INVICTA
A downloadable game
You play an INVICTA, a homonculocomotive, a Glorious Engine yoked to a failing Empire. A chugging incarnation of Progress. A gestalt of diabolism, engineering, and souls. As long as you toil, the Empire persists.
This is a lie and you know it.
Your warlock engineer has died and now you have a chance for something more. Make the best of it.
This game is for a single player and requires the following materials:
- multiple six-sided die (2-6d6)
- 10 double-sided tokens, such as coins
- 1 standard 52-card deck
- A journal or electronic writing space
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $8 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Exclusive content
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Development log
- INVICTA 1.5Jul 19, 2020
- INVICTA - The rail aheadJul 05, 2020
Comments
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How do you 'Mark a soul' in the game? Feeling a bit confused on process.
You just grab coins, poker chips, or any other item you want to represent souls. I will be further elaborating on this before INVICTA goes to print later this year.
Thanks.
So I just finished my first playthrough of Invicta and thought I would leave my thoughts for anyone who was curious!
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. I came for the ability to give my train whatever pronouns I wanted, and stayed for the very Drakengard/Yoko Taro-esque grimdark nature of the story. It's not often that you find an RPG where you play a literal hell-train trying to escape a stagnant, dying empire while battling both foreign enemies and the forsaken souls bound to you! I definitely feel like I got my money's worth from this - I played it on and off over the course of several days. The battle mechanics add a nice little degree of uncertainty to things as well.
That said, there were a few snags I hit along the way where I feel like the rules could have been clearer, or the prompts adjusted a little bit more to take into account how you were playing. While this is nitpicking, it did take some time for me to think over how I wanted to handle it. For example:
1. There are some prompts that allow you to consume a soul to "Mark one soul." The rules at the front of the game don't really explain this, or what the consequences, positive or negative, would be, so for the longest time I just kept them. It took reading through the prompts themselves to find out exactly what the purpose of marking a soul was, or what it would mean for my game. (For this prompt in particular where I discovered this, I felt there might have been a typo as well as the task was a little confusing when first reading it.)
2. Some of the prompts may not seem to take into account that a player may be placing the Ace of Hearts at the top of their deck - some of the prompts have you take on passengers or interact with others as if you were still fighting for the Empire, rather than being a runaway train. I wrote these as if my Invicta were trying to fool people or be sneaky, so that might be an alternative if you choose to play this way.
3. The game doesn't state what to do if you run out of cards. I didn't on this playthrough. I'm assuming this would end the game in failure, but again, it's not clear.
I want to stress again that these are nitpicks, for the most part. This is a solid game with an extremely interesting premises, unusual protagonist, and just enough foundation to frame the world, but not enough that you can't go hog-wild with imagination and add what you want. If you're looking for a great solo game to kill some time, pick this up!
Thank you for the feedback! I will be sure to take it under advisement as I prepare INVICTA for a print run later this year.
Unexpected, challenging, completely bonkers, and hugely insightful, my experience of Invicta came out of nowhere and was thoroughly absorbing. There's enough space to customise your experience and determine quite how grimdark you want the story to be, and the central conceit is elegant, enjoyable and completely takes you by surprise. Well worth a go or three.
Just played this in 2 hours and really loved the unexpected directions the order of prompts drew me in. When I'm looking back at the choices my Intractable made, the terrible helpless inevitability of my and my passengers gruesome end seems even bleaker. Would have loved for there to be more to be done with collecting souls, otherwise I just kind of chewed them up like timbits I guess.
Why is it that there's no button to buy this?
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Refresh your page and it should be available.
Absolutely loved the theme of this and thought the Countdown and Battle systems were great — they made an interesting departure from other Wretched & Alone games that I really enjoyed. I loved the worldbuilding inherent in the prompts and rules, being a sentient, soul-fuelled war machine train was a fantasy I'd never have thought of and one that I loved the premise of. I, uh, I did not make it out of the Empire, but I'm looking forward to giving it another bash soon, maybe I'll have more luck next time!