Swordbreaker: The Game Review

Swordbreaker was released on the 30th September, and I was lucky enough to have been able to grab a copy and play prior to the release date. Now, there are many games like this around. In fact, the last game I played like this must have been when Facebook was used to play games. Of course this is going back to when it originally went live somewhat 10+ years ago. This Interactive Fiction story game is a breath of fresh air that vastly differs to what we are used to.

This is greatly dependent on the choices you make throughout your play-through, but Swordbreaker has up to 333 different scenes to come across, with 125 of them being death scenes. You are given anything from 1 – 3 choices on each scene with each scene having specific details of what is going on but also leaving you a question which you then need to decide what to do. It’s very clever and an Intuitive way of thinking and changing the way games are played.

Each scene is beautifully illustrated with its in-depth feel of the room or area which, if you’re like me, you can sort of place yourself in that situation and try to think what choice you would actually make. If you can immerse yourself into the game, then that’s where you get to understand the narrative and storytelling behind it and to ensure you go far to uncover what lies ahead. With its many different routes and choices to make, each ending or play-through can be unique and different making it interesting and fun to play.

I do think it could get stale quickly after a couple of tries as to me it lacked that type of replay-ability you get from other games. Especially as you only have 3 lives, and making the wrong choice 3 times means you have to start again. Might not be good if you have only just started

However, for something that is simple and elegantly made that could easily be expanded to add more wacky scenarios, Swordbreaker could quite easily get some people hooked on it.