Lets get the verdict out of the way: *MISSED OPPORTUNITY!*
That being said, let me explain why the above has been determined after close to an hour of playing this game. This game has a poop show of misleading sales pitch in the “About” section of the games store page. Quite literally every single point that is made on the “About Page” uses a kernel of truth, that is worded in a way to bloat your expectations. Let me start by explaining the features point for point:
*This game is based on the popular table game “Are You a Werewolf?”*
Should have been a trigger warning that you based this around the bargain bin version of “The Village”. While not an inherently bad problem with the game, it is a symptom as the game itself seems to miss the most important part of the table top that makes that game so much fun… The player interactions. You have literally no legitimate character interactions in this game. Every “choice” you make just triggers unintelligible random numbers to determine if you are dead or alive each day.
*You and the rest of the participants bring his or her partner to the game.*
Excuse me? This is worded as if you are playing a multiplayer game, is that on the forecast for updates to the game? Its features like this that lead me to believe this is a early access title that is being marketed as a full release game.
*Each partner can use a unique ability which can be used to determine who are werewolves or protect yourself against their attacks.*
While this is technically true, it is so poorly implemented. Despite having abilities that should have saved me, I was still executed without reason or logic. Sure you have abilities. They don’t matter. I will explain this a little later.
*You partner can become better at executing this ability as you win more battles.*
This eludes to a leveling system in the game, where you can grow stronger/more powerful as the game progresses. An hour into the game, and I can see absolutely no relevance to the “character level” at all. Zero, none, nada, so either this feature is broken completely, or like many other gameplay mechanics, they don’t matter cause the AI can decide to arbitrarily kill you with no logic or reason.
*You are free to customize your partner’s character*
These options are so limited they might as well not be there. The developers descriptions keep eluding to a story, but there is nothing here. Your choices for your partner don’t matter, and the partner itself does quite literally nothing. What exactly is wrong with simply making the partner, your character? It makes no sense, and amounts to nothing gameplay wise, or narrative wise. Side note: Character voices sound like straight mumbling, and there are no English voice overs. Even in Japanese the voice overs are snippits and unintelligible.
*You don’t know how the story runs every time you play, you can enjoy playing the unique game forever!*
You don’t know the story cause there is no story. You cannot claim there is a story, when you provide no interactable characters with unique personalities, no instances of communicative dialogue/decisions that have any impact, and no narrative reason for anything to happen. The game is literally the same game each time, crafted as if the developers straight ripped off the rules from “Are you a werewolf” without ever playing the game to get inspiration.
Those features amount to a general state of false advertisement in this game (including the trailer). The game moves through the motions of the table top, but it leaves out all of the interactive story telling/narrative possibilities that simply interacting with characters would provide. There are no characters in this game in its current state. James, stein, marvin, etc etc, don’t matter.
You get to ask 1 of 4 questions each day. The “characters” will randomly provide no information, or an answer and all of the possibilities end there with no relevance. Soon as the choice is made, random numbers are rolled and you get to find out if you die or not.
If you don’t die, you get to use an ability to your “class”, but after an hour of playing the game, I never got to use a single ability as “knight”, “Fortune teller” or “priest”. Maybe it’s a random chance based on your level that your class will get to use the job? Game gives no indicator, like all other aspects of the game, it literally gives you zero information about how to play, what things do, and when you can use them. Even after an hour, amassing 44 coins, I was never able to use the shop which merits extra experience for classes. The whole experience leaves me feeling like this game is not finished.
Even if the intent of designing this game was to straight rip off the board game in an effort to cash out, the developers managed to some how leave out 75 percent of what makes the board game it was based on fun. (How the flip does that happen if you are interested in your craft?)
Don’t be a loser like me, don’t buy this game. Its not worth the dollar asking price.
In closing, there is no story in this game. There is no real gameplay in this game beyond straight random number generation. There is no value in this game. I would be curious to see if this game is still in development, and if it is, then get your ♥♥♥♥ properly represented devs. Stop being dishonest, its not necessary, and you do have a possibly interesting title if you gave it some actual effort.
Yet again, another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ werewolf title on steam. Maybe one day I will stop buying these and temper my expectations from “desperate consumer”.
