Info about Vendir: Plague of Lies:

Official game description:
While you wait for Vendir: Plague of Lies
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About the Game
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Features
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**CRPG-Classic Ambiance in a Dynamic World:**  
Set foot in a sprawling, interactive world that reverberates with the essence of classic computer role-playing games. From bustling towns to eerie dungeons, the Land of Vendir beckons for exploration.  
**Engaging Turn-Based Combat:**  
Dive into strategic battles that fuse intuitive mechanics with depth. Choose to engage with melee, spells, or a blend of both, and exploit enemy weaknesses to claim victory.  
**Extensive Exploration and Loot System:**  
Traverse the diverse terrains of Vendir, uncovering secrets, treasures, and lore. Equip and upgrade gear, and delve into the connection between items and the overarching narrative.  
**Deep Character Customization:**  
With a vast skill tree boasting hundreds of abilities, tailor your characters based on your playstyle. Choose from classes like Warrior, Thief, Necromancer, and Mage, and experiment with synergies for varied gameplay experiences.  
**Choice-Driven Narrative:**  
Interact with NPCs in dialogues rich in lore, where your choices carve out the story's direction. Every decision could have ramifications, leading to multiple story outcomes.
Story
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Embark on a harrowing journey in a land where darkness overshadows hope. The Land of Vendir, tainted by the Royal Family's oppressive reign, is a realm of despair, where life's value is less than the mud on one's boots.  
Amidst the chaos, whispers of an ancient prophecy surface, proclaiming the rise of heroes who would challenge the throne. But in a world where public intoxication leads to execution, and debts unpaid result in a fiery death, do these foretold saviors dare to rise?  
Journey across the treacherous landscapes of Vendir, rallying allies and avoiding King Elrik's wrathful gaze. As the Eighth Era unfolds, destiny awaits the brave.  
In this epic party-based RPG, challenge the prevailing lies of a Kingdom suffocating under deceit. Will you be the beacon of hope Vendir so desperately needs, or will you falter and let darkness consume all?

Release date: 30 May, 2024

Categories: RPG, Turn-based Combat, Character Customization, Choice-based Narrative, Open-World Exploration, Crafting, Party-based Combat, Strategic Combat


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging gameplay and world (weight 0.96): The game provides an engaging and enjoyable experience through its well-executed gameplay, interesting story, fun quests, and satisfying combat. Exploration is rewarding, and the world is well-realized, making the game a worthwhile experience overall.
- Unique and enjoyable humor (weight 0.95): The game features a unique and enjoyable sense of humor, ranging from dark and morally challenging decisions to lighthearted quests and witty dialogue. This humor is a strong point, enhancing the overall experience and setting it apart from other RPGs.
- Satisfying character progression system (weight 0.5): The game offers a satisfying character progression system with diverse customization options, allowing players to experiment with different builds and team compositions. The ability to respec and the availability of various classes contribute to the strategic depth and replayability of the game.
- Appealing graphics and atmosphere (weight 0.27): The game features high-quality graphics and a beautiful, old-fashioned art style that creates a great atmosphere. The overall visual effects are good, and the game's presentation is appealing, contributing to an immersive experience.
- Meaningful crafting and equipment systems (weight 0.17): The game incorporates crafting and equipment systems that add depth to character development without being overly complex. The variety of loot, weapons, and equipment affixes, along with well-executed crafting and cooking systems, enhance the overall gameplay experience.
- Nostalgic old-school RPG feel (weight 0.17): The game evokes a sense of nostalgia by capturing the essence of old-school RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Vampire's Fall: Origins. It delivers a familiar yet refreshing experience with its character stats, skill trees, and the desire to level up and acquire new gear.
- Functional and accessible game (weight 0.13): The game is functional, inexpensive, and available in multiple languages, making it accessible to a wider audience. It runs smoothly and has no major bugs, contributing to a casual and enjoyable gameplay experience.
- Meaningful choices and consequences (weight 0.11): Player choices and stats have meaningful consequences, influencing dialogue options and impacting the game world in certain locations. This adds depth and replayability to the game, as players can experience different outcomes based on their decisions.
- Dark and immersive atmosphere (weight 0.11): The game creates a dark and immersive atmosphere through its bleak palettes, ruined environments, and morally ambiguous characters. This deliberate ugliness and pessimistic feeling contribute to a unique and engaging experience.
- Insightful and realistic conversations (weight 0.06): The game features seemingly well-thought-out conversations about serious topics, such as suicidal depression and the dangers of dysfunctional democracy. The game portrays these experiences with surprising realism and insightfulness.

