The Rose of Cravenmor

The Rose of Cravenmor is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This is remarkably bad for an e-book, usually the "author" uses a few character image generators to mock up some pictures of his imaginary anime girlfriend/waifu. This time instead of the high school anime club dropout writing, we get whatever the goth kid wrote in his journal after being shoved into his locker by the school bully. Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time…

The Rose of Cravenmor is a very atmospheric visual novel that I found interesting because it takes a medieval setting and fills it with much darker ideas than I expected. I play through a gothic story in a city suffering through a terrible calamity, where helping other people can come with serious personal consequences. I liked how the game constantly makes me think about what I am willing to do when doing the right thing can come at a heavy cost. The gameplay is mostly focused on reading, making decisions and following the consequences of those decisions. I enjoyed the simple structure because it keeps all of my attention on the writing and the characters. There is no complicated combat system or collection of mechanics getting in the way, so the important part is understanding the situation and deciding how I want to respond. The moral choices are easily the strongest part for me. The story constantly puts difficult ideas in front of me and asks whether helping people is still worthwhile when they may hate or distrust me for it. I liked that the game does not make those decisions feel comfortable. Even when I believe I am doing something necessary, there can still be consequenc…

Only one choice to make and it's so early on I thought it was the usual 'tutorial choice' you get in interactive fiction. It probably doesn't even change anything, the story is set up in parallel so it's likely more about whether you're on your first route or second. The story is dragged down by how the main character has a world-changing revelation whenever he is exposed to new info, regardless of whether that info is true, reliable, or even relevant. There's constant jumps in logic and location, it feels like many scenes are missing that could have given the events smoother transitions and the characters more impact.