Kofi Quest is one of those games that most people who follow the hobby probably heard about several years ago, after its successful KickStarter, and then slowly forgot as it never came out. Surprisingly it was not one of the countless titles that took the money and ran, instead it became one of the very few that actually followed through and delivered on pretty much every single point it promised along the way. What it delivered was a real-time-strategy/RPG/comedy/point and click adventure. With a lot of slashes, the question becomes how many of them fit together properly after that long in development.
The main driving point behind everything in Kofi is the humor. The game itself is funny, which is not something that is easily done in this media. Many titles attempt it, sure, but very few actually ever succeed. Mixed in with that the various voice actors for most intractable characters, which is impressive for a game of both this price point and size.
You can check out our stream of Kofi Quest embedded below here:
The art-style is also extremely fitting and fluid. The characters and the backgrounds are all made in an almost 2D standup style and oddly fits the world that is built around them, allowing a sense of place to take hold during play. Enemies are all unique enough during battle, and while the combat might not be the most interesting, they all are animated just differently enough. Although this does make the moments that aren’t the best feel odd, when one character isn’t nearly as well drawn or as fluid in movements as the rest.
The problems don’t really stop there either, as the game acts as a point and click adventure when not in battle–with both the ups and downs of that interface. This has the massive drawback of the character not really having any amount of pathfinding at all; so when in a narrow and dangerous path the characters need to be babysat so they don’t get stumble into something they shouldn’t, causing the entire course to be done again.
The game also has so many elements to it that there isn’t a bunch of depth to any one facet. Characters gain experience, but levels never feel like they made the difference between one battle and the next. There are squad elements for the RTS parts, but most of the time it devolves to just having the characters move in a swarm at the enemy, and the larger or the two swarms win. It doesn’t fail at any one of these aspects, but none of them really shine on their own and are just kind of there.
Kofi Quest is a good game, although any more time cook probably won’t do it any favors. The price is right, and there isn’t anything offensive in it. It is definitely an easy game to recommend to most people, as long as that recommendation comes with an explanation to know what they are getting into along the way. There are worse ways to spend a couple of dollars on Steam, lucky this isn’t one of them.