Technomancy by Lorestrome Productions

 

In Technomancy: A guide to the supernatural in a world ran by steam and electricity, we play as Lor Obscura, a librarian (with a gun) looking for an enchanted lantern. Unfortunately the train on which he's travelling is attacked by some hostile creatures called Nuls. What's even worse is that the train is destroyed, and Lor finds himself stranded in the desert in a bandit infested area, but he joins forces with the quirky ratman mage Cimo to escape and reach the nearest town, Toval... the place where the magic lantern is located. Will the two unlikely allies recover this legendary relic?

 

 

Technomancy is an unfortunately short demo with many great ideas. The setting is a sort of Weird West with magic and monsters, but the game is rather light on combat, focusing more on puzzles and exploration, but maybe this is because this was the first chapter of a bigger adventure, so characters possess no skills and few equipments they can use. Anyway the aestetics, consisting in edits and some custom art, are really unique.

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de

Random Fact: almost every map fills entirely a single screen. There are only two maps that will scroll, being bigger than a single screen: one is the first area on the train, the second is the world map.

 

 

Final Verdict: this is one of the demos that I enjoyed and really made me hope for more. The setting and story are charming and interesting. What are these Nuls? Which is the power of the lantern? What will be Lor's next mission? I guess we will never know!

Grissan by Spirit Young

Grissan is a cowboy that seems a hybrid between Chuck Norris and Roland Deschain from The Dark Tower Series. Like Roland, in fact, our Grissan travels through a land populated by mutants and zombies. A ghost warns Grissan that an evil creatures, the Deity, wants him dead. So our hero starts his hunt.
I warn you that this game is an exaggerate parody with strong language and some politically incorrect situations: for example Grissan is a violent badass that heals sniffing "magic marching powder". The complete adventure lasts for about one hour.

Grissan is a short game that has more in common with the choose-your-own-adventure games than to rpgs: this is a series of battles interspersed with the occasional dialogue and choice, for example in some parts we can choose to trade with some vendor or decide which path Grissan will take to reach Deity. In some cases it's possible to fight more battles for extra loot, but there are no experience points nor levels, and Grissan will upgrade his stats during some specific points (like when finding some steroids). It's a short and peculiar game.

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

Random Fact: Grissan uses a single map, and everything happens on battle backgrounds, including all the dialogues. We only see Grissan's and the other people faces in the portraits, but the visual is always in first person. Despite this, the use of various sprites, animations and sounds really makes the game more dynamic.

Final Verdict: Grissan is not a classic or even game that can be taken seriously, it's cheesy, has many typos and even the name and title is often mispelled during the game. Despite this it's still and enjoyable parody with some funny moments.