EDIT: Spoilers are now open!

Prior message:

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Our tenth game is Procession to Calvary. The target completion date is June 13, 2022.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after June 13, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is The Procession to Calvary?

Procession to Cavalry is a comedy point and click adventure game with irreverent comedic material about the middle ages and a unique art style that references both classical painting and Monty Python

How long is The Procession to Calvary?

How long to beat lists it as 2.5 hours long.

I wish this game was just Rock of Ages

@zombiepie: yup.

I know this game is short, but I turned it off after 30 minutes last night. I might get back to it today, but I found the writing to be pretty cringe and I don't think I know enough about World History so some of the jokes are clearly going over my head. The few sight gags I saw were kind of funny but I didn't feel like interacting with all the interactables to see what dialogue was written (which is something I usually do with adventure games).

@zombiepie: Always good when one of the resident point and click adventure enthusiasts says they wish that the point and click adventure game was a boulder rolling sim!

I am playing through the game now and I will defend it a little. It's mildly amusing with some great art and music (literally, since much of the art and music is lifted from great works in the public domain and pasted together) and some okay puzzles as modern point and click adventures go. I like how the game handles using your sword and a lot of the description text.

Is it a mind-blowing top tier game? No. But I think it's decent and it definitely gets better when you get past the opening part and it starts opening up with more screens you revisit and more complicated multi-part puzzles.

This style of adventure game, the storybook-format, has just been done better. The first game that comes to mind is Botanicula, and there you have a similarly paced but overall better experience.

@bigsocrates: Maybe a little late, but if I may:

Cavalry are mounted soldiers.

Calvary is the place Jesus was crucified, thus The Procession to Calvary being a piece of art referenced by this game.

Anagrams!

Spoilers are now open.

I appear to be the only member of the club who enjoyed this one, at least who has commented so far. I didn't think it was amazing or anything but it was relatively amusing at points and it played like any other point and click adventure. I could have seen this coming out in the 90s on PC and finding an audience.

I thought the use of art was pretty good and clever (especially how different elements from different paintings were used for animation) and considering what a small project it was it looked great and had entertaining music. The writing was at times funny and there was an absolute ton of it, often with unique lines for trying to do stupid stuff like feed a skunk a fish.

The ability to use the sword as a "cheat" to just kill anyone in your path was really funny to me and a great way to implement a cheat system into an adventure game. Can't figure out how to get the book from the fat guy sleeping in a coffin? Stab him in the head and take it.

The Kickstarter backer room in the art gallery (which was itself cool because it showed you all the original art that the game was created from) was pretty funny, with the guard just laying into the backers and calling them names. Probably the best example of a Kickstarter room I can think of.

Like with any adventure game there were definitely some poorly thought through puzzles and places where I got stuck and was bored. The main story isn't very important so the game is essentially just a series of gags.

@zombiepie says there have been better games in this style and of course they are right, but also...so what? There are lots of good games that are not the best example of their style. The existence of Mario Kart 8 does not take away from the quality of Sonic & All Stars Racing.

I thought this was a solid and amusing little adventure game with a lot of creativity and heart. I may do a separate write up. But I enjoyed my time with this game enough to see all 3 endings (they are very easy to get if you have a save near the end where you have not murdered anyone) and I'm glad the Game Club made me go back to it after I bounced off it earlier this year. Is it my favorite adventure game? Not by a long shot. But I enjoyed it enough to be glad I played it.

Wasn't expecting to come to the Game Pass thread and have someone actively rebuke a passing impression of a game in the form of a rebuttal, but okay.

@zombiepie: There's no rebuke intended, just discussion and debate. I just feel like everyone is giving this game a hard time because it has some rough edges, but I think there's a fair amount of good stuff in it. Nobody has to like any game, of course, but I think there is plenty of room for games that are not best in class.

Like you are free to say Botanicula is better and I won't even argue with you to that point, but I don't think it's exactly an analog to Procession because Procession is built on sight gags from pasted together bits of old art, drawing out the ludicrousness of that art, and a bunch of juvenile jokes that people may or may not like. Those aren't really the things in Botanicula. I think a critique of Procession focused on its mechanics is fine because at the end of the day it's not the most interesting game from a gameplay perspective, even among graphic adventures, but that's also clearly not where the creative energy went in making this game.

Of course the humor won't be to everyone's liking but I think that's true for all games with comedy focuses.

And I think that mechanically it does one interesting thing because I can't think of another point and click adventure where you can just pull out your sword and kill people if you don't want to do a lot of the puzzles. Sometimes you can murder people in graphic adventures, but I don't think I've ever seen another one with so many optional murders integrated into its mechanics.