Banquet for Fools
Hannah and Joseph Games · 2026 · Adventure, RPG, Action, Party-Based RPG, CRPG
PC
Very Positive89% · 933
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About Banquet for Fools
Story
The deities have shunned the Vollings, and they have turned to paganism to survive. But Vollings are resilient and ever industrious. One lord has embarked on an enterprise to settle an island long abandoned by its dead civilization, braving a cursed land in hopes of farming a lucrative spice grown only on its hillsides. His venture is a success, but trouble quickly presses fast upon him from many sides. As he is leaving to sail out to defend his fields from a jealous neighbor, he has received word that every inhabitant of one of his farm holds has vanished without a trace. With few options at hand, he calls on his guards for four volunteers to venture across the island to investigate this mystery.Party-based adventure
Explore the island of Invimona in this open-world adventure with four generated companions. Depending on the stats given to them they'll each have unique choices in dialogue with NPCs and amongst each other as they bond over the course of the journey. You're assigned a pack-boro for your mission, who can carry a boat as well as extra items you pick up along the way, and together you all can hike and portage around the Invimona rivers and sea. Visit towns for clues and to stock your party with unique items. As a guard you will be asked for assistance as you meet various farmers, scribes, artisans and even Gadaars among the holds. In the five years since the island was settled, grave robbers have flocked to Invimona like vultures, and ensuring they find their way to Exile Island is a constant battle.There is no auto-compass or quest logs for you in Banquet for Fools, though many quests and requests are given to you in scrolls. Navigating the island effectively is a part of the challenge of quests.Combat
Banquet for Fools features brawl-style, beat-em-up combat. When your action bar fills, you can pause the game by opening your combat dome, and choose an action and/or target within the dome. Play as one guard at a time, while the others will continue to attack, defend, kick, charge and pin at will. You can switch leaders at any time or tap in a support guard for combo attacks - working together is key to success.If enemy combatants are too heavily defended, use a critical attack to weaken that enemy for follow up attacks for your companions, or add your attacks together when you unlock Rally attacks during combat to strike simultaneously!Skills
Equip your four companions you've created with a variety of skills to overcome the challenges your adventure will take you through. Choose favored weapons, armor, pagan spells, animal binding, music and rogue abilities and level them up with experience or with buying training from individuals you meet around the island. Skills used most are granted bonuses to get more powerful with level ups.
Character Advancement how you want
When a character accrues enough XP they can choose to level up their skills and a stat point. You have 3 points to distribute into any of the skills you wish to pursue, and skills you’ve used frequently during the interim of the last level up are granted bonus points if you advance them.Intercessions
Though the Volling have entered a pagan age, their ancient deities still listen through their likeness in stone, and perhaps if they find the speakers worthy, speak back...Asking for intercessions from these beings grants Vollings the ability to make custom holy items uniquely tailored to those favored, but these boons come with a required donation and completion of a quest to deem yourself worthy. These beings are petty gods, and competitive, so choose your statues wisely. Find ancient and newly erected statues around the island with various powers to bestow, and bless new intercessions with even more powerful versions as you advance.Songs
Configure your musical setlist during combat by buying songs with situational auto-procing and potency levels. Songs can proc at the start of a battle, after an enemy is fallen, when companions are low on health, and a myriad of options between! You can memorize a limited amount of songs at once with different power levels, so choose which songs are heaviest and when they’ll occur to compliment your playstyle and party composition.Pagan Spells
Learn unique spell effects from different Vol trees, then make a custom spell of your choosing by taking its birch and etch your rune in blood to communicate this tether with the world. Create more powerful variants as you grow in power during the course of your travels. There are three Pagan skills: Fauna, Vines, and Spores, each with different specialties and application to the world.
