I hate to say I'm disappointed with the game. Normally I like to have at least one hour per pound of price, so 40 hours at 14ish quid would seem like it's gone well...but it really hasn't.

It's not bog-awful, no. It's just a let down. Judgements are just a minigame of 'which faction can I afford to piss off today?', plotting and intrigue has no real player agency or nature to it. You are merely acting out the lines in the developers play. The choices do not matter, bar changing the flavour of costume that the actors wear. The family minigame has promise, but agency is soon torn away from the player and submerged into a mire of drama.

In short, this is an interactive play pretending to be a game. I came with high hopes and expectations. God knows that the market for revolutionary politics has been growing, with successes of games such as Beholder and its sequeals. But this is not that. It is not even that useful as a learning resource for the French revolution.

It tries to vary the 'action' via throwing new minigames at the player, minigames that come sans tutorial or guide. The devs confuse 'difficulty' with throwing a toddler into the deep end and waiting for it to master swimming. Throw in minigames that are rigged and coded against the player, lest we break from the developer's vision of storyline and progression?

It starts well, and with good promise, then deflates like an old, worn out balloon, dribbling its way onwards. A shame.

I hate to say I'm disappointed with the game. Normally I like to have at least one hour per pound of price, so 40 hours at 14ish quid would seem like it's gone well...but it really hasn't. It's not bog-awful, no. It's just a let down. Judgements are just a minigame of 'which faction can I afford to piss off today?', plotting and intrigue has no real player agency or nature to it. You are merely acting out the lines in the developers play. The choices do not matter, bar changing the flavour of costume that the actors wear. The family minigame has promise, but agency is soon torn away from the player and submerged into a mire of drama. In short, this is an interactive play pretending to be a game. I came with high hopes and expectations. God knows that the market for revolutionary politics has been growing, with successes of games such as Beholder and its sequeals. But this is not that. It is not even that useful as a learning resource for the French revolution. It tries to vary the 'action' via throwing new minigames at the player, minigames that come sans tutorial or guide. The devs confuse 'difficulty' with throwing a toddler into the deep end and waiting for it to master swimming. Throw in minigames that are rigged and coded against the player, lest we break from the developer's vision of storyline and progression? It starts well, and with good promise, then deflates like an old, worn out balloon, dribbling its way onwards. A shame.