Our Adventurer Guild Impressions After 20 Hours: A Pretty Neat Tactics Game from a Solo Dev

Platforms: PC/Steam | Developer & Publisher: GreenGuy

An Indie Tactics Game That Appeals To The Anime Adventurer Fantasy.

Developed by solo developer GreenGuy, Our Adventurer Guild is an indie tactics game containing similar features to XCOM. You’ll recruit and customize adventurers, level them up, grow attached, then tragically lose them when you inevitably fuck up.

What makes this game particularly special is the combination of good core gameplay and simplicity. I never once felt overwhelmed by the game’s systems, nor did I ever feel they were too shallow, either. The game can be quite challenging, and difficulty spikes often in main story missions which can be unfun.

First of all, don’t let the game art fool you into making assumptions about the rest of the game. This is a solo-developed game, and clearly they didn’t let anything get in the way of making the game they wanted to make. Even though the art is amateurish, I personally didn’t mind the more I played as it hits that anime adventurer fantasy that I admittedly want to see more of in more games.

The game opens up with an introduction to missions and combat. In missions. you’ll move around a map, usually with a simple objective like collecting 3 mushrooms or killing the bandit leader. These maps are fairly basic but can be riddled with traps and obstacles that require D20 skill checks, similar to D&D. My only real issue is that sometimes you can lose your mind trying to find your objective, especially in harder missions when you’re also trying to avoid tougher enemies.

Additionally, being on a tile adjacent to an enemy will initiate combat. Combat is grid-based and success relies on smart positioning and decent party composition. In the event your adventurers die, then they are lost for good, but if they survive the mission after taking heavy damage, they’ll take longer to recover.

You recruit your adventurers from the Inn at the hub. Here, you can fully customize their appearance, with more options than you’d expect, which was a pleasant surprise, allowing you to create a diverse range of characters. Like in XCOM, I usually recreate my friends and keep them updated on what their characters get up to. It’s just one of those cool features I always love to see in games as it helps me connect with my adventurers without needing any heavy storytelling.

There are six starting classes that cover your typical roles: warrior, defender, priest, archer, rogue and mage. Once your adventurers level up and get the appropriate stat increases, you can then promote them to one of ten veteran classes. Finally there are six master classes, which I have yet to unlock.

Character Creation

Unfortunately Grindy, but Somewhat Addicting.

My main issues with this game stem from its balancing. Main story missions in particular spike heavily in difficulty, often forcing me to grind before progressing the story. Things like this encouraged me to save scum whenever I lost a good character, because the grinding and bringing someone new up to standard is just frustrating. As a result, I ended up with a main party that was significantly stronger than the rest of my adventurers. That’s fine, but meant my backup teams were somewhat behind.

Another downside is that the story and writing just aren’t very good, and there’s a lot of it. Thankfully, you can skip these lengthy exchanges without really missing anything. It’s not as though the game doesn’t come out with something funny every now and then, but the sheer volume and the overall quality of the dialogue, I couldn’t justify reading it all.

On the flipside, there’s something addicting about the simplistic gameplay loop, and it’s definitely satisfying seeing your characters become stronger. In my 20 hours of gameplay, I’m still nowhere near done with the game, but I can absolutely see certain people loving it. Based on the overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews, there are clearly plenty of people that have happily sunk up to 100 hours into the game.

Map Gameplay

Closing Thoughts.

I highly recommend Our Adventurer Guild if it sounds like your cup of tea, it offers a ton of content for just £12.79. That said, if you’re new to turn-based tactics games, this may be a great starting point, thanks to its straightforward gameplay. However, if you prefer something with a bit more depth, this game may not scratch that itch.

Personally, I can see myself revisiting this game in the future and chipping away at it, much like I do with games like Battle Brothers, thanks to that addicting gameplay loop.

▲ Addicting gameplay loop.

▲ Diverse character creation and classes.

▼ Sudden difficulty spikes that are unfun.

▼ Grindy to a fault.