Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

Encased is a brilliant isometric game that didn't get enough love when it landed on STEAM. I played over 100 hours on my first play-through as a mentally challenged Silver (the elite, administrator class).
If you want a unique roleplaying experience, on your FIRST play-through be sure to run an intellectually challenged Silver and enjoy the ensuing hijinks. The dialogue with the NPCs is GENIUS as confused questgivers try to figure out how to explain complex situations to your mentally limited character while gently trying to redirect you from eating Christmas lights and stealing erasers from their desks.
If you choose a different background--such as melee-oriented, paroled convict (Orange), weapon-based security guard (Black), proficient mechanic (Blue), or educated scientist (White)--you will get a more complete picture of what is happening in the Encased world, significantly changing your overall experience. ALL THE DIALOGUE with NPCs adjusts to reflect how your character--theoretically at least--can UNDERSTAND what is going on in the Encased world. The game then becomes a fairly decent apocalyptic RPG, similar to Wasteland or the original Fallout.
I can't emphasize enough how impressed I am with the writers who crafted the interactive conversations in this game. I wish this game had a sequel -

"Encased" is a game with huge potential — albeit not fully realized.
It lacks overall cohesion and polish, especially in terms of combat balance and system depth. Yet, it offers so many strong and memorable elements that my overall experience remained positive.

I have not looked into the developers background, but according to Steam, this is their only project. If this is indeed their debut, they have my respect. "Encased" feels like an attempt to combine the best aspects of classic RPGs: the interface and turn-based combat mechanics are clearly inspired by "Divinity: Original Sin II", while the character progression and world exploration resemble "Fallout". Sure, Unity doesn't provide the same physics fidelity as "Divinity", but these borrowed ideas are implemented with care and thoughtfulness.

The setting appears heavily influenced by Soviet science fiction — particularly "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky brothers. The Dome is a mysterious, isolated zone where the laws of physics are distorted and people develop paranormal abilities. Elements like the colored "Wing" hierarchy, the rehabilitation program for prisoners, and the one-way nature of entry into the zone all contribute to a dystopian world layered with social commentary.

There's plenty of humor, Easter eggs, and tongue-in-cheek references scattered throughout the game.

Crafting is present, though relatively shallow. Still, it's fun to watch weapon visuals and descriptions evolve as you apply upgrades.

Combat, unfortunately, is the weakest link. Some weapon types feel outright obsolete. For instance, I found psionic gloves far more effective than most firearms — no need for ammo, no reloading, just instant and reliable attacks. Sure, certain enemies have immunities, but there's always a workaround.

The world map encourages exploration: in addition to story locations, you'll encounter random events reminiscent of "Fallout".

And beyond isometric travel and world navigation, there's a third layer: text-driven quests with multiple-choice outcomes, akin to what you'd see in "Space Rangers".

The story? It's... average. It does't fail, but it also doesn't quite reach the narrative ambition it seems to aim for. The opening hours are rich with mystery and discovery, while the pacing noticeably drops toward the end.

Still, despite its flaws, Encased left a good impression. It's not groundbreaking or flawless — but it has heart. And that alone makes it worth playing. The developers have earned my trust, and I'll be watching closely for whatever they create next.

A very fascinating look at an alternate universe set in the mid-1970's at a mysterious location which contains unique properties and strange relics. Well-done retro-futurism, great use of atmosphere. It's a little on the difficult side and there are a lot of different strategies you can use depending on how you generated your character.

A game that starts off strong, but the more you play it, the weaker it becomes.
Encased puts you in a strange world. You are still on Earth, but inside some kind of alien bubble. Humanity has only recently discovered it, somehow, and only recently been able to get inside. Think Roadside Picnic, where sometimes the laws of physics no longer work the way they should, where technology so advanced it could be seen as magic, and what is alive and what is dead is a blurred line. It is a fantastic premise, and the game starts of extremely strong.
The starting area shows off tons of different class/skill specific challenges and dialogue options. It builds a highly detailed area for you to explore and get used to, before dumping you outside; where little by little, the game slowly.. erodes away. Some areas of the game world are highly developed, mostly the areas where you start the game, and some areas in the mid game. As you go along you stop finding places like this, where there are tons of ways to proceed in the game, tons of skill and dialogue checks, and you can see where they had to cut stuff out and slim stuff down in order to finish the game.
On the whole, I enjoyed the game. There were some things that really annoyed me, like inventory management (there is just so much useless trash and crafting materials), how crafting worked, and how upgrading weapons worked. The last part there is the biggest thing for me. I did not realise that there was no stronger progression of guns as you work your way through the game. Instead you craft your gun to have a higher level, thus doing more damage on top of other things. I got extremely unlucky in what merchants I encountered, and what they had in stock, and was unable to purchase weapons in my skill class at a higher level, and had to rely on crafting. I didn't mind making my character more of a crafter to compensate for this, as at the start of them game it opened up other avenues despite making my character weaker overall, but in the end it wasn't worth it.
I found the story and characters to be interesting, but also slightly confusing. The area you play in eventually splits up into different factions that oppose each other, but it isn't like Earth has been destroyed, or that contact will never be remade. So a lot of the things people do, don't really make a lot of sense when you keep in mind that the rest of the planet will eventually remake contact.
The sheer randomness of some encounters, the merchants you run into, what merchants have in stock, can make it so that you waste a lot of time on the world map, or having your character sleep. There is apparently something that happens at some point in the game if you wait too long, but I never encountered it.
Combat is interesting, but it doesn't feel like there are a lot of viable abilities or skills for it. You mostly just use your base attack or one or two skills that are actually alright based on the action points they cost. You encounter and fight a good amount of different kinds of enemies, and your choices do matter in terms of who you want to help, and who you don't. Though, at one point they kind of force you to help out everyone, including people you may really not like; unless you are good at stealth and stealing. Otherwise you will just have to kill them all and then suffer through constant attacks from that faction from that point on.
Overall, I enjoyed my time playing the game. It is not a perfect game, it is really a just finished game, and you can feel it. But you can also feel that a ton of effort was put into this. I would recommend it, if you don't have anything like Wasteland 3 or Baldurs Gate to play; and only on sale. You can easily get it on sale going up to 90% at times. Get it then.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Pixel

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boy
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leader boards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second live for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

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If you are fan of Fallout series from old times previous Bethesda then this is for you.

Excellent experience that takes may queues from the early Fallout 2D games. Rich story, crazy encounters, and plentiful voice acting. Stealth is a bit obnoxious, but combat, and exploring is where this game shines. They can't alert anyone if they're dead, right? I did kinda feel the game cut short and the ending was a bit "meh," but the ending result slideshow was certainly fun. I would seriously love to help kickstart another 2D game by these folks. Well worth it! I'll probably play it through again as an Serial Killer Orange for giggles... I mean stress relief... and mean.. nevermind.

This game was such a lot of fun to play, until the end of act two, where it dove head-first straight into a very brief epilogue that - like Outer Worlds - left me feeling as though I had been cheated out of a really good chunk of story.

Still, as already mentioned above, it WAS a lot of fun to play, but I will leave it a year or so before I dive in with a new character-type to explore other play styles (and maybe get some of those achievements I missed).