Serpent in the Staglands

This is a game that demands a great deal of patience. There is clear passion behind it, but its commitment to tabletop-style design often works against the experience rather than enhancing it. The lack of a quest log feels more frustrating than immersive. Other games have shown that it is possible to guide the player without removing challenge, but here it often leads to confusion instead of discovery. The game also does very little to explain its systems, which can make it feel unintentionally hostile to new players. The camera is another major issue. Panning by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen is slow and imprecise, and the lack of alternative controls makes navigation tedious. It frequently feels like you are fighting the interface rather than engaging with the world. There is ambition here, and it is easy to respect what the developers were aiming for. However, that vision will likely appeal to a very narrow audience. Despite wanting to enjoy it, I found myself stepping away in favor of the developer’s later work, which appears to refine many of these ideas more effectively.

If you like playing weird indie crpgs, this is right up your ally, sure it has its hick ups, but so do most indie crpgs. You gotta love exploring new lore, new ways the combat works, etc. I am a type of player that enjoyed Mars wars logs, this, Underrail, etc, more then Baldurs gate 3 (bg3 is a great game, but its everything that I have already seen, done better), games like this are weird, and full of lore and different gameplay mechanics that makes it fun for me.

7.5 hours in, serpent in the staglands is great. It's not quite the same as darklands, in that there is a lot more isometric party based stuff and not really any of the menu based city stuff. It's like a cross between fallout 1&2 and darklands maybe with a little baldurs gate 1 thrown in there. It's more fantasy themed, and less medieval than darklands. Real time with pause. It's awesome. Highly recommend it, all the criticisms are bs from people who are expecting idk what. Every now and then on stair transitions, your screen will be kinda greyed out, like you're looking at a previously explored area you're not in, but if you double click any of your characters it'll snap to them. No big deal. Other than that its bug free so far. For under 5 bucks it's a steal. (Think it's on sale) It'd be a great deal at 40. Sucked me in enough that i stayed up all night playing it accidentally. Awesome game. 10/10. Can't believe 2 people made it. Impressive. It's a love letter to darklands, while still being entirely its own thing. Much closer than wartales, which I enjoyed, but had almost nothing to do with darklands. Run don't walk. Give em a good review. It deserves way higher than 3.2 st…

Hard but good

Ending seems bugged [spoiler] Octavian accused me of a doing a bunch of evil stuff (slaughtering a town, binding the will of my companions) when I didn't do any of that. And his argument was so stupid: you did bad stuff, so help me commit genocide. And Necholai goes I guess you're right, ok I'll help you. You don't get to make a choice either, which is frustrating. Wish there was the option to say no just to spite Octavian. The game passes him off like he's charming and suave, using persuasion to get what he wants, and when you finally meet him he's such a disappointment [/spoiler]

Do it...