As I’m sure you are aware, last weekend was the big one for Extra Life, and we at the Red Sector celebrated in traditional fashion. But in my traditional fashion, I prepared a lot more games then we wound up actually playing. But as the evening went on, we got to a small game I picked up on sale called the Yawhg. I already went in expecting something simple, but dark humored. Come on in and see what we got.
Story: Though the village is completely unaware, the Yawhg is coming and in six weeks it will arrive. This horrible thing has come before, but only in ancient days, and no one really knows what it is anymore. But, what will you do as you live your life unaware of this impending doom?
That is really all there is to the story when you begin, but over the game you will develop over the seven turns that make it up, both developing your characters and the events that happen around you. Ultimately the Yawhg is coming and you can not change that, but what happens before and after can be completely different both to you and the ultimate fate of the village every time you play, and all the events that can occur are fairly well thought out, many with lasting effects lasting the entire game.
7/10
Graphics: If you come in to this game looking for a technical marvel to behold, you are in for a very sad surprise. Rather then rely on technical work, everything in this game is hand drawn in a stylized form I would expect in a children’s story book. Nothing is actually animated, further pushing this impression even as so many of the events that can make up the plot can get incredibly dark, creating an odd but very pleasant combination of innocent and destructive as all hell.
6/10
Sound: This game is incredibly limited when it comes to the audio department. There are literally no sound effects or voice work at all, leaving the entire part for your ears to the music… and there are very few and relatively generic fantasy-style tracks to this game. I wish I had more I could say, but like everything else in the game’s presentation, it is incredibly limited. It’s functional, but nothing to write home about.
6/10
Gameplay: Much like the graphics and sound for this game, the gameplay is incredibly limited. Once you have decided how many players (and what characters) are playing, every game will follow the same exact format for 6 turns.:
- The same description of what’s coming will display at the beginning of each week.
- For the week each player will choose one of 8 or so places to go and one of two things to do there (no two players can go to the same location).
- The game will tell you what happened to and around each player.
- Move on to the next player.
After this, the Yawhg will arrive and each player will now select a job in the recovery process. At this point you will be told the final fate of the characters and the town itself.
The total game will take about 10-15 minutes to finish, and each session will be fairly unique based on everyone’s actions and random chance in each location, but it’s more of a short “choose your own adventure” story then a real game in it’s own right. It is solid, but on it’s own, it is just not going to offer you much.
5/10
Bugs: If nothing else, this game is VERY solid and ran perfectly.
Overall: If you are looking for any kind of serious game play, please leave now. This game is not for you and never will be. It is way too simple, direct, short and shallow when it comes to gameplay. However, if you are going to have a few friends over and have a few drinks, this game may be just the ticket for something to do casually while you hang out. That same short and direct gameplay, simplicity, amount of things that can happen to you and the others before it’s over may be the perfect combination to have a laugh or three while slugging them down. Just be aware some of the events are going to repeat… a lot.
Score:
Source’s Listed System Requirements:
- 2GB RAM
- 1280x720 resolution minimum
- Windows XP
- Direct X9
- 100MB hard drive space
- AMD Athalon 5350 APU running at 2.05 Ghz
- 4GB RAM
- Radeon R3 (APU based)
- and Windows 8.1
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