i just beat a video game.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > i just beat a video game.

ZCKaiser: Feb 13, 2014

I just beat In Stars and Time, an indie RPG that just came out. It's really good! Very charming, I love the cast, the main crew are all well fleshed out characters and a joy to watch interact. Probably my favorite RPG of the year even above Octopath 2 and Baldur's Gate 3.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2023 05:15

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 01:02

ZCKaiser: Feb 13, 2014

Ineffiable posted:

I actually have my eye on that game. How long did it take to beat?

20ish hours, I'd say. I didn't hundred percent it or anything, so I could probably wring a few more hours out of it if I was inclined to try and see everything.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2023 22:49

ZCKaiser: Feb 13, 2014

Tortolia posted:

Last night I finished Gnosia, a very cool little title. Gnosia is effectively a Very Weird Sci-Fi take on a Werewolf/Mafia simulator, where you play through a number of loops of the game with a variety of NPC crew members present; the gameplay revolves around debate sessions where the crew decides who is a probable Gnosia (the werewolf analogue) and tries to stop them by voting them into cold sleep. As you go through these loops and various permutations of role assignments for the crew, you see a number of events; some give you background on the crew, some teach you skills you can use during the debates, and some flesh out the broader mystery of why you and another crew member are time looping and how to stop it. There's also the complication of a special non-human/Gnosia role known as the Bug, effectively a walking paradox; if the Bug makes it to the end of the round without being put into cold sleep or scanned by an Engineer, they win by, uh, destroying the entire universe.

It's a fun game. The actual debates can get a bit repetitive in terms of dialogue since there's a relatively limited pool of statements each character has, but the devs did a really great job at actually designing the characters and giving them specific strengths/weaknesses and personalities that you have to learn to work with - and around. One character is incredibly adept at spotting lies but is effectively doomed the moment they have to try to tell one. Another character has high overall stats but is basically insane so he doesn't use any of them well. Another character has good logical and analytical capabilities but is so abrasive that they'll often get voted out purely because nobody wants to deal with them. Another plays almost entirely on emotion and if you get on her bad side, regardless of whether or not you're on the same team, look out. Learning the character styles fleshes out the debates, because you have to decide how best to handle each round - who's a threat, who's a potential ally and who's just acting weird. If someone everyone tends to hate suddenly has a bunch of supporters this round, they may well all be Gnosia. This ties into the fact that you get to choose your own stats and build and decide the approach you want to take; I went extremely high in intuition (spotting lies), performance (telling lies) and logic, but was generally weak in terms of keeping below the radar and lost a bunch of sessions because I made too many folks angry even when I was right about something.

Definitely worth a look if you're curious how a well handled single player social deduction game would play out, or if you just like weird sci-fi settings. It plays well and each loop is pretty speedy, and the game has a nice feature where you can have it set specific round parameters that can potentially trigger new events for you to help you progress. It is, however, very much not a visual novel at its core and just uses some of the trappings; Raging Loop is the flipside where the focus is the VN and the Werewolf games are more set dressing.

Did you get the epilogue? If not, create a new file with the same name (and possibly gender) as your original.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2024 19:08

ZCKaiser: Feb 13, 2014

Fat Samurai posted:

That looks interesting. Do I have to play the prequel(?) prologue (?) or whatever Start Again is, to get it?

You do not; Start Again is more akin to a prototype than a prequel is my understanding.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 18:13

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