Yaengard

This game, once again seems to be just a... hair JUST A SMIDGE away from being great. Suggestions: Outdated-((Zone of control should be a more prevalent thing, if you attack a person in melee it should count as control (Dashes and ranged attacks not withstanding) It feels pretty bad not to be able to protect your back line very well even with ZOC classes)) There needs to be more events with after consequences not even rewards just a little blurb like "Thank you for saving me from these zombies, you are true adventurers." sort of dealio -edit- With the addition of the new engaged mechanic it allows the game to feel like positioning matters more, I feel like changing my review to reflect that is important. All in all 8.5 out of 10 Really looking forward to seeing how this game pans out. (Edit written stone cold sober.. unfortunately) This review was written on 2 bottles of wine and 1 bottle of champagne.

Wow! This game scratches an itch that I didn't know that I had! I am enjoying it immensely and I can tell that it's going to be a very hard game for me to put down. It directly appeals to my addictive nature, lol! The graphics are reminiscent of "For the King", but that's where the similarity ends. The play-style reminds me of a mixture of "Slay the Spire" (the map and cards) and "Wildermyth" (story-based adventure starting from being nobodies to being heroes). It's like playing a table-top game but, for me, it's far more engrossing than that. I've only played a little over an hour, but I plan on playing a whole lot more this evening after work! This is one of those games that have me thinking about it all day long, longing for the time that I can play it again! I definitely recommend this game!

This game is fun but in need of tweaking with being so fresh. My "not Reccomended" review is mostly due to a lack of polish (will likely change in time). The mechanics are engaging and interesting enough where I enjoying thinking about them more. The art style while simplistic is easy on the eyes and you can always tell whats happening on screen (even when I was watching it on Splattercat). Upsides: - Environments are nice. Some environments are reused frequently (forgivable). - Weapons and stats are clear and tell you what each does with a tooltip (and what each weapon classifies as). - The world is flashed out lorewise nicely having recogniseable NPC's at a glance (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Aard, stop gambling) - The overmap is nice often allowing you to "pick your poison" on what to encounter. Now keep in mind with th ebelow I want to see this game flourish. Keep in mind, this is from the standpoint of someone who thinks Hardcore is the best way to play: - Normal playthrough is non ideal. When you die, you have an option to come back with more weapons/healing at the expense of enemies getting more threat. This does not work as if your stuck on a boss, there is little you can do as the more you die, the worse the boss making an infinite problem for yourself. - Early game sucks. If you are funnelled into skill checks before the first inn, more often thannot its a 50-50 unless you go with an option related to the one you first give a personality trait to. This isnt fun. I do have some solutions like making it so adopting a personality gives a minor stat boost (+1, nothing too big but it makes a difference). Another one is making some starting jobs giving a +2 in one area. - Underutilised arsenal. 3 particular weapon types are exceeding rare which annoys me. The ability to get a Rogue, Artistry or Ancestry (sometimes see more of those) is rare. I have only ever used 2 Artistries and rogue weapons feel they only drop from certain events. Ancestry weapons I occasionally get but ehh. Keep in mind I am yet to beat the Blood Baronness. I hope this game gets traction, its scratching an odd itch for strategy roleplaying games. Good luck developers

This game is not what I expected it to be. You can't just build a character and have some fun molding a personality with some good tactical combat. You only have 3 "stamina" points per character, and every action you take outside of combat will cost a stamina point. When these stamina points are depleted your character gets a severe debuff in combat "exhausted": you only get one action per turn with an exhausted character, either attack or move. In order to replenish these stamina points you have to rest at an inn, and upon resting at an inn the enemies in the world will get stronger. It's really unnecessary in my opinion. And it makes the whole experience to me very unfun. I hate when games limit you in these ways.

Very bare bones game that feels like a very early access. Many core things are not functioning properly, not properly explained, some things just should have been rethought, and oh yeah causes crashes/reboots. This game is like roshambo, yeah it feels good to win I guess but ultimately I'm just getting kicked in the nuts.

Yaengard brings a lot of ideas to the table of indie rpgs as a hybrid between turn based strategy and disco elysium-esque party builder. The vast amount of weapons with unique skill combinations turns the combat into a game of "which party composition leads to the craziest combo" and the personality system takes this even further. It might not be the longest indie rpg out there but the class system lends itself very well to repeat playthroughs. The end of act 1 felt like a spike in difficulty to a level not really seen again until the end of the game, which is a bit unfortunate as I would have liked to see some added challenge to the second half of the game. Yaengard shows a ton of promise, I especially adore the personality system and the flavor it gives your party. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys party building, tactical combat and crazy combos

The combat may be more simplified than the Xcom style turn-based strategy counterparts from whom it draws inspiration, but it does not suffer for it. The game really shines with its class and character trait systems. You start the game with three random nobodies. These nobodies receive an incriminating letter, prompting a northward journey to seek destiny. You lead your adventurers on increasingly difficult northward outings, book-ended by resting at inns. Unfortunately for you, resting at an inn permanently increases the difficulty of every future enemy encounter, so you must use sparingly. Between your inn respites, your party encounters missions, which will typically require either direct combat or dialogue/action decisions. You choose which character makes the choices in those situations and they receive a permanent personality adjustment based on the results. And there are a LOT of personality alignment spectrums, all of which co-exist while providing perks to respective the adventurer. Along with personality development, every character has a class. The current class is based on what types of weapons the person is wielding. Two martial melee weapons? Hello berserker. A Dagger and spellbook? You got yourself a spellblade. The classes are distinct but very well balanced, and there are so many (21) that the game actively encourages you to mix and match weapon combinations to discover new classes for yourself. It's REALLY engaging. Overall I recommend, I'm having a blast. It probably won't scratch the hardcore itch that a seasoned iron-man Xcom run would provide, but much like its' characters, this games magic is in its personality.

I don't like doing this to indie games but I have to give it a thumbs down. It's not bad, per se, it just gets very repetitive. It's very confusing to start and took me a whole Act to understand the mechanics, but once I did, it was just the same thing over and over again. Combat became extremely repetitive. It's hard to plan character builds in this game, there's a lot of RNG (feels like more than most tactical RPGs), and while there are many "classes", I find most of them to be not that useful or that differentiated. After 18 hrs in, I'm having a really hard time finding the motivation to finish.

Had fun for a few hours, but maybe im not getting the finer strategy of the game. I find it got very repetitive in combat since there's not really any terrain, just a few squares that don't seem to have much strategy to them. If the combat wasn't so boring i would likely play more Again not a bad game, it just gets boring quickly

The lack of healing is annoying. Maybe I haven't come across it yet, but have already faced the first boss. Plus as other reviewers have noted, it is so easy to have full health characters just slaughtered by peasents before you even have your first round. With no healing and the penalty for using an inn? Extremely frustrating.