Franzen

very cute and fun little rpg. (also very very weird but y'know. there're already tons of non-weird games so it's cool to see some variety)

8/10 game, 10/10 developer, checked out their website and got jumpscared by fantasy race ♥♥♥♥ and balls, hadn't seen this level of dedication since devs used to write videogames on acid as god intended.

Great game that deserves more attention. "The perfect Micro-RPG" sounded like PR but it's actually a good description.

Franzen is a free small RPG filled with fun characters and relationships in an interesting world, one which doesn't sugar-coat its parallels to many of our world's issues. I think of it as a narrative game where combat is used to break up text and exploration - there's no levelling up, battles are mostly straight-forward, and you can't see character's buff/ailments, so I avoided combat when possible. The ending didn't quite meet my hopes (admittedly they were set quite high, given the rest of the game!) but I enjoyed my time with Franzen, and would be happy to recommend it to people who enjoy narrative games.

I really enjoyed the flavor, the vibes, and the aura of the story, the world, and its characters, and I absolutely wish that there was more artwork in the game that gave us a better look at all of the main cast. I would love to see more stories in this world and I hope that the developer continues creating stories in this setting. If they ever want help developing the sequel in (not Game Maker), I'm here for it.

A friend suggested this game to me. Honestly, it's quite a lovely game, even if a bit weird in many aspects. If you consider yourself someone that likes weird and out there stories or world building, then this is for you. Likewise, if you're looking for a short RPG that you could reasonably do in one or two sittings then this also fits the bill. The art style took a while to get used too, but it really does provide intrigue, especially combined with the world building. Game ended up pretty easy after a certain point, however. Because when you reach the point of being able to straight up buy stat upgrades it's pretty trivial to just... max out a lot of stats. But I didn't exactly play this for the deep combat, so it's whatever.