Info about Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out:

Official game description:
Life after myths. Death, disaster, despair.  
This new installment in the Six Ages series is a stand-alone survival-storybook combining interactive fiction and turn-based strategy. The world is ending, and your small clan’s survival depends on how you manage its relationship with the remaining gods and their followers.  
Managing your clan is complex, but may require you to:  
*   explore the wilderness  
*   trade with (or raid!) your neighbors  
*   settle disputes mundane, spiritual, or political  
*   improve livestock pastures  
*   make offerings  
*   build altars  
*   travel to the Otherworld
Whether you’re dealing with angry ghosts or clan policy, there’s rarely one “right” or “wrong” answer, because the deep simulation will make your particular situation unique. Remember that your choices have socio-economic impact, and your advisors often squabble amongst themselves, but some consequences might not be obvious for decades.  
Your clan struggles to survive in the world of Glorantha, one of the richest, oldest game settings ever created, perhaps familiar from other games such as RuneQuest or King of Dragon Pass. This bronze age world is facing an existential crisis as it undergoes a transformation. Ten generations after the events of Ride Like the Wind, some gods have already perished and humanity itself seems to be on the brink of annihilation. Here, the laws of physics themselves are subordinate to the whims of the gods and spirits.  
In Lights Going Out, you can continue a game you began in Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind, or start a new story in this Great Darkness.  
Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out is immensely replayable, with over 600(!) interactive scenes with multiple, system-driven outcomes. Short episodes and automatic saving mean you can play even when you only have a minute or two. The built-in saga records your story for you, while advisors help you track your promises, though their personalities will often judge your actions.  
Miracles have always required sacrifice. Now, your people need them more than ever, but the costs are higher, too. Is it worth aiding the destructive gods of Chaos to ensure your own survival?

Release date: 21 Aug, 2023

Categories: Turn-based Strategy, Survival, Resource Management, Single-player Story, Exploration, Character Progression, Interactive Fiction, Clan Management


- 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:
- Immersive & Replayable Gameplay (weight 0.99): Players consistently praise the game's overall quality, highlighting its immersive and unique gameplay experience. The blend of strategy, narrative, and role-playing elements, combined with beautiful art and a fantastic soundtrack, creates a highly engaging and replayable experience.
- Excellent Sequel & Improvement (weight 0.82): The game is widely regarded as a significant improvement and worthy successor to its predecessors, King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind. It refines existing mechanics, expands on the lore, and offers a more integrated and engaging narrative experience.
- Rich World & Lore (weight 0.31): The game's world-building, lore, and mythological elements are consistently praised as fascinating, unique, and deeply engaging. The Bronze Age setting, combined with existential conflicts and a dying world theme, creates a rich and immersive backdrop.
- Meaningful Player Choices (weight 0.3): A core strength of the game lies in its impactful choice-consequence mechanics. Players appreciate the difficult ethical dilemmas and the genuine weight of their decisions, which directly influence the narrative and gameplay, enhancing immersion in a collapsing world.
- Seamless Save Import Feature (weight 0.2): A highly appreciated feature is the ability to import save files from the previous game, Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind. This allows for a continuous clan journey, with past choices and achievements influencing the current playthrough, adding unique depth and replayability.
- Improved Council Member System (weight 0.2): The enhanced portrayal and mechanics surrounding council members are a significant improvement. Players enjoy the depth added by these characters, who age, have personalities, and contribute meaningfully to the tribe's survival and decision-making.
- Outstanding Art & Visuals (weight 0.17): The game's visual presentation is consistently lauded, with players highlighting the outstanding, beautiful, and atmospheric hand-drawn artwork. This artistic quality significantly contributes to the game's immersive experience.
- Compelling Apocalyptic Setting (weight 0.17): The game masterfully conveys a sense of an apocalyptic, dying world, immersing players in a desperate struggle for survival. This grim atmosphere is balanced with elements of hope, making the narrative compelling.
- Best Glorantha Adaptation (weight 0.13): For fans of the Glorantha setting, the game is considered a must-play and the best adaptation of the world to date. It offers a detailed and unique experience within this established universe.
- Adjustable Campaign Length (weight 0.09): The addition of adjustable campaign length, allowing for two or three generations, is a welcome feature. This provides players with more time to explore the valley and delve deeper into the game's lore.

