I'm changing this review to 'recommend'. The developer has made a lot of positive changes over the last few days - you can tell he's really put some time in, and he is clearly listening to the community and implementing suggestions.

It's still not Baldur's Gate or OOTP, but I think Redemption is at a point now where it's worth $3.99. My impression is that the dev is going to be improving this for a while longer yet.

I'll keep my original review below so it is still on record, but this applies to the original version that I bought on the release date.

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For the first five minutes, it looks like this game is going to be great. You review the different characters you can hire, and they have detailed looking descriptions like, 'Derp of Derpville tends to make bad decisions under pressure'.

And then you get to the actual gameplay and there's nothing there at all. You don't directly control the party during the quests, which is fine, but you don't get anything that bonds you to the characters which is really what this game should be about. There's a handful of attributes for each character, but no individual stats or personality to them. I've just spent over an hour playing, and I can't tell you the name of any one of my characters.

And that bit of detail in my first paragraph about someone not handling pressure? You can't see that, or anything like that, having an effect on the game mechanics at all. Same with morale.

People are saying that this is like an OOTP Baseball for fantasy role playing. Well, I've been playing OOTP for 13 years and games like it for much longer than that. And no... it's not like OOTP in the least. It has very vague aspirations in that direction but it's far too simplistic. It's more like a very basic mobile game that's been converted to PC. You will see everything that this game has to offer in the first 10-15 minutes of play. The artwork is fairly nice, but that doesn't mean anything in games like this.

I hope the devs continue to add depth to this game because the concept is good. But until then I can't recommend it even at this really cheap price.

I don't understand the people bashing this game. I'd recommend playing it for longer than 20 minutes before leaving a scathing review.

This is a great game. If you ever wanted to play a management game a la Footy Sim but dont give a s**t about sports, then this is the game for you. I mean, it's not nearly as in-depth as sports management games, but it doesn't need to be. It's got the right amount of everything.

If you are a huge fantasy nerd, (like me) and want a change of pace from your standard RPG, pick this up!

Redemption: Eternal quest is a game like Football Manager for Roleplaying/Dungeoneering.

You have less, and no direct, influence, just in critical moments. You can heal and train your characters in between quests. You get to make decisions while on a quest: Which path of two are you going to take? Do we enter the ruins or not? Who will go on the quest?

It's quite simple and entertaining, with a nice, narrating touch to it. The music adds to this storytelling atmosphere.
It's like a roleplaying book in its game flow.

The game in its current form entertained me quite a while, trying out specializations and strategies - it helps if you like numbers, though, and keep track of your characters.

The author so far makes regular updates and there is still much which can be expanded and filled with some flesh in this game. Also, access to character information in all screens would help the game, as you wont need a "cheat sheet" with your characters next to you while playing.

But all in all it's a pleasurable experience. Casual, fun and ideal if you have your head full with other things: Then it will relax and entertain very effectively.

I'd buy it again, no doubt, for its full price. And if it should happen to be on a sale and you like the idea, just go for it! You won't regret it. It is fully functional and for me, it was bug free.

Thumbs up!

True to its name, there is no 'winning' in Redemption Eternal Quest, just on-going-ness. Given that there isn't really any dynamic play or surprise events, I imagine REQ to be the kind of game that would be popular on Facebook or as a mobile game--in-game purchases, linking with 'friends,' & timing out tasks. If you take all that away, you get this sort of game--not a dull but not compelling enough to return to with any regularity.

Nice little fantasy sim game, but needs some work. This is one of those lukewarm "thumbs-in-the-middle" recommendations.

This game gets unfairly dinged because people/reviewers don't take the time to realize what kind of game this is-- a simulation game. You don't embark on the quests yourself, there is no "combat" even point-and-click. You just hire/fire adventurers, pay their contracts, train them, choose what locations you want to visit and which adventurers you want to send, and reap the rewards (or pay the consequences). You also obtain minion cards that you use in certain "battles" against other monsters (see screenshot #6 on the store page).

The game is actually kind of fun if you like this kind of simulation game, but it lacks polish and had at least one serious bug I encountered that required essentially starting over.

