Day Seventeen

• Game: Citizens of Earth (Eden Industries).
• Release Month: January.
• Source: The Steam Explorer Sale.
• Quick Look: Here. (Alex/Vinny)
• Started: 12/12.
• Finished: N/A.

Naturally, I did not beat Citizens of Earth today. I don't think I'm even halfway done. The game's quest structure is a curious one: after the second story quest, which introduces the hub area of the Capital City and a Commander-in-Chief of the World who manages to be even more oblivious and bigger jerk than our vice-presidential hero, the third story quest takes advantage of the game's suddenly wide-open and border-free world, giving you three intermediary quests - completing any of these points you the way to the true directive out in the hippy-infested Sugar Flats. The player is then offered the choice of railroading their progress, completing the bare minimum of just one of these intermediaries before moving onto the meat of the third main quest of the game or completing all three for the extra experience and loot. I suspect later missions will either require or will similarly optionally present multiple areas around the world to venture into, as the world map seems truly immense. Not in a Daggerfall way, but certainly in a Steam Indie RPG way.

I've got another, albeit shorter, bulletpoint list of clever features this game exhibits but before I start on that I want to dedicate a paragraph to the Mascot character's difficulty slider. While hardly new - Bastion is a fairly well-known employer of this feature - the way you can make the game harder for better rewards makes travelling through areas of middling monsters so much more rewarding. Literally and figuratively. I've left a seriously OP Handyman in my party to ensure I won't be caught blind by a tough encounter, but because he tends to kill most enemies in one hit I've found that dialing the slider up to x2 XP and gold gain, which also doubles the special experience that builds up talent levels, has returned combat to something that requires a bit more strategy and forethought than bulldozing everything with little effort. The difficulty plateau is definitely more pronounced where I'm at, in that most enemies are around the level I was at after completing the second story quest due to the aforementioned branching quest structure. The slider has its downsides though: I fought what I perceived as an overpowered boss duo and was about to check online to see if anyone else was complaining about the game's sudden difficulty spike when, to my chagrin, I discovered that I'd set the difficulty all the way up to x3 XP gain while checking out the bonuses. With x3, you not only double special talent experience but also ensure a guaranteed drop, making it perfect for farming enemies. Maybe not perfect for boss fights though, since they're usually weighted a little on the tougher side in normal circumstances. It was an exciting "pull out all the stops" type of fight though, and I certainly appreciated the giant XP boost I received at its conclusion. I might have to consider upping that slider more often...

Continuing the list in yesterday's update, here's a handful of Citizens of Earth features I appreciate:

1. Recruitable PCs show up in numerous areas. Most can only be recruited in a specific spot (their shop, or a remote region in the game) that they specify to you - "I'd love to join, but I'm needed in _____ right now" - but they'll still pop up everywhere with incidental dialogue relating to their present location partly to add color to the place but also to ensure that you know who they are, that they're available to recruit, and where you need to go to recruit them, or at least start the necessary recruitment side-quest. This way, there's far less chance of missing one because you forgot to check a building somewhere. It also lets you use their services/talents in more areas if they aren't with you yet.
2. When renaming a character, the first letter is always automatically in caps and then every subsequent letter is automatically lower case. Just a nice touch that's surprisingly uncommon.
3. Status effects can stack, improving their effects. Each has their own timer, displayed on the icon itself as it slowly drains of color. It adds to the versatility of status effects, allowing you to stack up numerous poison effects to ensure they stay on longer. If you poison an enemy that's already poisoned, you know right off the bat that the debuff wasn't wasted when a second "poison" icon appears next to its life bar.

With the three allotted days concluded and a desire to move on purely motivated by the fact that I'm running out of material to talk about, I temporarily leave Citizens of Earth to enjoy their dubiously-sourced Moonbucks coffee in the "Amerikinda" land they call home. I'll return some day, hopefully before I finalize the GOTY list for this year, but for now I have a couple of other games on my to-do list.

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