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Wild-eyed stickman brawler Judero appears to have kicked off a small wave of pagan-themed games – or rather, it has recalibrated my brain to be more aware of pagan-themed games. The latest to catch my fancy is party-based RPG Banquet For Fools, out in Early Access today with a demo. Created by two-person Hannah and Joseph Games, it casts you as one of the Vollings – a race of gaunt elven humanoids, hailing from the same school of manky action-figure as Judero, who have been shunned by their gods and have accordingly turned to paganism.
Specifically, you’re a lord who has set up a spice farm on a “cursed” island, the former home of a long-dead civilization. This certainly sounds like a foolish thing to do, and it’s no huge surprise that everybody on your farm has gone missing. So off you trot with a team of four custom-generated companions to solve the mystery, and also make up gnarly spells by daubing your blood on trees.
The island itself is one of those “living, breathing” open worlds. Perhaps more “disquietingly animate” than “living, breathing”: some of the residents are ghosts. There are towns you can visit for clues where you’ll receive quests, and there’s a Morrowindy emphasis on exploring without the aid of modern UI fixtures – no questlog and no magic wayfaring compass.
Guards and merchants have schedules and you can steal from shops, at the cost of not being able to buy that item in future. Combat is real-time with a pause when your action bar fills up, as in the elder Final Fantasies. Party member stats may unlock unique choices in dialogue, together with evolving relationships. It’s certainly piling on the features – I’ve scraped the merest palmful from the squirmingly loquacious Steam page – but what I’m most here for is the haunted Plasticene art direction, which reminds me of that Keane video about beds.
Also of great interest to me: the odder abilities and the magic system, which appear to lean into the pagan premise. Singing and music are weaponisable in Banquet For Fools: you can get hold of some shepherd pipes that can summon angry ravens, for example. You can also learn new spell components from special trees, and assemble them into a custom enchantment by etching runes in blood using the mouse cursor. Not sure if there’s any character HP loss involved, but there should be. In place of the traditional magical elements or classes, meanwhile, Banquet For Fools gives you “Fauna”, “Vines” and “Spores”.
I must confess, I wouldn’t know what paganism really looks like if it formed a torchlit procession to my doorstep and dropped a menhir on my head. I suspect I’m in danger of succumbing to caricatures of paganism as being squalid and fecund and excitingly gross. But I approve of the muckiness of Banquet For Fools, and welcome more games in this vein.
The game will be in early access for around 8-10 months, according to the Steam blurb. “Banquet for Fools is feature complete, we’re working on maps and content for the game over this autumn and winter,” the developers write. “We’re essentially done with all the hard parts and only have content to work on, and thought it would be a good time to open it up for ruleset suggestions and feedback for balancing out your gameplay. It’s a single player experience so we’re not too worried about over-balancing, but want all play styles to have challenges and areas of success.”
Possibly a good time to pounce on that demo. If you enjoy the aesthetic, you might also like Felvedik.