Overfall is such a strange beast. A narrative-focused rogue-lite that has you traversing an archipelago and either playing short choose-your-own-adventure vignettes or turn-based hex battles. There's a timer ticking down, and at the end of this countdown the evil Vorn will swarm all over the place and, well, end of the world and all that. When you start to play, the whole thing feels confusing and somewhat disjointed. All the parts don't seem to fit quite right. It's disappointing, really.

However, once it all falls into place, it is just glorious. You see, Overfall is actually a brilliantly complex game with a bunch of mechanisms that have to be mastered - or at least understood - before you can derive any enjoyment from them. That sounds an awful lot like work, but it feels like you're charting unexplored terrain.
Your tiny party of two sets sail, hoping to gain the trust of the game's different races. Each stop has a new encounter, and a few of them are chained together to form interesting and varied quest chains. There's usually a reward involved as well, be it reputation, items, or even new skills and characters for your next playthrough. Due to the randomized nature of the game, unlocking these things can feel almost haphazard, and not having a clear-cut goal at first feels weird. But it's actually a good thing; there's a real sense of adventure to all of this.

There's lots of genre standards that Overfall deviates from. For instance, combat turns are sp...