Gorky 17 a.k.a. ōdi∙um

Story

Mutants have been found in the bombed out Polish city codenamed “Gorky 17” near Lubin, and a trio of soldiers (Sullivan, Owicz and Trantigne, each of different nationalities) enters the city to find out what happened and look for any member of the first squad previously sent there. You control the team and direct them through a world of surprises and mysteries that wait to be resolved.

Gameplay

The game is composed mainly of two playing modes. The (tentatively named) “Adventure mode” is displayed in a top-down view, with the team walking around the city in real time, interacting with objects, picking up weapons and ammunition from item chests, and using key items (such as keycards) to advance to new areas. At fixed locations, the team will be ambushed by mutants, and the gameplay switches to the (again, tentatively named) “Battle mode”, featuring a battle field in isometric perspective divided into square grids. Each side takes turn moving, attacking, defending and using items; the battle ends when all mutants die, or one of the main characters dies. The battle field would sometimes have items like exploding barrels, or item chests similar to those in “Adventure mode”.

Character Advancement

Each time a soldier hits and wounds a mutant, they gain experience; once the character has gained enough experience, they level up and gain stat points which can be used to improve attributes such as hit points, accuracy, etc. Also, each time the character successfully uses a weapon, their experience with that particular weapon will improve, and at the highest level (level 10), the weapon will deal its intended maximum damage (displayed as “max damage” in the weapon info).

Items and Weapons

The soldiers can equip themselves with melee weapons (crowbar, axe), conventional small arms (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle), special weapons (tranquilizer dart gun, stun gun), heavy or sci-fi weapons. All weapons have limited range and most firearms can only shoot in certain directions (for example, pistols can shoot up, down, left, or right, while assault rifles can also shoot diagonally); some fire in bursts or have splash damage, meaning they can hit multiple enemies. Mutants also have varying degrees of protection (armor) against certain types of weapons and some have immunities to weapon special effects (such as stun), which are automatically added to personal notes as the player finds about such information.

In both “Adventure mode” and “Battle mode”, characters can transfer and equip weapons and body armor if available, or heal themselves or each other. The characters are 3D models while the environment is a pre-rendered 2D background, similar to games like Resident Evil 2. At certain points in the game, the characters may be joined by surviving soldiers or citizens, and will occasionally encounter boss-like monsters.


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Year: 1999

Themes: Turn-based strategy

Genere: Role-Playing (RPG)

Platform: Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, Windows

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