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VED: Purification is a free prologue to the full hand-drawn RPG, complete with Stetson hats and Evil Dead trees

'Tree' and 'hat' singular, I suppose

A big angry tree in VED.
Image credit: Karaclan

Got an email about this. Looks cool. Is free. “I’ll write about that,” I thought. “I’ll write about that for Rock Paper Shotgun, a place that semi-regularly posts articles about cool and free games.” So here we are. If you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, assuming the only reason I’d open an article in a superfluous and straightforward manner is because I’m about to deliver some sort of third sentence twist, you’re completely wrong! There’s no twist at all. I’m simply going to deliver some information about the game in a neutral tone. You can find VED: Purification, a free prologue demo to RPG VED, here.

Watch on YouTube

Ok, fine, here’s a non-neutral assessment: the voice acting is as rough as the cheap Asda cat litter I bought that was so close to gravel in consistency that I refused to subject my pet to it, so that’s bonus points to the art for carrying my interest. This one’s a turn-based RPG, but with cRPG elements like dialogue choices, multiple endings, and a series of intriguing ‘curses or blessings’, which sound somewhat roguelike-like. There’s dice rolls and ability loadouts, and most importantly, the gifs on the Steam page for the main game feature at least one very good giant mushroom bastard. Here’s how the game describes itself:

In VED, you take on the role of Cyrus, a young hero who comes to the city of Micropolis in search of a new life. There he suddenly discovers the ability to teleport between two interconnected worlds full of mysterious flying islands, strange creatures, and dangerous monsters. Unfold an interactive story where each decision matters and help Cyrus discover the truth about this magical place, so that you can decide the fate of two worlds. To succeed in your quest, you will have to master the powerful magic of the Veds.

Just once, I would like a game to just come out and tell me in the marketing that “only about one third of the decisions you make matter”. Would you not just buy that game immediately, purely out of respect for its honesty? I would. I haven’t played VED of course, so maybe each decision does matter, and maybe “easy to learn but difficult to master” is an accurate description of the combat, too. Who knows! The full game’s out in a week anyway. That’s the 14th of November, and your prologue progress carries over to the big release, should you find yourself a dedicated VEDhead.

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