Knights of San Francisco by Raindead is an incredible text-based adventure on mobile devices that explores a strange and dystopian world, with dabs of mysticism for good measure. The black and white aesthetic of the game offers major Dungeons & Dragons vibes with touches of choose-your-own-adventure books.
I absolutely loved my time with this game. The simple interface with its crisp text and formatting made it easy to read the thought-provoking and well thought out story. Each line of text was deliberate and continued to layer the world bit by bit (and me hoping to wish into existence more content from this world). Though the large majority of the game is text where you’re creating the visuals within yourself, there’s occasionally a full screen image to help identify key moments and characters. In addition to the deep lore of the story as its primary gameplay mechanic, there’s also light combat, a sanity meter, and some other actions that can help further the experience. These moments were exciting, and more importantly, kept the story moving on a strong clip. I want to be as vague as possible with the story and gameplay elements because they should be experienced first-hand and could be spoilers the more I explain.
The two hour length was a perfect amount to keep me engaged and attentive. Once I got tired of reading/playing the adventure, I would take a break, then return right into the story. There’s little replayability, that I noticed, but you’re able to backtrack within the text of the story and see if different choices will affect the outcome. I highly recommend this game to fans of fantasy stories who don’t mind reading all the exciting moments. Knights of San Francisco is worth your time and I look forward to more people playing it so we can chat about it!
A copy was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this feature on iOS mobile.
Follow Harry Loizides, to hear all about his love for niche indie games on Instagram and Twitter.
A version of this feature is also posted on Six One Indie.
