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The Council - episodic narrative adventure with RPG elements set in the late 18th century

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
https://www.bigbadwolf-studio.com/thecouncil-01




https://af.gog.com/game/the_council?as=1649904300

Well, it turned out to be an "emotionally engaging" episodic narrative adventure game than roleplaying game: http://www.focus-home.com/en/news/1...dio-big-bad-wolf--discover-its-teaser-trailer



THE COUNCIL IS A NEW TWIST ON THE EPISODIC NARRATIVE ADVENTURE GENRE BY STUDIO BIG BAD WOLF – DISCOVER ITS TEASER TRAILER!

The complete season of The Council includes a total of five episodes.

Episode 1: The Mad Ones releases on PC and Consoles in February 2018


THE COUNCIL is an episodic game like no other, developed by French indie studio Big Bad Wolf – discover its Teaser Trailer! The game delivers a fresh new take on the Narrative Adventure, where your choices and character growth truly matter. Make hard-hitting decisions, develop an array of skills and directly impact how the story unfolds. With permanent, long-lasting consequences, there is no going back. Plunge into a tale of intrigue and manipulation in the style of a classic murder mystery, living with a cast of alluring characters each hiding their own dark secrets. Trust no one while uncovering dire truths – no matter the cost to mind and body.

THE COUNCIL begins in 1793, with players taking the role of secret society member Louis de Richet after his invitation to a private island off the shores of England by the enigmatic Lord Mortimer. Joining him are a number of high profile guests, including Napoleon Bonaparte and President of the newly-formed United States of America, George Washington. The strange nature of this private reception goes beyond just the prestigious guests –Richet’s own mother has recently gone missing on the island, while each and every one of the colorful cast seems to have their own hidden agendas.

In a new twist for the genre, the core of THE COUNCIL’s gameplay comes from manipulating and maneuvering through character encounters using the unique Social Influence system. During confrontations, skills and limited resources can be used to gain the upper hand and achieve the desired outcome. Players will be rewarded for their knowledge of each character’s psychological vulnerabilities and immunities, as well as their preparations made during prior exploration and investigation. Failing an encounter does not mean ‘game over’, and no action can be taken back. The consequences are permanent, and may result in persistent physical disfigurements or mental traits that help or hinder the rest of the player’s adventure.

Richet’s numerous skills can be developed to align with your chosen approach to the adventure. Solve issues with diplomacy, delve into occultism to expand your historical and scientific knowledge, or play detective and see what others do not perceive. Your skills will have uses that extend far beyond your conversations with fellow guests. With 15 diverse skills to use and invest in, players are free to uncover THE COUNCIL’s mysteries how they see fit, with wildly varying consequences depending on their methods. The results will forever alter the life of Louis de Richet, of those around him, and shape history as we know it.

THE COUNCIL’s first episode, THE MAD ONES, arrives on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in February 2018. The complete season will include a total of five episodes.

At least it seems to try some interesting "gameplay".
 
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Mebrilia the Viera Queen

Guest
Historical...Visual adventure... And they were promising paper rpg?
Probably Fixed protagonist.

Ok.. the next please?
 

Jugashvili

管官的官
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Codex 2013
>game set in 1793
>1819-1823 fresco by Goya hanging on the wall

triggered-trigger-warning-gif.gif
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014


Looks like this was one of the few games in the Focus Home event that journalists actually could get their hands on. (Most of other Focus Home titles are doing hands-off demo or no-demo interview thing.)
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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The Council Episode 1 releases March 13th!

We’re happy to announce The Council, an episodic game like no other, developed by French indie studio Big Bad Wolf – discover its Teaser Trailer.

The game delivers a fresh new take on the Narrative Adventure, where your choices and character growth truly matter. Make hard-hitting decisions, develop an array of skills and directly impact how the story unfolds.

Plunge into a tale of intrigue and manipulation in the style of a classic murder mystery, living with a cast of alluring characters each hiding their own dark secrets. Trust no one while uncovering dire truths – no matter the cost to mind and body.

The Council begins in 1793, with players taking the role of secret society member Louis de Richet after his invitation to a private island off the shores of England by the enigmatic Lord Mortimer. Joining him are a number of high profile guests, including Napoleon Bonaparte and President of the newly-formed United States of America, George Washington.

The strange nature of this private reception goes beyond just the prestigious guests –Richet’s own mother has recently gone missing on the island, while each and every one of the colorful cast seems to have their own hidden agendas.

3c5a1702a7ec37ba6ab203b1c41d2c5ef1a709e4.jpg


In a new twist for the genre, the core of The Council’s gameplay comes from manipulating and maneuvering through character encounters using the unique Social Influence system. During confrontations, skills and limited resources can be used to gain the upper hand and achieve the desired outcome.

Players will be rewarded for their knowledge of each character’s psychological vulnerabilities and immunities, as well as their preparations made during prior exploration and investigation. Failing an encounter does not mean ‘game over’, and no action can be taken back. The consequences are permanent, and may result in persistent physical disfigurements or mental traits that help or hinder the rest of the player’s adventure.

