Project Pastorate

[quote=] This review was brought to you on behalf of [b] Abyssal Ascent Reviews [/b] in collaboration with its developer(s). If you liked it, please [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32607787-Abyssal-Ascent/]Follow[/url] the Curator and [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/AbyssalAscent/]Join[/url] its group. Thanks! [/quote] [b]Project Pastorate[/b] is an interesting little point & click mystery/almost movie-style game where you must figure out who murdered a high ranking clergyman. The idea is that everything and everyone is subservient to the Pastorate guy at the top. One of his top guys got knocked off, so it's your job, along with your "corrupt" boss and partner in the mystery, to figure out the mess, and where the culprit is. The story is pretty good so far overall, as it will be episodic, or have some future releases. So far, the development of the story has been pretty well done. I felt as though it was like a film in a way. Very thrilling dialogue, albeit super "colorful" language - warning to those who are not into graphic wordings! You *will* see some very disgusting dialogue, so not for the faint of heart in that area. It's got a nice little story …

[b]Project Pastorate[/b] is a bit of a wasted potential. I like the art style and the "religious dystopia" setting the devs are aiming for is something I find appealing. The audio fits the scenes perfectly and the writing is mostly fine, with only minor errors here and there. Unfortunatelly, the game suffers from its (supposedly) episodic nature. The characters are quite shallow and even though they do have hints of personalities, they aren't given enough space to properly express themselves and some of their dialogues feel forced (like that time Vinnie talks about his marriage). The story starts off well enough and shows us that there's something much bigger going on in the background, but it doesn't take the time to go deeper, to explore the plot twists and show us more of the world. And then the ending makes it feel like we just barely scratched the surface. That's the problem with episodic games. You just don't get the full experience until all the episodes are out (and it doesn't look like we're getting another episode of Project Pastorate anytime soon). Chances are that if this was a full-fledged game with a deeper, finished story, I'd be writing a positive review right n…

A tedious and boring game. I give a thumbs up for the very nice hand drawn scenes of the game. That has obviously had a lot of work put into it. A pity that the game mechanics, the story and reliability of the game was not. It's not clear when the next chapter is or if you've even completed it. Riddles, on the second play through, had disappeared. I was even hoping I'd get to the end of this dragging story but I just lost all patience on it. Nothing but hollow and superficial dialogue and fights with a gang, over and over and over again. Nice pictures, shame about the game.

Project Pastorate had some cool ideas and themes that just need a lil but more love to be truly amazing. Pros: - Unique card system for interactions - Decent Story - Nice Art Cons: - Ran into a couple boot up issues that seemed odd - The battle system is not necessarily consistent - no real tutorial for some of the mechanics. It's not a bad game and once the battle system is finessed I look forward to investing more time in the game. I give it 3/5 card reactions.

I wish there was a middle ground between a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down, but my verdict would lean towards not recommending it at least for now. The story has a lot of potential, and have lots of parallels to the real world, The problem is the presentation could've been a lot better. The game is essentially a visual novel with a turn-based card game combat, yet it's both below par, A compelling narrative still needs an exciting style if not gameplay for it to work. I hope this get addressed in the next episodes if it's still in development.

I am fine with dark themes and villainous characters, but the writing was lazy (being offensive as possible to signpost who the bad guys were) and the game play mechanics were never explained and made very little sense, not intuitive at all.