Silk

Silk is an interesting trading/exploring/conquering historically based game. I backed it on Kickstarter which is where I received my pre-release Steam key from. Some quick notes that may impact your decisions: -Keyboard controls only. No mouse. Keys are rebindable (currently) through the default Unity launcher. Controller support is coming soon. -While this is the biggest handcrafted world ever made, travelling across it happens in turns, you do not have to walk across it in real-time like you would in Daggerfall (Silk doesn't have fast travel though). However it is still not a quick jog to travel along the silk road. Now onto the actual game. Silk is a Silk Road simulator, as one might expect. The base gameplay involves navigating your way through an extremely large grid-based map. You can move in eight directions to any adjacent square on the grid. Every move is a turn, people and animals also move across the map simultaneously to your turn. On each move one or more events may occur based on location and chance. One of the most unique features of Silk is the advisors. Your own character is one of them, which one depends on which background and who you choose on starting a new game (four choices for each of the four backgrounds). You can hire up to six additional advisors, each with their own skillset and culture. You can only take approaches that your advisors and you have a reason to suggest. So if you don't have a soldier-type advisor, fighting off bandits is not an option, so you will need to parlay. Advisors gain skill at the tasks they do, so you can train them as you go. Advisors can also help new players not make really bad decisions, as they give useful reasons for their advice. Each day you also use a certain amount of provisions. The amount depends on your number of advisors and guards. If you are combat-heavy and have hundreds of guards, provisions will be essential. Some can be gained outside of trading with activities such as milking a goat herd, hunting, and fishing. Combat is auto resolved if you choose to partake, guards and battle-trained advisors will all fight, with horses increasing their effectiveness. Trading options are available based on what your advisors consider good deals, so they will be against trading goats to a goat farming town, but for trading silk to the Romans. You can trade for various animals (camels, horses, oxen, sheep, and goats), horses are the fastest and if your entire caravan is riding them you will get more turns per day. On the other hand if you're herding an entire flock of goats around, you're not going to be going anywhere anytime soon, though you get the advantage of a portable food supply if rations get low (and on or adjacent grass tiles you can reduce the amount of food required per day, down to no cost at all.) Exploring along the Silk Road involves visiting many historical cities and settlements, which have custom-voiced descriptions talking about location and their history. As well you can find the remains of less fortunate caravans, and scavenge goods from them. There are also wild animals such as wolves that will attack your animals or wild horses that you can attempt to capture (location affects success). Storms and sandstorms are trouble. There is also the morale system, where doing religious rituals and having positive interactions and event outcomes leads to your caravan being happier (which in turn increases all other odds). Things such as storms and wolf attacks lowers morale, so you will need to regularly find shrines or temples to keep up morale. Having a ritegiver advisor (or even just someone of the right culture) can help tremendously with this. The reputation system (shown on the Esc screen in-game) shows your caravan's reputation among the 5 main factions and their settlements. This of course affects your dealings with them and their settlements. Each of your possible character backgrounds comes with its own goals and starting conditions (also functions as a difficulty selector). Your character chooses optional progress milestones as you continue, on reaching them your entire caravan gains experience. Each background has a specific overall goal so they can win, with the easy option just being to travel from one end of the Silk Road to the other and back with a load of silk. There are sound effects for events, the previously mentioned voice clips for settlements, and there is title music for the main menu. There is not any music during regular gameplay, perhaps ideal if you like to play in silence or with your own music. Audio levels are not adjustable. As for the graphics, what you see in the screenshots and trailers is what you get. It's a very clean and easy to distinguish style that lets you look ahead and plan out your path. More graphics seem to have been added since the screenshots were taken, and the world feels more alive than before. On the technical end it runs extremely smoothly and currently has Unity's default resolution selection and key rebinding, which works like normal. Once you have loaded your save file there are not any loading screens as you play. The game autosaves whenever you reach a non-hostile settlement and it stores the past 8 autosaves. There are only 4 character save slots, so you can't have dozens of different characters all playing separately. The save files are under AppData\LocalLow\ihobo\Silk in case you ever want to back one up to save for later while you create a 5th simultaneous character. Summary: Pros -Massive open world to explore freely, trade across, and conquer as you choose -Historical basis (no fantastical events) -The advisor system's interactions are excellent -Performance is silky smooth -While the audio and graphics are simple, they are very effective for the game's budget and are not low effort -You are never left without any direction, but you can also choose entirely your own path -No cutscenes or QTEs, reaction times are not tested Cons -Limited save files -Not very much customisation for game settings and functionality (for example there are no volume controls, though there will rarely be more than one sound effect at a single time and there is no background gameplay music)

