Recent reviews by Engram

I like the idea that this is going for, a 3D VTT is a very bold idea that nobody's quite been able to nail just yet, and this was attempting to make it accessible for newer GMs and designers. It's got a classy look to its UI and its landscapes, and with enough time you can craft a decent map. My major criticisms of the software are not entirely focused on this one specifically, moreso in the concept of a 3D VTT.

If you, like me, were drawn into this software based on the work from Dimension 20, I recommend that you keep in mind that Dimension 20's staff and Talespire officials worked on the presentation within those games. Your results, in the vast majority of cases, will not look like theirs, and that's totally fine.

When you do a VTT on a 2D plane, you have to deal with jpegs and pngs at most; a plain white background will always be easier to work with, but the barrier to entry is relatively low. Foundry has a $40 buy in for a lifetime license, and Roll20 is free and available through the discord app as of writing this review, but when I say Barrier to Entry, I mean that the learning curve of designing a 3D space for your players to interact with is comparable to learning to 3D model on top of crafting level design. Walls and objects click into place, but require incredibly precise mouse positioning to attach items, and because you're working with a third dimension, you have much more to worry about from a radial perspective. This results in level building that can take hours, if not days, to grasp with any real proficiency.

I attempted to use this software for a game I was trying to run and the issue we had was that we were spending more time trying to figure out how the software worked in play than actually playing. Some players had laptops incapable of running the software at a reasonable framerate, which I suppose isn't the software's problem, but compared to 2D options which ran perfectly, it chugged to a crawl on their device and made the environments seem way less impressive as a result.

It's still in early access, so maybe it will become easier as time goes on, but for the vast majority of players, this isn't necessary and doesn't benefit them. I'd recommend a Foundry license for now and wait until the software leaves early access (if it does? It's been in early access for quite awhile and I have no idea if/when it will ever be "done"). It's more accessible, cheaper for a party of players, currently more modular (with support for game systems and rules so players and GMs lives can be made easier without the need to reference them), and is easier to set up in the long run for your party.

This is easily one of my favorite games of all time. The characters are so upbeat and positive to match the bright and beautiful color palette of the world they live in, on top of a compelling story and top notch writing to boot. The combat flows incredibly, especially for someone very familiar with Character Action/Spectacle Fighter type games (for those familiar, it feels very akin to something like Devil May Cry 3 more than a Bayonetta, to its own positive effect). The system of attacking, dodging, and parrying to the beat is incredibly well realized with some fantastic music to get you in the spirit of the game's attitude, and the game never outstays its welcome, which may imply it's short (and, at about 8 hours or so, it is, to be clear), but truly just means it tells the story it wants to tell and never feels like it's wasting the players' time with nonsense that doesn't benefit it.

I write this review now because Tango Gameworks, the creators of this game, The Evil Within 1 &2, and Ghostwire: Tokyo, have been shut down by the corporate monsters at Microsoft, seemingly for no other reason than to help pay back the company after the Activision-Blizzard Acquisition. Microsoft is absolutely abhorrent for putting these wonderful people out of a job and for robbing the player base of more games like these. I advise you to purchase this game while you still can; the game features licensed tracks, and I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to simply delist this game instead of renewing the licenses (though, if the case is that they keep the game up but patch the game to remove the licensed songs, as much as that would be terrible, the copyright free music that the devs kindly added for Streamers is arguably as good as the prerecorded music and reacts better to the game. Your milelage may vary).

To those at Tango, thank you for an incredible game. I hope your next endeavors bring you as much happiness and passion as can be felt throughout the entirety of this game.

In January my PSN account was hacked and used to buy a bunch of games, so I had to dispute the charges with my bank. Sony killed my account, even though they knew there was fraud. I couldn't remove the account from Helldivers, so the game was completely bricked, not letting me even get past the title screen. Turns out the only way to unlink or change a PSN account linked to Steam is, I ♥♥♥♥ you not, to buy Uncharted 4 on Steam and unlink it there, because Helldivers doesn't let you do it in their menus. If your account goes down for any reason, you're screwed I guess.

It is patently ridiculous to force Steam users to have a third party account to even play their game, especially given numerous breaches of Playstation Network security and the instability of the service as a whole. I love playing the game with friends, but I worry that this decision will make the game literally unplayable for me due to the suspension of my account.