Indie strategy RPGs are a dime a dozen these days, which means extra work has to be done in order to get attention. While OmniSuperMegaCorp had a bit of an advantage in the form of a press release arriving in my inbox, the pitch and trailers I’ve seen (including the one above) were enough to make me interested.
Ledgerbound puts players in the shoes of Rayna, an insurance adjuster for the Heroes United Life Group who assists with the various insurance needs of heroes in the realm. Like any insurance adjuster, her role is to investigate and evaluate the company’s liability for property damage and injury claims. In a video game fantasy world, that pretty much makes her a mock battle strategist, and the demo currently available on Steam makes you do just that early on with its turn-based combat.
I liken the combat in Ledgerbound to Fire Emblem, except with smaller maps. The game is more top-down than it is isometric and a rock-paper-scissors battle mechanic (fire > plant > water), along with the placement of spaces like sigils, will affect your battle plan. The demo did a nice job setting things up in a dummy-proof way, all while building itself up to give you more agency as the story progressed.
Both the writing and spoken dialog are cheeky in the best ways.
While each battle felt intuitive and snappy, I did find myself having issues playing with the build on a Steam Deck–though it’s worth mentioning that the game/demo isn’t Steam Deck-verified. One feature that the game relies on heavily in combat are with the unique abilities each character has, and the only way to use them is to pull up an action wheel by right-clicking your intended character. On a Steam Deck, that means using the left trigger, which can be difficult if you’re doing everything with the touch screen. On that note, especially when using the touch screen, there were quite a few times I made the wrong move, and once you progressed far enough, you aren’t able to immediately go back on decisions you’ve made on the battlefield, even if you didn’t finalize the action during your turn. I don’t know if that was an intended design choice, or if that was me fumbling with the Steam Deck when I shouldn’t even be using it, but I thought that was worth mentioning.
That aside, the real draw I had outside of battle was with the game’s cast of characters. Rayna made herself out to be likable loner with her nature of being someone who was both overworked and addicted to her work, while also absolutely loving her work. Prince Avarice, who Matt Mercer is doing an admirable job voicing, is a stuck up Royal with no realistic claim to the throne, but he fights pretty damn well. You even have this one character who dies too early that just says random names of vegetables. And then of course, there’s Jazz, the foul mouthed daughter of your boss is also someone I enjoyed listening to both because of her unpredictable nature and uh… horniness.
On that note, the game is also a dating sim. Aside from suggestive dialog choices here and there, I didn’t get a real chance to explore this side of the game because of more unfortunate bugs, but I will say the narrative phases in between each chapter before moving onto battle are well done. The fun dialog makes these breaks to talk to everybody quite nice, and I do like the way the game still insists upon the theme of you being an insurance adjuster with everything you do. If someone died in the previous battle (which isn’t permanent), there’s monetary liability to bring them back. If someone wants to join the group, you have to provide them onboarding paperwork. It’s all so cleverly done that I really just wanted to stop playing so I can just be surprised when the game finally does come out.
Battle maps are small, making most fights short and sweet.
What actually caused me to stop playing was some bug that happened during the dialog that results in a book opening and endlessly turning pages. This happened both with the early demo as well as the new content that creates a new save with the demo that came out on March 6th. I imagine this is also a Steam Deck thing, but it’s definitely something we’ll closely monitor.
Ledgerbound is currently slated to release on the PC via Steam this spring, but I’m really hoping for a console, or at least a Steam Deck-verified, release because I really enjoyed the demo when it was cooperating with me. If not from me, you can definitely expect someone on the staff to be on this review when the game comes out.
Indie strategy RPGs are a dime a dozen these days, which means extra work has to be done in order to get attention. While OmniSuperMegaCorp had a bit of an advantage in the form of a press release arriving in my inbox, the pitch and trailers I’ve seen (including the one above) were enough to make me interested.
Indie strategy RPGs are a dime a dozen these days, which means extra work has to be done in order to get attention. While OmniSuperMegaCorp had a bit of an advantage in the form of a press release arriving in my inbox, the pitch and trailers I’ve seen (including the one above) were enough to make me interested.
Ledgerbound puts players in the shoes of Rayna, an insurance adjuster for the Heroes United Life Group who assists with the various insurance needs of heroes in the realm. Like any insurance adjuster, her role is to investigate and evaluate the company’s liability for property damage and injury claims. In a video game fantasy world, that pretty much makes her a mock battle strategist, and the demo currently available on Steam makes you do just that early on with its turn-based combat.
I liken the combat in Ledgerbound to Fire Emblem, except with smaller maps. The game is more top-down than it is isometric and a rock-paper-scissors battle mechanic (fire > plant > water), along with the placement of spaces like sigils, will affect your battle plan. The demo did a nice job setting things up in a dummy-proof way, all while building itself up to give you more agency as the story progressed.
Both the writing and spoken dialog are cheeky in the best ways.
While each battle felt intuitive and snappy, I did find myself having issues playing with the build on a Steam Deck–though it’s worth mentioning that the game/demo isn’t Steam Deck-verified. One feature that the game relies on heavily in combat are with the unique abilities each character has, and the only way to use them is to pull up an action wheel by right-clicking your intended character. On a Steam Deck, that means using the left trigger, which can be difficult if you’re doing everything with the touch screen. On that note, especially when using the touch screen, there were quite a few times I made the wrong move, and once you progressed far enough, you aren’t able to immediately go back on decisions you’ve made on the battlefield, even if you didn’t finalize the action during your turn. I don’t know if that was an intended design choice, or if that was me fumbling with the Steam Deck when I shouldn’t even be using it, but I thought that was worth mentioning.
That aside, the real draw I had outside of battle was with the game’s cast of characters. Rayna made herself out to be likable loner with her nature of being someone who was both overworked and addicted to her work, while also absolutely loving her work. Prince Avarice, who Matt Mercer is doing an admirable job voicing, is a stuck up Royal with no realistic claim to the throne, but he fights pretty damn well. You even have this one character who dies too early that just says random names of vegetables. And then of course, there’s Jazz, the foul mouthed daughter of your boss is also someone I enjoyed listening to both because of her unpredictable nature and uh… horniness.
On that note, the game is also a dating sim. Aside from suggestive dialog choices here and there, I didn’t get a real chance to explore this side of the game because of more unfortunate bugs, but I will say the narrative phases in between each chapter before moving onto battle are well done. The fun dialog makes these breaks to talk to everybody quite nice, and I do like the way the game still insists upon the theme of you being an insurance adjuster with everything you do. If someone died in the previous battle (which isn’t permanent), there’s monetary liability to bring them back. If someone wants to join the group, you have to provide them onboarding paperwork. It’s all so cleverly done that I really just wanted to stop playing so I can just be surprised when the game finally does come out.
Battle maps are small, making most fights short and sweet.
What actually caused me to stop playing was some bug that happened during the dialog that results in a book opening and endlessly turning pages. This happened both with the early demo as well as the new content that creates a new save with the demo that came out on March 6th. I imagine this is also a Steam Deck thing, but it’s definitely something we’ll closely monitor.
Ledgerbound is currently slated to release on the PC via Steam this spring, but I’m really hoping for a console, or at least a Steam Deck-verified, release because I really enjoyed the demo when it was cooperating with me. If not from me, you can definitely expect someone on the staff to be on this review when the game comes out.
by Danreb Victorio
