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Daedalic Daedalic's The Pillars of the Earth

Infinitron

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$30 pre-order on GOG: https://af.gog.com/game/ken_folletts_the_pillars_of_the_earth_season_pass?as=1649904300

https://af.gog.com/news/preorder_pillars_of_the_earth_get_chains_of_satinav_free?as=1649904300

Exclusive GOG offer: Pre-order The Pillars of the Earth Season Pass and get a FREE copy of Chains of Satinav added to your account.

This offer will last until August 15th, 2017.

If you already own Chains of Satinav, contact our support team to get a copy which you can gift to a friend.



The Pillars of the Earth, an atmospheric choice-driven adventure based on the best-selling novel by Ken Follett, is now available for pre-order, DRM-free on GOG.com.

Amidst the darkness and squalor dominating 12th century England, three people undertake the monumental task of erecting a majestic cathedral in the village of Kingsbridge. Steer the fates of Jack, Aliena, and Philip, influence events from the novel, and unravel an epic tale of war, romance, and the trials of fate.

This season pass gives access to all three episodes, as they become available.

Episode 1: From the Ashes is scheduled to release in August.
 
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Jaesun

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:salute:
 

vonAchdorf

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Chains of Satinav has been bundled so often already that this sub $1 value isn't a huge preorder incentive. It's probably the better game than Pillars otE though.
 

Boleskine

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https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/33359

Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth: Book One – From the Ashes review
Written by Evan Dickens — August 14, 2017
Daedalic Entertainment has produced many high-quality point-and-click titles over the course of a decade, but adapting Ken Follett’s 1989 epic historical novel The Pillars of the Earth into an adventure game is a monumental task even for a studio with such a proven track record. The seeds for this ambitious and unexpected adaptation were sown in 2014, when German media conglomerate Bastei Lubbe—publishers of the German editions of Follett’s books—acquired Daedalic, and the timing has been designed to coincide with the 2017 release of Follett’s long-awaited A Column of Fire, the third and final installment in the Kingsbridge series that began with Pillars. How could a developer arguably most famous for a series of comedic cartoon adventures possibly transform a thousand-page novel with such breathtaking scope into an interactive experience? The answer—at least so far—is brilliantly, in an episodic debut that fans of the book or great storytelling in general should play without hesitation.

The original novel is divided into parts, then chapters, and then sub-chapters, breaking up its massive story into manageable parts. The game will follow a similar track, being split into three “Books” released at separate times (though a purchase of the first includes the next two as free DLC), and each Book will contain seven chapters, then some chapters are split further still into different player-character sections. The first Book, subtitled “From the Ashes,” introduces the fictional English territory of Shiring circa 1136, the time of The Anarchy (a real period of civil war and unrest among warring factions under the uncertain reign of King Stephen following the death of Henry I).

Near the town of Kingsbridge, a man named Tom Builder roams the forests with his son Alfred and daughter Martha, having just experienced a tragedy involving his pregnant wife Agnes. Tom is looking for work as a master builder when he meets a mysterious and beautiful nomad woman named Ellen and her young son Jack Jackson. Within Kingsbridge, a kind-hearted monk named Philip attempts to set the town’s priory on the right path after the death of the previous prior James, rising to his current position while navigating the difficult political climate of a disloyal sub-prior named Remigius and the very untrustworthy Bishop Waleran Bigod. And at the castle of Earl Bartholomew of Shiring, the earl’s beautiful teenage daughter Aliena confidently rejects a series of suitors—including the coarse and menacing William Hamleigh, son of a Lord and owner of a sadistic mean streak.

The Pillars saga (best described in one book review as a “towering tale”) winds these characters and others related to them in and out of the real-life events of twelfth-century England, with triumphant successes and devastating losses along the way. The titular pillars represent the interest that drove Follett to write the book: the incredible medieval architecture of the era as best represented by its expensive and beautiful cathedrals. Follett, a noted atheist, found great fascination in how the communities of the period often measured their prominence and their piety by the grandeur of their church-building, and thus set to tell the story of the 35-year construction of the fictional Kingsbridge cathedral as the backdrop for the lives of all involved.

