Every year at PAX East, the Games From Poland booth always impresses me with the sheer variety of games coming from Poland. There were at least a dozen unique titles populating the booth, but one that caught my eye was Whispers of the Eyeless, a dark fantasy roguelike from Bad Gingerbread Studio. Originally I checked it out for the unique art style and turn-based combat, but I ended up staying for the fascinating dark fantasy atmosphere and cult-forming gameplay.
In Whispers of the Eyeless, you serve as the First Prophet of a cult you assemble and grow. Using the divine powers of Wrath, Desire, and Madness, you are tasked with collecting resources and building a following. With success, you are granted resources and influences. With death, however, your grip on the city of Aranthor weakens. This mission of growing cultist influence drew me to this game, as it sounds like a more realistic take on cultist themes compared to titles like Cult of the Lamb which are entertaining in their own right for going in a more comedic direction.
As you navigate dungeons and engage in battles, you’ll find yourself carrying resources that can go towards improving your cult’s HQ. The various chambers give you access to upgrades in stats and boosts in combat, and rooms like the Reliquary and Vault allow you to dedicate followers to generating resources between runs to expand the cult’s base of operations.
Naturally, running a cult demands influence outside of trudging into dungeons to seek combat. In the town of Aranthor, the citizenry poses potential as followers of your cult, as you can recruit people to join or send disciples to weaken rivals’ influence on the townsfolk. You can also perform rituals and increase your notoriety, but such actions come with risk of unwanted attention. This makes this game almost feel like a resource management type of game, as you’re balancing the outreach for stuff like gold as well as followers to increase your capabilities. I didn’t get to dive deeper into these mechanics during my playtime on the show floor, but I could tell there was a lot of depth to this gameplay loop.
While on the pursuit of expanding your influence, combat is inevitable. Whispers of the Eyeless features turn-based combat with auto battler elements. Each turn, you are given the opportunity to set up abilities that can affect your damage output, Sanity (essentially your shield), and special cooldowns. You can also change your combat stance each turn to prioritize damage, defense, or self-healing.
I find this combat style to be interesting, as it discourages just running in guns blazing like I normally would in other turn-based combat games. Instead, each turn is open to strategy and precision with skill usage and stat management, which demands more complex consideration for the tools at your disposal. On top of this, battles also impact you from a character perspective, as winning or losing battles can significantly impact your cult’s influence, so strategy is vital to remaining strong for your cult’s followers.
During my demo, I actually died in combat at one point, and I was able to see how the game handles losing a battle. Because I had recruited a couple of followers prior, I was able to sacrifice one to keep myself going in my playthrough. Yes, that is quite dark, but it is a good example of how losing battles can affect your cult’s standing and the importance of strategy over all-out offensive approaches.
While my demo time only scratched the surface of the different paths you can go down, Whispers of the Eyeless stood out as an interesting game to play during my time at PAX East this year. The combat’s emphasis on strategy was compelling, and I found enjoyment out of recruiting cult followers to expand my resources and influence. There is plenty of depth in this strategy RPG, and I would say I came away with strong first impressions.
Every year at PAX East, the Games From Poland booth always impresses me with the sheer variety of games coming from Poland. There were at least a dozen unique titles populating the booth, but one that caught my eye was…
Every year at PAX East, the Games From Poland booth always impresses me with the sheer variety of games coming from Poland. There were at least a dozen unique titles populating the booth, but one that caught my eye was Whispers of the Eyeless, a dark fantasy roguelike from Bad Gingerbread Studio. Originally I checked it out for the unique art style and turn-based combat, but I ended up staying for the fascinating dark fantasy atmosphere and cult-forming gameplay.
In Whispers of the Eyeless, you serve as the First Prophet of a cult you assemble and grow. Using the divine powers of Wrath, Desire, and Madness, you are tasked with collecting resources and building a following. With success, you are granted resources and influences. With death, however, your grip on the city of Aranthor weakens. This mission of growing cultist influence drew me to this game, as it sounds like a more realistic take on cultist themes compared to titles like Cult of the Lamb which are entertaining in their own right for going in a more comedic direction.
As you navigate dungeons and engage in battles, you’ll find yourself carrying resources that can go towards improving your cult’s HQ. The various chambers give you access to upgrades in stats and boosts in combat, and rooms like the Reliquary and Vault allow you to dedicate followers to generating resources between runs to expand the cult’s base of operations.
Naturally, running a cult demands influence outside of trudging into dungeons to seek combat. In the town of Aranthor, the citizenry poses potential as followers of your cult, as you can recruit people to join or send disciples to weaken rivals’ influence on the townsfolk. You can also perform rituals and increase your notoriety, but such actions come with risk of unwanted attention. This makes this game almost feel like a resource management type of game, as you’re balancing the outreach for stuff like gold as well as followers to increase your capabilities. I didn’t get to dive deeper into these mechanics during my playtime on the show floor, but I could tell there was a lot of depth to this gameplay loop.
While on the pursuit of expanding your influence, combat is inevitable. Whispers of the Eyeless features turn-based combat with auto battler elements. Each turn, you are given the opportunity to set up abilities that can affect your damage output, Sanity (essentially your shield), and special cooldowns. You can also change your combat stance each turn to prioritize damage, defense, or self-healing.
I find this combat style to be interesting, as it discourages just running in guns blazing like I normally would in other turn-based combat games. Instead, each turn is open to strategy and precision with skill usage and stat management, which demands more complex consideration for the tools at your disposal. On top of this, battles also impact you from a character perspective, as winning or losing battles can significantly impact your cult’s influence, so strategy is vital to remaining strong for your cult’s followers.
During my demo, I actually died in combat at one point, and I was able to see how the game handles losing a battle. Because I had recruited a couple of followers prior, I was able to sacrifice one to keep myself going in my playthrough. Yes, that is quite dark, but it is a good example of how losing battles can affect your cult’s standing and the importance of strategy over all-out offensive approaches.
While my demo time only scratched the surface of the different paths you can go down, Whispers of the Eyeless stood out as an interesting game to play during my time at PAX East this year. The combat’s emphasis on strategy was compelling, and I found enjoyment out of recruiting cult followers to expand my resources and influence. There is plenty of depth in this strategy RPG, and I would say I came away with strong first impressions.
by Michael Fertitta