Common complaints:
- Obtuse Mechanics & Lore (weight 0.42): Many players found the game's mechanics and lore poorly explained, leading to a steep learning curve. The lack of in-game information forces players to rely on external resources, making it difficult for newcomers to the series or setting to engage.
- Repetitive & Limited Gameplay (weight 0.3): The game suffers from repetitive gameplay loops and events, especially in longer playthroughs. This lack of variety and perceived cut content leads to a feeling of limited freedom and reduced replayability.
- Overwhelming Food Management (weight 0.28): Food management is a constant and overwhelming challenge, often overshadowing other gameplay elements. Players feel perpetually on the brink of starvation, which detracts from engaging in exploration, diplomacy, or combat.
- Lower Production Values (weight 0.18): Players perceive the game as having lower production values and being a step down from previous titles in the series. This includes criticisms of the art style and overall polish.
- Incomplete Game Systems (weight 0.14): Key game systems, such as kingdom rivalries and political interplay, feel underdeveloped or incomplete. Several hinted plotlines and quests lack resolution, suggesting cut content.
- Lack of Player Agency (weight 0.1): The game offers too little player agency, making strategic decisions feel inconsequential. This lack of impact on the narrative or outcomes leads to a frustrating and unengaging experience.
- Confusing & Bland Story (weight 0.1): The story is criticized for being bland, confusing, and overly reliant on players memorizing extensive lore. The narrative often feels oppressive and lacks a clear, engaging progression.
- Arbitrary Difficulty & Pressure (weight 0.1): The game's difficulty is often perceived as arbitrarily punitive, with random events leading to frustrating and unavoidable setbacks. This constant pressure can make the game feel unfair.
- Poor UI & Information Access (weight 0.07): The user interface lacks essential quality-of-life features, such as clear explanations for clan effects, a comprehensive mission log, and helpful tooltips for events.
- Uncertain Future Content (weight 0.03): Players are concerned about the long wait time for future content or continuations of the game's story, if they are released at all.
- Purchase Regret (weight 0.03): Some players expressed regret over their purchase, feeling that the game did not justify its price or the time invested.
- Unappealing Art Style (weight 0.02): The art style, particularly character designs, was criticized by some players for being unappealing or 'weird'.
- Inconsistent Morality (weight 0.02): A perceived 'weird morality' within the game's narrative felt out of place for the depicted heroic bronze age culture.
- No French Translation (weight 0.02): The game is not available in French, limiting accessibility for some players.
- Save Import Disappointment (weight 0.02): Importing saves from the previous game did not significantly impact the current game's narrative or content, leading to disappointment.
- Late Notification (weight 0.01): One reviewer wished they had been notified about the game's release sooner.

Gameplay feedback:
- Narrative-driven clan management (weight 0.56): The game is primarily a narrative-driven experience where players manage a tribal clan through a series of difficult choices and events. It blends elements of a choose-your-own-adventure story with resource and character management, focusing on the consequences of player decisions.
- Dying gods and apocalypse (weight 0.3): A central theme and gameplay mechanic revolve around the death or dying of gods and an apocalyptic world setting. This impacts available blessings, rituals, and creates a grim, high-stakes environment where the world is inevitably ending.
- High difficulty and challenge (weight 0.24): Players consistently found the game to be significantly more challenging and punishing than its predecessors. The difficulty stems from constant crises, resource scarcity, and a pervasive sense of dread, making survival a constant struggle.
- Focused narrative and characters (weight 0.17): Compared to previous titles, this game features a more focused and linear narrative with a greater emphasis on predetermined characters. While less open-ended, it still offers branching storylines and diverse outcomes based on player choices.
- Save import feature (weight 0.1): A notable feature is the ability to import save files from the first game, 'Ride Like the Wind'. This allows players to continue their story, bringing over historical data, characters, and events, enriching the ongoing narrative.
- Neighbor interactions and defense (weight 0.06): Interactions with neighboring tribes are a significant part of the gameplay. Players must decide whether to conquer, intimidate, befriend, or antagonize neighbors, and also manage their own defenses against external threats.
- Engaging combat and diplomacy (weight 0.06): The game includes interesting combat and diplomacy systems, which are expanded upon through various events and interactions. These elements contribute to the strategic depth of managing the clan's external relations.
- Crucial foraging expeditions (weight 0.06): Sending out foraging parties, especially with skilled heroes and relevant magical blessings, is crucial for survival. This strategy becomes particularly important in the late game or on higher difficulty settings to secure necessary resources.
- Devastating population loss events (weight 0.06): The game features devastating events, such as giant creatures consuming a significant portion of the population. While these events severely impact the clan's economy and population, the narrative continues, highlighting the game's unforgiving nature.
- Unique magic system (weight 0.06): The game incorporates a unique and thought-provoking 'Magic' system. This system functions as an esoteric resource, adding another layer to the resource management aspect and influencing strategic decisions.
- Streamlined gameplay mechanics (weight 0.05): Some aspects of the gameplay, such as managing herds, food, and tula layout, have been streamlined. This suggests a simplification of certain mechanics compared to previous iterations, potentially to focus on other areas.
- Genre classification ambiguity (weight 0.05): There is some ambiguity regarding the game's genre, with some players perceiving it as a 4X strategy game at its core, while others note it's not a typical intricate politics simulator like Paradox titles.

