Even without knowing the term "isekai", you have probably at some point encountered a story or piece of media that follows its basic framework. A Japanese term meaning "another world", isekai stories deal with the notion of being adrift in a setting quite unlike one's own; they follow protagonists who are ripped away from a world much like ours and dropped into an unfamiliar place or time. Be it Edgar Rice Burroughs's depiction of Mars as a futuristic kingdom in the Barsoom books or the fantastical realm of Oz, the specifics matter less than the intent - to challenge the protagonist's preconceived notions and lead them to personal growth in the face of unexpected conflict. I lay all of this out for you because I think the intent with Heir to the Queen, a small-scale adventure game, was to hit the basic points of the isekai journey under the constraints of a threadbare budget and no larger media presence. That's speculation on my part, though, sinc...
I’ve sat on some opinions about a handful of games, most of which released in the hell year that was 2020, for a while now. This is owed largely to having being previously occupied by other concerns – professional and personal – as well as not feeling inclined to dedicate whole articles to them (at the very least, not while the pay for such work is... limited, let’s say). However, that ends now. I’ve decided to compile these together as a kind of loose round-up of sorts, a highlight reel of the highs and lows of a year in gaming where so much went wrong... but sometimes a few things turned out alright. Before we go any further: if you enjoy this piece and want to support the creation of more work like it, please consider checking out (and potentially signal-boosting) the Kurt of Cambridge Ko-Fi and Paypal pages. With that out of the way, LET'S BEGIN. Carrion So this is easily the best thing Devolver Digital has published since Hotline Miami . The remarkable simplicity of the gam...