Pendragon

Pendragon is a game of both strategy and story, offering a different kind of gameplay experience while digging into historical mythos.

Inkle's marriage of Arthurian storytelling and turn-based strategy is elegant and replayable - if, perhaps, a little opaque at times.

Strategy games and RPGs are all about communication with the player. In those genres, statistics dictate success and failure. What is your strength? Your income? How do your choices impact the underlying numbers? Pendragon is ostensibly a strategy RPG. You have a party of characters, who move across a grid, moving slowly towards a confrontation with the Last Boss. But Pendragon deliberately obfuscates the ways your choices impact the story and in doing so, free you to enjoy one of the purest storytelling games I have ever encountered.

Pendragon wants to help you tell a story of the last days of King Arthur, and how much that idea appeals to you is exactly how much you'll like it. Not every story works, but not every story has to.

You never know what's going to happen next in this narrative/strategy hybrid.

Pendragon is a great introduction to the strategy genre and is easy to pick up and play without the fear of being overwhelmed by menus and options. Multiple characters, dialogue options and areas ensure no two playthroughs will be the same.

From Inkle, the creators of Heaven’s Vault and 80 Days, comes Pendragon, a rogue-like narrative strategy game. It hopes to blend writing and gameplay, to constantly have one influence the other. While it succeeds in some ways, it falls short in so many others.