Pros:
(+) Configuration options (duration, whether or not heroes can die, etc.-- see screenshot #2)
(+) Basic gameplay (choosing adventurers, quests, entering "dungeons" etc.) is fun although rather basic
(+) Fun little events, decision points, and "character development"
(+) Minion art
(+) You can rename your heroes to make them seem more "personal"
(+) Low price, and has been in bundles
Cons:
(-) Character art- they all look very similar, no female adventurers
(-) Serious bug in my playthrough where quest counter reset after reloading a save (it was a 30 quest sim, so basically I had to start over)
(-) A fair amount of RNG such that you're not sure if there's anything you can really base your choices on, vs. it all being complete luck
(-) minimal non-looping music (although what there is isn't bad)
(-) No resolution options, no fullscreen option...just a window
(-) User interface is subpar-- generally no "cancel" option
(-) Few steam features: has cards, but no overlay, screenshots, cloud saves, or achievements.

So although overall it's maybe a 6/10, it's cheap and kind of fun. Could go to 7 or 8 out of 10 with some additional polish (art, music), bugfixes, UI improvements, and maybe a little more gameplay.

Not bad.

Short Review:
This is worth a few hours of play time, but its value beyond that is dubious.

Long Review:
I actually paid 99 cents for the game, despite clicking the button saying I did not as I reviewed it. To say a game is not "worth" 99 cents is one thing, while to not recommend it is another. Is the game worth 99 pennies? Maybe. 199 pennies? Perhaps. Do I recommend you spending any number of pennies on this? No.

What to expect, from my game journal:

[8 September 2016]
I bought this game based on its self-description: “a casual RPG/Sim game which combines the feel of an RPG with roster management sim mechanics.” Thus far, it is exactly what I was looking for, but whatever RPG elements are purportedly within the game, I cannot find them. It seems more like a fantasy sim would be a more apt description, the RPG element being a misnomer without more role playing elements to the game. In that sense, it might be better described as a JRPG without any combat or storyline. But with all critique of the self-description aside, the first hour of playing it was a lot of fun, though repetitive. As for how repetitive, I haven’t decided yet.

[13 September 2016]
As soon as Heroes of the Storm went down for maintenance, but only after realizing that all Blizzard games were going down for maintenance, I decided this a good chance to break down the game’s nuts and bolts. Overall, the game is pretty intuitive, assuming that the player reads the text tips on each screen.
To kick things off, you have the choice of how long of a campaign you want to play, limited either by a term of years or a fixed amount of quests unless selecting the endless campaign option. Then, you’re given some gold and told to hire six adventures, who at first blush seem to not be different from others in any way other than their statistics and pact duration, i.e. time that they’ll be at your service.
Looks can be deceiving, as the old saw says. Each adventurer has two traits, some good, some bad. Examples of the former include having a lower chance of injury while off questing, finding more treasure on quests, or learning more quickly at the school (oh—there’s a school to improve attributes at the cost of gold). The latter’s examples include perceived laziness and, my favorite description, a tendency “to suffer silly injuries and not try to fight through them,” indicating that the character, once injured, might be sitting on the bench for longer than usual.
After hiring six adventurers, a player has several options for how to go about his or her turn: (1) Send one to four of your six adventurers on a quest; (2) Perform administrative malarkey including healing, resurrecting, or negotiating pact terms for the adventurers; (3) Hire new adventurers to sub in when others are dead or are otherwise released from their pact; (4) Send adventurers to school to improve their stats; (5) Redeem prestige points; and (6) Draw a random minion card for the displayed cost in gold. Only the first and last of these are worth elaboration, with the first potentially resulting in combat, injury, treasure troves of gold, death, morale boosts or slumps.
During combat, a player can use up to three minion cards to improve the chance of winning. In fact, it’s the only way a player can directly influence a combat. Putting the management in roster management, the adventurers are otherwise on their own, and the combat is resolved based on their, and their enemy’s, character stats. Note that the player doesn’t know the combat strength of the enemy until the player uses (or doesn’t use) minion cards.
Unless I’m mistaken, which I’m known to be, the game suffers in the management department by requiring a player to send at least one adventurer to one of three quests to complete a turn. Differently stated, to advance a turn in the game, the player has to select from one of three quests, rather than sending any combination of adventurers to complete different quests. As a leader of a band of merry men, or at least merry so long as their morale is kept high, it seems this would, or should, be a feature. Alas, ‘tis not.
In closing, I must complain about the game’s audio button, namely because it doesn’t work. I must also complain about the game’s aesthetics, lackluster to be sure. A good game in this genre need not be a stellar work of art, but it must at least fulfill those hallmarks of a roster management sim in lieu of pretty graphics. The inability to simultaneously dispatch your adventurers to multiple locations leaves me wanting more, too.
But because I’ve been tinkering around with it in endless campaign mode, I’m trying to reserve judgment until completing the game with fixed parameters. Specifically, beginning with a 30 quest campaign, followed by 60, then 25 years, and finally 50 and/or 100 years, depending on how long the game manages to keep my attention and/or how awake I am when Blizzard maintenance ends. To say things are not looking good for this game, both as to my humble opinion of it and its subpar graphics, is an understatement.

