Life of a Mercenary

I was given a review copy of this game.

While this isn't the Hosted Game with the highest wordcount (coming in at 380K words), it's really big gameplay-wise, as it uses simulation-style gameplay to get a lot of mileage from less words. I played it over 2 weeks.

You play as the head of a mercenary company, and you have a variety of stats like intelligence, stamina, health, etc. You also have money, guards, healers, etc. Together with you are your stalwart companions Arlo (level-headed and kind) and Anne (cutthroat and mercenary). You can also add other characters to your roster.

Rather than a strong central storyline, the game progresses through missions. Each mission has some fights you have to do and some gold. Missions often have ethical problems; a common one is 'will you help these people and lose money, or get money by letting them suffer?' Sometimes it is more complex, though, like 'will you help this group of people if it hurts another group?' There are also investigation segments where high intelligence or wisdom lets you take new conversation options.

There are tons of missions. The game was nudging me strongly towards retirement at the end, but I had about 4 or 5 big missions I could have done as well as a few tournaments I missed early on.

In between sessions, there is plot, as your advisors come to you with questions. I enjoyed seeing Arlo's backstory in a side-quest; perhaps one of the quests I missed had Anne's. I retired as a noble with Vera by my side.

There were bugs, as others have noted. I had negative soldiers at one point. Sometimes choices felt weird in ways that are hard to nail down (at one point I died and had to restart at a checkpoint while at other points I died with no lingering bad effects). But the overall quality of the game overwhelmed that negative point for me.

I also found the writing sparse and even dull at first, but as it progressed the quick dialog and fun characters grew on me, even though it never became very descriptive or florid. I think the author grew in skill while writing this.

Overall, I think I could recommend this to others. I think it has a demo, and gameplay is pretty similar throughout, so I'd recommend people to check out the demo and get it if they like it.

As with other titles from the author, Life of a Mercenary comes with plenty of gameplay and management elements, but with a good dose of story as well.

You play as the leader of a mercenary company, and are tasked with finding contracts and making money while keeping your forces and stronghold in shape by buying various upgrades. When it comes to making management games in the choicescript engine, it is easy to wind up with a clunky or overcomplicated interface. Still, the management system feels easy to manage here, with different decisions laid out for you without the feeling of navigating through a dozen menu pages.

You start out with smaller missions like providing security or beating up thugs, before moving up the ladder and gaining access to bigger and better contracts and missions. In addition to earning money for upgrades, you can also gain experience to improve your character's stats. The first part of the game appears to be timed, which is annoying if you want to clear all the content there before moving on. Still, there are plenty of adventures within to keep you entertained, along with a sense of progression.

Stock images appear to have been used in the game for illustrations. They aren't too consistent in terms of style, but I didn't mind it too much. Also note that some pictures might be slightly nsfw, but there's nothing explicit within.

Also, there is also a fairly interesting cast of characters who serve as fellow mercenaries, along with romances. I preferred the romances in the Great Tournament, but what is here works for me as well.

It's a strong title, and a good example of an open-ended choicescript game with management elements done right.