annoying and terrible to play. Don't buy this. Waste of time.

I've tried several times to get into the game, but I just can't.. I dunno.. it's just kind of annoying to play. Not necessarily because the game is punishing or feels unfair at times. I'm not really a fan of that "toxic GM" spirit a lot of older RPGs/CYOAs have either, but the game [i]is[/i] designed around "♥♥♥♥ around and find out".. then get rekt, learn from your mistakes, reload and pick a different option next time. Tbh, most of the time, you don’t even have to do that, since you can recover after a setback. Once you realize how the game wants you to play it, it’s not that bad. What bothers me more is how clunky the game feels to play. For example, why do I have such a tiny inventory when I’m expected to carry around so many quest items? It’s just inconvenient. Blessings are very helpful, but they’re one-time use, so if you want to play it safe (hello Ironman), you have to travel back to a temple every time you use one to renew it, which happens quite often. Why can’t I see how much damage I’ll deal before attacking an enemy? The fading text which causes a small delay also gets annoying when you’re buying drinks for rumors in the tavern for the 50th time or want to do other actions quickly multiple times. And why do I always have to travel somewhere else before being able to retry an encounter, because the POI isn’t clickable anymore after I’ve triggered it once and stand on it? These and many more small QoL issues make the game frustrating. A lot of the decision chains also don’t make sense. For example, I explore the sewers to kill rat-men and get the choice between going into a kitchen or the throne room. I choose the throne room, kill the king and the quest is completed. Then I want to check out the kitchen, but I can’t. For some reason, I can’t go back into the sewers at all. Another example: on a seaside cliff, I find a boulder full of runes. I can either examine the runes or go down to the beach. I examine the runes, pass a skill check and can now use them to breathe underwater for a long time. So now I can either chose between swimming out to sea to dive or go to the beach. I choose the beach first. After the event there, I go back to the runes to finally use them.. and I have to pass the skill check again? Suffers my PC from dementia or what? Of course I fail this time and now I can’t go back to the beach nor swim out to sea and just get dumped onto the world map while having accomplished nothing. Meh. On the other hand, there are events you can repeat infinitely. Apparently the Druid's Isle has an endless population of wereboars, palace guards have the memory of a goldfish and can be tricked into handing over gold again and again as long as you pass the roll and you'll lose gold to the same fake baby for all eternity since our PC has dementia as we already discovered. All of this is quite immersion-breaking, at least for me. Combat is okay, but overall it’s very unexciting and simple. All of this combined with rather shallow, generic writing causes the game not being able to hold my attention for long. There aren’t really any meaningful dialogues, character development, drama or a larger plot you can be part of. Quests are mostly variations of "kill this" or "bring me that" and I quickly found myself just skimming the text. It all feels pretty soulless and exchangeable. And yeah, I know it's an adaptation of books from the 90s, but I still expected more. Art, music and sound are lovely, though.

A beautiful piece of work very loyal to the original (now seven) books - an enjoyable experience with unusual encounters and story-writing. Luck is a key player in this game but anyone who's played adventure books would know this! Looking forward to new expansions when the final five books are released, The only way I can see improving this is to find a way to incorporate Russ Nicholson's illustrations more somehow...In all a really convenient way to enjoy the Fabled Lands.

Ok, just to keep it short: 1. This is not a RPG in any way, it is actually a make-your-own-adventure book but with graphic interface. In case if you need an explanation in difference between those two: in a book you are heavily rail-loaded and if book says "you die" than you will die. And no divine intervention will save you. Even if you are a hero of the all-known-time-and-space who wrestled successfully all cosmic villains / dragons / whoever , but if a book say that lvl 1 goblin with a poisoned stick hit you with it and you are going to die due to poison - than you will die. period. no saving throws / miracles allowed. Game over. Start a new game. 2. There is absolutely no any signs where that goblin with that nasty poisoned stick is hiding. Example: you are going to explore a city at night (what may happen to you, a hero-of-known-space-and-time, in a middle of a city ??) but you heard some noise at marketplace. Nothing suspicious or even loud , just a noise. Ok you decided to investigate (no any options for staying quiet / observing from shadows / walking silently / whatever other precaution you might think) are available, you just going in. Ok, you came to marketplace and suddenly received a hit on back of your head. With a simple wooden club. Your helmet of ancient-unbreakable-almighty-dragonskull helmet provided 0 (zero) protection against that wooden club. Why ? Because book said so. Next thing you see once you awake is that you are somewhere in a sewers, stripped with all your gear/loot/weapon and encircled with a horde of cannibals. Somewhere among them is that small goblin without poisoned stick but with a wooden club (it was him, who knocked you out). A few more dialog lines and you die. Eaten alive. Because book says so. Start all over again. 3. You need to memorize all that adventure book and keep it in your mind. Otherwise you will run out of finances. that means Killing the same poor mad pilgrims or wereboar for those pesky 30 coins again.. and again.. and again.. and again.. and (30 minutes later) again... Boring as hell. Yes there are also some other ways to earn your coins, but the book either have 0 (zero) tutorial on it (like for inter-city trade for example), or those are very opportunistic and you need to know beforehand of the event what you actually doing. SO if you are still lured by a good looks and actually have a masochistic trait (or perhaps for some strange reason enjoy repeating same steps all over again until you find another ultimate goblin with poisoned stick waiting for you in a bush of royal garden just after you received the Prince title and preparing to spend you night with a Princess) - go forth and try, but I wholeheartedly DO NOT RECCOMEND. Honestly there are games which have same experience but do it better. Much better. At least there you die because you made so0mething stupid and not just "because you opened a wrong page of the book" .

Fabled Lands start off from a game book series that is span over 20 years ago. Now the legacy continues as a game in Steam which is Im very surprised and impressed. The game is very immersive if compare to the other old game books game in steam. The game have a selection of 6 profession to start off each with a different abilities and combat skills. The game itself is actually a open free world with a vast continent for players to explore: the rich farm lands, the warring states, the sea isle, the frozen tundra, the land of the rising sun, the mysterious land of the west and the ancient civilization at the south. Build your chars, collect wealth, start out your own castle or players can just be settled in any of the fantasy region as a lord or as a retainer. Game book fans, if you like Joe Dever Lone Wolf series or Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy game books, then you should check out Fabled Lands in Steam. You will not be disappointed.