u/AliceTheGamedev

https://preview.redd.it/mt3ppllkgbkh1.png?width=1140&format=png&auto=webp&s=f176af6c41473a5b1164b9d66d42e9efba43c1dc

The images are from GG Bavaria earlier this year, where we also showed the game with this saddle controller. Take a look here if you want to see it in action.

If you're around, we'll be in Hall 10.2 at booth E-051g with Games Bavaria :)

We just published a new Dev Update on Steam, with a lot of insight into what we've been working on, including a bunch of new features such as Prestige, Cross Country Competitions, Horse Personalities and Desensitization Training!

There's a lot of balancing, polishing and bugfixing left to do as well as some additional content, but we're confident we'll have a release-worthy game by the end of the year. Stay tuned for a proper release date reveal in the coming weeks!

I've been playing Vintage Story for about 300h now and really the horse mod is not the main reason for that by far, but I still wanted to turn my experience with this game into an article on TMQ.

Please enjoy, if you're interested in survival and crafting games. Note that if you're not into modding, vanilla horses are in the process of being added!

Recommended if you like: dark academia, magic-based technology and industry, magical research, programming-style magic, competent female lead in a deeply sexist and racist society, highly flawed female main characters, ambitious main characters, (vague spoilers but tagging to be sure)>!doomed romantic subplot, finding out your life's work has been improving the output of the Omelas child, main characters unwittingly becoming villains!<

#Blurb

Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

But before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first.

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#Review (no spoilers)

I completely tore through this book in a few days after taking ages on my previous (very unsatisfying) read. So maybe some of my enjoyment of this is just by virtue of contrast, but I overall really liked this and was completely hooked.

• I really liked how transparently flawed Sciona is, and how far outside the usual permissible quirks for female leads those flaws are. She's selfish, puts her own ambition above almost everything, shares all of the racist prejudices she's been indoctrinated with even as she slowly realizes that the Kwen might not be all she's always believed them to be, and for me managed to stay an engaging PoV character despite all of that.
• I found the worldbuilding really fresh and well done. I haven't read many books where technology and magic come together this way (industrialization, there are cars and trains and factories, but they're all powered by magic), and I really enjoyed the "programming" style magic, spell components, defining variables etc.
• Something I also really loved and thought was super well done is this aspect of "history isn't what you thought it was". I find that super realistic. We have plenty of real life examples of how the achievements of marginalized people (or their marginalized identities) are extinguished from historical record or otherwise downplayed – I just saw another article of how many prehistoric graves were presumed to be those of men, solely because contemporary sexist limitations were placed on who would or wouldn't be having a weapon in their tomb – and I think this book does a really good job of buildling a world where the same kind of thing happens, and giving its protagonists just enough tools to find a hint of the truth after all.
• This book takes place in a very sexist and racist society. I had my moments of thinking "well that's a bit plump" (when confronted with some of that sexism and racism, such as not considering Kwen fully human, or putting a lot of limitations on the mental faculties of women), but then again I don't think that's really fair criticism if you consider just how blatant a lot of our real life historical record just is in that regard. It's one of those moments where fiction gets called out for being too blatantly cartoonishly evil when it's actually probably quite close to opinions that were commonly held a century or two ago.

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#Discussion (spoilers are tagged)

