Far too luck based. It seems to be a 1-20 system and there's no information on how much a point in a skill affects an associated roll. And it's pretty frustrating when you've got 8-9 points in a skill only to fail to roll above a 6 three times in a row thus game overing and having the restart the entire thing over again.
Reviews for "Pen&Paper Assassin"
I couldn't get into this. I mean, it was nothing but simple text. I am not into these kinds of games. The sound's pretty loud. Well, you can at least turn it off. I didn't know that would be so useful.
I guess I'm not into dice games. It doesn't seem to translate well to a computer game. I guess this was at least something different. I didn't like how you had to go back after losing. It's just too easy to lose.
LegolaSS review was helpful, though I found it useful to max Guns by level 7 to help get the final medal.
Frustrating, realistically the options laid out forced you to max out certain skills and completely ignore the others. Infiltration needs to be maxed out from the start regardless what route you take, combat and perception are also maxed early followed by athletics, then guns get the remaining points to end off at 5.
I managed to get to mission 6 before realising there was a re roll button which helped somewhat with the frustration levels caused by restarting multiple times due to duff rolls when "you need a 4 or higher" and use up two re rolls.
I would have preferred it if there was more options like Julian724 said as it forces you to use skills you may have never intended to use.
I found electronics, explosives, mechanics and sniper pointless skills as the "main route" never really needs them at all. you can make it from start to finish with only doing one mechanics check and even if you fail it doesn't affect the game (don't know if that was intentional)
Its a luck based game and would be more enjoyable with more options focusing on choices you think your skills would be good at rather than having to play a certain way the game forces you to.
and finally i think if you failed some rolls it should allow you to try different things, i know there was some aspects of this (like dodging bullets and trying again) but I think it would have been better if you did it more often especially at the start of missions as there was a lot of "mission start - make this roll... failed? well you lose"
Overall a frustrating time waster but could be made enjoyable with maybe a skill tree system that unlocks options rather then randomised rolling. but that's just me.
If you are intrested in my route, it was
(Go inside - 4+ inf) (4+ inf - gun down (12+) *if failed roll dodge and then try on 13+) (crowd shot 12+ guns) (6+ Inf) - (3+ Per - 3+ com) (7+ per (sneak) 6+ Inf, 2+ ath) (16+ electronics *that i fail*, 8+ inf, 2+ ath, 7+ Inf, (climb) 4+ ath, 7+ inf, 2+ com, 6+ inf) (10+ inf (follow) 10+inf, 5+ guns)
as you can see that's 10 rolls on infiltration (most of which can't be avoided) 3/4 guns, 3/4 athletics, 2 combat, 2 perception. If you want to do something like this again I would strongly recommend giving the player more control even if it means more work for yourself making it.
Blobzone responds:
Hey there,
i dont even disagree with you :)
The planning of the game was kinda a distaster though (using this as a excuse)!!!
After i finished it I even noticed some of the things you mentioned (but try changing that without starting the game from the beginning)
The skill tree system sounds interesting, but hmm i tried to do it a bit more pen&paper like.
I think the dice-rolling is an essential part of that.
I mean, have you ever played a real pen&paper session? Although you have a good character it still can happen that you have like 3 miss rolls in a row, etc.
Well, whatever, thanks for playing and the thoughtful review.
Cheers!
Awesome game, I always love dice-based games like this or Dungeons & Dragons or any of the other great d20 games. This is especially enjoyable since it has easily explained and allocated skills that you directly roll against. I was wondering what everyone's favorite or most successful skill allocations were?