Waiting For The Raven

I cannot play the game when i'm struggling to use the interface at all. The concept looks fun and the story looks interesting but I can't stand to even truly begin the tutorial. The part where you use the mouse to change the camera angle to look around your room should be removed entirely. The fact that labels on things remain for less than a second and none of the controls are explained is another mark against the game. If I hadn't opened the options menu first to adjust the sound, I would not have known how to open the first window in the tutorial. There is seemingly no way to cancel a selection you have made without exiting the map entirely. It is incredibly difficult to get to any information about your agents. You have to laboriously select each agent individually, then select each individual trait to see what it is and what it does. To look at another agent? You have to close the window. That's right, you can't compare agents without selecting them individually and trying to remember what their stats/traits are. Considering you are a spymaster who is supposed to have many agents, i'd expect 20 or more? How about no. It's too bad because from the previews the game looks amazing but it's simply unplayable. Before I even got to the end of turn one I had no further desire to struggle with controls this unwieldy. I can't say if the game is balanced or not because the controls were too badly designed for me to find out. It's been a very long time since I've been this disappointed.

[h1]The Good[/h1] [list] [*] Building up your spymaster empire is fun: expanding your influence, learning about your competitors, building both legal and illegal ventures, and imposing your will either through intrigue or brute force. [*] The actual gameplay is very board-game-like where most of the action takes place conceptually through images and text prompts over a map. [/list] [h1]The Bad[/h1] [list] [*] User interface makes the mid and late game where you're managing more than four agents/thugs absolutely horrid. Dev's seriously needed to consult a UI expert. [*] Puzzles were fun and added to the immersion of being a spymaster, but are far and few inbetween. [/list] [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] [b]Waiting for the Raven is good game ruined by bad UI.[/b] Your first hour is fun and engaging. But the terrible UI makes empire management tedious and boring. If you're a glutton for punishment and want to experience an interface full of confusing actions, overly-crowded icons, and poorly placed prompts, then play with Dwarf Fortress.

Played 3 hours. Enjoyed what there was, despite UI being broken. (Some elements off screen, window borders appear to be fixed images drawn over the dynamically sized windows -- so there is just a random box over everything that doesn't actually relate or contain any given window, have to point slightly to the side or below items in the 3d world to activate them) Then ran into a bug where the next turn button no longer works. Last posts in the bug discussion is from 2 years ago, about that bug. No apparent developer or player activity in discussions since 2022. Neat idea. Broken, abandoned game.

This game feels unfinished like something not yet out of beta. About 5 hours into it I couldn't find any reason to keep playing. Maybe I'm just not good at it, but I never figured out the what the actual story was or who my character was when I had already become the cities largest drug dealer, smuggler, and casino magnate and was figuring out how to conquer everything I didn't own when I lost all enthusiasm. Why? I asked myself, if I was really this woman at the point where I was the richest businesswoman in the city why on Earth would I continue to associate with this secret society at all? I don't care what those encrypted letters say, burn em for all the relevance they had. The game makes no sense as a mystery or intrigue challenge, your a thug taking over a city with a gang, everything else is pretense that adds nothing to the gameplay. Most of the "Grand Strategy" in this game consists of grinding. Very little strategy or decision making goes in to your build and you can go dozens of turns with nothing happening. I also didn't like the UI, it was very poorly formatted and parts of the screen were cut off and I couldn't always see what they intended me to. Overall not a good game for most people.

Very good ideas and principles, but an unfinished game design and UI. Some bugs too, but that's less important. Too bad, i very much tried to give a positive recommandation for this game.

Wow! I was really surprised by this game. At first I thought it'd be kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ or half baked, but its actually a nice little political-esc secret organization game with some nice puzzles. There are definitely some shallow or annoying bits like trying to figure out which business a random encounter occurred at but overall its solid. I they cleaned it up a little and kept working on it this could be a truly spectacular game. Right now its certainly worth your time. It has a good mix of interpersonal character stuff, business management, and more, though a few of the systems like the tech tree seem unnecessary or handled poorly, but regardless this game was really awesome to play with!