Follett’s love for architecture is so pervasive in his writing, it’s almost as though every majestic structure is a supporting character, so it was essential that the game’s artists bring the same sense of breathtaking wonder to the environmental design, and indeed they have. The hand-painted backgrounds are stylish and show an impressive sense of distance. In medieval times, much more of daily life took place outdoors than in our modern society, and the game does well in zooming out on many of its scenes, allowing views of distant mountain ranges and clouds looming over colorful skies. Daedalic’s artists, committed to being true to the source, diligently studied medieval architecture, and the detail they’ve brought to the castles and churches of Shiring show the same fascination with this era that led Follett to write the novel.

This world is so beautiful to admire, it’s a bit of a disappointment that the characters themselves don’t look better. The models are adequate within the stylistic context of the game, but since most of the males wear various shades of drab brown, there is not a lot of color or variety. The character animation is a bit stiff as well: facial expressions tend to immediately shift one frame to the next rather than animate a change in emotion, and the lip-syncing is not at all convincing. The bigger problem, however, is that the minimalist design means there is not a lot of depth, so when someone walks across the screen (which they do quite slowly, even when using the “accelerated walking” option) the effect is more like a piece of paper sliding across a static background rather than the animated depth of a person actually moving in a world. Though the game has some visual novel elements, Daedalic has primarily remained true to its traditional adventure roots and so the character art and animation is an essential element of the experience, and one that I wish looked better.

Pillars allows for two control schemes, either a traditional dual-button, mouse-driven point-and-click, or for those inclined to play with a gamepad, a very simple and intuitive direct control scheme that uses the left stick to walk, right stick for inventory, and the buttons for interaction and observation. Either way, the “Look” concept here is handled in a way that I’ve never seen before. I’ll give you an example: take a look off to your right and say out loud the first thing you think about what you see. Chances are, you didn’t deliver an extensive description as though to an audience the way most adventure protagonists do, but rather rattled off a brief immediate reaction. I looked outside and said “sky looks hazy” and similarly, to look at an item in this game is to be given a series of up to three (if you look that many times) quick thoughts rather than one lengthy description. They are neither voiced nor capitalized sentences, just to drive home their informal, abrupt stream-of-thought nature. It’s unique, but because these thoughts are deliberately short, they also generally fail to provide much context about the world or reveal very much about your character’s thoughts and motivations, so I found them usually extraneous and less than helpful. If you feel that an adventure’s world is best discovered through thorough observation of hotspots, I think you’ll be disappointed with the sparsity of commentary here.

There isn’t a lot of actual inventory to be found and carried with you; the majority of your “items” to be used are actually thoughts or needs. “I need to get the brothers together for a meeting” becomes an object to be used on the scattered monks of Kingsbridge, rather than a dialogue tree option. I would say it works well as a way to manage your quests, but let’s not pretend there’s any real difficulty involved, particularly since the game displays (by default) your current goal on screen. There’s no challenge to speak of at all, really; though this isn’t a pure visual novel, your objective is always very evident and simply exploring and talking will get you where you need to be. You’d be surprised how many interactions are optional, however. You may not even realize that helping an older monk ease his pain is something you can do, but it’s rewarding to know that the game does not force you down one linear path of interaction. There are a few brief sequences where an arrow moves quickly across a bar at the bottom of the screen, and you must click or press at the right time to accomplish an action such as firing a slingshot. Such moments are the closest the game gets to any type of action elements.

It seems most modern adventures have at least some player choice mechanics, which honestly was a scary proposition for me as someone who so loved the story as already told by Ken Follett, because the main design options appear to be either disrupting the story and allowing for wide diversion, or making the choices minor and artificial. The latter would have been the easier path, but a less appealing one, and that is not the direction taken here. While there are a few choice moments that are clearly inconsequential in the grand scheme, generally all the decision points really do have the power to swing the story, at least temporarily. What seems like a relatively minor decision of whether to identify a novice monk who commits a small offense has troubling ramifications much later, putting clear weight behind everything you do.

