Apollyon: River of Life

As somebody who enjoyed Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, this game is far too esoteric even for me. The gameplay consists of moving various tokens on your table to one of eight positions, each causing somewhat different effects that you can look up in your journal. These moves are limited to three a turn, and tokens sometimes get moved by events you encounter. So what's the issue? The issue is that many negative events in this game cannot entirely be avoided, meaning many scenarios run on a timer where your stats at whittled down over time until you lose. This on it's own isn't a game-breaking problem, but the issue is that how progression events are rolled isn't obvious, and even if you encounter one, you may not be able to succeed (either due to RNG, or due to not having some pre-requisite). Let me use Talon as an example. If you listen out for rumours, you are told of a shady group in the worker's quarter of the city. An interesting and obvious plot point, except travelling to the worker's quarter does...nothing. Even if you have heard of these rumours, it's unclear what dictates wheteher or not you meet this group. Same issue travelling around Talon in general. Frequentl…

lack of a external wiki is abit rough but i can build my own spread sheet with the table info, no spoilers needed for any of the cards cause its better if you go in unspoiled, but it is abit of a pain without somewhere else to see the table info, can still recommend.

Apollyon: River of Life, developed and published by The Planar Danse, is an unusual and deeply text-driven experience that blends elements of tabletop role-playing, narrative experimentation, and dark fantasy worldbuilding into something that feels more like an interactive ritual than a conventional game. Rather than guiding players through a fixed storyline, it presents a shifting, reactive system where events unfold based on choices, positioning, and the unpredictable nature of its mechanics. From the very beginning, it establishes a tone that is dense, mysterious, and deliberately opaque, inviting players to explore rather than simply progress. The narrative is one of the game’s most defining aspects, though it does not present itself in a straightforward or linear manner. Instead of following a single protagonist through a clear arc, the experience is built around fragments of stories, encounters, and character-specific paths that gradually reveal pieces of a larger, interconnected world. The writing leans heavily into dark fantasy themes, often exploring concepts such as power, sacrifice, identity, and the consequences of dealing with forces beyond human understanding. It is …

Apollyon is a game about occult ritualism that's every bit as complex as Cultist Simulator while having nothing to do with the sex pest who made the latter.

This is a very interesting, very unique game. As others have said, it is not for everyone: it primarily involves reading text, and you have to be willing to make some guesses and experiment with where to set the tokens. Pay attention to where they are set during the tutorial, and read the starter lore pages about each token to begin to formulate some guesses about what settings will work best and why. But also don't be afraid to mix it up. The first several hours my character kept dying. Then I decided to take more risks and lean into the story, and it helped a lot, but I still felt stuck after a while. So I started a brand new character and that helped even more; at the 10 hour point I feel I am starting to get the idea, although I also suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg. For $2.99 in the summer sale it was not much of a financial risk, and it seems to have a lot of depth. For people who like story and exploration, rather than 3D graphics explosions, I recommend trying it - it deserves more exposure than it so far has achieved. There are a couple videos with a player and the developer playing the first couple chapters, which might be worth watching, but they move slowly. …

Onerosoi is a good for nothing; but the rest of the game is good.