Go to the game's main page
Review
This game is, I believe, by an author who has achieved some success in traditional publishing, and I think it shows.
This is a war game in a futuristic setting, and most of the game features tactical missions and decisions like advancing, retreating, calling in strikes, and broadening out to politics in general.
You are a brand-new commissioned officer sent to the planet Cerberus to deal with rebels and deal with a vaccine distribution that people are suspicious about (this was written pre-covid).
The stats are easy to understand at first glance, but become more muddled and confusing as the game goes on. For instance, 'diplomacy' and 'charisma' are especially difficult to distinguish, and there is a frequently-reoccurring set of choices that don't seem to correspond to any stats (essentially being cautious, being reckless, or being in the middle).
Especially confusing are options related to 'mission', 'honor', and 'leadership', as I thought I had those pegged at the beginning but they become increasingly obfuscated over time. I ended up with all less than 60% and no matter what I picked, the people I talked to laughed at me for my presumption at thinking I had honor or supported the mission.
As other reviewers have noted, there is failure baked into the game in ways that are indistinguishable from player failure, so even if you're doing everything right it feels like you're losing.
On the plus side, there are several romance options. For mine (the dropship operator), things progressed really quickly at first and then we were an established couple the rest of the game, having 4-5 more scenes together after becoming close. This felt like an unusually high amount in a good way.
Overall, the line-by-line writing was good, and I think any war buffs are definitely going to want to try this one out; it's near the top tier of CoG games for dealing with things like strategy and tactics.
I purchased this game with my own money.
