Recent reviews by Rustal

My 3rd grade teacher was right, I did end up using basic math for something important

This game is proof of what happens when people actually care.

You ever play something so wholesome that it makes you question your entire worldview?

This is what Bethesda's good devs were actually working on

Massive amounts of green flickering if you have the Depth of Field effect on, which ties together the whole look of the game. Bad port.

Are you someone who misses the era of good, no-nonsense arcade racing games? Do you remember the weirder arcade racers and how they were all kind of broken but sort of fun in their own way? Do you ever wonder about what could have been if studios kept developing them and making them better? Distance is a developer's answer to that question- an arcade racer with long, linear, narrow tracks demanding extreme reflexes and improvisation.

You control an acrobatic automobile that navigates laser arrays, metal grinders, and sentient barriers all while trying to jump and boost between sections of road oriented at all possible angles. Your vehicle can fluidly perform an array of maneuvers to get through the various deathtraps that await on each course.

The game's campaign boasts an incredible soundtrack, amazing atmosphere, and a light story told purely through the environment and minimal dialogue. It introduces each maneuver, level by level, and slowly combines them. By the end, stages demand that you use every manuver fluently to even get between checkpoints, and getting a good time in Arcade mode requires mastery and precision of each mechanic. Even so, the game's generous checkpointing system ensures that retries are quick and streamlined, causing you to only ever lose a few seconds at most and preventing frustration.

The variety of levels in the Arcade mode is also something to applaud, with a range of aesthetics and unique obstacles that keep things fresh. The game also boast a procedurally generated level creation mode, but it typically only provides simpler tracks with some aesthetic twists (when provided a good seed). The Steam Workshop has a range of levels that also provide another vector for new content.

This is a game that doesn't go too far beyond its scope, but fulfills its ambition extremely well. The price point to content ratio might be a bit low for what most players would expect, but the experience is so unique and exciting that I'd recommend it anyway. On sale, it's a no-brainer.

A nearly perfect extension of a tabletop adventure boardgame (e.g. Runebound 3E or Nemo's War) as a videogame. I've wanted something like this since I've started playing adventure boardgames, since there's a lot that can be done by using a digital medium to run the game.

There's a great number of things that make the game work so well:

- All the core mechanics and information are well presented and intuitive. Working out how to manipulate the game to your favor comes naturally after understanding a few simple core concepts. While there's a ton of RNG, you always know your odds and understand how to change them.

- Abstracting away all of the dice rolls and upkeep makes gameplay progress really quickly, which allows for a lengthier campaign and a wider range of concurrent mechanics without overwhelming the player with complexity.

- The simple overall objectives allow for a greater focus on the core tabletop gameplay and random events, which results in a gripping "one more turn" syndrome that can keep you playing way longer than you may have intended.

- The RNG makes the combat really emotionally intense at times due to the combination of permadeath and the aformentioned clarity of probabilities. You'll have turns that get you really angry, and other turns that have you jumping out of your seat in excitement.

- The UI is fluid and lacks any significant hitches or hangups. Other tabletop style videogames sometimes have UI issues that seriously ruin the flow of the game (looking at you, Armello), and almost none of that is found here. The only complaint that comes to mind is the text box to transfer gold can lose focus rather easily.

There are a few design decisions that are initially offputting:

- The management of your heroes in the overworld phase can take some getting used to. Some of the mechanics on combat grouping are not explained well, even though they're easily discernable via the UI and after going through one or two examples when playing. This may be more difficult for players who aren't familiar with tabletop adventure games.

- The game can seem like it's progressing too quickly, especially on the first several runs. Learning how to move efficiently and manage Chaos (the game's implementation of a doom timer) is essential to succeed. If you're played Runebound 3E (especially solo), the pace feels a bit like some of the harder scenarios there. The developers have added a "House Rules" option that can help adjust this depending on your preference, which actually goes a long way towards solving this issue. I also recommend playing on the easiest difficulty for the first several runs.

- Some of the Lore unlocks (the "rouge-lite" permanent shop) feel necessary to do well. The random event unlocks are particularly egregious since they're all extremely beneficial when encountered. Some of the items can be game-changers as well.

- The length of the campaign (several hours long) can mean failing a run feels very devastating. Players who are about the destination, and not as much the journey, will be extremely frustrated by this.

- The game is also lacking some variety in random events, which I'm hoping will be fleshed out over the course of early access. The beginning of the game in particular needs some love, since it's when the combat is weakest due to the lack of more complex abilities and items. Adding more unique random events would help reduce early-game tedium.

I haven't been this emotionally invested in a videogame in a while. For me, this usually only happens with physical boardgames, since they offer more obvious and clear decisions within a single turn with immediately palpable rewards and consequences. For The King offers that same experience in a format that takes full advantage of its digital platform in order to provide a unique experience that is rare to come by, and even harder to do well.