072f30ca6604a3ca5e57eec4121d138e4cd4fe09.jpg


Richet’s numerous skills can be developed to align with your chosen approach to the adventure. Solve issues with diplomacy, delve into occultism to expand your historical and scientific knowledge, or play detective and see what others do not perceive. Your skills will have uses that extend far beyond your conversations with fellow guests.

With 15 diverse skills to use and invest in, players are free to uncover The Council’s mysteries how they see fit, with wildly varying consequences depending on their methods. The results will forever alter the life of Louis de Richet, of those around him, and shape history as we know it.

*The Council'’s first episode, THE MAD ONES, arrives on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC March 13th 2018. The complete season will include a total of five episodes.
 

Zombra

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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
PCGamesN has a laudatory review. Of special note for the Telltale-haters out there:

Tight integration of its RPG ideas into the narrative adventure formula creates something that feels fresh, experimental, and - above all - like a game. Telltale’s interactive television format has been a success but offers little to think about aside from the flow of the character’s lives. By weaving skills into the experience, Big Bad Wolf have produced a similar experience with far more agency for the player. We have seen some adventure games, such as Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter, that made themselves more game-like by adding ill-fitting action components. The Council rejects that idea, instead adding game logic to the concepts that the genre already possesses.

Since that was one of the reasons I abandoned Devil's Daughter, I'm pleased to hear about a game that builds on the strengths of the Sherlock games in this direction instead.

Gonna hold off on buying since I'm not interested in playing 20% of a game and then waiting 3 months, but will probably hit it instantly once the season is complete.
 

InD_ImaginE

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Pathfinder: Wrath
I played the game's 1st episode.

I cant really say much about the CnC, currently each chapter (there are 4) usually has one major branch, sometime a small one within each branch. Thing is, the event between chapters is a bit disconnected that I find few direct impacts from one chapter to the other.

RPG element is nice, but I feel currently there is a lack of really difficult encounters. The game also has consumables which makes encounter easier. On the other hand the game did not full retard with "have this exact skill at x point or it is 100% failure" like AoD non-combat path so there is a positive.

Being Cynide game, the game is certainly very rough around the edges. Flow of conversation often feels janky changing one topic to another too fast. For a dialogue based adventure/rpg game, the presentation is not that stellar. Voice acting is a big hit or miss as well.

In the end tho, I find the experience satisfying enough for now. I guess this kind of game should be pretty similar to what No Truce With The Furries/Disco Elysium is aiming for? With dialogue/noncombat skills affecting confrontation which is played as dialogue?

I hope episode 2 paid off in term of CnC, as my biggest criticism of Telltale games for me is the fact nearly nothing matters and events proceed the same way with very few alteration there.
 

Starwars

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This game is one of those lovely games which has a "don't turn off your console when you see this symbol" warnings when you start it up, hehe.

It also made my poor graphics card run hotter than the Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come.
 

Irxy

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The game has its problems, but I liked it, the addition of RPG stats is a fine addition to the genre.

Bad: crappy engine (unstable fps on top configs), clunky controls, subpar voice acting and animations.
Good: distinctive art style, RPG system with ~20 dialog related skills, plot with a focus on intrigue, politics & secret societies, fine characters, C&C, some non-linearity.

Worth checking if you do not absolutely hate gameplay similar to LiS/Telltale. Too early for the final verdict though since only the 1st episode is out.
 
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I like the basic idea but it feels like the game was written under the assumption that the player needs every single thing explained to him as clear as possible and as many times as possible. That's a horrible mistake to make when your game is all about conversations and investigation.
 

Antigoon

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That and the RPG mechanics are quite useless so far. Way too many resources available. There is hardly a dialog where I cant get the most information out of it, as saving up effort with so many power ups lying around everywhere seems to be quite useless. Spread your points wide and you have pretty much all dialog options unlocked and available. Also episode 3 needs some new locations...
 

Belegarsson

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
For such a "cinematic story driven" game, I'd expect them to at least polish cinematography a bit more. It's incredibly jarring when every conversation shot zooms in so close to character's face that I feel like I can straight up french kiss that horrid facial animation through my monitor.
 

Belegarsson

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Just finally got around to play the second episode and gotta admit, the dev put a lot of care into worldbuilding. "The council" in this game is pretty much reimagination of the council of nine in Greek mythology where Zeus and other 8 deities sent Pandora along with her box to Prometheus' brother, then she proceeded to open the box and fuckeries got released. In this case, the Pandora's box is a scheme of (EPISODE 3 SPOILER)
territory transition between nations which will result in internal and worldwide conflicts
The best part of 2nd episode is digging around Mortimer's office, which revolves around pretty fun guessworks if you don't have points in Logic sub skilltree like me. Also there are optional hints about him that kinda explain why Saturn Devouring His Son painting appears in the mansion.
this guy is probably immortal and a time traveller or at least can observe stuffs in the future
I also noticed several Goetia imageries, though still haven't figured out the connection between them and Mortimer.
 
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