The decision points aren’t always your direct actions, either: sometimes as you are about to do something, you’ll have to choose your specific motivation. There’s one very key moment where you have three choices: do it for Mom, do it for Tom, or don’t do it. A simple binary choice, given the circumstances, would probably not be very interesting, but I found myself very thoughtful about why exactly I was about to do this (or not) and it put me deep into the mind of the character in a way that games often fail to achieve. Each of the seven chapters ends with a recap screen that reminds you what exactly you did for future reference, and sometimes those choices are nothing like the path of the novel.

Though the game’s remarkable faithfulness to twelfth-century England should appeal even to those entirely unfamiliar with the book, the novel has sold over 26 million copies and thus it is more than fair to judge the game on its adherence to the source material—and even with the choices you make, it is a triumph in that regard. The design is a masterful blend of hitting the important story beats and developing the essential relationships, while still allowing for the flexibility of a choice-based game. There are scenes, such as the initial discussion of the Kingsbridge cathedral plans between Tom and Philip, where substantially all the dialogue is word-for-word lifted from Ken Follett. However, there are major character relationships such as the dynamic between Jack and his older step-brother Alfred (who had endless animosity toward each other in the book) that, through the player’s actions, can be substantially modified. It is not at all surprising that the game has great reverence for the novel, of course; Follett himself was involved as a story consultant, and in fact even plays a minor voice role as the Kingsbridge priory’s cantor.

The renowned author is just one member of an absolutely superb professional voice cast. Not only are the English accents authentic and seemingly true to the era, but the actors hit every beat of the characters they portray. Prior Philip, one of my favorite literary characters, has the quiet confidence and faith of a devout man of God determined to remain strong in the midst of endless trials. William Hamleigh, conversely one of the most atrociously evil antagonists to be found, is exactly the right mix of sneering youth and sinister menace. At one point while playing as Philip, you’ll be accosted by William with a profane monologue regarding his use of sexual intimidation that is downright stomach-turning—and which could only succeed with a great vocal performance. Even Jack, age 11 in this Book, gets about as good a performance as you could ask from a pre-pubescent lad—not too cute or wide-eyed, but still youthful and likeably genuine.

As good as the voices are, the orchestral soundtrack may be better. Daedalic has spared no expense in bringing in the FILMharmonic Orchestra of Prague to perform an original composition, and the incredible result is reminiscent of some of the industry’s greatest soundtracks, a constantly evolving and unbroken symphony that frames every scene with the right emotional notes and the type of evocative score that I always prefer to turn on as background noise while reading (or composing a review). This is easily my favorite adventure game soundtrack in recent memory and deserves to be enjoyed both as context to the game and on its own.

This debut episode of Pillars focuses almost entirely on Philip and young Jack. The third major POV character of the novel, Aliena, daughter of the Earl of Shiring, has what only amounts to a couple brief cameos—but given the events that take place shortly after this installment ends, her story is certain to be a primary focus of the next Book. The individual chapters range from over an hour to just twenty minutes in length—the seventh and final chapter particularly ends a bit too quickly—and all told my playing time came in a shade under six hours.

As with any choice-heavy game, there is plenty of wondering whether certain decisions could be made differently, and the choice moments seem to allow you to deviate broadly from the path of the book. Usually I stayed close to the story I was familiar with, since it generally felt the most true to the motivations of the characters. However, the achievements serve to tease any missed opportunities. I finished this Book with 12 of 21 achievements, but the 9 that I missed were clearly different options that I didn’t take. It strikes me as misguided to offer achievements for only one branch in a story tree where multiple choices all appear to have validity, and I hope that achievement hunting completionists aren’t driven to constantly rewind their story (even with an autosave, the game allows for hard saving, with unlimited save slots, at any point). Please take my advice: make your choices and dwell in them, enjoying wherever the remarkable story takes you.