[h1]«Silk»[/h1] [b][i]Смесь приключения, RPG, схематичной экономической стратегии и настольной игры. Прокладываем свой шелковый путь в огромном, но довольно однообразном мире. Схематично торгуем и воюем с его обитателями.[/i][/b] Геймплей: https://youtu.be/GJM38m65AxA [code]Своеобразная игра. Все очень схематично, с минимум визуализации.[/code] Мир большой и открытый, но довольно пустой. Не считая ограничивающих передвижение гор, морей, рек и предметов декора, есть города и рынки, разрушенные строения и храмы, разбитые повозки и места гибели других путешественников. В городах/на ранках можно поторговать и пополнить команду, а в разбитых повозках и местах гибели можно найти ценный лут. Лут/ресурсы не радуют разнообразием: есть провиант в виде мешков с яблоками, домашний скот, ткани, предметы ремесла, охранники и серебро. Провиант расходуется каждый день, его в огромных количествах съедают лошадки, овцы и другие животные вашего стада. Если надумаете скупать, перегонять и продавать скот в другие города, то придется запастись дополнительным провиантом и учитывать то, что парнокопытных покупают не везде, а результат торговли зависит от того, каким персонажем совершается сделка. Найм охранников помогает одержать победу в схватках. В этой игре бои еще схематичнее, чем все остальное. Встретив врага, вы лишь теряете или приобретаете ресурсы. Исход битвы определяется мгновенно и зависит от величины и силы вашей команды + учитывается число охранников. Никакой тактики, расставления войск или нажиманий кнопок не нужно. Как только вступили в битву, тут же выдают отчет о том, сколько ресурсов потеряно/приобретено. Внизу экрана иконки всех ресурсов. При любых взаимодействиях, ведущих к изменению предметов в инвентаре, ресурсы, которые вы потеряете с выбором текущего действия, подсвечивает красным, а те, что получите, показывает с голубым фоном. [code]Если скучаете по олдскульным Tile-based играм или любите путешествовать и схематично торговать, то вам игра будет интересна. Если ищите динамичную RPG или приключение с разнообразными квестами, то «Silk» вам покажется скучным. Кроме торговли и распределения ресурсов в «Silk» есть несколько глобальных целей, но эти задания нужно еще отыскать, прочесывая все встреченные на пути города. Это займет много времени, учитывая громадную карту мира.[/code] Если вам понравился обзор, информация была полезной/интересной, то поддержите лайком или комментарием. [i] Обзор был написан для группы [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Obzzor4ik]Обзоры Онлайн[/url]. Почитать другие отзывы можете[url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28776273/] тут[/url].[/i]

I am a huge fan of both Lords of Midnight and King of Dragon Pass; sadly, beyond the LoM-style visual engine, this game falls way short of either. Very simplistic buy high, sell low gameplay loop, storms become the only challenge of note just a few gamedays into the game, all "council" positions are covered near instantly with literally no reason to omit any of them. All in all, plays like a primitive mobile game. If you want to scratch that LoM itch, better get Legions of Ashworld or the many LoM remakes.

