Quodan: Treachery on the Arheid

I didn't love Quodan but I do appreciate what it is and what it represents. From what I can gather, this is an early project from a young man still finding his footing in the game-making sphere. You can see the seams here. It's unpolished. Some of it doesn't quite work like it should. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game. It's got a lot of heart and I really was curious where the story was going to go. The story is pretty standard sci-fi stuff. It hits all of the genre expectations for space-fairing stories like Star Trek or Babylon 5. If you've seen episodes of those shows that deal with sabotage or insurrection, you'll get the gist here. I do like that the story continues after resolving that plotline though. I'm not entirely sure I can say I think the bridge between the two halves works perfectly but the second half of the work is stronger for sure. There's some ethical decisions to be made that while broad, are actually asking the player to consider what the right action is, allowing for some branching paths. Sure, pretty standard stuff for a visual novel but I liked seeing the author consider what his story is about. The minigames I'm a little less keen on though. I don't think they're a bad idea, but the execution just needs some refining and a better explanation of the goals. The asteroid shooting went on far longer than it should've and I wasn't quite sure if I was playing it right. The later turn-based part when you move between ship rooms is very clever in its idea but it took me quite a few attempts to figure out how it worked. There was one minigame in a story route where you have to shoot another spaceship and hit it in really small weak spots. The way the ship moves made it impossible for me. I admittedly played this on a Steam Deck, so controlling the cursor with a trackpad or the touchscreen may not be the ideal way to play that part and a real mouse may have made it doable. Regardless, I did enjoy my time with the game. I didn't get every ending but I did get a couple, including the cliffhanger good ending and I would be interested to find out where this story goes, if there is any chance of a follow up. I'm not sure if I can recommend this game to the majority of people but anyone who appreciates unpolished amateur work in the early career of a game developer might want to give this a look. I got about an hour of time out of this, so five bucks might be a little high for some people based on that. I hope AnonymousTurtle continues to make games and refines their work. They have some ideas going on that with more practice could end up being really good. Good luck, kid. I'll keep an eye on your releases.

this game was actually really amazing