Rough Justice: '84 Reviews

Guud visual, music and all stuff. But those dice they aren't random and you will fail every time for the sick of a broken loop/mini games. This game have a TIMER for anything, even if you have good skills and good strategy u will fail thanks to the controls, they are really put wrong. Spectialy in all mini game. I was enjoying the game even with all the fault of concept but the devs don't like people so, i quit. Whats the point of finishing a game that is just design to fustrate you in any aspect. Good visual, good music but that all for me.

This game has SO MUCH potential, but it's hindered by poor gameplay mechanics and terrible mouse detection. You start by choosing a detective ho assigns a random number of cases on the map you must complete before their respective timers run out and they are failed. Completing these will earn you minute amounts of cash, agent exp and relationship exp. Once the caseload is turned in, you'll get a total of all the relationship exp to level the detective up to unlock more cases with higher difficulties on the map. However, you do not receive money as a reward! At the start of your game, you receive a tiny amount of money to hire agents, so you can send them to complete jobs. Each job has two paths to choose, so you essentially have to hire agents based on their skills for one of the paths to more easily complete it; for example, you can choose to either use strength to bar a door, or perception to watch for an escaping suspect. You get two dice to roll, needing at least three positive checks to pass and get a completion. You can re-roll an unfavorable die up to three times, or expend an agent's energy to get an extra dice, which increase by one with each additional die. This creates a problem, as the agent immediately uses one energy from their pool just traveling to the job, so you arrive with one less to even perform the rolls. Why is energy automatically consumed to travel across the map to the job? Wouldn't it make more sense to have agents have different methods of transportation so they might take more or less time traveling? Since this game is meant to be a SEVERE throwback to the 1980's, I think having someone with high Strength would have to rollerblade to each job, but their Strength gives them the excess energy so it doesn't factor as hard as more intellect based agents. Next, rolls are based as getting 6, 5 or 4 as a success, and 3, 2, or 1 as failures. Simple right? You have to get ALL successes or its deemed as a failure EVERY TIME. So you can spend all your energy at one job to roll two 6's and a 3 and fail. Why? Why can't there be another factor to decide whether or not the two higher rolls balance out the lower roll? It's a very unforgiving system; you'll spend money to hire an agent, get them to a job, fail the job simply because you got a single 3, then not have enough money to hire another agent. Now, you can take the agents shopping for item cards that will help your rolls, but the amount of money you receive from a successful job doesn't offset the amount you spend for the caseload. Failing a job still nets agent exp, but a reduction in relationship exp for the detective who assigned the caseload, plus no money. Which brings us to the bank, where you can TAKE OUT LOANS THAT IF YOU DON'T REPAY IN TIME ENDS THE GAME. Why is this the game over?! How was bankruptcy the choice to make you start a new game?! So, to recap: you get a set amount of cases from a detective, go to the map to hire agents, try to complete jobs, and then resolves the caseload to level the detective up. But you'll most likely fail the majority of cases and waste time and resources to then take out a loan and get a game over. Also, the agents are all copies of many iconic 80's tv and movie personas. I recognized Linda Evans, Debbie Harry, and Tom Selleck almost instantly. It's like they just applied an AI filter over some Getty images and called it a day. I feel douped from even trying this game. It needs a SERIOUS overhaul. I wasted a good hour of my time I'll never get back. EDIT AFTER DEVELOPER COMMENT: 1. I addressed assigning agents to specific cases. Obviously you want one matching skills to what's asked by the highlighted text. There's almost too much planning asked of early cases that it's a literal grind to balance and budget before you HAVE to take a loan. 2. "a game with no clear cut loss conditions wouldn't be that much fun, would it?" Don't patronize me. If that's the the point of the game, to play 1980's Spy Monopoly, just make that more clear. I would've side stepped this game entirely. For the neat aspects of this game, having it all come crashing down to start over because you run out of money is just a letdown. 3. "Take advantage of the handy dandy save game function". Again, don't patronize me. I know how to save a game. 4. The crack about the art was obviously sarcasm. They're so inspired they're almost uninspired. EDIT 2: This game still sucks.

Unplayable at this stage. I'm using Win 10 and it displays messages (tutorials, case descriptions a character per second or two) what makes such a display mode relevant for illiterates. It may be an interesting product when this feature will be fixed (i.e. when whole message will be displayed at once).

Rough Justice 84 is a case of good ideas that don't necessarily make for a good game. First of all, the description isn't exaggerating when it says this is a board game, so if you're not into board game-esque dice rolls, this won't be for you at all. But once you're in, the game makes a strong first impression. The 80s aesthetic is excellent, and everything from the font to the colors to the way the character models appear nails the time period. There's also a strong roleplaying element to the game, and input from the player, both in who should tackle what tasks and some simple dialogue options give the player some agency. Where the game fails comes down the board game part of it. The entire game feels like it comes down to chance. Whenever you send an agent to do nearly anything, the outcome is based on a dice roll. Fail this completely random minigame and the mission fails, and this is the case for most missions in the game. There are some other simple minigames here and there, but they're either painfully easy to complete or obtuse with tutorials that barely help. The concept of an 80s roleplaying crime simulator is a perfect set up and is clearly what this game is going for, but once you realize nearly all of your success and failure comes down to random dice rolls, the motivation to continue dries up.

