This game has recently launched a Greenlight campaign and looks like an interesting blench of #pointandclick and RPG, with an intriguing premise and seems to include elements that you would not necessarily expect in this sort of game. Obviously don't know what it will turn out but it's certainly got me intrigued!

http://www.indiegamenews.com/2016/10/sci-fi-game-asylopole-now-on-steam.html

I moved you to the DArkSide CaptainD. Thanks for the headsup!

The character "Stat" references seem minimal (Strength, Stamina, Health.) I don't see any mention of a character development tree, so that would pull it out of the RPG realm. From what little information that can be gleaned on it's gameplay, I think this would be closer to Action/Adventure.

The dev himself describes it as an "old-school adventure game".

In case anyone's interested this is the clarification the dev gave on another forum:

"Like classical adventure games you can speak with (strange) characters, collect items, resolve puzzles.

And yes, side elements like fights, mini-games, “Ultranet” and a few more(most of them are optional).

In a lot of adventure games, you need to do some “things” before going into a new location. For example: If you don’t speak with this “X” character or grab this “Y” item, you can’t go anywhere. The game is “stuck in time” and wait the player.
When you start Asylopole you can already discover the megalopolis, the asylum, some stores, restaurants, read recent comments, send messages… Of course you can just follow the main quest and ignore some locations / characters. But if you want, you can explore, unlock side quests, eventually fight villains, etc and learn more about the background. The game isn’t linear.
By doing more quests, you gain exp for improve your stats. Stats are useful for fighting things. So yes it looks a bit like a RPG but this is not the core of the game."

Thanks

The RPG vs Action/Adventure genre is always a source for confusion.

The main feature for an RPG, aside from story driven quests (traditionally with multiple outcomes) is a character that can be both customized and is "highly statistical" in that the character's attributes (over and above the overarching stats of Health, Stamina, Magic and so on) can be changed to fit a specific character type, class and sometimes race. The selections made to customize a starter character determines base stats and attributes. Those attributes (stealth, lock picking, heavy armor, large weapons use and so on) are increased and have sub-branches that both advance and can be further customized as the character levels. While several newer RPG's have simplified the character development tree systems, they still retain the base branching/leveling that defines the system. The internal combat algorithms also tend to be much more complex, even if they appear to be real time.

An Action/Adventure while it can be most definitely story driven, has little or no initial character customization, relies more on very specific actions or choices to advance the story and usually has a single or two dimensional leveling system with only the base stats and potentially a few "talents" that may or may not be impacted by advancement of the base stats or character level. Optional or required mini-games are not unusual in either genre. Combat formulas also tend to be fairly straight forward usually only taking into account a characters base stats, maybe a talent bonus and the strength of the weapon they are using.

So, given the aforementioned stat feature and it sounds like there is combat involved, which would not be something you'd find in a traditional Adventure game, I think this fits nicely into the Action/Adventure genre.

TM

Great explanation. Thanks, Trail