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This year, we at Raiderking were lucky enough to be able to visit PAX East to demo some upcoming games from a few small studios. One of the most interesting booths we saw at PAX East this year was Ocean Drive Studio’s, where they were showcasing two games. The survival title God Save Birmingham (Which is still early in development) and the strategy RPG Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch (Which has currently released on Steam Early Access), during my visit to the convention, I got to play both titles for about half an hour each. We’ll start this article off by looking over the demo for God Save Birmingham.
God Save Birmingham Impressions
God Save Birmingham is a zombie survival game like many others on the market, but with a twist: this title is set in 14th century England, and yes, it is in fact a real game despite what some internet rumors may say, The time period the game is set in means that your survival options and weapons will be much more limited by the time period than in other titles.
The demo for this game started me off in a house where I was able to collect a few objects such as a pitchfork, several food items, and containers to store water in; All the basics that one needs for a survival game. Picking up random objects scattered throughout the home was fun (I’m sure any gamer who has stuffed their pockets in games like The Elder Scrolls can relate), though I did encounter some issues such as whenever I tried to pick up a bowl full of eggs I ended up picking up the bowl itself, leaving the eggs on the table.
The game features a menu system when interacting with objects like chests that naturally contain items, but in the two times I was in this starting house, I couldn’t pick up these eggs without spilling them everywhere. I’m hoping that this was just me being clueless about the actual controls of the game and not an actual issue, as the developer who was next to me seemed confused by it as well.
Once I had plenty of food and water (Of which you need to grab from a well, filling up your containers), I set out to kill some zombies. There wasn’t any particular goal or objective given to me during this demo sequence, so I spent my time just exploring the map and getting used to the game’s controls and, more specifically, the unique mechanics behind its zombie killing.
While most video games have trained us to always aim for the head when fighting an enemy, God Save Birmingham chooses to go for a different, much smaller, body part: the neck. Targeting this part of a zombie’s body will allow you to instantly slice off their head, allowing you to quickly chop through enemies without the threat of getting bitten. While this may sound like an easy way to get out of danger, actually hitting the neck of an enemy can be harder than it looks, especially when factoring in how any time you spend aiming at them is time they could be surrounding and attacking you.
It took until around the end of my time testing out the game, but I was eventually able to consistently decapitate any enemies which crossed my path. The satisfaction of being able to do this at a regular pace was so satisfying that I had completely forgotten about my hunger meter and nearly died from my own arrogance.
Speaking of dying, there are several meters that you’ll need to keep an eye on while playing God Save Birmingham. Hunger, thirst, fear, and wounds. Food and water are self-explanatory as in order to keep those meters up, you’ll simply need to consume the items you’ve been picking up, and for wounds, you’ll just need to patch up any damage you take with tools such as bandages.
What’s really interesting though is the fear mechanic. If the player finds themself surrounded by zombies, the fear meter will appear near the top of the screen. In my time with the demo I hadn’t actually gotten a good grasp on what this meter does as the two times I saw it appear I had either died or had run away before it could have any true effect on me. I am very interested in seeing how this feature affects the game during longer situations.
While I was semi-diligent about making sure my meters were all full and I was never close to dying, there was a moment during my time with the demo where my character dropped dead for seemingly no reason at all. A man who was at the booth and introduced himself to me as the creative director behind the project assured me this was a bug. One which I hope is fixed by the time the full release comes around.
Overall, I had an enjoyable experience with my time playing God Save Birmingham’s demo. The game is expected to enter early access at some point in 2025 and I look forward to seeing what ways this game develops in the future.
Lost Eidolons: Veils of the Witch Impressions
The other game I was invited to try at One Drive Studio’s booth was Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch, a strategy RPG with turn-based combat on a grid where the player finds themselves stranded on an island, with the only way to survive being to fight through a roguelike experience of ever-changing stages to progress forward.
The basic gameplay of Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch reminded me a lot of classic SRPGs like the early Fire Emblem gameplay, and I mean that both mechanically and from a difficulty standpoint, as enemies will hit your units hard. Thankfully, there is no threat of permadeath in this title.
Players will be able to select their units and move them over to enemies, which they can then attack and potentially be countered by. There are a few aspects to give the game flair, like being able to select skills (which all have a multiple-turn cooldown time), but overall, it was very easy to jump into the basic combat of the game as an SRPG veteran.
Not every aspect of this combat is fully expected though, as the game also has a few cool tricks up its sleeve such as the weak point system, where if the player attacks strong enemies from a specific direction with a particular type of weapon (sword, axe, etc), then they’ll do massive extra damage!
What truly makes the game stand out from its peers in the SRPG genre, though, is the format behind its quests and how the player progresses through stages. Whenever the player is given an objective, they must make their way through several combat stages (being given slight freedom in what stages they participate in via branching paths based around what reward said stage will give).
Any of the player’s units who die during a stage will be revived at the start of the next stage with a small portion of their health. This leads to a hectic gameplay loop where the player can blitzkrieg their way toward enemies as long as they’re confident that at least one character will survive.
Another aspect of this quest system which I received a tutorial for is how the skills characters learn for defeating enemies will reset back to their basics upon finishing the final quest in a chain. While I wasn’t able to complete a full series of stages by the time I had to leave the demo booth, I can imagine this will lead to a wide variety of ways stages can actually play out as the player is never incentivised to use only their best units.
This gives the gameplay a very different feel from others in the genre and helps the game feel very unique. While I can’t make any extreme claims from the little I was able to play, I can easily see how the mechanics I was able to experience can lead to very well-designed stages in non-tutorial areas.
Overall, my impressions on Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch were very positive and I greatly look forward to trying the rest of the game myself in the future.
Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch is currently available on Steam as an Early Access title, with a full release being planned for later this year. If you are craving a clashing SRPG experience, I would recommend trying this title out when you have a chance.