I requested this review assignment eagerly, and then almost immediately regretted it, for a very simple reason: The Pillars of the Earth is my favorite book ever. I have always adored every aspect of this extraordinary novel, a book I consider to be as close to perfect as a work of fiction can be. And therefore, I couldn’t help but be apprehensive of all the ways that Daedalic could have gotten this very wrong as I was booting up. Six hours later, other than some minor concerns about the character art, overall I’m impressed by the awesome quality of this game and the surprising effectiveness of how choice mechanics have been introduced into such an established story, and I’m truly excited to continue the Kingsbridge tale into the next interactive Book.
 

vonAchdorf

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https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/33359

I requested this review assignment eagerly, and then almost immediately regretted it, for a very simple reason: The Pillars of the Earth is my favorite book ever. I have always adored every aspect of this extraordinary novel, a book I consider to be as close to perfect as a work of fiction can be. And therefore, I couldn’t help but be apprehensive of all the ways that Daedalic could have gotten this very wrong as I was booting up. Six hours later, other than some minor concerns about the character art, overall I’m impressed by the awesome quality of this game and the surprising effectiveness of how choice mechanics have been introduced into such an established story, and I’m truly excited to continue the Kingsbridge tale into the next interactive Book.

I'm not quite sure, if this speaks for the reviewer.
 

MRY

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Glowing reviews on Metacritic, 100 percent positive on Steam. Too early to judge simultaneous players via Steamcharts. Hope this can keep them afloat after TLJH.
 

vonAchdorf

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Glowing reviews on Metacritic, 100 percent positive on Steam. Too early to judge simultaneous players via Steamcharts. Hope this can keep them afloat after TLJH.

I only see 9 reviews on Steam, that's not a lot.
 

MRY

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21. 12 are from giveaway copies. But all are positive!

EDIT: Current Steamchart numbers put its players somewhere between Kathy Rain and Shardlight. That seems a little low for a Daedalic game, but maybe it will turn around over the weekend.
 
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vonAchdorf

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They had a pretty massive YouTube push in Germany (the biggest German gaming YouTuber has some minor voice over role in the game) and most people seemed to like what they saw. LiS shows that (somewhat unexpectedly) LPs don't necessarily negatively impact the sales of rather linear story based games, so there's hope.

They also did another deal with a gaming magazine - like with Deponia Doomsday last year, you could (can) get the game on the cover CD for 10€ instead of 30€ and and it was released two weeks earlier than on Steam with the magazine, so it's likely not a Steam copy.
 

MRY

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Steam reviews are still 100% with 37 reviews posted. But GOG reviews are at 3 stars. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a sharp divergence, though I'm sure it has happened before. It seems like confirmation that it is not a traditional adventure game, if such confirmation were needed.
 

taxalot

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I did read the novel and absolutely remembers nothing remarkable sex related in it. I do remember the cathedral building though. I guess it all depends where your interest lies.
 
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So I just noticed this was released.

And it sounds as though it's every bit as crap as I drunkenly speculated it would be, back on page 1 of this thread.
:dance:


Hard to feel much anger about this though. Bluntly put, the game was clearly not being made for me, and I'm okay with that; especially if this sort of project means we get a TLJH-sort-of-project as well.
 

Crooked Bee

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Played this for a couple of hours last night, and is it just me or is this game simply dull as hell?

Maybe it picks up later, I dunno, but so far nonexistent gameplay (no puzzles and almost no inventory puzzles either - just click on stuff to move on with the story) and really boring dialogue (and here I was hoping for a good story and good writing at least, given the absence of gameplay) give me no reason to continue playing.
 

vonAchdorf

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I didn't play it yet, but from the let's play I watched before release the "ask about topic" thing, which is kinda an inventory of topics, is a bit underwhelmingly implemented. I liked the option to click things with the Bible for a religious reference though.
 

Jaesun

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It's such a shame, that as soon as they were bought, it's been a continuous downhill roll from them (game wise). Instead of focusing on what they were really good at, it's all a focus of business/money (and it greatly shows), and they continue to fail till they are finally gone. A real shame.

