Last month I played through a bit of Sir Brante, and over the past week I've finished it. I really enjoyed the game and it's one of the better interactive fiction games I've played, but it's not without a few issues.

The worldbuilding is solid enough, but a little flimsy. A solidly stratified society with clear divisions between peasantry, nobility, clergy, and ruling elite isn't groundbreaking, but it's done well enough. I wish a tiny bit more backstory had gone into the founding of the empire and how the Lots came to be. The game was originally written in Russian and translated to English, and for the most part it's a solid translation, but there's definitely some clunkyness and unnatural word choice.

The main "gameplay" revolves around making choices that affect various stats and relationships, which in turn open up and close off paths down the line. These generally follow a logical progression, where choices made at one point have clear consequences in later events, but at a few points I was left frustrated when what I felt was the correct choice in a situation was locked off because I didn't meet an entirely arbitrary point value in one of my stats. I feel the game may have been better served by not having an attribute system, or by simplifying it to avoid these situations, especially towards the end of the game.

There are 3 distinct paths you can take in the game, and I chose the one that seems most natural for the protagonist based on his family history, the Noble lot. You can, it seems, also choose to be a priest or a commoner. Those paths didn't really appeal to me - the religion in-game was a little lukewarm for me and the commoner path seemed like a dead-end - but there's definitely room here for subsequent playthroughs and multiple endings for each path. I feel I've gotten my money's worth so probably won't be replaying, but it's nice knowing the option is there.

You have to be a certain type of person to enjoy these types of games. Many people will know at a glance that they won't enjoy it. But if you like reading, choose your own adventure games, and a good class struggle, you'll probably enjoy this one. It's got pretty high production value, relatively, and while the art and music are minimal what is here is pleasant.