[14 September 2016]
The Thirty-Quest Campaign. I lost halfway through. There may be more here than meets the eye, because I’m going again. There actually was a semblance of a story unfolding, as well as other events such as internal strife within my team of adventurers that I could not quell, so I recant to a minor degree my complaint of it lacking RPG elements proclaimed in the game’s description. Still, far from RPG it is, and nothing in my failure of the thirty-quest campaign changed my mind to the contrary. Nor do I anticipate my mind being so changed upon successful completion of this, or any, campaign. But not to demur what entertainment value the game does provide, my ordinary snap-judgment senses are being proven true, and I doubt whether I will ever successfully complete a campaign or if this game will ever be reopened on my PC.

Shallow and boring. You just pick from a list of samey characters with different stats that don't really affect much. You send them on quests on a little map thingy with a couple options then it tells you what happened. Even the most challenging options are easily doable on starting chars. There is no inventory or equipment management, all the loot you find with the special names are just fluff for the number of gold pieces you get - which there really isn't a use for other than training and hiring guys, but I don't see the point of that given the starting guys don't seem to have a problem taking on the most challenging places. The most complex thing that happened was a random event where a character got pissy with me and left because he was upset, which was apparently because I kept sending them against challenging places (despite them winning and coming back with great loot every time) and another guy got "injured" which simply meant he was off the team for a little while. I bought it from a Groupees bundle, where it had the following description:

"Redemption: Eternal Quest is a unique and challenging RPG/Sim where you manage a group of adventurers, guiding them through thrilling quests and collecting treasure and relics. The difference with this game is you step into the role of managing these warriors, healing them, schooling them, making key decisions and watching them grow into legendary heroes.

It combines roster/resource management with RPG sensibilities, with a completely random world generated every game and even every turn! Explore Ruins, Dungeons, open treasure chests, fulfill Grand Quests, and engage in combat with a unique card-based system. Use the Prestige from your discoveries to drive your party to even greater heights. "

That description sounds like an awesome, in depth game. Nowhere did it say anything about it being a soulless casual game with absolutely no depth and no gameplay to be had. Kudos for them saying it was casual on Steam, but they sure tricked me with their previous description. In the future if I buy from groupees I'm just going to cheap out and pay $1 and give more if any of the games are worth a dime.

If you like shallow, casual, mindless games this might be just what you're looking for - but otherwise get yourself a double cheeseburger from McDonald's, it's cheaper and it'll last you longer.

-edit- 10/15/15: Apparently my issue with the game being too easy for starting chars to storm through the toughest events has been somewhat addressed by making the starting characters get injured more.

Also, I was wrong to base my review on the description that Groupees had and the dev called me out on that, so I went and found where Groupees got their description. The game's Greenlight page, written by the developer. Not sure why he's upset over me basing the game on a copy paste of what he or his team wrote, but I am sorry I bought a game and expected it to be like it was described on the page I bought it from. I should have looked up the longer description on Greenlight... and been even more disappointed.