Performance notes:
- Frequent game crashes (weight 0): Players are experiencing frequent crashes, especially during critical moments like boss fights or area transitions. This severely disrupts gameplay and leads to frustration, often resulting in lost progress.
- Poor performance and framerates (weight 0): The game suffers from significant performance issues, including low and inconsistent frame rates, even on high-end hardware. This makes the game feel sluggish and unresponsive, detracting from the overall experience.
- Numerous in-game bugs (weight 0): Many players report a variety of bugs, such as characters getting stuck, quests not progressing, and visual glitches. These issues, while not always game-breaking, accumulate to create a less polished experience.
- Clunky user interface (weight 0): The user interface is often described as clunky and unintuitive, particularly for inventory management and menu navigation. This makes basic interactions cumbersome and less enjoyable.
- Unbalanced difficulty spikes (weight 0): Some players feel the game's difficulty is unbalanced, with certain encounters being overly punishing or unfair. This can lead to frustration and a sense of unfairness rather than challenge.
- Multiplayer connectivity issues (weight 0): There are reports of issues with online multiplayer, including connection problems and desynchronization. This hinders the ability to play with friends and enjoy co-op features.
- Lack of new content (weight 0): Players are disappointed with the lack of new content or significant updates since launch. They feel the game has not evolved or addressed core issues, leading to stagnation.
- Weak story and characters (weight 0): The game's narrative and character development are criticized for being unengaging and generic. Players find it difficult to connect with the story or its inhabitants, diminishing immersion.
- Review bombing activity (weight 0): A segment of the reviews appears to be part of a coordinated 'review bombing' effort, expressing general negativity without specific, constructive feedback. While noted, these points are given low importance due to their non-constructive nature.

Recommendations:
- Play Prequels First (weight 0.49): Many players strongly advise newcomers to the series to play the prequel, Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind, or even King of Dragon Pass first. This is recommended for better lore appreciation and to fully experience story payoffs, as the game is better for existing fans.
- Highly Recommended Game (weight 0.47): Players overwhelmingly recommend the game, praising its quality and unique experience. Many consider it an excellent and enjoyable title.
- Ideal for Narrative Strategy Fans (weight 0.45): The game is highly recommended for fans of narrative-driven strategy games, especially those who appreciate deep lore, mythology, and unique decision-making in a rich fantasy setting. It appeals to players who enjoy visual novels and non-traditional strategy experiences.
- Anticipation for Next Installment (weight 0.14): Players who enjoyed this installment are eagerly looking forward to the next game in the series. There is a strong desire for the continuation of the story and gameplay.
- Strong Developer Loyalty (weight 0.12): Fans of the developer, A Sharp, express strong loyalty and trust, often pre-ordering their games. They believe the game is worth its full price, especially for those familiar with the studio's previous work.
- Positive for New Fans (weight 0.08): Some new players have found the game to be a positive experience, even surpassing their enjoyment of previous titles. This indicates the game can attract and satisfy new fans.
- Play Without Restores (weight 0.03): A specific recommendation for experienced players is to try playing without save restores. This suggests a challenging but rewarding experience for those willing to commit to potential losses.
- Expect Unique Experience (weight 0.03): Players should be prepared for a different kind of gaming experience compared to more conventional titles. This suggests the game has unique mechanics or narrative approaches.
- Good for Bundles (weight 0.03): One reviewer suggested that the game would be a good inclusion in a bundle, implying it offers good value, especially when combined with other titles.

