Indie diamonds in the rough: The Shrouded Isle

Lead your cult safely to the apocalypse in a Lovecraftian world painted in wide strokes of green, blue and yellow.

Developer: Kitfox Games
Game Engine: Unity
Price: £6.99 / Steam

I had no idea what Shrouded Isle is when I bought it. What drew me to the game was the aesthetics. The game consists mainly of monochromatic 2D pictures painted in a blend of gloomy yellow, blue and green. Apparently, you can chase the default palette to other colours but they all are similarly melancholic some more than others.

I haven’t read much about the backstory of the Shrouded Isle before or after I played the game because I wanted to experience it as-is and that was a satisfying and challenging experience. As far as I understood you are the leader of a village that is all about saving his people through suffering and sacrifice before the end of days. And when I am talking about sacrifice I am talking literally. At the end of every season - which is another word for the turns of the game - you have to pick one person to sacrifice to your cruel god.

The game is a combination of strategy and puzzle. It reminded me a bit of the old school classic “King of Dragon Pass” although it is actually a much simpler game. There are five families that are assigned to different duties and each turn you have to pick which one of the members of the clan will perform the duty. These duties are not the usual ones you would expect on a city management simulator. For example one of them is keeping the ignorance of the village high. Which means destroy books, make people believe in omens and in general don’t allow knowledge to spread among your underlings. Each member of the families has certain attributes that maybe be in accordance with his duties (for example for ignorance you want the one you pick to be uneducated, ignorant etc) or may work the opposite way (for ignorance that would be curious, imaginative etc). The twist is that these attributes are hidden. They are uncovered as the game passes, when you pick a member to perform his duties or if you have good relations with the family through inquiry. So at any given time and especially at the beginning, you are not sure if you picked the right person for the job.

As soon as you pick all the five members of the different families then you go into the “seasonal council” screen where you have to pick up to three people to perform their duties. Depending on your picks and their attributes you see how your clan “qualities” have been affected. If the picks are not a good match then they actually do more harm than good although there is an argument to be made about how much harm is for a clan to become more knowledgeable! In the context of Shrouded Isle though it is. Salvation comes through suffering as we said.

And suffering means not only whipping and burning of books but the sweet release of death under a ceremonial knife. At the end of the season, you have to pick one of your council members to sacrifice. This affects your clan’s qualities and also the attitude of the family that the sacrificial lamb belongs too. The more sinful is the member you sacrifice the less upset everyone will be. The challenge is that you don’t always know the characteristics of your people so sometimes it is just a stab in the dark.

That is how the game progresses between seasons until the end of the world, with random events added to the mix to spice things up. Depending on how well you do they are different endings waiting your people.

Shrouded Isle is a dark clever game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you like Lovecraft, gloomy art and you always thought that there should be more games like the “King of Dragon Pass” give it a try. Picking who would you sacrifice, to serve your cruel unforgiving god is more fun than it sounds.