Thanks for the awesome games you DID give us. :salute:
 

Infinitron

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/08/25/ken-folletts-the-pillars-of-the-earth-review/

Wot I Think: Ken Follett’s The Pillars Of The Earth (chapters 1-7)

pote1-620x310.jpg


Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth [official site] is a book which passed me by, even though I’ve devoured historical novels which must have been sitting mere inches away on the shelves of the library. The action of the story orbits the building of a cathedral in the town of Kingsbridge in 12th century England. My experience of the story comes solely from Daedelic’s conversion of the novel into a point-and-click adventure, taking you through intertwining stories from church and state, and allowing you to bend your own pathway a little as you explore the gorgeous and evocative environments.

The first seven chapters of the story comprise a first book of sorts and are now out with two more sets to follow as part of a season pass deal. Here’s Wot I Think so far!

pote3-620x310.jpg


In this point and click the story moves between the point of view of the monk, Philip of Gwynedd, the master builder Tom, and a child Tom meets up with called Jack, who lives with his mother in the forest at the start of the tale. Most of the time you’re doing traditional point and clicking, although it has been streamlined in some nice ways. Along the way there are a few points where you get some light rhythm action minigames to see whether you execute an action well or muck it up. They’re not about gating progress, but about giving you another way to make a choice which felt pleasantly tabletop RPG-ish.

The first thing which struck me was the artwork. You start in a bitter winter and the palette is a similar one to that of The Banner Saga, or the Winterfell parts of Game of Thrones – you know the one – dingy with that thin, cold light which makes the greys greyer. Even though games often revel in muddy colours, they don’t often go full winter as it’s such an unwelcoming and depressing look, and its novelty makes it peculiarly refreshing.

As I made my way through the first seven chapters there’s a gradual lightening and brightening as time passes but I ended up turning the brightness up early just to help with the visibility. It was a curious moment as I found myself conflicted over whether to do so – continuing in low light was uncomfortable, but it was also part of reminding me that this was a 12th century midwinter, so what light was I expecting?

pote4-620x310.jpg


That awareness of being in a very different historical period was a recurring feature. I have a working knowledge of cathedral architecture because of my undergraduate degree and The Pillars of the Earth has more than a few scenes which breathe life into that knowledge, tying the end result to a struggle for construction resources, a need for patience because the whole thing takes decades (sometimes even centuries), and fleshing out what these buildings were intended to actually DO for the lives of the people of the see. Sometimes The Pillars of the Earth gets clunky on that front, though, with Tom veering from “enthusiastic craftsman” into “pedagogue” while chatting with his kids about building. It’s not terrible, just a bit awkward.

The sense of being set at a particular time isn’t just confined to cathedral architecture – there’s a sense of religion’s function within the society and the general unrest during the Anarchy. Most obviously, those aspects of 12th century life are expressed in terms of the variety of people who have taken religious orders and the various allegiances you uncover as you talk with them. You also get repeated reminders of the brutality of life, the position of women – or indeed anyone considered not powerful in society (and brutality/power dynamics/sexual assault around that), the sin attached to kinds of sexuality and living outside marriage and so on.

Chatting with Adam (who read the book a million years ago and played snippets of the game earlier this year) we agreed that there’s sometimes a thin line between an admirable exploration of the cruelties that arise within a setting, historical or otherwise, and a shift into unrelenting grimness. Along with the wintry palette, the treading of that line is another way in which the show reminds me of Game of Thrones. There’s enough in common in terms of tone and the positioning of women and other disempowered people that, as with Martin’s books and the TV show, I’m a bit wary of how this game is going to play out on that front. That said, through mine and Adam’s conversation it seems like the game definitely has its own voice and that the writing team seem to be approaching critiques of the source material thoughtfully so it’s wariness tempered with hope.

