Have you tried Shadwen yet?, Indie stealth sneaking/assassination game...with a kid in tow Options

[Wounded Ronin]

So, Shadwen, a small studio indie stealth/sneaking assassination game went live on Gog.com as well as Steam, so I have decided to try it out.

In some ways the game is very innovative. Rather than putzing around with save games or checkpoints, the game lets you rewind time at any time. So, if you die, for example, rather than having to reload at a certain point, you just hold the rewind button and try what you were doing again. And why not? The point of playing a game is to have fun.

The other thing that's innovative about it is that time freezes when you're not pushing any controls. So even though the game is real time, it's not really about having super reflexes. You can freeze time whenever you want and take unlimited time to aim. I am enjoying this feature because it has the good aspects of real time games, but it also lets me casually sip beer while playing. In this way, it combines the best aspects of real time and turn based games, because turn based games also let me casually sip beer while playing.

The game has something of a bare bones feeling because you can only stealth kill guards. If you are detected the game immediately ends, which isn't as obnoxious as it sounds because you can rewind time at any time. But it sort of feels like being a smaller production they decided to focus on the point of the game, which was stealth, and not tack on a melee combat system, or anything like that. So, it definitely lacks the breadth of Metal Gear, Thief, or Hitman, but on the other hand it also doesn't cost nearly as much as those big name titles.

I am a little disappointed that they didn't go a little crazier with brutal or fun stealth kills, however, seeing as that was the focus of the game. Again, it's a bit limited; there's only one way I've seen so far that you stab people. You can't throw people over ledges or anything like that. You can craft items which I basically haven't really got to try yet even though I've played for a couple of evenings now, and you can Batman around on ledges and things, which is always fun. I remember in contrast how much I enjoyed Tenchu with it's dramatic and flamboyant stealth kills, or even the much-maligned Rogue Warrior which featured over the top highly brutal and varied stealth kills that were probably suggested by Dick Marcinko.

The atmosphere of the game is dark medieval, but I'm not sure if the game is supposed to be a comedy game or not. This is because during the entire game a little girl follows your character around and apparently it affects the storyline if she figures out that you're an assassin versus if she doesn't see you kill anyone and doesn't discover any bodies.

The problem is that this little girl runs from cover to cover as soon as guards aren't looking, so basically it's pretty easy for her to stumble upon you murdering guards or find bodies you leave in her path. You can't just tell her to hold position until everything is perfect. So far I've managed this by sneaking past the first guards in a level, killing the rest of them, cleaning up the level, and then going back to kill the original guards that were preventing the girl from running. I expect that eventually I'll stop caring and just let the girl take in the full extent of the carnage, since it's sort of a pain in the ass.

To me it seems very comical. The game juxtaposes stabbing dudes from behind while blood splashes on the screen with some random kid running all over the level whom you're supposed to shield from the carnage. It almost sounds like some kind of Japanese game show. You're already slaughtering dozens of guards and on a mission to murder the king, so why does it matter overwhelmingly if a kid who insists on following you sees? "Why are we in the king's castle? I thought we were going to your house." "Uh, no reason. My house is, uh, behind the castle!"

So, at the end of the day, I appreciate the innovative or experimental nature of the game. It's not the best game I have ever played but it's not without merit either and I respect the fact it's not a big ticket production. I'll probably try and play it through once but I could take it or leave it.