People seem to misunderstand what is the goal of this game. It is not a game about trading or warfare and conquest. It is a statement, it's meant to show the sheer scale of the Slik Road. It exists mainly to show you that the journey (remember the game happens at around Roman Empire times) is an incredible, hard to properly fathom distance. The game is not complex because it's more so a piece of art, a happening to be witnessed making you realise something you probably will never truly experience. Silk is great at what it's meant to be, perspective.

There are some - not game breaking - bugs in the game, and military part is a bit raw, but main aspect of the game, trading/traveling is just as it should be. Historical commentary gives it more immerse. You can really feel how much of a distance the real trek was, and what kind of hardships caravaneers had to deal with during this very long journey. Definitely worth it.

+ very very huge open world + interesting gameplay + cute graphics - need backround music - dull open world 7/10 Short Gameplay : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVVd8U1jN28

Silk is a compelling adventure strategy experience - not a genre name you see very often, and what a shame. The importance of picking a sensible route can be paramount, the threat of storms, raiders, wild animals and dead ends feel real and intense, and the feeling you get when you realise you have hit a dead end and have to turn back is a marvellous frustration. It also means the satisfaction you get when you bring a caravan of silk back home is magnificent. The smalls joys of exploring a world in which every step matters, finding special locations, taking hidden treasure and fighting each small battle are immense. The feeling when your advisors reach a high enough skill level to start to really make the most of your surroundings is superb. A great adventure strategy title, definitely worth your time.

Very nice game! Hope the developers will update and expand it though +Huge open world for hours of exploring +Simple mechanics of gameplay - easy to learn in minutes +History notes makes journey immersive +Handful of ways to beat the game -No background/ambient music so it is pretty quiet -Some pieces of map are empty -No marching armies, caravans etc.

Nice game. If you enjoyed playing Lord of the Rings back in the day you should enjoy this.

Comme remarque liminaire, je dois dire que j'ai plusieurs dizaines d'heures de jeu en plus que ce qui est écrit car avant d'acheter ce jeu j'y ai beaucoup joué sur le pc d'un copain avec son compte, je connais donc bien le jeu. Je l'aime passionnément, je le trouve vraiment extra et je le recommande vivement à toute personne qui lira ce commentaire, car c'est typiquement un jeu qui accroche et avec lequel on passe plus de temps que prévu en se disant "allez, encore un tour, je vais aller voir par là-bas et après j'arrête pour aujourd'hui" 1) le jeu tourne impeccable en qualité ultra sur une machine modeste 2) quasiment aucun bug, la seule chose que j'ai vu c'est que le nombre de gardes ne diminue pas immédiatement quand vous en enlevez dans un caravansérail, il faut quitter le caravansérail et regarder l'inventaire de nouveau pour que le nombre de gardes soit modifié; autrement dit, une broutille 3) une belle identité graphique, le jeu a du style et est très attachant 4) la carte de l'Asie Centrale est immense et réaliste; on prend beaucoup de plaisir à l'exploration et au commerce. Chris a fait un travail de recherche très sérieux sur tout ce qui figure dans le jeu (en ce sens, il a dû être aidé par le fait qu'il avait déjà sorti en 2007 un jeu de plateau sur la route de la soie). 5) le gameplay et le level design ont l'air simplistes mais en fait c'est très efficace; personnellement, je trouve que la plupart des jeux actuels ne sont finalement pas très intéressants et a contrario, de nombreux jeux très anciens sont prenants parce qu'ils se concentrent sur l'essentiel (la plupart du temps parce qu'ils disposent de ressources limitées). Bref, bien sûr qu'on pourrait ajouter plein de choses à ce jeu, mais est-ce que ça en vaut la peine ? Dans l'esprit de Chris Bateman, la réponse est non sans aucun doute. 6) le prix; actuellement je suis complètement fauché, donc ça m'arrange, mais c'est vraiment un prix très bas compte tenu de la durée de vie du produit. Voilà, je pourrais sans doute trouver encore d'autres choses à dire, mais c'est ce qui me vient à l'esprit sur le moment.