Hunter: The Reckoning — The Beast of Glenkildove (free demo on Steam!)
Release Date: October 16, 2024
Full Game Release: January 16, 2025
Miss reading but don’t know where to start? Love RPGs? Maybe the text-based games would work for you! I’ve been worried about my attention span and miss using my own imagination with writer’s guidance. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (the First one) was one of the most immersive RPGs I’ve played and I came across the text-based World of Darkness games on Steam. They have a shared tabletop game universe. Since The Beast of Glenkildove –demo was free on Steam I just had to give it a go!
Developer & Publisher: Choice of Games
Wasn’t familiar with the game developer –a company called Choice of Games – beforehand but they seem to have variety of interactive novels written. They’ve published more than 150 interactive novels since 2010 and have their own app on iPhone and Android. They’re using custom scripting language developer calls ChoiceScript.
“Choice of Games is a progressive, feminist, anti-racist, trans-inclusive, sex-positive company. All CoG games allow you to choose your character’s gender and sexual orientation.”
Website: https://www.choiceofgames.com
First impressions
The story started like a novel or a book by going to the start before the turning point of no return happened. Player can make choices when characters are introduced to slowly build social bonds and the character background. Must say I love the effort writers have done for the game in that regard; usually when playing Dungeons and Dragons offline people make mostly their own character backgrounds and dungeon master picks up things of the shared material for gameplay sessions. And it’s understandable since dungeon master’s role is a lot of work already. But the text-based game format seems quite ideal to more character specific approach.
There are very few images but there still are some. It helps to remember the characters but still leaves room for imagining the rest. I think the game format made it a bit easier focus than just grabbing a book. Maybe it helps when there is only one page visible at the time. So the part where I’m at feels more present. Hard to tell for sure. But I enjoyed the game format more than I though beforehand I would.
I usually gravitate instantly towards creating a character that resembles a human as little as possible. And my characters tend to be a bit nuts. I love Malkavian vampires! On this story the protagonist is human. But with good storytelling and seeing something human in beasts I can live with it. Playing human leaves a bad taste in my mouth if the whole persona of the human is to complain and be scared of everything. Storytelling on Beast of Glenkildove offered good options for reactions. I appreciate that.
Romance and storytelling
The type of player that grinds for statistics and hates romances and indications for those isn’t part of target audience. There will be introductions that hint you could try rolling for that. Of course if you don’t mind you can ignore that also and dive more into the mystery itself. And you get to interact with Scottish mafia family.
The story captures attention and has enough details but doesn’t linger too long on descriptions. There’s a good balance. Choice of wording is fluent. Introducing playable character earlier in life when the he/she got to know other people involved in the story makes experience feel more immersive. Living some moments in the past makes one more invested on what’s happening now.
The combination of old folktales and exploration makes me think Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned written by Anne Rice. I really want to marathon the “Vampire Lestat” series that aired this summer. But even tough combining elements reminds me of some things about Anne Rice books I still prefer the Queen of The Damned over almost every other supernatural/horror story in written format. The bar is high for beating those.
New-found excitement of the genre
Playing the demo of The Beast of Glenkildove made me exited about text-based games as a hole! So far it was great experience. I think I’m buying the full version. I’d love to try some other text-based game also. And it might be that I’ll be consuming horror and supernatural entertainment for a while. This demo was a great reminder of why the horror and supernatural is so facinating!
Read also: Kindred: The Embraced (1996) -series
