{"id":688,"date":"2018-02-07T01:39:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T01:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/?p=688"},"modified":"2018-02-07T01:39:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T01:39:55","slug":"minion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/2018\/02\/07\/minion\/","title":{"rendered":"Minion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finished Minion (PC)<\/p>\n

This is an indie game developed by a friend of mine. This game follows the visual novel genre, where gameplay consists of dialogue choices that branch out into many story possibilities.<\/p>\n

For all games of this genre, sometimes the story outcomes and narrative flow are predictable based on your decisions; sometimes they aren't. Seeing how it unfolds is a lot of what makes it fun, though.<\/p>\n

In this game you play the role of a minion, the title character- the lowly servant to the sorcerer-queen Althea who rules over a medieval fantasy-type kingdom. Althea is powerful but so is her ego and her potential for cruelty. She doesn't, as a default, consider the needs of her subjects. As her minion, you have the opportunity to step in and help the subjects of her kingdom! Or not. There are a lot of different choices.<\/p>\n

The game doesn't transparently show its statistics to you and it keeps things interesting. You draw conclusions about what actions cause what chages if any. For example, the 'Exercise' action appears to improve your combat ability. Also, 'Reading' will improve how sensitive or artistically inclined your character is. You don't readily see the effects of your stats, but they will affect certain events such as the annual harvest festival competitions.<\/p>\n

Playthrough #1: A neutral-good, middle-of-the-road strategy for all my decisions. BAD IDEA. I ended up battling the dragon and getting annihilated. Since I hadn't developed my combat skill enough, I couldn't fight the dragon. Since I hadn't done anything selfish, I didn't have combat items. Since I hadn't unlocked the relevant events, I couldn't enlist another's help to fight the dragon for me. This game does NOT favor the 'balanced build'.<\/p>\n

Playthrough #2: Be completely useless. Do nothing all the time, read books if I have no other option. Don't help Althea. Don't help the townspeople. Don't go to festivals or do much of anything. Althea ended up killing me for my insolence. I don't know what I expected!<\/p>\n

Playthrough #3: Kiss up to Althea. She is a sorceress-queen, so this should be a valuable relationship, right? I got her gifts, went to events with her, and chose dialogue options that made her happy. I *think* this unlocked some options where she can fight battles instead of me. This mostly worked out well, except for the battle at the end against the wizard. Whatever I did, I wasn't able to ensure she or I or the kingdom's army were powerful enough. I have a feeling there is a special ending involving Althea but I wasn't able to get past this part.<\/p>\n

Playthrough #4: Lawful-good warrior. Choose decisions that benefit the townsfolk, AND exercise all the time, AND get magic items (sword, armor, shield) even if it means hiding them from Althea and getting her mad at me. This ended up working out well. I was able to kill the dragon, AND the Wichaea guards, AND the wizard himself, and get a good ending!<\/p>\n

Overall, I loved playing this game particularly because of the writing. The culmination of how your decisions affect later outcomes was interesting to discover and the writing was the vehicle for that. Dialogue was at times serious, and silly, and breaking the 4th wall and involving pop culture references. There is considerable depth you may or may not even get to see, depending on what story branch you take.<\/p>\n

Still need to find out what happens if you don't throw the One Ring into the volcano. Or how to improve my dancing ability. So many unanswered questions!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finished Minion (PC) This is an indie game developed by a friend of mine. This game follows the visual novel genre, where gameplay consists of dialogue choices that branch out into many story possibilities. For all games of this genre, sometimes the story outcomes and narrative flow are predictable based on your decisions; sometimes they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[63,85,105,124,131,216],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-finished","tag-indie","tag-modern","tag-pc","tag-played","tag-visual-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cml-a.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}