While I know the developer put a lot of time and effort into it, this just isn't a good game. It isn't impossible to fix that, just going to take a LOT of time. Seeing the game is about 2 years old now I somewhat doubt there's much benefit improving it to something fun at this point, but we'll see what happens. I'll just go and point out the many many flaws that drain the interest out of playing here for potential buyers and the developer.
The point basically comes down to this though; it's too damn random. There's no strategy, no sense of victory if surviving just by a rng roll, nothing really that is any achievement of yourself or stretegy you made, just all randomness.

Let's start off with your heroes. While they have a bunch of stats, none of them really seem to matter in the game. Sure they say they increase X or Y, but ingame there's little feedback to what they do, if they even do anything at all. Increasing them or them getting permanently decreased by the MANY ingame events that do so don't appear to have any impact what-so-ever. I mainly hired on special abilities (like +10% XP) but those, too, seem to have fairly little effect ingame. Really the only thing of importance is their health, and their contract (the less pay the better). Their costs are brutal so watch those contracts. Ingame there's literally zero feel with your heroes. If they level up, you have no idea what it does (maybe show the improvements?). Read on the forums their birthday improve stats, never would have known (or noticed), again, no feedback whatsoever ingame regarding heroes. When you send them out in combat they don't do anything either, minions do, making you feel even less connected to them. They're simply... well... checkboxes I suppose? There's nothing more to think about them.

So let's talk exploration. You pick one of three regions, with two numbers apparently indicating danger and reward. Again, pointless numbers (aside for morale I suppose? More on that later) since there literally seems no direct correlation between money gained or damage taken, just XP gained. All the actual action is on special events, that all could trigger, potentially making it worth your while (or making it even more miserable). You see, income is low... really low. And the heroes pay is high, really high. The logical thing to do seems to do harder missions to get enough money to support them, but then they get angry. Do lower missions and they pay zero (and don't seem to do what the dev states should happen). All in all, it's a pretty pathetical choice.

Then onto the random events. Most of the times this is picking 2 options, go left or right. The text on screen is *supposed* to give a hint what to come. Most of the time however (as always) you literally just get something completely unrelatedly random instead. Bandit camp? Trip and loose HP. Where did the bandits go? We just forget them. A necromancer battlefield? It appears to be just an area description and all you do is find a body with gold. Everytime you think something interesting may come, the game lets you down. Super-hard ruin? A traveler gives +5XP (a pitiful amount), you trip (again) and loose some money, you follow a voice and bricks fall on you and everyone takes -5 health. It's all not very exiting. Triggering a trapped box gives less money than it takes to heal the wounds, it's all really poor choices all around.

That's not even talking about the "main quest". It's always in the easiest area (for some reason, yay even poorer random rewards), and you're opted with 3 choices. The first time I was searching for loot and got a "nothing happened"... Second time I got this poor excuse of a fight (not even using the actual fight UI), which was possibly even more anti-climactic:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933126656
Afterwards I paid a bit more attention and the mission briefing mentioned a gorilla(!) threatening a valued official and we should save him as soon as possible. Which is completely weird. Of course like everything else in the game you've got no control, so ASAP is whenever they damn feel like it. So when the area spawned, I picked one of 3 options and was told the gorilla was somewhere else.
The official? No word. The threat? Nothing heard of ever again. Again more disconnections that are so damn common and off-putting in the game.
Afterwards I found the gorilla again hiding in a cave, and it ran away from us laughing at us in the face. Yup, getting sillier and sillier. Putting [random enemy] really doesn't fit some descriptions you know. Anyway, I game overed before I could see how worse this would get.

