Onaar

I spent entirely too much time on this, a compact little RPG based almost entirely around brewing up potions that can then be used to temporarily enhance various stats. There's also a hunger daemon to worry about, and some of the things we need aren't free, so we've got to keep track of our food and money. Our goal is to develop our skills and eventually defeat the evil wizard whose gang of bandits has been plaguing the town.

The game is very well aware of the RPG tropes within it, and not at all shy about having characters talk about our character stats in plan, quantitative terms. I thought it was amusing, and was willing to accept that this was how this fantasy world worked, but your mileage may vary.

Working out the alchemical potentials of the various components was the part I think I liked best. Potions are made by mixing any combination of two components, and the resulting potion will affect whichever trait the two components have in common. Given the number of different components lying around, each sort of potion should have four different recipes. This means you don't have to go hunting for absolutely everything in the alchemical handbook. I haven't worked out the most efficient recipes (the ones which would entail the fewest visits to teleport-only locations) but I did spend some time trying to figure it out.

I get the feeling that this is going to be very much a question of acquired taste. I enjoyed it, but I can see how someone else might not. And I will admit that part of why I can say I enjoyed it is that it didn't outstay its welcome, as it were. It reached a conclusion well before I could get tired of the fiddliness of keeping the stock of all my alchemical components.

Swedish crisp bread topped with liver pate and pickles, and a variety of tropical fruit juices to drink. It's probably an acquired taste.