For the last decade, Georgina Bensley, founder of visual novel/RPG-making company Hanako Games, has brought us anime-inspired, female-friendly fare packed with action, romance and feats of derring-do. This month, Bensley takes us on yet another fascinating—if somewhat imperfect—adventure in her company's latest visual novel, The Royal Trap.
Heroes from the Past: Joan of Arc has an impressive start, as players are invited to enter the world of Joan of Arc, a world filled with peasants and farmers only trying to survive while constantly watching out for tyrants that will burn their crops for fun. After this initial voiced cutscene however, the game starts to fall apart, with rather slow gameplay that won't be for everyone.
The term "roguelike" is used to describe a sub-genre of RPG featuring layer upon layer of randomized dungeons populated by all manner of beasts, traps and treasure. The name comes from the famed early videogame Rogue, an ASCII-based proto-RPG that has inspired and influenced a remarkable number of games in the decades since and that's famous for being perfectly happy to kill players who get out of line, or just get unlucky.
The lunar world of Driftmoon is in trouble. Soon after arriving back in your hometown of Northrop, a band of lizard warriors attack, leaving your friends and neighbors turned to stone and your alchemist father kidnapped. With few clues to go on, you set out on a journey to rescue your father and find a way to save the petrified townsfolk, not realizing that this adventure will take you around the moon and into the heart of an evil thousands of years old.
Uh oh, a murder! And an explosion soon afterwards! Add to that a cheating husband, a jealous wife, and a scheming mistress and you've got the makings of a good old fashioned crime investigation. Grim Facade: Cost of Jealousy follows the same basic layout and style as the previous Grim Facade games, only now it sets its sights on the green-eyed monster that is jealousy.
The BIT.TRIP series has brought gamers a lot of retro-inspired joy over the past four years. Although each title in the six-game BIT.TRIP collection (Beat, Core, Fate, Flux, Runner, and Void) features wildly varied gameplay mechanics—from Pong-like paddling to Gradius-esque shooting—they all share similar visual and musical aesthetics while abstractly telling the story of Commander Video. Runner2, the first direct sequel to a BIT.TRIP game, leaves the blocky Atari visuals behind but brings the challenge, charm, and superb gameplay of the series into the next generation.
A bride's wedding day should be the happiest day of her life, but when newlyweds Jessica and Jonathan McNealy get into a car crash and land in the middle of a creepy forest, all of that happiness goes right out the window. Jessica's left alone in the car, guided by a ghostly woman in white that pulls Jessica deeper into the woods and towards the McNealy mansion. With Jessica's husband nowhere in sight, it will be up to you to help Jessica heal her wounds and track down her missing husband, with plenty of twists and suspense along the way.
In the early 1900s, architect Pedro Alvarez was excavating beneath the famous La Torre del Oro, a centuries old watchtower in Seville, Spain. He uncovered a mysterious artifact beneath the building and soon realized the box brought with it a great evil. To make matters worse, an ancient prophecy about the world ending during a solar eclipse was scheduled for the very next day. What an unlucky coincidence!