Trawel
Trawel is a historically-inaccurate open world text adventure RPG. Created as a re-imagining of old-school calculator and early command line games, it eschews their limitations but attempts to capture their spirit, and bring it in line with modern quality of life standards with a graphical GUI.
Oldschool games often were limited by memory, processing power, displays, and inputs. Trawel is heavily data-driven, with partly-procedural, partly-handcrafted abstract environments. Visuals are used as aides, and do not determine the gameplay.
Of particular note, the Graphical version here offers a mouse/controller/keyboard interface to make playing the game easier for those used to modern applications.
The game will also boot in text-only mode at the same time, which tends to be compatible with most screen readers.
Trawel gameplay is heavily focused on exploring the world, finding better gear, and deciding to use it or sell it. It also features an opportunistic choice-oriented combat system.
Game Discussion
Steam User 0
Trawel looks like a simple game but has a depth to it that makes me unwilling to stop playing even late at night. There are many places to explore and new sights to discover. One of the most interesting facets of the game is the constant need to improve equipment so that it matches whatever type of build I'm trying for at the time.
With all of the hype I've been spouting, you'd think that this was a triple A game with great graphics. That couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, I prefer playing without the minimalist graphics that Trawel has thus far. Reading the text is exciting for me, especially when I'm in a brawl with multiple people and/or monsters on each side. It's like I'm absorbing a book that I can interact with as it plays out.
My main gripe at the moment is that I became addicted to this game through the demo until I couldn't stand it anymore and bought the game, which is quite cheap in my opinion. Right now it's like playing a completely different game. Sadly, I ended up returning to the demo, if you can believe it. It had much more to it than the game, which really doesn't make sense to me but there it is. I even tried reverting to the 2023 form of the game and then to beta, but nothing would download properly, (and yes my firewall had an exception for it). I can only hope that the dev is working to match the full game with the demo I fell in love with.
I really like Trawel so I recommend it, but only for those that like reading and are willing to wait until the demo and full game match up!
Edit: The dev (Dragon) got back to me within a day of my post. He addressed the problems that I brought up in my review at the speed of light. Thanks dev!
Steam User 0
Lovely little game, best played in the terminal for screen readers. Infinite "numbers go up" style progression!