Rogue
A wily party knows when to keep the law they're employed to uphold, when to bend it, and when breaking it is the best course of action. Items can be stolen from shops, but at the cost of not being able to be purchased again, and getting caught is always a risk. Guards and merchants follow patrols and sleep schedules, so keeping tabs on your surroundings and waiting for the changing of the guard is a ripe opportunity.Committing crimes will accrue a price on your head, and the Vollings of the villages will treat you accordingly. You can always pay off a local bounty by yelling bribe.Field Kit
Running out of arrows mid-dungeon? Stuck on an island with Padurii children hiding in every tree and low on explosive elyxirs? Having a field kit in your inventory allows a party to re-supply while away from shops during hikes across the island. The field kit allows you to assemble ammunition for three types of categories: arrows, rivi-wraps, and globes.Arrows come from finding wood pieces and various types of arrow heads from wildlife, rivi-wraps are crafted from noxious and volatile foliage in crevices, and you can convert amphoras of alcohol from healing items into explosive elyxirs globes with various added effects.Guard Duties
The Pavura requests that instead of being executed, criminals be shipped off to a husk of a rock just north of his garrison which the locals call Exile Island. The local ghost population is haunting enough, and the ethereal grave keepers of the Carrion god would want nothing more than to add to this assembly. You can choose on the fly if your party is attacking to kill or stun, the consequence of which is yours to decide. Killing hostile combatants is less risky, but they could be resurrected into ghosts if a keeper is near. Stunning will knock out your enemy for 24 hours, and if that enemy is a bandit or grave robber, you can report them for coins in your purse, though Exile Island will get more populated with each turn-in. Stunned criminals will only stay stunned for so long, and you’ll need to reach a local fort or village to tell another guard to send a wagon and pick up your purse.The list of criminal acts is something worth keeping in mind before exacting justice, and your characters need to bear witness, otherwise unless your characters have proof of the crime they’ll be the ones committing it when assaulting.Farmsteads and holdings from various other Houses from Minorev have settled the island under the Pavura's governance, and will have various problems that they wish someone would help them deal with. As a guard you’ll find quests and duties within to attend to. Your relationship with towns is unique to each, and if the reeve commends you it could come with fine rewards.About
This game is being created by two people. We've released Isle of Bxnes, Serpent in the Staglands (which is set in the same world as Banquet for Fools) and under a publisher, Mechajammer.What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
I fell for the art style. Unfortunately, the game itself is not up to par. If you play RPGs mainly for the story and dialogues, skip this one. In the first 10 hours, they're pretty much non-existent, and what is there consists of Proper Noun exposition dumps and thin justifications for fetch quests. To make things worse, all of it is written in a language so overly flowery that it borders on parody. Other than that, the gameplay loop is running around the maps filled with hordes of enemies, looting the uninteresting trash those enemies leave behind, and running back to the city to sell it and restock consumables. This wouldn't be so bad if the combat system was enjoyable, but sadly it isn't. I'm not going to repeat the other negative reviews - suffice to say, it's a chaotic mess. You can check out the demo to get a feel for the combat and decide if you're willing to play a game that has little else to offer.3 found this helpful
honestly such a lovley game, i loved figuring everything out, i loved the visuals and the art! the story as well had me intruiged, figuring out everything about this world and especially the island the game takes place on, every map has something and i love it i dont reccomend this game if u don't like old time rpgs (especially real time with pause) and like a lot of hand holding for quest... this game will be very frustraiting.2 found this helpful
Unfortunately I just can't recommend this to anyone, there's likely something cool here but it's just buried under a very unpleasant combat system which is where the majority of your gameplay time will be spent. The idea of quests you need to pay attention to is cool, the builtin notes are fun, there's a lot of things you can find spread throughout the game world but all of that was drowned out for me by the awkward and unwieldy combat system. It's also a very grind heavy gameplay loop, you need to constantly travel back to town to sleep/repair/re-arm and so much of the gameplay becomes a loop of a few combat encounters, running back through multiple screens to town, resting, running back through multiple screens to where you left off, doing a few more combat encounters, etc. Each combat encounter is long, tedious and grueling - every encounter will take minutes to finish where most of that time is spent watching your characters come off cooldown on their attacks. Neither you nor the enemy do much damage so every encounter is more of an endurance match. If I would give any feedback it would be to condense down the combat encounters somehow, maybe reduce their amount but increa…2 found this helpful
I love this little game. On paper, it's another adventure RPG with a party based combat system. In reality, it's so unique in its design, thoughtfully and lovingly crafted from every aspect including creature design, combat, and map exploration. There is a bit of a learning curve - I hated that there was no labels for anything, then loved that I was essentially given everything to map out my own adventures and scratch out my own notes/routes. It forces you to pay attention. There are also painful and sudden reminders around every corner that there are bigger and stronger foes around, so explore this vast map carefully. It's still an indie game, with little things that could be tweaked to feel more smooth, but still a little gem I can see myself spending many hours exploring.1 found this helpful
A well polished, very unique indie game. Cant go wrong if you like old school crpgs.1 found this helpful
I completed the game a few weeks ago and I have to say, it's one of the most satisfying gameplay experiences I've had in many years. This is how I imagined RPGs when I was a kid: rich lore, a range of abilities, varied environments and a captivating storyline. I particularly enjoy how the game rewards you for taking note of potentially significant information and going out of your way to explore. I'd be very excited for any future DLC because, even though I've put close to 100 hours into it at this point, it still feels like the experience of exploring the world was far too quick.1 found this helpful
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