Today's game for Club Members, tomorrow's game for all.

You can download Kingmaker: Rise to the Throne Collector's Edition here.



As always, please remember to come back and tell us what you think.

Happy gaming!

Thanks, Marian!

Ana

The developer is Cordelia Games, who also brought us one of last week's games, Path of Sin: Greed Collector's Edition.

Could be a good story, original. Almost "Game of Thrones"-ish. At least it isn't all about witches, and that would make a nice change.

I'm trying this. The graphics are good thus far, and someone thought to keep the opening scene from being too static; for example, a horse moves a bit. I'm not thrilled about having to find a whetstone (flint) twice but maybe they are different objects that merely look alike. All I can say at this point is that Kingmaker is pretty enough to have caught my attention sufficiently to give the demo a whirl.

Marian, is Cordelia owned by Artifex Mundi?

I believe that Artifex Mundi is the publisher for Cordelia Games. Artifex Mundi used to be a developer (Enigmatis, Nightmares from the Deep,etc.) and now they are a publisher of HOPAs for other developers.

I just did the demo, and I like this one. The graphics are excellent quality, and there is a story-line that holds together (at least this far, LOL)

I'm gonna go buy it. Let's hope they don't give us a maze. I hate mazes. Oh, sorry - have I said that before??

I saw this upcoming game on Steam yesterday called Irony Curtain: From Matryoshka with Love that shows Artifex Mundi as both the developer and publisher. It is listed as Indie, Adventure, Point & Click, 2D.

That's interesting, oldbroad. I think Artifex Mundi just got out of the business of developing HOPAs. They seem to have a lot of irons in the fire these days.

Note left by the pillager in chief to his underlings, "Don't forget to ransack the place."

Well, of course not. What kind of villain do you take me for? Forget to ransack and plunder? The very idea. Shocking, I tell you.

When there is a sale, I will buy Kingmaker on the basis of the artwork and with fingers crossed that the standalone puzzles become more challenging.

Marian, that's ironies in the fire. I'm going to keep an eye out for Irony Curtain.

For anyone interested, you can get the game today for 50% off. Big Fish is having a sale on Artifex Mundi games. It would cost 6.99 or 9.99, depending upon whether or not you are a Game Club member.

I bought Kingmaker. The graphics remain sightly, and the use of too bright saturated colors is restrained admirably. While I do sometimes like games with that palette, I think Cordelia made a wise aesthetic choice in not taking that direction.

There's some opening of caches to get everyday objects no sane person would hide. This is nowhere near as annoying as it would be in a modern setting.

The entire town seems empty because something is amiss so the citizenry apparently has taken shelter elsewhere, a good solution to the deserted streets of adventure games problem.

I'm still playing and am reminded of an old Norse saying that I first saw in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, "Bare is brotherless back."

So far, the music is okay and not oppressive except To avoid the overly dramatic music at these points, I temporarily have been toggling it off completely and turning the audio of way down.

For me, the HOs are almost pretty enough in terms of artwork and almost interesting enough in terms of object choices. Some are handled with more creativity by several powers than I usually encounter.

ETA for the 7th or 8th time: I am enjoying Kingmaker enough that I left the game to look up the word "sabaton" despite the fact the meaning is clear in the context because I suspected the definition would be amusing. It was.

Here is tidbit from Wikipedia so who knows if it's correct: "Fourteenth and fifteenth century sabatons typically end in a tapered point well past the actual toes of the wearer's foot, following fashionable shoe shapes of the fourteenth century....At least in theory, French princes and dukes were allowed to have toes of Gothic sabatons 2.5 feet (0.76 m) long, lords (barons and higher) 2 feet long and gentry only 1 foot (0.30 m) long."

The sabatons in Kingmaker look far more serviceable.

Finished main game: Way too short and way too easy. Lots of potential.

Thank you for your thoughts on this game. I had read a few people saying that the game was too short. I rarely pay attention to comments such as those because so often the pronouncement of a game being short can be subjective and I don't always agree with their assessment. Having said that, it does indeed sound like the game is on the shorter side. That's okay with me. I still think most of these games are a darn good deal, even when they are not all that long.

Nice to know the meaning of sabaton.

Marion, I didn't say I was sorry I bought it.

I have high hopes for Cordelia. If the quality of the graphics remains as high as in Kingmaker and the stories aren't chopped off at the knees, I'll be a happy buyer of future efforts.

ETA: I should have said of the stories not "chopped off at the poleyns."

I didn't think you were, 8dognight. I apologize if I conveyed that impression.

The other new game by Cordelia Games is Path of Sin: Greed, released very recently.

Next up should be something called Skyland: Heart of the Mountain.

I'm trying Path of Sin: Greed. It has a modern setting and starts out with breathtakingly entertaining opening lines about characters and location. Stylistically Cordelia is right on the money again although my personal preference is for the Kingmaker milieu with screens like an HO in a tack room. In Path of Sin I have added a polo mallet to inventory; I suspect it's an elegant and creative variation of a hammer to smash something.

I'm glad to hear you are playing it. If you could put any further comments about the game into our Path of Sin: Greed thread here, it would be appreciated. Keep us posted.

Bonus Game: How our hero rides out of town is certainly possible.

[img]http://www.pinterest.com/pin/219832025531367445/[/img]

However, something tells me the team at Cordelia wasn't giving the bonus material its best effort.

ETA: After riding in pursuit of the villain, Kingmaker dismounts at a crossroads and says to himself about his placidly grazing steed


A credo practiced from time immemorial by every self-respecting person with animals is, take care of your animals before yourself. There was a Civil War command maxim "feed your horses, feed your men, then feed yourself" which summed up this ancient wisdom. All that was necessary to have the character's actions and motivation make sense was to say something along those lines.

ETA Again: I didn't mind because, hey, as far as I'm concerned Kingmaker's parallel universe is allowed the occasional anachronism but just as correctly identifying sabatons and not calling them, for example, greaves added to verisimilitude and player immersion, 30 seconds on a search engine would have distinguished reins from a breastplate that appeared from nowhere. I emphatically am not being too nitpicky. I was playing a game and thinking: Here is a new developer who is bothering to get things right enough that the world feels genuine. I don't want that to disappear.

Great discussion you two -

I also have finished the game and the bonus game, and agree with everything 8dog said.

Yes, the main segment was somewhat short but not unforgivingly so; I can imagine it might have to do with the elaborate artwork; some of the scenarios only needed a small input from the player, but looked like they took quite a bit of time (read: money) to create.

And the horse

I digress: I can remember writing a guide and review for a game a while back, and I remarked that the game was too short. I was cut to shreds by the game developers for that 'opinion' in spite of the fact that after playing through and learning the game (it was an ornate French medeival something-or-other) It was possible to play it through the entire game in 18 minutes!! Turned out that was their last attempt at game creation.

I undigress: Just checked out the demo of Path of Sin . . . looks pretty good.

'night all.

Thank you for your thoughts about the game, Tally Ho.

Marion, do you know when Skyland: Heart of the Mountain is being released?

No, I don't have a release date - I just know it's in the works. You can watch a beta version of the early part of the game on YouTube.

I just went back to finish the bonus game. Tally Ho nailed it. That's

ETA: I almost never complete the bonus games. I did this one solely because the Kingmaker visuals are stunning. Maria Sitnikova got the lead credit; Matteus Krsyzok was the first person listed under developers.

Absolutely great game but a bit short:)

I'm glad you enjoyed it.