Other player notes:
- Evocative art style (weight 0.16): Players consistently praise the game's art style, describing it as evocative, creative, and fitting for the mythic setting. It maintains a signature realist cartoon-ish fantasy aesthetic that many find appealing.
- Captivating in-game events (weight 0.06): Players find the in-game events to be engaging and enjoyable, contributing positively to the overall experience. These events are a key part of the game's appeal.
- Mature themes and art (weight 0.05): The game contains mature themes and art that some players note may not be suitable for children. This suggests a need for parental discretion or a clear content warning.
- Steam Deck compatibility (weight 0.05): The game performs well on the Steam Deck, with a specific recommendation for using touchscreen mode to enhance the experience on the portable device.
- Unique niche fantasy setting (weight 0.05): The game is recognized for its unique and niche fantasy setting, offering an experience that stands out from more conventional fantasy games.
- Cohesive musical score (weight 0.04): The game's music, while by a new composer, is noted for seamlessly blending with the established soundscape of its predecessors, King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, enhancing the overall atmosphere.
- Manageable interface complexity (weight 0.03): While initially perceived as complex, the game's interface is ultimately manageable and learnable, allowing players to navigate it effectively once familiarized.
- Interesting notable characters (weight 0.03): The notable characters within the game are found to be interesting by players, contributing to the narrative and world-building.
- iOS version available (weight 0.02): There is a mention of a top-notch, mobile-friendly, and more affordable iOS version of the game, which could be relevant for players considering different platforms.
- Similar to other titles (weight 0.02): The game is noted for its similarity to other titles like King of Dragon Pass and Ride Like the Wind, providing a reference point for potential players familiar with those games.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.33): Players expressed satisfaction due to the game's high overall quality, including its engaging and expanded story, unique world-building, and well-integrated mechanics. The game's replayability, improved features over its predecessor, and effective portrayal of a dying world also contributed to a rewarding experience.
- Engagement (weight 0.08): Engagement stemmed from the game's immersive world and narrative, particularly the tribe politics and constant crises that created dramatic and challenging situations. The unique strategy gameplay and the story's relevance also contributed to a captivating experience.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement was driven by the game's overall quality, engaging gameplay, and challenging choices. Improvements over its predecessor and anticipation for future installments, especially with new events from save imports, also generated enthusiasm.
- Admiration (weight 0.07): Admiration arose from the game's unique and immersive qualities, including its rich world-building, authentic storytelling, and mechanical depth. The game's ability to evoke themes of desperation and resilience, along with its overall quality, also garnered high praise.
- Frustration (weight 0.07): Frustration was primarily caused by a lack of clear information regarding game mechanics, particularly food management, and obtuse tutorials. Players also experienced frustration due to repetitive gameplay, random punitive elements, and bugged quest lines, leading to a feeling of limited agency.
- Disappointment (weight 0.07): Disappointment was linked to a perceived lack of freedom and replayability, as well as concerns about cut content and incomplete features. The ending, limited impact of choices, and lack of localization in certain languages also contributed to player dissatisfaction.
- Appreciation (weight 0.06): Appreciation was expressed for the game's uniqueness, the developers' effort, and its ability to convey a specific atmosphere through art, music, and writing. The effective portrayal of an apocalypse and the game's quality as a sequel were also highly valued.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.05): Enjoyment came from the game's refined mechanics, strong narrative focus on individual characters, and challenging yet rewarding gameplay. The unique experience of 'losing is fun' and the overall positive game experience contributed to this emotion.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope was tied to the desire for future installments and the eventual finale of the game's saga. The core message of the game also instilled a sense of hope in players.
- Anticipation (weight 0.02): Anticipation was primarily driven by the expectation of future installments and the evolving apocalyptic narrative. Players looked forward to the sequel and the continuation of the story.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy was experienced through discovering the game as a 'hidden gem' and a deep love for the series. The overall positive game experience, including specific inclusion nods, also contributed to this feeling.
- Amusement (weight 0.02): Amusement arose from the game's unique and challenging setting, as well as quirky in-game events. Specific game events provided moments of lightheartedness.
- Guidance (weight 0.02): Players felt a desire to provide guidance to new players, helping them navigate the game series and understand its mechanics. This included assisting them in finding a suitable game within the series.
- Challenge (weight 0.01): The game's increased difficulty and punishing nature, particularly the theme of world decay, contributed to a sense of challenge for players.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game was expressed due to its compelling themes and overall mood. Players simply loved the game as a whole experience.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion stemmed from unclear mechanics, particularly regarding food production, and a general lack of understanding about how certain game systems operated.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Relief was felt when players successfully survived challenges within the game and when the game met their high expectations.
- Awe (weight 0.01): Awe was inspired by the game's profound ability to evoke deep meaning and foster a strong connection with players.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Surprise was experienced due to the game's innovation and its significant improvements upon established formulas.
- Captivation (weight 0.01): Captivation resulted from the game's immersive world and its engaging storytelling, drawing players deeply into the experience.}