Evan Urquhart

I'm lately obsessed with @OverlandGame, a punishing, turn-based roguelike with a ton of personality. Finding it frustrating that there's not much of a community to discuss strategy and commiserate with. This game deserves better, imo!

Overland has this amazingly minimalist approach to story-telling and character building. You start out with a character who has a couple sentences describing them. Something like "Grew up on a farm. Wishes things could just go back to normal."

Your character is usually joined by another (sometimes two, very rarely more). They all have similar small, randomly generated bios, and those along with occasional scraps of dialogue are pretty much all you get.

Oh, forgot to mention it, but some of the friendly characters desperately trying to survive and help each other through a post-apocalyptic wasteland are cute dogs.

The game play takes place on a succession of diorama-like squares. (They remind me of mini game boards, one after the next.) There's a feeling that you're playing with toys, or perhaps of being these characters incredibly limited and failing God.

Now, here's the not-for-everyone part: The game tortures you with scarcity and risk. Staying put is certain death and you need gas to move forward, but getting gas can feel impossibly hard, tempting you to move on quickly without getting enough.

If you make it to a new area you can start there next time, but always with a new set of characters. Your old characters have been permanently sacrificed for your overall progression.