--- DEMO IMPRESSIONS, WALL OF TEXT FOLLOWS -- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED --
Full disclosure: I backed Overfall at the 8 dollar pledge level. While I had doubts (especially due to the artwork) about the game’s quality, I felt that in the worst-case scenario I could just consider it part of my charity budget for the month.
I started the demo expecting not to like it. The
faux-chibi style for the characters was a huge turn-off from the get-go, and I was expecting animation to be crap, as it usually is the case with indie games. I’m a very visual person so I like smooth animation in my games.
Not a lot of options on the start screen (understandable for a demo), New Game brings you to the party creation screen but there are no creation options at all (not so understandable).
You get a warrior and a cleric and no other classes (and can’t even choose to start with two of the same class) and all you get are their default abilities, all the rest is locked.
While I understand that the roguelike element of the game is exactly about dying and unlocking new stuff for future playthroughs, it feels like a missed opportunity not to give demo players some leeway right at the start. The demo would be much more interesting if you could play around with at least a couple of variables. Desktop Dungeons did this right from the start.
Moving on, next you get to the overworld where you control your little ship. Animation is pleasant - nice surprise! - and while it’s a bit weird that all the islands have the same shape and size, at least there are a few ships sailing around. You can interact with all of them, though it’s all useless dialogue - demo restrains I’m sure. So far, did not find any ship that would trigger combat or a mission.
Same with the islands, every each one you sail to is either empty or has a character pointing you towards the One True Demo Quest. Ok, I get it!
So I follow the golden marker at the edge of the screen until I get to the island with the golden exclamation mark floating above it. What does archaic symbol mean,I wonder? Is the island surprised?
But no, turns out that reaching the island triggers some dialogue (all dialogue is very sparse and to-the-point, btw - and eminently skippable if that is your thing) in a pretty-as-picture screen where you see your party and some NPCs standing around. Click, click, combat screen!
On the first fight, a new character pops up, saying she’ll join me against my werepig opponents. Then combat starts, and I get to move my fighter and cleric around in an hex-based grid.
Each turn takes three phases - movement, utility (buff and debuff) and attack, in this order. You can skip a phase but you can’t switch them around. This is my first disappointment as it immediately removes a great deal of tactical options.
On each phase you can do one of 2-3 actions, each with it’s own cooldown. So for example, if you use the warrior's special “move” skill, where he jumps many hexes away causing a shockwave, on his next turn you’ll only be able to walk regularly. In the same manner, if you use the cleric’s healing utility on her buff phase, on the next buff phase you’ll have to chose between one of the other two (or none).
This works kinda nicely. On many similar games, you pick the most effective skill and spam it every turn until out of MP/SP, here you are actually forced into thinking ahead and deciding on pros and cons.
The skills themselves have a nice variety, though some clearly need some work. For example the cleric’s movement skill purportedly “pulls a friend towards you and heals him/her”, but you can only use it in melee range so the “pull” part of the effect is null. What’s the point? Doesn’t even feel like a movement skill at all. I’m guessing the intention is for it to work like WoW’s Priest
Leap of Faith but at the moment it’s basically giving a hug and healing 2HP.
Also lukewarm on the animation, a sticking point of me. The regular movement and most attacks are smooth which actually impressed me as I had low expectations, but there’s little to no feedback when characters are hit. I expect some reaction when a big werepig hits my character with an axe, perhaps some stagger and a crunchy sound effect. It doesn’t have to be a Square-Enix cutscene, but make it feel like something happened besides numbers coming up. I was immediately reminded of
Vandal Hearts as an example of how you can have nice visual and aural feedback even on this “budget” art / graphic style.
Apart from these flaws, I was pleased and properly engaged during the fight. Later I could take the guest NPC as a party member and found her abilities more interesting and flexible than those of both my starting characters.
The rest of the demo was a similar cycling of light storytelling / combat screens. At some point I could make a couple of decisions of how to progress the narrative based on my party members, but it was exclusively for flavor and did not affect the following fight in any way.
Then I had to stop playing, and upon restarting learned that the demo doesn't save progress. A second play-through got me killed far earlier and I was a bit bored and got reckless right from the start. I'll link to the video as soon as it's uploaded, so you can make fun of my voice and incompetence, as well as hear any comments I might have forgotten to make here.
So my verdict on the demo is that it was better than I expected and did not repulse me enough to remove my 8 dollar pledge. It’s actually more polished than most Kickstarters I see doing the rounds, and probably worth a look.