• Alluded to above, but I loved Sciona finding out that >!the Kwen had powerful sorceresses before they were effectively eradicated by the budding superpower of Tiran!<
• I was reading a few discussions of this book and someone complained about >!"the obvious twist" that they "saw coming from a mile away"!< and call me dense but I did not have that at all. When the >!precise colorful mapping spell first reveals that sourcing is what causes the blight,!< I had a big "oh shit whaat" moment and I stayed up way too late to find out what would happen next. It's these times where I love >!being shit at predicting twists!< because honestly I was absolutely along for the ride and digging it
• One moment I didn't really fully buy was cousin Alva's reaction to the >!Freynan mirrors showing everyone the blight/siphoning.!< Being upset at >!Sciona for mass-traumatizing everyone and causing riots in the process!< very much checks out imo, but the exact reaction and the fact that she too, did not seem to see an issue >!with the siphoning itself costing human lives!< felt... a bit out of character?
• I don't really want to complain that >!Sciona doesn't survive the story!<, I think >!killing your protagonist!< is a pretty ballsy move and I'm glad there wasn't any sort of >!deus ex machina fake out after she drank the poison and Thomil triggered the new siphoning spell!<. At the same time, I was quite enjoying the >!romantic arc between the two of them and I would have liked for that to get a bit further than a brief flashback make out sesh!<
• the main complaint I have after finishing the book is that I wanted more >!closure. I found it a really cool choice to let the protagonists go pretty fucking nucular on the whole corrupt system, I dig that, but I wish the book had shown a bit more of the fallout of that in an epilogue or some other form of outlook apart from Sciona dying, Mordra the Tenth being the only Highmage left and Thomil and Kara leaving the city!<.
• I did really enjoy the circularity of >!the Kwen fleeing the city, Kara even carrying someone else's baby with her!<, as a callback/mirror to the prologue, that was nice.

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#Conclusion

So yeah, definitely not a flawless book by any means but I blew through it faster than any recent read and thought it was really, really well-crafted. When the main issue I have is that a book leaves me wanting more and slightly upset there isn't a sequel, that's kind of a good problem to have. (It's absolutely not an 'unfinished' story either, I would have just wished for more denouement).

I really liked it, and will happily take recommendations if my critique of this one brings any to mind. Thank you for reading, and find my other reviews here 💖

Recommended if you like: m/f fantasy romance, Egyptian inspired setting, secret royalty, romance duologies with a cliffhanger in he middle, enemies to lovers, tournament arc, slow burn romance, slightly unhinged experiences of attraction

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#Blurb

Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad burned. Its magic outlawed; its royal family murdered. The lost Heir of Jasad, Sylvia never wants to be found. She can’t think about how Nizahl’s armies laid waste to her kingdom and continue to hunt its people—not if she wants to stay alive. But when Arin, the Nizahl Heir, tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village, staying one step ahead of death gets trickier.

In a moment of anger Sylvia’s magic is exposed, capturing Arin’s attention. Now, to save her life, Sylvia will have to make a deal with her greatest enemy. If she helps him lure the rebels, she’ll escape persecution. A deadly game begins. Sylvia can’t let Arin discover her identity even as hatred shifts into something more. Soon, Sylvia will have to choose between the life she wants and the one she left behind. The scorched kingdom is rising, and it needs a queen.

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#Review (no spoilers)

I always take notes while reading and this book made me write down literally 2-5 times as much as all my other recent reads because there was just so many little details I found infuriating. It's absolutely not without merit – I'll get to that – but it also drove me insane.

• all of the things in the "recommended if you like" section above are things I dig. On paper, I should love this book. I generally really like when fantasy romance is more focused on plot while just letting the romantic arc simmer very slowly. I like the concept of this book a lot. But the execution did not work for me at all. There were like 1-2 minutes of satisfaction for every hour or two of annoyance. The only reason I actually finished this book is because when something irritates me this much I want to take it apart and know why.
• The audiobook is narrated by Rasha Zaramiri and after having already been massively irritated by her narration style in the Magic of the Lost books, I'm sorry but I will not pick up another book narrated by her. She has this super odd tendency to over-emphasize every sentence that just completely takes me out, and if I'd recognized the name sooner I would probably not have picked this up, at least not on audio. The fact that the narration is so grating sure did not help my overall perception of the book but it's also far from the only issue I had.
• The writing style is very YA/New Adult in the worst possible way, especially early on. The worldbuilding is info-dumped whenever it's about to be relevant, with quite a lot of it not really holding up to scrutiny when you actually think about it for a second.
• The prose sometimes borders on nonsensical. Like yes I get what you're trying to say but in very much of a "that's not how you use those words though, right?" kind of way. Like describing something as being "like ice falling from a seething sky", or somebody "reacting to my visit with his flavor of effervescent glee", or the phrase "Darkness crooned, crowding closer", I'm honestly not sure if that's flat out wrong or just insanely awkward, but this book made me question if I really know what words mean because I feel like if all this stuff is even half as nonsensical as it sounds to me then an editor should have caught all that.
• In addition to the word choices themselves, there were also numerous details and individual lines that just made no sense if you think about them for even a second. This is an inconsequential example, but at one point the narration goes "I waited in my room for six hours" and then once she leaves her room (this is at most 2 sentences apart) her next thought is "to my best guess it was the middle of the night" and I'm like EITHER YOU KNOW HOW MANY HOURS HAVE PASSED OR YOU DON'T WHAT THE FUCK?
• One thing I did greatly enjoy was wherever Sylvia starts thinking about her budding feelings for Arin, she voices that in thoughts like "I want to cut him open to understand why he's so graceful" and that is absolutely a fun flavor of attraction, I am 100% here for it and I wish this vibe didn't feel so unearned. There's like four or five similar sentences like that throughout the book and they go really hard imo, but they're just not worth the rest of the book around it.
• Some of the tournament action felt utterly pointless and the other champions are completely forgettable. The tournament only exists so the main characters have a reason to spend time together and travel from place to place, and the actual trials were incredibly uninteresting and frankly felt "tacked on", which is weird if you consider that this tournament is supposed to be the central plot of the book.
• Political intrigue makes up for a large part of this book, but I did not find any of it particularly believable or well thought out
• edited to add: I am always on the lookout for books that have a prominent romantic arc at their core but also plenty of plot and action going on outside of romance. I want the main characters to have something to do. That worked very well here, in terms of that plot/romance balance, but unfortunately so much of the plot and worldbuilding made very little sense to me

