The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge
Prism Game Studios Ltd. · 2018 · Action, Adventure, Indie, Fantasy, Action RPG
PC
Positive90% · 21
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About The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge
Characters
The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge is an action-adventure game with a variety of carefully crafted levels. You will start by creating your character for each particular level. You can customize the character’s name, stats, weapon and appearance, giving each character you play a unique feel.
After each level your personalized character gets added to the story’s cast of NPCs whom you can then talk to and interact with. As the story grows, so too does your cast of previous player characters.
Setting
The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge is set during a struggle between two opposing ideologies. After Prince Pico and the city-state of Volturno leave the anti-magic Tetrarchy to explore the alluring possibilities of the magic sciences, the other states band together to retake Volturno and stop whatever scheme Pico may have begun with his newly-acquired arcane knowledge...
Story
You play as convicted prisoners, drafted into the Tetrarch’s army to undertake missions against Prince Pico’s forces and collect intelligence concerning his masterplan. While each prisoner has their own individual personality and backstory, all share one goal: to complete their assigned objectives and earn their freedom.
Customization
When you create your character you will choose from a variety of weapons and distribute your skill points amongst four stats. Since your available skill points are limited, you will have to think carefully about how you invest them.
The four stats of the Captives are:
- Health
Health helps your character survive damage – pretty straight forward! A character with lots of health will allow you more room for mistakes while a character with little health will have to be more careful to avoid damage. - Stamina
Stamina is used for each action in the game: attacking, defending and dodging. A character with lots of stamina will be able to chain together many attacks while a character with little stamina will have to be more tactical and patient. - Focus
Focus prevents your character from being staggered by enemy attacks. A character with lots of focus will be able to shrug off damage while swinging away at enemies while a character with little focus should try to fight enemies one at a time. - Movement
Movement determines the speed at which your character moves. A character with a lot of movement will be able to dance around their foes while a character with little movement will have to time their aggression carefully.
Playstyle
All the numbers in The Captives are very low so that the difference between spending a single stat point in health over movement can change the feel of how your character plays significantly.
It’s not possible to create a character that is good at everything. Because you will play as multiple characters you can experiment with different weapons and stats and explore what the combat has to offer within a single playthrough, instead of being locked into one playstyle for the entire game.
Combat
The combat of The Captives is real-time tactical action in the style of the Zelda or Souls games. Anticipation and timing is a consistent key to success, although each character you create will require different approaches depending on how you invested your skill points.
Gameplay Modifiers
Replay the game with special Challenge Runs, combinations of unique modifiers to the game.
These include Roguelike Challenge which randomises your build each time you play through the dungeons and Soul Challenge which restricts the number of checkpoints in the game and changes how healing works.
With a variety of individual modifiers you can also tweak the game to create your own challenge runs or make things a little easier if you get stuck.
When does this game release?
October 11th 2018
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
A gem in the rough. Clever, subversive writing and intricate customisation hidden among awkward controls and hitboxes. Get used to the motions, and you'll be playing a tactical, comedic dark souls.3 found this helpful
If only Prism had marketed this game better! This is a highly enjoyable experience, lasting between 8-10 hours on a typical run. The writing is memorable and humorous, and makes some interesting lore which differentiates from typical fantasy media. The concepts and mechanics this game presents are unique - it plays like a more forgiving yet still challenging Dark Souls experience. Prism unfortunately dissolved in January 2021, meaning they've essentially disbanded. That's likely due to the lack of marketing behind this game, as the game itself plays well with not many issues. It makes me wonder an alternate timeline where the studio stayed together and made a sequel! They've created a whole original world here, with unique lore that I don't typically see in other fantasy media. Played on a Steam Deck, on high settings, low shadows (and upscaled from a lower resolution) at a locked 72 fps.2 found this helpful
Bought it on a whim for like 4 dollars and actually enjoyed it. Would recommend at that price.1 found this helpful
So I want to go ahead and say that you could very well have fun with this game, I just don't think it's worth $16. The animation quality is pretty stiff, which makes combat very clunky. The UI screams of a generic asset flip, using basic fonts and windows that you'll find in hundreds of other subpar Unreal Engine indie games. If you're someone like me who is fine with simplicity as long as it is done really well, you might want to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I felt like I was playing an early access title and was disappointed when I checked the store page and found that the game was released four years ago. However, there are some aspects of the game that I absolutely love. First of all, the customization. Despite being visually simple and low poly, the character creation has a shockingly large number of options for you to choose from. You can select from a lot of different faces, then layer on facial details like moles and scars along with makeup/tattoos. You can decide what armor you wear out of three categories: helmet, top, and bottom. Each category has lots of different options and you can even customize the color palette of each. The color options allow for you…1 found this helpful
A LOVELY and charming game! - Gameplay is simple, but has its challenge. And there are a LARGE range of modes to chose from for your own experience! - Levels are simple, but have a lot of work put into them, given a very charming and pleasing visual direction. If they ever add a first-person mode to really immerse yourself in these levels, that'd be LOVELY! - Music is funny, but has its personality. - writing is nicely done. Not overly complex, and has a lot of clever and amusing dialogue. - Customization has the perfect amount of options! Not so many that I'm picking between hundreds of eyes and hair styles that are too similar, and not so few that there's no reason for it to be there. Is it worth 16 dollars? Only if you really enjoy this style of gameplay. I got it on sale, and it was a solid steal! I would also recommend this game in general to financially support these people, as they made the amazing Portal Stories Mel Mod and well done Portal Stories VR game, BOTH free, and deserve the support!1 found this helpful
This game is alright, fun and quite entertaining. Basic and simple overall. Make a prisoner, explore a dungeon with same shade enemies and find all 6 chests to increase stats of your choosing, kill boss and then make your next prisoner to do the next level. There is nothing else to loot besides the chests and keys to open doors. The story is interesting enough to want to keep playing it. The combat feels clunky. If the game feels too hard or too easy you have options to change it such as choosing your attacks to use less stamin or enemies to attack slower, you can choose multiple options and can make it harder also as in enemies have more health etc. And if the weapon you have chosen doesn't feel right to defeat the boss you can restart the level and choose a different weapon and traits. The only problem is it seems like the devs have abandoned it. As they never reply to any of the discussion posts. And there are broken achievements that would probably never be fixed. I'd rate it 6/10 as it has broken achievements and no trading cards. But I did like playing this fun little adventure.1 found this helpful
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