The premise is fantastic. Most things in your room can be interacted with and lead to further puzzles and stories. Control your spies and work your way through the city. The art design is a little unfortunate but could be fixed with later patches. https://youtu.be/SqKTBGbLbuk

Some things to keep in mind: - It can be a little demoralizing to read through the reviews and see so many red thumbs, the game certainly isn't for anyone, and it's not a AAA title with a huge development team. Sure. the UI is not crisp and clean, and things can be a little clunky, or unexplained. But improvements have been made with updates, and I'm confident with enough feedback, the developer would address this issue in a manner which everyone is at least less frustrated by. Personally I never had a problem with any of it, besides selecting an agent for an action. The wheel of agents they give you is useless once your agents number more than 8. - It is a little buggy from time to time, but the developer is very active and open to suggestions and reports. But like many games that are ambitious, bugs are par for the course. - There are choices you can make that impact the outcome of the story, so anyone saying the gameplay is shallow likely hasn't even completed the first few missions. There is a lot of replayability here, as well as different scenarios you can play. Not every character you meet in one playthrough will be in another (as far as I've found). Conclusion: If you're a spoiled brat and need information to be beautifully spoon-fed to you, you probably won't like this game. If you need lots of stimulation and instant gratification to meet your gaming needs, this is not for you. But if you enjoy diamonds in the rough, this game is for you. There are lots of easter eggs and puzzles, lots of problems that can be solved in a multitude of ways. Though it may be a niche' genre, a spymaster simulator is genius. It's 15$. You'll throw 60-70$ at a POS pushed out by EA. Give it a try, and interact with the developer/community. Give this game the foundation and support it truly deserves and lets see if it can't fulfill it's potential. I've put over 100 hours in, mostly because I love spy-stuff. But if you had to put your money behind any indie game, put it behind this one. I love it, and would recommend it to anyone who wants something more laid-back yet cerebral. Furthermore, the soundtrack is badass. Wanna relax and watch the waves roll in off the shore of your lakeside manor? You can. Wanna plot and scheme over the map to some ominous, brooding tones? You can. The atmosphere is very well done, and I found myself anticipating jump scares with just how on your toes some things can get you, and how immersed you can be as you read letters, decypher coded puzzles and contemplate the next steps you'll take. Just buy the damn thing. :)

The game still needs more polishing. The first spymater session is enough satisfying and the storytelling is quite reliable. There are a bunch of spark ideas during the first session gameplay including some right in time visual effect, some good cypher solving games and some well hidden bonus. The problems of first session could only be some buggy UI display and the strategy management part. I spent like 5 to 6 hours to totally break through the first session and to find out how naive the management part actually is. Beside the 10000 gold bonus and some other hidden bonus, I can just use some wine barrels, a 10 stealthy big boy and a 10 charming miss to burn all the houses to the ground without any real punishment. And the game is just like lying down there suffering from my giant gold ♥♥♥♥-play. I mean, you guys did a lot of great work in designing the dialogues and storytelling and visual effects and different strategy dealing with different situations. But why the actual management part is so disappointing. The balance of some punishment events and the credit bonuses is totally a mess. That's not cool at all. And I spent like 1 to 2 hours to try the second and third session. Well, what could I say. I think the true management part of the game is hidden in these two parts. Musclebird has combine the story and basic gameplay more compactly. But I could not play through because the increasing amounts of different credits are just too little. I can't find a good feeling of feedback after arranging all the agents and press the sand clock button. I admit that I may be impatient and I may be too cursory. But I just can't accept that the game tries to increase the difficulty by lacking the increase of these credits which could not fit in with the pace of the game (in my experience). Then why bother develop such good foundation of a source management system. Anyway, I still appreciate the artworks and some good ideas of small games like the negotiation part and mediation stuff. Keep up the good work.

This is horribly unpolished game with a clunky UI and shallow gameplay.