Rise

I was glad to finally get something fresh onto the table. Rise had convinced me to pre-order it very easily: I trust the publisher to perform at least some basic quality control, and everything I had seen and read beforehand had put me in a very positive frame of mind. And sure enough, its central idea has a clarity that comes through immediately.

At its core, the game uses a simple, rather clever action-selection system that feeds a race across ten tracks. The interesting part is that those tracks do not operate in isolation: they have dependencies and synergies, so a move in one area can affect how you make use of another option later.

Not every track occupies the same role in your plan. Some can be ignored if they do not fit the strategy you are pursuing; some are reusable and ask you to find the right moment to trigger them; and some are effectively mandatory, because you simply cannot win without them—politics is the obvious example. This web of choices is good design and, while it is running, it keeps you engaged.

But Rise is far too dry, and it also feels slightly unfinished to me. It is definitely missing something. It is a shame for a game to absorb you for an hour to an hour and a half, only for you to reach the end and think, “...was that it?” I did not have a bad time, but for this slot I would rather play Cities of the Tsarina or Furnace. At least Furnace also gives you a hard mode without shifting companies, and that is when the real smoke starts pouring out.