VED Review - The Game That Doesn't Explain
VED is the first game from new studio Karaclan and, it is hard to describe. I found myself trying to figure out during the play sessions if I enjoyed it and honestly couldn’t decide either way. There were some aspects I liked and others I disliked and while these feelings changed as I continued playing, I found that the likes and dislikes were perfectly balanced every time. I was just ambivalent. In the end, when I completed the game, there wasn’t any satisfaction or regret, just confusion and emptiness, like a raccoon who had just washed their fairy floss into oblivion.

In a game like VED where the narrative is essential, it seemed that the prologue and epilogue of the game were almost a different type of genre to the main bulk of the game. This disjointedness is present in every aspect of the game. I was led to believe that I was helping the main character Cyrus, who discovers he can teleport, to make a groundbreaking decision that would change the fate of Micropolis forever. Micropolis is a special city as deep underneath it is the magic realm. The human realm and the magic realm have always been kept separate, but Cyrus can travel between the two. Micropolis has four factions with three of them vying for control of the city, two wanting to control how magic affects the world. Cyrus is the rogue factor and his choices will alter who gains control of Micropolis and the future. In the end, though, it felt like the options chosen had much less of an impact than the game made out.
The gameplay of VED differs depending on whether Cyrus is in the human realm, or beyond the boundary in the magic realm. In the human realm, the gameplay focuses more on the relationships and the choices Cyrus makes in his interactions. When talking to other characters, Cyrus’ dialogue choices can affect whether they respect, fear or feel friendly towards Cyrus. This can open more interesting dialogue options.


Aside from talking to other characters one-on-one, Cyrus will often be left to make choices that affect not only him but those around him. These will be shown to the player at the end of the chapter documenting the choice they made so they can replay these sections selecting other options.
The magic realm however has actual combat. This is because, in the magic realm, Cyrus has good ol’ 20-20 vision. This doesn’t mean there are no decisions to be made here though. In the magic realm players always start at their base of Dawn. Here, Cyrus can spend orbs that he has received from defeating monsters to build new structures. This unlocks new combat abilities. These can only be set at the beginning and will help determine the success of the run. From there, Cyrus can teleport to different branching paths. When I first started the game, I managed to miss all the decisions in a chapter because I didn’t understand how it worked. The game asks players to choose a right or left branch. These can either be fights, encounters, explorations or altars.

Encounters allow players to increase their health, sword strength and spells in combat by making choices to explore that area and rolling a twenty-sided die. How successful Cyrus is depends on the check limits of the options. For example, if checking an item requires a dexterity of 10 and Cyrus has 5 dexterity, there’s a one in four chance he might fail. Even if the roll fails, Cyrus will get a point towards dexterity and other options will be available to try. Encounters are conversations with residents in the magic realm, usually Troglodytes which are strange sentient rock people. This will lead to Cyrus asking them if they want to live at Dawn, which can unlock buffs in fights. Altars will send Cyrus back to the human realm temporarily where he’ll need to make decisions again.
Finally, combat. Now this is one of the things I enjoyed most about VED when it wasn’t employing questionable tactics. When Cyrus fights a monster, he stands on a stage with four sections. What attacks he can perform will depend on where he is standing. That along with what he targets will either give the player a 30% chance of getting a critical, or a 20% chance to miss. This also affects the monster, but thanks to the markers on the floor, players will know where to stand to avoid the possibility of a critical attack. Some buffs and debuffs can make the battles harder or easier. Unfortunately like most of the game mechanics, it’s not really explained. So, Cyrus gets to attack and move until he uses up all four of his action points and then it is the monster’s turn to retaliate.


Something cool was that at the beginning of the battle, players could choose to buff or debuff the monster for more or less orbs. While I generally enjoyed the combat as a whole once I understood the majority of it, I did find myself frustrated at times due to these enemies. To mix things up a bit, there were a few that required killing either all three heads at once or all three sections at once. These would often become a battle of attrition especially as I had only unlocked one area of attack ability. The other enemy I had difficulty with could kill my character instantly. Combat was the aspect of the game I enjoyed most, but these issues killed my enthusiasm for a while.
Something that didn’t sit well with me was the art style. Initially, I loved it and was so glad they had gone with a hand-painted style…until it moved. It looks like AI has tried to animate the paintings and it creates an uncanny valley effect. While it stopped bothering me as much by the end, something else that disappointed me was that the developers didn’t lean into Cyrus’ low vision more. Some characters have interesting designs but it unfortunately doesn’t extend to everyone. Alice has a strange red glow that erases her features, Knox has glowing blue cracks all over him and Mike just looks normal. His aunt looks normal as Cyrus has grown up with her but why doesn’t Mike have a weird glow too? It just felt like a sad oversight especially since having a protagonist with disabilities is so rare. Another letdown was that Cyrus seemed to be able to navigate his way around a big city unaided which is unrealistic for that disability. The one positive was the audio map app he used to assist in navigation.

Another annoyance was the game’s attempt to shoehorn in romance. Quite obviously, Cyrus is infatuated with Alice after the first meeting. The two meet again coincidentally where Alice informs Cyrus that she has a boyfriend and even calls him on the phone. This doesn’t seem to give Cyrus pause, however, and he keeps trying to profess his love for Alice. No means no, even in video games. Cyrus is a bit of a prick however so I didn’t like him anyway, but this disregard for how Alice felt made me angry. Women already have issues with men not understanding no, so to have that stereotype portrayed in the game hit a nerve with me.
When thinking back on my experience as a whole with VED, I just feel hollow and confused. In an effort to make mystery, they hid a lot of the story, forcing players to make decisions without all the information and leaving them feeling uncertain. While the combat is the standout element of the game, the lack of explanation for the mechanics brought it down as a whole. The narrative was mostly great, but there were a few major stumbling blocks that let the entire story down. Possibly with a bit more time and a bit more experience, the next game could be an absolute cracker. I was going to equate VED to eating something like McDonalds because about an hour after eating it, you feel hungry again, but I changed my mind because people tend to crave junk food and I absolutely do not crave VED.

VED Was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.