Gord units out its stall fairly shortly. Inside a couple of minutes, I am constructing my first settlement, beginning with the partitions—to maintain the darkish issues out. Inside ten I am fussing about which jobs I need to give every of my settlers, and already antsy for extra wooden and reeds to assemble new buildings. Inside half an hour, I am sacrificing one of many colony’s youngsters to an historic swamp horror.
Combining components of metropolis builder, real-time technique, survival, RPG, and horror, Gord is most simply understood as a sport about what it could be prefer to attempt to preserve a city stuffed with villagers alive in the midst of a type of horrible, monster-infested forests from The Witcher. Beset on all sides by vicious beasts and deformed creatures, risking life and limb simply to assemble some mushrooms or a bundle of reeds, your small gang of townsfolk look to you to guard not simply their lives, however their sanity.
The dragon is a distorted, surreal creature, like one thing out of a horrible image ebook that might have given me nightmares as a child.
Impressed by Slavic folklore, Gord’s world is thick with environment—all of it bleak and horrific. As I arrange my first city (or “gord”—the sport is known as for a particular sort of medieval Slavic fort), I am nervous even simply sending villagers to cut down timber. Each time they’re outdoors the protection of the partitions, it looks like they may fall into hazard at any second. Grim cutscenes organising a narrative a couple of merciless imperial bureaucrat forcing the cautious locals into peril additional provides to the sense of hopelessness, particularly when weird creatures of fantasy—together with a demonic dragon with an entourage of wailing ghosts—make their presence identified.
It is a disgrace, although, that that environment is commonly punctured when a personality opens their mouth. A lot of the dialogue is disappointingly generic fantasy fluff, and lots of the voice actors give bland deliveries in flat American accents that really feel at odds with the tone and setting. Any mystique across the unusual forest witch I encounter about an hour into my journey is misplaced when she begins expositing about demons in what sounds just like the default feminine human voice from a 2000s RPG.
The art-style, at the very least, suits the invoice completely. The dragon is a distorted, surreal creature, like one thing out of a horrible image ebook that might have given me nightmares as a child—it is a actually distinctive and memorable design. And that historic swamp horror is as splendidly disgusting as you’d count on, an oozing, diseased behemoth that manages to look concurrently tragic and terrifying.
Creatures like him are the form of darkish gods of the forest. You possibly can combat them, however the witch warns it is going to be a near-impossible battle—given my “military” consists of 10 flea-bitten peasants, I do not fancy risking it. It is moderately simpler to cut price with them, main me to that discrete bit of kid sacrifice, feeding a younger ‘un into his gaping maw. Hear, typically it’s important to make selections for the higher good, even when that higher good is simply attending to the subsequent little bit of horrible wilderness to construct one other gord.
Gord assist us
Every villager has their very own traits and aptitudes that have an effect on how they carry out and incline them in direction of sure jobs.
While you’re not hanging out with witches and demons, the day-to-day working of your settlement is the main target. The fundamentals are pretty easy—you construct buildings that assist you to assign jobs to your small band of peasants, equivalent to woodcutter or forager, they usually routinely head out to do them. Throughout my demo I additionally obtained to make some into scouts, who could be set to patrol the native space or managed on to discover, and warriors, who fare a lot better within the RTS-like fight than unarmed townsfolk.
Beneath that straightforward floor, nonetheless, there’s a variety of depth. Every villager has their very own traits and aptitudes that have an effect on how they carry out and incline them in direction of sure jobs—equivalent to a bonus in melee fight, or shifting sooner via forest. In addition they every have well being and sanity to trace, and have to be manually despatched to recuperate once they get low—both receiving drugs at a “balia” (a sort of bathhouse) or ingesting away their fears on the mead tent. Whereas well being is misplaced as you’d count on, once they get attacked within the woods, sanity appears to empty slowly however always whereas they’re outdoors the settlement, so it is important to regulate everybody’s psychological state as you go.
The sport very a lot expects you to micromanage such as you’re enjoying an RTS.
This second to second administration is unquestionably extra fiddly than I hoped, nonetheless. Villagers really feel like they’ve a bit much less autonomy than they need to—in case you interrupt them of their work, say to maneuver them away from hazard or assist assemble a brand new constructing, they will then simply stand round ready for additional orders as a substitute of returning to their foremost job. Holding observe of their skills is awkward—I could not even work out tips on how to view their character sheet in-game, and ended up renaming all of them to issues like “Brawler” and “Reed Liker” between maps so I might keep in mind who was who.
—clicking across the map so you’ll be able to comply with your scout’s exploring similtaneously maximising effectivity in your base and maintaining your warriors alive as they filter a nest of spiders. There needs to be loads of depth there for technique followers, however for me the very hands-on method feels a little bit at odds with the darkish administration sim premise. Stressing out about maintaining my individuals secure is enjoyable, worrying about whether or not I’ve left somebody standing idle someplace much less so.
Nonetheless, the part I play could be very early on, and issues might very effectively click on extra for me as extra methods are layered on. I am definitely to see extra of Gord’s darkish and unusual world, and a little bit roughness across the edges is maybe to be anticipated in a sport that is experimenting a lot with style. I will be watching with curiosity within the run as much as launch, deliberate for later this summer season.
