I firmly believe that Indie games and their developers are the primary source of creativity and experimentation in the games industry. Unlike the risk averse AAA market and its million dollar budgets, Indie devs work to explore and push the boundaries that come with having less.
The passion project of 3 brothers that has taken 12 years, VED is a great example of this approach and spirit. It is also a game of two halves, and while this is by design, it is unfortunately how I would describe my experience playing VED for review.
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The first title from Lithuanian Indie studio Karaclan and published by Fulqrum Publishing, VED is a non-linear, story-driven rogue-lite RPG about two worlds, one of humans and one of magic. Taking on the role of Cyrus, a blind young man who has suddenly unlocked the power to teleport, you shape the story of these two planes through your choices and actions. Cyrus finds himself caught up in a complicated situation involving several factions and their differing desires and goals. Using his power to cross the Boundary, it is up to Cyrus to decide the fate of these two worlds and their inhabitants.
The game starts with a brief tutorial set 30 years before the main game, which is broken up into 8 chapters and bookended with an epilogue. At the end of each chapter a screen will show which events took place in the one you just played through, with scenarios that didn’t happen greyed out. Playtime is spent evenly across the human city of Micropolis and the magic world of the Fae, with each setting having its own distinct gameplay.
Gameplay Part 1
During your playthrough the game will autosave after every encounter you have or decision you make, setting past events in stone and making reloading previous saves impossible. The option to replay previous chapters is available from the beginning, but it will replace your previous save data for that chapter.
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The human world of VED plays like a visual novel, with choices in the form of dialogue options shaping what is to come as well as affecting Cyrus’ relationships with a colourful cast of characters. Depending on your choices you may raise or lower an NPC’s Friendliness, Fear or Respect for Cyrus, which can unlock special dialogue options with the right stat value. I only saw this happen twice in my 8 hour main playthrough, and that is the sole function of these relationship stats.
Most of these NPCs have relationships to one another as well as ties to one of several factions. A lot of the narrative and story beats are based around the rise and fall of these factions, and what they intend to do with magic. Some want to wield it, others to study and advance human technology with it, there are even those who wish that magic didn’t exist!
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This half of the gameplay is the weaker of the two, and by quite a margin. This is due to several issues, in particular the writing and voice acting. The VA is patchy, with some characters sounding natural and convincing, while others came across as awkward and robotic. The editing didn’t help either, with there being no gaps between sentences some sentences or very long pauses at random intervals in a conversation.
While uneven voice acting isn’t enough to ruin a narrative, the writing for a lot of the dialogue certainly doesn’t help. Often I found myself confused with the results of my choices; too many times were seemingly innocuous answers punished with point deductions to the NPC’s relationship stats. The unclear NPC motivations and peculiar line delivery compound this issue even further. Becoming more unsure of my choices as the game progressed, I continued with interest to see how it ended, but no investment in a story that was making less sense with every choice I made. Thankfully, I found the other half of VED to be much more enjoyable and satisfying!
Gameplay Part 2
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When first arriving in the fae world, Cyrus meets the Elder Troglodyte at the Tree of Life. He asks the young man (who can see in this world) to help bring the other troglodytes back to the Tree of Life. This is just one of the many encounters you will have in this mystical plane, and they come with their own choices and consequences.
The Tree of Life is your hub for this half of the game, and where you will start your run each time you travel to the fae world. You can construct buildings using essence you earn from battle, that in turn unlock new traits for combat. Over my playthrough, it was fun to watch this little settlement of peculiar creatures grow and change.
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The gameplay of the magical world takes a very different shape; turn-based combat with a twist where positioning is everything. Each biome is made up of several nodes that you move between, encountering monsters to fight, NPCs to meet, and points-of-interest to interact with. At the end of the node tree will be at least one teleport back to the human world to continue the story, but it’s not always clear where you will end up or with whom.
The Karaclan team have done a great job of creating a turn-based combat system very much its own. When facing down an enemy Cyrus stands on a 1×4 row of boxes which he moves left or right on depending on the action he makes. With a set number of action points to spend each turn, and up to 4 traits assigned to each square, the combat becomes very tactical. Which traits you choose and on which square you assign them can make all the difference to a fight.
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Like I said earlier; positioning is key. Where you are standing affects not only where you can hit with certain attacks, but also how likely you are to get hit by your enemies. Paying close attention to the squares at your protagonist’s feet is vital, as red arrows will indicate where your opponent is attacking. Foes have several health bars, and they are not always equal, with some needing to be dropped to 0 before Cyrus can damage the main one.
Mechanics
Another element of combat to pay attention to are the buffs and debuffs that both you and your adversary can inflict. Many of your traits will apply one of these, and they an be stacked to great affect. Assigning the right traits to the right square will allow you to dominate the field, but come unprepared and you will struggle!
The rogue-lite nature of VED comes in here. When you die, Cyrus returns to the Tree of Life and retains everything he has earned up to the last successful encounter in the run. After making any purchases or adjustments, you head back out into the same node tree, and have the choice to take the same path back to where you were defeated, or explore another route. You also have the option to return to your hub anytime in a run, even mid combat, and you won’t lose any progress. I only figured this out about halfway through my playthrough, and would suggest exhausting all encounters before leaving the fae world to reap the benefits.
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As part of the tutorial, you are taken through a Choice Battle, a combat scenario where you must make choices tied to each of your stats in order to succeed the encounter. These stats are Dexterity, Magic and Strength, and they improve your melee damage, magic damage and health respectively. Each time you make an action the corresponding stat gets 1/3 of a point, and after earning three the stat increases it’s value by one. The choice’s stat value will be added to a D20 roll and must beat the opposing value to succeed. These Choice Battles appeared throughout the game and act as a form of leveling up.
There are a lot of systems at play in this very unique game, but it does beg the question whether all of them were necessary and if a bit of feature creep may have done some unintended damage.
Visuals and Sound
Another highlight of VED is its art and visual design, especially in the fae world. The illustrative style looks fantastic, with certain scenes reminding me of DnD book cover art. Each of the biomes in the world of magic are sumptuous and vibrant, with distinct colour palettes and visual language making up diverse settings to traverse. There is good enemy variety, in both visual and mechanic design, and further enhanced the gameplay experience for me.
A diverse soundtrack helps define the two worlds, but sadly short looped tracks do not make for memorable music. Sound design is solid, especially in combat, with sword strikes ringing our and beasts roaring and snarling.
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Closing Thoughts
The final point to be made about VED is how there seems to be no real cohesion between what you are doing in Micropolis and the magic world. Decisions and stats in the human world have no impact on the fae domain, and vice versa. It’s this disconnect that I found most disappointing; VED has fascinating worldbuilding that feels different, but it is weakened by the game’s failure to balance both halves and bring them together.
I do feel that a version of the game focused more on the magical world and it’s gameplay would have made for a better experience, but I respect the developers for seeing their vision through, and VED is a testament to their passion and hard work.
Clik here to view.
VED is a game split right down the middle in almost every way. Awkward, often confusing dialogue that interferes with the story’s clarity, as well as a lack of cohesion between the two game worlds makes up the weaker half. In contrast, VED has an inventive and challenging turn-based combat system, rich world design, and excellent art direction. Unfortunately, a game is the sum of it’s parts, no matter how they are sliced.
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VED was played on Xbox Series X for this review, and a code was provided by Karaclan.
VED is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PS4, PS5, and Switch.
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