Midnight Caravan

[i]Midnight Caravan[/i] is a choice-heavy spy role-playing game made in the iconic choose-your-own-adventure style. It is set in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, in Italy. You play as the leader of a travelling caravan who decided to return to Rome after many years of absence. The caravan is a den of illicit activities, focused on prostitution and gambling. Although you had a normal early life, your reputation was ruined at one point by a mysterious man, named Cassini. You've been running away from him ever since. You thought you've finally escaped, but your past is catching up to you. The game is divided into three acts and it was difficult for me to win from my first playthroughs. There is only one savepoint. Every act is divided into several turns, each turn offers you multiple choices to make, which may affect the four main stats: Fame, Coins, Health and Suspicion. If you have too much Suspicion or you reach 0 for the other three stats it's Game Over. During your adventure you may gain new companions, traits, special items or join factions. [i]Midnight Caravan[/i] is very easy to dislike when you play it for the first time. It has an over-the-top story with an incredible…

I never write any reviews, but I'm shocked this game is still only at such small reviews so I'll throw my hat in the mix. This had been on my wishlist for ages and I never thought it'd come out, the developers actually reached out to me via FB and told me that it was finally going to be released. I bought it the day it came out and though, sure the translation does leave a little to be desired but the atmosphere, story, and art style just combine to create this really unique experience. It just has this great feeling of dark machinations turning just out of sight at every turn. If you're a fan of choose-your-own-adventures or have been looking for something that provides a unique narrative taking you from the seedy back alleys of Italy to the gilded heights of secret societies just as foul then check this out.

Nice concept, disappointing execution. I lost the game due to reaching 100/100 suspicion during act II. There was absolutely no way to decrease it, no save to go back to, and hardly any way to prevent it without restarting the game with trial and error. I doubt I will find the mood to replay a game with so much (terribly translated) text having to go through the same story and just guessing around the right choices. I felt like my first choice of caravan location decided everything from the start. Game seems like a nice sandbox "choose your own adventure", but ends up feeling like a linear text-based rogue-like experience.

Fun game, I got 3 endings already! I nearly finish all of the achievements, I wonder what trigger "All in" and "Lock pick" achievements? Pros: mature, twist plot; randoms events so every playthrough is refreshing; satisfying endings; main character is cool too Cons: I wonder the reason why I couldn't get those last 2 achievements because of bugs??

The game is not bad, but too difficult, I never completed it and probably won’t, there are no adequate saves, I got into a dead end - I had to start the game over, for some reason the sequence of events changed (maybe I chose a different option somewhere and the characteristics changed ), I didn’t notice any forks, I thought the story would be more unique from this point of view, but it turns out that random events open up access to new options that lead to the same events, just with different characteristics at the end (fame, money, suspicion and health), which ultimately prevents you from completing the game normally (lack of gold, high level of suspicion or lack of health). In the absence of an adequate system of acts and saves, it is impossible to beat the game the first time and so that it feels “unique”, since you simply have to choose other options for events at random, because there is no similar system to “Ser Brante” - that is, it is impossible to know the consequences on the characteristics, before choosing an option and the game turns into selection at random. Although it is unlikely that this will happen, the game needs improvement

I mostly liked it (I hate myself), but cursive, the RNG events sequence that can make or break your playthrough and lack of logic behind some of the decisions or their outcomes overshadow the art, theme and anything else you might find appealing. It's basically masochist simulator to force somehow manageable events to happen before you hit a wall and rack up the stats for the "worse" random events or story choices. It doesn't even feel like a puzzle, straight up wishing well and you are out of pennies most of the time.