Kim

Much naan and curry were eaten

Kim is an odd beast, and didn’t work for me at all. It’s a shame, as the prospect of exploring 19th Century British India in a top-down game of narrative-driven exploration is wonderful premise. The developer obviously has an enthusiasm for this fascinating part of history, and the visuals and music are charming. Unfortunately, Kim is torpedoed by both of its main features – the narrative and resource-juggling exploration – not really functioning. Pottering around the cities and highways of the subcontinent will drain your orphan boy’s health, hunger and fatigue, and therefore your finances. Kim, however, offers no reliable way to make income. Questgivers will unpredictably cough up rupees, but it’s easy to run out of resources and die in the desert without recourse. Begging and stealing seem to be the main non-narrative incomes obtainable, but are frowned upon by the game, which docks merit points for every act of larceny. The prose, meanwhile, is meant to be in the style of Kipling, and sometimes achieves as certain verbose Victorian flair. The plot is almost non-existent, however, dialogue can be difficult to follow, and characters’ motivations are barely comprehensible. Random…

This is a very nicely made game, in which locations in India are described in veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long sentences, as quotes from different sources. If you have problems with reading long sentences, it will be a challenge to follow the descriptions of the locations and historical events. Otherwise Kim is a nice story of a kid, who explores India and is exposed to the life of a child grown up among locals to a young man, who discovers the life as a "sahib". His father was an irishborn soldier and his mother local, so it seems, that he is able to experience both aspects of life in India in the 1880s. The scoring time of the game ends with Kim being 18 years old (starting when he was 14), but it seems possible to continue the same game even after that. Playing time for one "round" is rather short, and it seems, that in order to experience all different aspects of the game, it needs a few playthroughs. A nice game idea, not even one crash on WIn11, interesting characters and so many different paths to choose from for young Kim (choices seem to matter, yes) - this game is recommendable.

A genuine and faithful adaptation of a classic. Kinda hard, this is a survival game above all else and juggling your stats can get quite messy. Still, very much worth a try.

I really enjoyed this faithfully and passionately executed translation of Rudyard Kipling's novel to video game format. It's quite challenging, but I stuck with it and ended up really enjoying it and finishing the game a few times. Thank you for this wonderful game and for giving Kipling's work the light of day it so deserves.

Neat exploration PRG-ish game. It is a unique heartwarming experience.