狐ト蛙ノ旅 アダシノ島のコトロ鬼 / Kitsune: The Journey of Adashino

Website / Steam

Artwork for the upcoming adventure game Kitsune: The Journey of Adashino, by RIAS.

Since its reveal last year, the it has been showcased in select independent game events with a brief playable demo that has nevertheless managed to attract the attention of the western press. It has also been listed on Steam and is expected to launch in 2024.

Its use of 3D character models over hand-drawn backgrounds evokes the style and atmosphere of late 1990s RPG adventure games, a genre which Japanese developers have allowed to perish to a large extent. The author and lead designer, RIAS, has noted that when contemplating the creation of a game, he opted to embrace the traditional Japanese folklore motifs with which he has been in contact with his entire life. These images attest to this keenness, as seen in the countless references to Shinto deities and iconography, in which kitsune, the fox, is often portrayed assuming the shape of a young woman; together with the presence of many other elements so closely associated with the traditions of Kyōgen and Noh theater.

Thess vs Release Dates

Still clearing out the demo folder. I feel this need to be careful about what I say on these, however, as if I seem to very much enjoy something and mention that I intend to purchase it but have not purchased it yet, there’s even odds someone’s going to throw it at my head. I mean, not that I mind my bestie throwing Lake at me, but that largely because it was on sale so we’re not talking sticker shock guilt like when some basically-brothers threw Total War III at me.

Anyway.

Grim Tides: This is the most basic RPG of RPGs, wtih some fairly interesting customisation options. I mean, it basically works where you have a token that represents your character, very basic skills and perks, click around a very basic square map to ‘explore a dungeon’ and a turn-based combat system that at its root is just “click the thing”. Except that it’s actually a lot more complex than that. Your skills and perks can be customised basically however you want; there’s no restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your build. The options screen lets you decide how big you want the dungeons to be allowed to get, whether you want permadeath or not, exactly how the turn-based system works (whether it’s one or two actions per round, with the latter allowing for more tactics and the former being more for simplicity), how tough you want the enemies to be ... all of that on top of the base difficulty setting. You want to plough through this thing easily while you figure out what build you like? No problem. You want a tactical bloodbath? They’ve got you covered there too. It’s not epic graphics (there are in fact hardly any graphics), but one thing you can do with this that you can’t do with most games is upload your own character token. You want your D&D character to run through this thing? Your Warden? Your Hawke? No problem; make a token (if you don’t already have one), load it in, and off you go. So yeah, this one’s cheap and cheerful and the only reason it is not in my library right now is because I am waiting until... Oh. They pushed back Cook, Serve, Forever’s release date until next week so I either wait until Pan’Orama comes out tomorrow to buy it and risk it also getting its release date pushed back or I buy it once I’m done clearing out my demo folder a little more. It will be mine, anyway. It and its predecessor, Grim Quest. The bundle together’s basically negligible cost and given I just spent two hours poking at the demo of Grim Tides even though I was restricted to one zone the whole time? Worth it.

Kitsune: The Journey of Adashino: This is another one I’ll come back to at some stage, if only because right now, it’s ... a bit of a mess. It doesn’t tell you what the keybinds are, it doesn’t tell you how to use them very clearly when they do tell you what the keybinds are, and it’s wnother one of those ones where the camera angle is at fixed points rather than following the character. That last I could live with if the rest wasn’t ... well, what it is. The demo itself needs some fixing,which I guess is fair given that the game isn’t supposed to be out until next year so the demo must be more sort of beta testing than anything else. Still looks interesting, though frankly I’ve got no idea what it’s about from the brief time I played it before it forced me into the grip of an enemy and then gave me some contradicting information about how to get out again. So it stays on the wishlist but I’m going to want to look at the demo again in a few months.

Pneumata: Another one of those ones where the demo is only temporary.and it ran out before I got a chance to play it, even though I only downloaded it a few days ago. Well, fuck a bunch of that, frankly.

Imagined Leviathans: This one’s a kind of really artsy looking walking simulator but also has a fair few bugs. When everything is literally black and white (mostly white), it can be hard to see any kind of path, and walking off the path can get you clipping into a mountain you can’t even see. So an interesting game, but not something I really want to poke at in the demo overmuch because ... well, bugs. This one’s only got “Coming Soon” as a release date, but that’s probably fine - it needs time anyway, Besides, Steam release dates can change with zero warning (see also two changes of release date for Pan’Orama and one really aggravating one for Cook, Serve, Forever, as it said a little while ago that release was today, literally giving the time in hours, and then changed to “next week” without so much as a note as to why) so I can’t really trust them anyway.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: This is an interactive novel on a whole other level. The mechanics involved are fascinating - imagine you took the various emotional / character type responses in a Dragon Age game, polished and refined them so that they actually make all the difference in the world instead of just some flavour, and then gave them centre stage. That’s what we’re dealing with. Also the kind of story that puts us in Neil Gaiman / Kieron Gillen territory. I had to stop playing this one because I didn’t know how far I could get in the demo without it cutting me off and didn’t want to get that “But I want more game NOW!” feeling when it’s not coming out until June (well, at least that’s what the store page says, but ... y’know, changeable release dates - I will stop bitching about that eventually, I swear).

That should do it for the time being. I swear, I need to stop doing this. My wish list is getting insane. Then again, so many of them don’t even come out until gods-know-when so I guess it’s not so bad.