I defeated a bird by talking to it about the Bible in this lo-fi first-person RPG where you're a 19th century daemon summoner

Watching the trailer for Your Holy & Virtuous Heretic during the Frosty Games Fest, my first thought was of Dread Delusion, the indie micro-Morrowind. Then the combat started and I remembered Felvidek, the RPG seat in early modern Hungary. But overall, I was reminded of the psychedelic historical movie A Field in England. If it's not clear, these are all top-notch things to bring to mind.

This is a first-person RPG where you play an occultist from the year "18XX" whose ritual to summon Asmodeus goes wrong, leaving you adrift in another plane of existence. This constantly shifting angular fleshscape is home to supernatural creatures and crystals that can be harvested for magic, but also computers? The last thing I expected to find in this game of rapiers and hooded robes was a talking computer called the "Statistics and Attributes Virtualization Engine" that offered to reload my save.

Another surprise came in the combat, where it switches from first-person roaming like you're in the Elder Scrolls to first-person menu combat like you're in Phantasy Star. And as well as the usual options to cast spells or attack, there's an option to talk to the monsters. Maybe this daemon would like to chat about the weather, or about metal? Yeah, OK. Let's see how the burning daemon Avnas feels about metal.

Talking birds are another recurring feature in the first area of Your Holy & Virtuous Heretic, and when I talked one of them out of combat by bringing up the Bible, then collected my XP (ending a fight by chatting still nets you points), that was when I decided maybe I should put this demo aside. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because I was enjoying it too much. This is a game I want to experience in full when it's done ("coming soon"), rather than in thin prosciutto slices.

If you want to try the demo for Your Holy & Virtuous Heretic you can find it on Steam or itch.io. There are arm daemons you can ask about strength who talk like Renaissance gym bros. It's great.