Galactic Keep app good for
Awesome game with unique style! Love the art! Waiting on more modules :)
This is a fantastic sci-fi themed RPG. Hours of discovery await, and this is just the first module!
The single module thats here now is quite large but this is a great foundation. More modules, characters and balance tweaks will make this even better.
Galactic Keep offers a fun sci-fi table top style turn based RPG. Good game mechanics, reasonable difficulty level and interesting characters and items. All in all a fun gaming experience. Still havent finished the module yet, hope they make more modules (if the quality of the game remains on the same level a small charge for new modules wouldnt be a problem.)
The art work and design is really interesting. Game is fun for the map exploration. Characters and creatures are original. Combat is basic and functionnal. The game need more modules and maybe a better combat system.
Excellent game, with nice atmosphere and mechanics. Would give it 5, but for lack of content. One scenario is not enough at all.
Some bad moments
First the positives:
-Interesting framework of a turn-based sci-fi RPG
-Drawn art style works well for my tastes
-Seemingly completely random loot makes every game somewhat different
The negatives:
-Seemingly completely random loot makes every game’s difficulty curve too inconsistent
-Currently only one module
-Playstyle design revolves around throwing characters at the enemies to get killed, retrieved and thrown again at the enemies (unless you’re playing hardcore mode where death is permanent)
-Stat rolls have far too much variance and no ability to reroll
-In combat “Block” (in combat heal function) has far too much variance
-Character’s special ability choice cannot be changed. New players are locked into the choice without knowledge of its balance in and out of combat nor its usefulness at different character levels
-Gaining character levels appears to consist of grinding the single module over and over and over again
The game requires far more modules thereby allowing a far smoother difficulty scale more consistent with the character’s level. As said before, some areas have far too much variance. Shoving the entire game into a single module completely prevents the ability to decently balance the difficulty.
It looked promising, but a lot of the game is either waiting out turns to heal or retrieving your last character after they died. Got boring after an hour.
Captures the feel of a tabletop RPG. Only problem is the encounters are horribly unbalanced. I die almost every encounter. Maybe other people find that challenging, I just find it frustrating. I do not recommend.
My major complain is that it seems theres no difference between swords and guns. You have to get close to the enemy to attack whether you have a gun or a sword. Isnt the point of having a gun is that you can attack from afar? Also, grenades are supposed to be thrown from afar. Staying healthy is hard, but at least you can trade movement for health. Fix this and the game will definitely be a lot more enjoyable, and more realistic.
The combat is awful, just a completely random crapshoot. No amount of good writing makes dealing with this terrible gameplay worth it.
Few games have taken me back to my late 70s desktop RPGs as this one has. Its a clever approach thats easy to pick up and just has that feel of encountering the next monster in a dungeon, even though the setting is SF. Here are some observations after 3 victories (out of 4 games).
-- BIOT, I actually won a game (2nd one I started) before I realized you can heal your character some by not using all moves on your die roll. I was constantly switching between characters as old ones died and muttering angrily about the scathing review I was going to write. Then, after winning, I read the online help and thumped my forehead.
-- There are some clever combinations of special attacks and weapons that youll discover.
-- At first I thought there were too many goodies available, but since you have a limit as to what you can carry, it means you have to constantly prioritize (or use up) what you have. After my first few games, I became much better at simply leaving stuff behind or dropping it off.
-- While some of the weapons are great, many are indistinguishable from one another in actual play. Likewise, many that show up later in the game are too low level. And, frankly, the explosive grenades are almost useless; you use your entire turn to throw one, it explodes a few turns later, and the damage it does is minimal.
-- One the other hand, one or two of the weapons are almost overpowered, particularly the sword that allows you to steal from your opponent. A few swings of that sword against an enemy who uses an actual weapon, and hes fighting you with bare hands and with no healing solutions. Of course, to get that sword, you have to fight and defeat the (IMHO) toughest and most irritating enemy, The Stranger (who is constantly stealing _your_ stuff). So I guess it evens out.
-- Theres no way to maintain different sets of characters. Once youve completed the (single) module, your only two options are to (a) start over from scratch or (b) play the module again with the characters as they existed when you completed the module. Since the next module will use your characters as they currently exist, you dont want to get rid of one who had developed well -- but that limits your opportunity for experimentation.
-- We need that 2nd module ASAP. :-)
