The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge

A gem in the rough. Clever, subversive writing and intricate customisation hidden among awkward controls and hitboxes. Get used to the motions, and you'll be playing a tactical, comedic dark souls.

Three chapters in, and it's already made me laugh more than most games ever have. I love the dialogue and the characters, and the levels are so pretty!

It is cute and amusing, and it has options for making the gameplay harder or easier to suit different players.It's rather pleasant to play.

If only Prism had marketed this game better! This is a highly enjoyable experience, lasting between 8-10 hours on a typical run. The writing is memorable and humorous, and makes some interesting lore which differentiates from typical fantasy media. The concepts and mechanics this game presents are unique - it plays like a more forgiving yet still challenging Dark Souls experience. Prism unfortunately dissolved in January 2021, meaning they've essentially disbanded. That's likely due to the lack of marketing behind this game, as the game itself plays well with not many issues. It makes me wonder an alternate timeline where the studio stayed together and made a sequel! They've created a whole original world here, with unique lore that I don't typically see in other fantasy media. Played on a Steam Deck, on high settings, low shadows (and upscaled from a lower resolution) at a locked 72 fps.

Such a good game thats been out for over a year and only a few have bought this.

Good

This game is alright, fun and quite entertaining. Basic and simple overall. Make a prisoner, explore a dungeon with same shade enemies and find all 6 chests to increase stats of your choosing, kill boss and then make your next prisoner to do the next level. There is nothing else to loot besides the chests and keys to open doors. The story is interesting enough to want to keep playing it. The combat feels clunky. If the game feels too hard or too easy you have options to change it such as choosing your attacks to use less stamin or enemies to attack slower, you can choose multiple options and can make it harder also as in enemies have more health etc. And if the weapon you have chosen doesn't feel right to defeat the boss you can restart the level and choose a different weapon and traits. The only problem is it seems like the devs have abandoned it. As they never reply to any of the discussion posts. And there are broken achievements that would probably never be fixed. I'd rate it 6/10 as it has broken achievements and no trading cards. But I did like playing this fun little adventure.

So I want to go ahead and say that you could very well have fun with this game, I just don't think it's worth $16. The animation quality is pretty stiff, which makes combat very clunky. The UI screams of a generic asset flip, using basic fonts and windows that you'll find in hundreds of other subpar Unreal Engine indie games. If you're someone like me who is fine with simplicity as long as it is done really well, you might want to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I felt like I was playing an early access title and was disappointed when I checked the store page and found that the game was released four years ago. However, there are some aspects of the game that I absolutely love. First of all, the customization. Despite being visually simple and low poly, the character creation has a shockingly large number of options for you to choose from. You can select from a lot of different faces, then layer on facial details like moles and scars along with makeup/tattoos. You can decide what armor you wear out of three categories: helmet, top, and bottom. Each category has lots of different options and you can even customize the color palette of each. The color options allow for you to have matching armor even if they aren't part of the same aesthetic set, which is something that even AAA games don't do. Second, I love the overall idea behind the game. Slowly growing a group of custom heroes over an entire playthrough is so great. Having your original characters help out your newer characters in their journey as an NPC companion? Even better. Third, the writing is funny and doesn't take itself too seriously. Part of me wishes the player had more agency during dialogue but if things are going to turn out the same either way, what's the point. Is this a bad game? Not by any means at all. However, it is very rough around the edges and very likely an early project for an aspiring game studio. If you don't really care about polish and just love the idea of character creation, then you'll honestly probably dig this game. I just know that for me personally, the clunkiness does detract from my personal experience to the point where I have a hard time enjoying the game. I do hope the devs try and perfect this formula in the future though, I can tell they have some good ideas and great potential talent, they just need to practice a bit.

Bought it on a whim for like 4 dollars and actually enjoyed it. Would recommend at that price.

A LOVELY and charming game! - Gameplay is simple, but has its challenge. And there are a LARGE range of modes to chose from for your own experience! - Levels are simple, but have a lot of work put into them, given a very charming and pleasing visual direction. If they ever add a first-person mode to really immerse yourself in these levels, that'd be LOVELY! - Music is funny, but has its personality. - writing is nicely done. Not overly complex, and has a lot of clever and amusing dialogue. - Customization has the perfect amount of options! Not so many that I'm picking between hundreds of eyes and hair styles that are too similar, and not so few that there's no reason for it to be there. Is it worth 16 dollars? Only if you really enjoy this style of gameplay. I got it on sale, and it was a solid steal! I would also recommend this game in general to financially support these people, as they made the amazing Portal Stories Mel Mod and well done Portal Stories VR game, BOTH free, and deserve the support!