With it's grid-based approach to movement and turn-based combat, heading into Operencia: The Stolen Sun I was expecting it to be light on story and heavy on the numbers and party management. A lot of the latter is still here but Operencia also tells a wonderful tale drawn from Hungarian folklore and classic fantasy storytelling.

There’s a sweet spot where high-fantasy, fairy tales, and folklore meet, where mysterious and strange lands begin to take on a dreamlike quality. Where characters feel real, outcomes carry weight, and moments shift between imminent danger you can sense and the realisation you’re witnessing a simple story being told. Operencia: The Stolen Sun lives and breathes in this space as it presents a rich fantasy world full of magic and wonder that draws inspiration from Hungarian folklore.

The Stolen Sun of the title is literal in that darkness has taken over the land of Operencia with the sun removed from its perch in the sky. Each new environment or multi-layered dungeon you visit features its own story to tell, themes to impart, relationships to develop, characters to meet, and a world in which to add more colour. At its core a dungeon crawler reminiscent of some of the earliest grid-based entries in the genre, like Wizardry, Operencia’s focus on storytelling and world-building elevate what is a tried and true formula into a memorable experience.

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