Common complaints:
- Poor translation quality impacts experience (weight 0.92): The game suffers from poor translation quality across multiple languages, including machine translation, leading to nonsensical dialogue, confusing quests, and difficulty understanding the plot. This significantly detracts from the player experience and makes the game difficult to enjoy. Many reviewers specifically mention 'machine translation' which indicates a lack of effort from the developers.
- Weak, uninspired writing/story (weight 0.87): The game's writing is weak, with poor grammar, nonsensical dialogue, and an over-reliance on unfunny humor. The plot is generic and unengaging, and choices made by the player have little impact on the story. This makes it difficult to become invested in the game world or characters.
- Buggy, repetitive quest design (weight 0.75): The game suffers from numerous bugs and crashes, and the quest design is repetitive and uninspired, often involving simple fetch or kill tasks. Quests also lack clear direction and level recommendations, leading to frustration and a lack of player agency. These issues contribute to an unpolished and unenjoyable experience.
- Outdated, low-quality graphics (weight 0.69): The game's graphics and character models appear outdated, resembling those from older games or mobile ports. This detracts from the overall visual appeal and immersion. Reviewers specifically mention that the game looks like a mobile port, which is not up to par with modern PC games.
- Repetitive, tedious combat system (weight 0.33): Combat becomes repetitive and tedious due to bullet sponge enemies, high dodge chances, and a lack of enemy variety. The combat system itself is simple and uninspired, with limited options and a slow pace. This makes encounters feel like a chore, especially in the late game.
- Shallow character/skill development (weight 0.27): The game's character development and skill tree systems are limited and uninspired, with little incentive to choose one path over another. Equipment stats overshadow character stats, making gear more important than character development choices. This reduces player agency and makes character progression feel less meaningful.
- Lacks sufficient content/length (weight 0.1): The game feels too short and lacks sufficient content, with reviewers desiring more main story quests and new items. The game also feels grindy, which exacerbates the lack of content. This leaves players feeling unsatisfied and wanting more from the game.
- Inconsistent tone, unpolished (weight 0.07): The game's dark humor is strange and may not appeal to everyone, and the game is poorly made and only superficially resembles a dark RPG. The game attempts humor through quirky characters and questlines, which clashes with the grimdark tone and breaks immersion. This makes the game feel tonally inconsistent and unpolished.
- Poor hero balance/challenge (weight 0.07): The reviewer criticizes the addition of the 3rd and 4th heroes, finding them unnecessary and suggesting they are only useful as necromancers focused on health and resurrection. The reviewer found that all heroes hinder each other, unlike Vampire's Fall where there is only one hero to manage. This indicates a lack of balance and challenge.

Gameplay feedback:
- Extensive character customization options (weight 0.3): The game offers extensive character customization through diverse classes, skill trees, and equipment choices, allowing players to create versatile builds. Characters have action point pools for abilities, and a meter grants extra turns and refills action points.
- Classic turn-based combat system (weight 0.28): The game employs a traditional turn-based combat system, reminiscent of classic JRPGs, where players strategically select actions for their party members. A limit break mechanic restores mana, potentially shifting the battle's momentum.
- Simple, but uninspired gameplay (weight 0.14): The game is simple to understand with easy-to-learn mechanics and fast gameplay, but combat can lack excitement with repetitive skill animations.
- Open world with visible waypoints (weight 0.12): The game features overland exploration with points of interest, an open world, and a map that reveals itself as you explore, showing healing locations, shops, and quest waypoints.
- Strategic class builds and tactics (weight 0.12): Several reviews mention specific class builds and tactics, indicating a level of strategic depth and experimentation within the game's combat system. However, some builds may be ineffective or require specific setups.
- Meaningful quests and choices (weight 0.11): The game features multiple quests with dialogue choices that impact progress, and quests can be approached in multiple ways, such as using charm, negotiation, or combat.
- Crafting and equipment upgrading (weight 0.09): The game features crafting stations where you can break down useless equipment into metal, and metal can be combined with jewels to upgrade armor. Potions and a crafting/cooking system are present.
- Weapon types and enemy weaknesses (weight 0.08): Weapon type is important and must complement the character's main ability. Monsters and enemies have weaknesses and resistances that players can exploit.
- Basic character creation options (weight 0.06): The game features character creation with basic options like male/female, faces, and hairstyles, but these are purely visual.
- Fixed loot pool, attribute-based dialogue (weight 0.06): The game is not a loot-based game; monster drops are random, but from a fixed pool of equipment with set attributes. Features a dialogue system where different attributes influence conversation choices, affecting enemy attitudes.
- Item farming impacts difficulty (weight 0.04): The game includes a wide variety of equipment types and affixes, encouraging item farming, and farming for money to acquire full gear makes the game significantly easier.
- Top-down with easy controls (weight 0.04): Top-down RPG with easy controls and a well-executed equipment system.
- Challenging boss encounters (weight 0.03): The game features challenging boss encounters marked by "skulls" on the map, rewarding players with valuable loot upon victory.
- Optional lore exposition (weight 0.02): The game world lore is presented through specific characters who offer to share the history of the kingdoms, allowing players to skip the background if they prefer.
- Death has minimal penalty (weight 0.02): The game doesn’t punish you for sticking your nose everywhere; dying results in reappearing in the nearby town.
- Resource respawn encourages exploration (weight 0.02): World resources respawn, which made walking more appealing than fast travel.
- Inefficient talent screen UI (weight 0.02): The talent screen is small and doesn't utilize the available screen space effectively.
- Mouse-only control option (weight 0.02): The game allows playing using only the mouse.
- Potentially lengthy game experience (weight 0.02): Found a talking piece of meat on a hook, implying a potentially lengthy game experience.