So let's move on to an important, and probably the least infuriating part (that says much); the combat.
You will be presented by 1-3 enemies with a random value assigned. Your heroes have a certain value too (somehow, again, no feedback). You can then augment your score with minions. Are you risking a lower number or go for certainty? So far so good and this would have made a good system, actually allowing some damn imput from the player.
Alas. Then comes in "morale"... which is a darned freaking RANDOM number. Why? WHY? I have no idea but it ruins the entire system and you're pretty much forced to overshoot always to compensate for this random extra penalty just for you. Which generally means you need more minions, who again will cost more money to replenish, and you never get money anyways. Loosing will equally cost you a large stack of money, so you better aim to win anyway. Combat ends up pretty much loose/loose that way.
And even if you overcompensate, that doesn't prevent the game from throwing even MORE random crap in your face to further aggrevate:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933242396
After such a devestating loss you would expect morale to falter, but no, the immediate following fight in the next dungeon block (instantly afterwards):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933243921
So yeah, morale is a random joke ruining the system. As more of the randomness in this game does, making any kind of actual strategy pointless and any kind of victory cheap.

Lastly, let's talk some more about hero happiness. I send heroes on harder missions since the money payout was poor anyway and I had to keep up somehow. This made them hate me and I got incoming mutany messages (no idea if they would lead somewhere anyway, but at that point I kept them in mind). So I let the angry heroes off missions. No change. Read the forums a bit, developer said do easy missions to improve morale (and really there's no other damn way). So I did an easy mission, fought a boss, got prestige (a system that allows hero buffs, which you can pretty much ignore since they seem to do nothing as said above, or to give you money. Needless to say I always picked money needing it badly), traded it in, got 15K (high rolll). Just to show, good things are RNG too (normally I get like 1000 gold per hero run, and one medium once gave 4 rewards instead of always one. Those 2 are the only things ever went my way, and you so need them to pay off the loss you make every other turn). Easy seemed better than any other I thought, but no, just RNG as always.

Anyway, back to story, for SCIENCE, and since I didn't really care much anymore I decided to run 15 easy missions (and then got bankrupt) to see if my upset hero would get better. I got some indifferent heroes happy, and one even had a massive smile. But the unhappy one? Nope, still unhappy. 10 seats out of missions, 15 easy missions and still unhappy. Got bankrupt, still unhappy. That should tell you how little influence anything you do has, it's all RNG. It's all pure randomness. There's literally nothing that the player actually does that has any meaningfull effect. So what's the point?

Last point on music; it will stop if you select a menu. This is a spreadsheet game. So it generally doesn't last 5s. Feels unfinished.

Tl;Dr: if you have visual problems and need larger fonts on your computer, this developer does not give a crap about you. You need to change the fonts in you *system* to make this game playable, because they are either incompetent, or just don't care about accessibility issues.

Main review: I picked this game up in a trade a while back, because I wanted the cards. The game looked interesting (I like management games), so I thought I'd give it a try.

Upon starting the game, a non-fullscreen window opened at 1366x768 (I found this number later when checking the store page requirements). Or, to be more accurate, a 75% filled window opened at that resolution. The GUI of the game didn't fill the whole thing.

Weird, I thought, but I figured I'd change things in the options. But.......... There's no options button. No volume control. No resolution. No graphics. No games options. Nothing.

Ok, maybe this is one of those crappy games where the options are only in-game. I clicked 'start a new campaign'. And waited. Clicked it again. Several seconds pass. Nada. Window can be moved, so the game isn't frozen. I moved my mouse around the screen to see if it reacted.

In the black space waaaaaaaay below the "start new campaign" button, the mouse cursor changed. I clicked *there* (on empty blackness), and the game started. But all the buttons were way out of alignment with the images and text. At least I could see them, but it was a total mess. I restarted the game a couple times, again looking for Options to change (and in Steam to see if there was a second launcher, or something), but no, nothing changed.

I scanned the threads in the discussion board and found this comment from the Dev to someone else with the same issue:

"Are you running with Normal (100%) system fonts? If not, the game requires that. This is indicated in the requirements on the Store page."

So.... As someone who is all but blind in one eye, with extremely poor vision in the other, I have to change the fonts in *windows* to get your crappy $2 game to work? On a system that runs Witcher 3, Far Cry 4, X-Com 2, and all the other high end games without issue? Your game can't handle a change in FONT SIZES?

Complete and utter garbage. This is a basic accessibility issue, and either the Dev is incompetent, or just doesn't give a crap. 0/10 for not giving a crap about people with disabilities/impairments.