Something which was curious to me as a newcomer to Follett’s world was that the game feels both light and heavy when it comes to the story. I made my way through the seven chapters in a few hours (probably an afternoon, if I hadn’t been taking breaks for other work tasks) and I never felt lost or overwhelmed. In fact I was surprised at the speedy pace! On the other hand a few things which happened and which my characters would find out about through letters seemed incredibly dense in terms of information and were hard to weave into the story playing out in front of me given they involved people who only got passing mentions in the dialogue. It’s not a big thing, but occasionally I would gloss over a letter thinking it was setting the scene and then find myself a little confused in a conversation, or uncertain about the choice I was making. Overall I’d say the effect is a positive one because it gives you the impression that the world is built on these hefty foundations and it helps give the sense of a fully realised setting without battering you with lore/historical documents.

pote2-620x310.jpg


I also want to note the streamlining in Daedelic’s interface. I really appreciated that you never have too many items to keep track of, all visible by glancing at the bottom of the screen, nor do you ever have a list of more than about three tasks. There’s a chance some people might find that a bit on-rails-y but for me it helped with keeping the story moving.

There’s an neat twist on the ‘look’ verb as well. When you right click an object, instead of getting a visual description, you hear related thoughts from the character you’re currently controlling – sometimes those are just an assortment which give you a sense of how the character relates to the world and its inhabitants, but other times it’s used really effectively to communicate fear or urgency, just showing you the same thought over and over again. You can also use your bible on objects and people when playing as Philip of Gwynedd, and this often yields a relevant snippet of scripture, which is a nice touch.

You get to make choices about how the characters act and there seem to be actual consequences to those actions, but I have no idea how much is illusory or superficial given the game would need to follow the basic major plot beats of the novel. For example, I definitely got a novice into trouble in my playthrough by choosing to report his misdemeanours. There was a consequence to that action for him in that he got punished but I’m less clear about whether that affects anything beyond how I relate to the characters involved. It might have altered how a particular meeting played out in terms of the opinions of the monks (although I think that meeting ended up playing out a particular way regardless because “story”) or it might come back to bite me in a later set of chapters but I’m not sure how much is flavouring and how much is me doing any of the steering here.

pote5-620x349.jpg


Before I finish I’m just going to go back to the strand of sexual violence in the story which I mentioned in passing a few paragraphs up. The game has a 16+ PEGI rating which didn’t exactly surprise me because I’ve read similar historical novels that don’t shy away from cruelty and suffering. As the game’s rating isn’t explicitly given on its Steam page, the art style and a sense that it might be a lighter period piece might wrongfoot some people, especially those not familiar with the sort of grim historical or semi-historical style.

PEGI give their reasoning for the rating as “Realistic looking violence – Strong language” but for me that doesn’t impart information about sexual violence. The sexual violence in this game is verbally rather than visually explicit, but that doesn’t make its impact any less forceful. Reading the PEGI description I don’t think I would have been able to accurately gauge the strength of that particular content so I wanted to make sure I gave a clear “this is a thing which is strongly present in this game” note in case that influences either you buying it for yourself or buying it for others. I’d need to see more of how it plays out across later chapters to know if it’s making a more interesting point than just underscoring brutality or painting a character as an awful person through that violence, though.

In terms of where this opening salvo of game leaves me, I’m interested to see how some of the characters progress and wary of others. The latter is because some of the jerks are so clearly going to take their douchebaggery too far and I don’t trust historical novels to give people their comeuppance! In terms of where I’m the most emotionally invested, though, I’d say it’s actually in the fate of the cathedral. They’re so complicated and prone to expense/disaster/overrunning/all of the above and I really want to know if this one is ever completed!

All of the above bodes well for my interest in future instalments BUT it also raises a question. The game is not complete but the book is so… do I buy and read the actual book or not? ARGH!

The Pillars of the Earth: Book One is out now, with two further releases coming in December and early 2018. It’s available via Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux, and is bought as a full season for £26.99.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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I was wondering if someone would post that review. My favorite parts are the amazing Kinsley gaffe of "another way in which the show reminds me of Game of Thrones" and "there are a few points where you get some light rhythm action minigames to see whether you execute an action well or muck it up ... which felt pleasantly tabletop RPG-ish." Obviously lots of other low-hanging fruit, but none so ripe or so easy to reach.
 
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