Pathway

Pathway is an adventure game not delivered in any bombastic, action packed, or cinematic way, but in small well paced vignettes; in small well animated scenes that evoke an adventurer's spirit. Its gameplay is simple and addicting. On an overworld map your goal is to reach some destination on the far end of the map. You do this by choosing which direction to head in, in the form of nodes, with each node being some random encounter. These encounters are often light RPG flavor texts that involve dialogue, or combat situations, with combat comprising the main meat of the gameplay. Turn based, combat takes the form of a cover shooter that is mechanically similar to the original XCom games. In it, you control your squad of adventurers and attempt to clear the map of hostiles using the environment as cover. Careful tactics is required throughout and combat often involved my adventurers shooting and then running away to some far off cover. Seeing them jump over walls and crouch behind barrels really captured the feeling of an adventure film's shootout, with bullets flying and the corpses piling up. When it comes to music, Pathway's soundtrack is very good. Reminiscent of John William's work on Indiana Jones, it melds with the game's great visuals in lush melodies that capture the acrid desert feeling and a true sense of adventure. And its art style is similarly lively and brightly colored. Dynamic shadows pop under moody lights giving depth to simple scenes, and everything is well animated so as to make these scenes feel involved and alive. Its pacing makes it feel more like a novella than a long novel. With encounters and taking on average less than ten minutes (at least on easier adventures), the game feels more pick up and play than a deep and involved RPG or roguelike, and gives it an airy feel. With addicting gameplay, well done art and music, its greatest strength remains in how well it evokes a feeling of adventure, how well it made me feel like Indiana Jones.

this game hits the indiana jones style adventure games with excellence... but... this game is fun for a while, it has a story and style very similar to indiana jones meet call of ketchupolu(find your own dang spelling for that =P ) but it focuses primarily just on combat and that is where the game is NOT shining, while similar to many other in the same tactical genre the base system fails hard when it comes to the use of "special" abilities (why the f are they made like that???) which costs bravery (a character resource) which borks the game and brings me completely out of the game and setting to just a mechanical gimping runabout... you have some interesting characters but no ability to interact with them in any way, they bring their stats and skills to the game but that is it... dead husks with no life the list of enemies in the early game is okay, nazi's and zombies get dull after a while and their upgraded versions isn't terribly interesting either... would recommend this if you are an rpg fan looking for something to play during a break, very similar to desktop adventures... and honestly right now i would recommend that over this game.

I loved the premise, concept, style and atmosphere of the game. Both the setting and the promised gameplay sounded like perfect elements for something I've wanted to try. The game starts off interesting enough with a small selection of unlikely heroes out to do... well, something. Something about saving someone and then something else. The gameplay is something akin to FTL in which you choose a path along a graph. Every node in the graph is a new opportunity for danger, events and the odd trade. You can come across hidden treasure, nazi soldiers or zombies (among others). The latter two will start combat events... and this is where things start to go sour. Firstly, the tactical choices of your characters are very slim and rely solely on what they have equipped. (Only three things can be equipped at the time, one weapon, one weapon or item and one piece of armor). Characters can find cover, but that provides only marginal protection against enemies that seem to be unfairly good shots. The fights are fun to begin with, but end up becoming very repetitive with a very low amount of variation. Most characters are limited to one or two weapons and one piece of armor, and so there's little variation for playstyles for each of them. Progression is interesting: Every time you're done playing a round, you get to take with you whatever equipment and money you obtained. All skills and attributes on your characters are retained. This is a novel take on rogue-likes that are underused in my opinion. Unfortunately, the low variation in weapons and very unexciting level up skills makes this feature feel too slim. The game promises hard choices in events. I haven't really seen anything to this. Most events (with choices) give you a few choices with random outcomes, and possibly one skill-based choice that seems to often be the best one. The results are either the start of a fight or receiving a random loot item. A good idea, but the execution is still too shallow.

As soon as I've heard about Pathway I knew I had to get it: masterfully crafted pixel art, Indiana Jones-like atmosphere and matching music, XCOM-esque combat sequences... what's not to like? The one thing I might complain about is a lack of a proper hours-long "story mode"; instead, the game is comprised of several "adventures", from very short ones to long and overarching ones with more than one map; each of these are dotted with points of interest that trigger events as you visit them. The map generation is procedural so there will never be another game similar to one you have previously played, allowing for great replayability. Event outcomes depend not just on luck but on the composition of your team -- so choose your mates wisely! Speaking of playable characters, after every run (be it successful or not) they will keep their levelling status and equipment, so that your overall roster will keep on growing and get better over time. I wholeheartedly recommend Pathway to any Roguelike fan.