Greymarsh

Greymarsh is a text-based adventure game. RPG-style battle and inventory management are combined with a branching story. Atmosphere and dialog are important aspects. You will get intimately acquainted with the bustling city of Greymarsh. There are abandoned ruins, arenas where you can fight for money, and streets where shady characters are waiting to trick you.

Give Greymarsh a go if the following statements ring true when you play RPGs or adventure games:

* You like to read, as opposed to just skimming the text

* You like your fantasy to be dark, mature and gritty rather than a funhouse of goblins, elves, knights and trolls

* You put large emphasis on story, coherent world building and atmosphere

* When you spend lots of time optimizing your stats or tinkering with your inventory, it feels like a necessary evil that you could do without

You should probably skip this game if your gaming persona is better described by this list:

* You value replayability and "finding all the endings"

* You like your game world to be expansive and sprawling

* You have an attention span not suited to long swaths of text

The main game loop is exceedingly simple, and purposely so: the player reads what happens, and then gets to choose from a small number of actions to progress the story. Most locations can be revisited and fast travel is available through a map.

There are just four stats parameters to consider: hit points, strength, armor and fighting prowess. That's it. In addition, the protagonist keeps an amount of gold and some items, including weapons.

The fighting system is turn-based, like everything else in the game. Despite the basic battle loop, there is room for tactics.

A started session is associated with just one save slot, meaning permadeath in theory. In practice, this is circumvented through an in-world mechanism that is akin to the bonfires of the Souls games.

Greymarsh was heavily inspired by the gamebooks that were so popular in the eighties. One of the most appealing features of this form of solo adventuring was the small scope: rarely did these books consist of more than 500 situations in which to choose from a small number of actions so as to further the story. The battle system and inventory management were rudimentary and designed to be mastered immediately. That way, the action could start right away.

The meticulous tinkering with inventory items and stats optimization so popular in games these days... there was rarely much of that…