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#Discussion (spoilers are tagged)

• Credit where it's due, I did enjoy the hint of bisexual mess that is >!Sorraia (spelling?). The fact that she loves Essiya but betrayed her and has seduced and then attacked Arin in the past,!< that's my kind of juicy toxic bullshit - it's unfortunately only relevant for a few pages
• Am I going insane or is the name of the villain (>!Sorraia?!<) almost exactly the same as the nickname that Arin occasionally calls Sylvia (>!soraira?!<). Maybe the audiobook is to blame for this but it confused me on several occasions.
• Look I love enemies to lovers, but some of the scenes in this book were clearly only there to check them off the trope checklist. Like the cliché "who did this to you" when >!Arin sees Sylvia's scars!< or the fact that she tells him >!"I despise you" and "I dream of killing you" when they're actually making out.!< Like no you don't, that's transparently not where you're at in your character arc by the time this scene takes place, what the hell?
• another (spoilery) dumb detail at the end of the book was that Sylvia calls >!the high councilor abusive, Arin is surprised and asks why she says that, she reveals that he's sexually abused her friend as a child, and then not only is Arin completely surprised, Sylvia also goes on to describe his appearance like "oh yeah this guy does not look like a pedo at all we could never have known" WHILE THE GUY IN QUESTION IS ACTIVELY SEXUALLY HARASSING SERVANTS???? Sorry that is so fucking dumb like you're literally telling us he's being a creep right in that scene while also explaining how nobody could have known he was a creep come the fuck on.!<

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#Conclusion

I found the ending of the book intriguing, and the final confrontation between Sylvia and main villain worked really well all things considered. I'm somewhat interested in seeing how the story continues, but that decently satisfying final chapter did unfortunately not at all make up for the entire book being so irritating.

If someone wants twisted allegiances, secret heirs and an Egyptian inspired setting, I would strongly recommend reading the Daevabad trilogy instead, that is a somewhat similar-ish series with infinitely more competent execution.

Sorry this is more rant than review, but I'm honestly baffled as to why I keep seeing this get recommended (more over on /r/fantasyromance than here, but still), and I had to get some of these thoughts out. I am very interested to hear if anyone had a similar experience with this book, or if I'm missing something that made it work for you. If you have other ideas for "similar concept but well executed", please do feel free to drop them in the comments!

Thank you for reading, and find my other reviews here 💖

It's off to a bit of a rough start (mixed reviews atm at 52% positive), seemingly because players don't quite get what to do.

I know I've seen some comments here from people looking forward to this one, what are you making of it so far? and if it hasn't been on your radar, what does or doesn't pique your interest about a game like this? I'd love to hear reactions from the community, because I have a few thoughts on this but want to know what everyone else thinks!