This is a fun strategy game that oozes theme. The art is absolutely on point. Agents, gear, and locations are represented with fun, stylish illustrations that blend nostalgia with good-natured satire. The board game inspired mechanics are streamlined and pair perfectly with the sleek neon interface. Different mission types sport different mechanics, and there are around a dozen different mini-games that keep the experience fresh. I'm really digging it so far. Highly recommend.

Great indie title with a superb 80s vibe. Being a teen in the 80s this brings back quite some memories. Had huge fun playing the first missions and love the overall style of the game. Cannot wait to get back into it.

I had been watching this game for a couple years before I decided to purchase and was pretty hyped for the game. I decided after a couple months that the time had finally come to give it a spin. I was concerned due to the mixed reviewed, that it would be a very tedious game, however I've been pleasantly surprised. The vibe of the game is fantastic and the developers have clearly put a lot of work into nailing the 80's vibe. The main story makes great use of it's setting, and at times feels like a classic action/cop movie in the vein of the lethal weapon series. It has enough twists and turns to keep the user interested throughout it's duration. The gameplay despite at first seeming rather simplistic opens up the further you get into, allowing the unlocking of new case officers, mini games and variables and the dice rolling mechanic I found surprisingly didn't get old for me. One big negative where I think the game really suffers is simply it's lack of non main story cases. Unfortunately, you'll probably find the you'll see the same cases play out up to 8 - 10 times throughout the game. It's a shame as I feel it wouldn't have taken much more effort from the devs just to introduce more cases. I reckon it needed about 3x as many as it currently has to maintain consistent interest and to have kept things feeling fresh and unpredictable. Character art also suffers in the late game, as strangely the devs use the same trechcoat body style for nearly all level 3 characters making them feel less individual. Which is a shame as most of them are teeming with personality, even if voice lines are re-used a little too much for my liking. Despite these issues, I had a lot of fun, and I think the price is fair for what it is. I think the game does deserve more recognition, as it does a lot really despite seemingly haven fallen slightly under the radar.. 8/10

The vibes looked cool on the store page, but I found the game to be quite repetitive. It just becomes a chore of sending the right agent to the job and maybe doing a puzzle, all of which are interesting at first but become boring since that's all you do in game.

The game has its highlights with its retro vibe and diversity of missions. After a while, it simple becomes repetitive, as the only thing that changes is the difficulty of the game. The dice rolling system, though designed to include bonus, simply is a turn off. A luck factor can be fun, but over time it simply gets frustrating.

To get it out of the way: Despite the name, this isn't a porn game. I've played enough to get a rough feel for the game's mechanics, and this is really new, so I figure I should give some feedback and a review while I can. Let's do this in pros and cons. PROS: The [i]aesthetic[/i]. I'm going to include the art and the music together here, because it's all entwined and is part of the reason why I bought the game. The soundtrack is retrowave, the agents you can hire, everything is pretty much 80s honey. The core loop of "run an agency, hire duders for short term contracts, send them off to do stuff for you, repeat" is pretty fun. The dice rolling mechanic is easy to figure out. Mechanically, thus far, the minigames are fun. Most of the writing is pretty good. I enjoy reading it. The story is pretty good, and explains everything pretty well. The voice acting? Also pretty good. CONS Okay, the control on the overworld map is drunker than Uncle Harvey on the 4th after his third wife says that Auntie Flo's visiting again even though I haven't even met her and he decides that polishing off another six pack of Molson and setting things on fire is preferable to meeting my great aunt. That is to say, it's all over the place, and take forever to reverse direction. I haven't explored the options menu, but snappier overworld movement controls would be super nice. Some of the writing doesn't hit the spot. "This is the 80s" is said more than once so far. I'm not sure right now, but it FEELS like there's an awful lot of pressure to constantly churn agents. It feels bad to have to hire someone knowing they're sticking around for just a mission or two, but the [i]aesthetic[/i] helps make that feel better. It'd have been cooler to have more consistent agents, or be able to hire some of them for longer. The three ingame hours to accept a series of missions, and then another three hours to get all of them done, on top of storyline quests, feels a bit too frantic. We'll see how much longer I can handle it. OVERALL, if the [i]aesthetic[/i] compels you and you like strategy-boardgame-esque games, this can get fixed up with a few patches and be solid. I mean, 20 USD ain't bad for the crunch that is here. Also, Raven is apparently my type.