Performance notes:
- Good performance on PC/Steam Deck (weight 0.1): The game generally runs well on PC and Steam Deck, with the PC version specifically noted for improved loading times compared to mobile. Some players have reported smooth performance, even on lower-end hardware.
- Quest/save location bugs (weight 0.05): Players have reported issues with quest markers pointing to the wrong location and the game resuming in a different location than the last save. These bugs can disrupt the player's progress and create confusion.
- Minor control/UI issues (weight 0.04): The game's control scheme and UI have some minor issues, including problems with scaling and handling. One reviewer specifically mentioned using keyboard mapping with right-hand arrows for movement on PC.
- Characters stuck in collisions (weight 0.02): A small number of players have reported instances where characters get stuck inside object collisions. This is a relatively rare bug, but it can be frustrating when it occurs.
- Includes lag/disconnection mitigation (weight 0.02): The game includes a system to address lagging and disconnections. This suggests that the developers are aware of potential network issues and have taken steps to mitigate them.
- No bugs found (weight 0.02): One reviewer didn't find a single bug. This is a positive sign, but it's important to note that this is just one person's experience and other players may encounter different issues.

Recommendations:
- Good value, especially on sale (weight 0.68): Many reviewers find the game enjoyable and a good value, especially when purchased on sale. Some suggest trying the demo first. However, some reviewers disagree, citing flaws that make it not worth the full price.
- Numerous flaws; not recommended (weight 0.2): Several reviewers do not recommend the game due to numerous flaws, poor translation, and a lack of content. Some suggest waiting for updates or even requesting a refund, indicating significant issues with the game in its current state.
- Appeals to old-school RPG fans (weight 0.11): The game is recommended for fans of old-school and turn-based RPGs, especially those who enjoyed Vampire's Fall: Origins or Baldur's Gate. Some reviewers note similarities to Baldur's Gate in character builds.
- Anticipation for future content (weight 0.06): Reviewers express excitement for future content, DLCs, and releases from the studio. This indicates a positive reception and anticipation for the game's continued development.
- Try demo before purchase (weight 0.04): Reviewers suggest trying the demo before purchasing to assess potential issues. This indicates that there are known problems that may affect player enjoyment.
- Exploration encouraged; boost vitality (weight 0.04): The game's design encourages exploration without fear of significant setbacks. Boosting vitality is crucial for overcoming over-leveled challenges.
- Better alternatives exist (weight 0.02): One reviewer recommends playing other RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, or Warhammer Rogue Trader instead. This suggests that the game may not measure up to other popular titles in the genre.
- Ignore negative reviews (weight 0.02): The reviewer recommends ignoring the few negative reviews. This point is not very specific and could be a sign of biased opinion, so it receives a low importance score.

Other player notes:
- Atmospheric audio, no voice acting (weight 0.08): The game prioritizes atmospheric sound design over voice acting, enhancing the overall sense of immersion. Meaningful lines of dialogue contribute to the game's lore and world-building, despite the absence of extensive voice work. The music is well-received and complements the game's atmosphere.
- Mobile design influences UI/UX (weight 0.06): The game's UI and design show its mobile origins, which may impact the experience on other platforms. This includes UI elements and potentially gameplay mechanics that are better suited for touchscreens.
- Lack of post-release support (weight 0.05): The developer has a history of abandoning games after their initial mobile release, with a lack of content updates and patches. This is a concern for players looking for long-term support and continued development.
- Lineage system impacts gameplay (weight 0.05): The game features a lineage system (Performer, Barbarian, Scholar, Rogue) that provides different stat bonuses and unique solutions to in-game situations. This adds replayability and allows players to approach challenges in different ways.
- Machine translation used in-game (weight 0.03): The game uses machine translation, which may result in awkward or inaccurate text. This can detract from the player's immersion and understanding of the story and dialogue.
- Single save slot per playthrough (weight 0.03): The game allows only a single save slot per playthrough, which may be restrictive for some players. However, multiple save files are allowed for different characters, mitigating the issue somewhat.
- Large map, many quests (weight 0.03): The game features a large map with many quests and items to discover. This provides players with a sense of exploration and encourages them to engage with the game's world.
- Quest givers have overhead symbols (weight 0.02): Every significant figure and quest giver has a symbol above their head. This may detract from immersion.

Emotions:
No emotions}