Sunderfolk

What a scam! They hyped it up as a "Free Weekend," but it turns out to be just the regular Demo. Stop playing word games!

(((You can play the start of the story campaign via the Steam demo, so if you're really not sure if you'd like the game or not, I'd say give that a try first. Your progress can carry over.))) This is a fun game to play with family. Myself, and my two brothers played through the campaign together and we had a lot of fun; we certainly got our money's worth, that's for sure. And despite a few game design choices that I felt took away from the whole experience a bit, I would very much recommend the game if you're looking for something to play with up to four family members. You probably want someone with a bit of gaming experience though, as it's probably not very user friendly for those who don't practice the hobby, or aren't that tech literate, even though the game does its best to smooth that latter problem out as much as it can. It involves a bit of basic maths and remembering what abilities your character has (even if said abilities are always available to look at, even mid mission). The phone aspect of the game is mainly for your character stats and abilities, so you don't need top of the line specs on your phone to be able to run the app needed for the game. The game is a turn based, where all movement and abilities are tied to the grid each scenario board is on. You come into each board (it can vary from full combat, to more puzzle based) with your chosen skill cards that allow for different levels of movement and attacking, along with a few other variables that depend on your chosen character. Your enemies function the same as you too, and you can see what each enemy does whilst playing. I found each character plays surprisingly differently and the home town that you help develop and speak to the residents there really help not make the fights get overbearing and stagnant. The narrator voicing every NPC like a Dungeon Master would, was super charming, and the game's over all aesthetics was really well done. The only main issue I have with the game's mechanics, is the turn limits. I found them super arbitrary and sometimes even misleading. The only times we lost during our play through were when we got to what we thought was the end of a map, with only a turn or two left, and then suddenly a new objective was sprung up on us with no chance of beating it in the turns left. And we had no chance of knowing it was going to happen either. It ended a few nights of place sessions on a more sour note. Overall, good game with a great core concept of how to play it with your phones. I hope the studio explores this more, as even we talked about what more could be done playing a game on Steam, each with our phones holding additional information.