Phillendon

The action platformer that’s full of rogue-like elements with tonnes of potential and hundreds of hours with randomly generated entertainment. Rupeck Games is a one-man indie development company ran by Will Lewis who is the singular developer for Caveblazers. The game has been in the works on Steam since late March and the development is still ongoing. Caveblazers starts you off in a small tutorial area where you’ll be greeted with the controls of using a sword and a bow, although these controls aren’t optimal and a controller is highly recommended. It really does feel better. Once you’ve finished your entry to the game you’ll be greeted by an old man who will criticise you for your measly gear, how your sword is rusty and your bow is puny. He’ll explain how hundreds of adventurers have also journeyed through the cave that you’re at the entrance of, and how they’ve never returned. The point of the game is to make it through the cave and explore the deep riches that will lie beyond. As you adventure you’ll find new areas, weapons and monsters which will all lead your way to success. Currently the game just has the idea of moving on from each level and gaining score based off kills, levels progressed and coins picked up and will then compare the player on the Steam leader board, to make it to #1. Which is unlikely, considering the highest score is literally ‘999970’. In a recent statement Lewis states that he’s interested in adding a ‘boss’ level between every two areas progressed to help keep the game interesting and the player on their toes. You can pitch your ideas for a boss on the sub-Reddit. The graphics are exactly what you’d expect in a 2D action platformer rogue-like where you’re adventuring through a cave… It’s not bright and painful, it’s dull and boring which would generally be what you’ll see. It’s got some torches which seem to move at the rate of a F1 racing car, but that’s just a small detail. The music definitely fits the theme of the game giving off a nice tone, while the sound effects also do this, I feel like they were ripped or copied from The Legend of Kay, which I have flashbacks about every time I hear one of the monsters die. But that’s probably just me. The gameplay is full of hours upon hours as it’s all completely randomly generated including the items you pick up and the money you collect sometimes you’ll have short runs and sometimes you’ll have long runs… It all depends on your roll. It’s a similar idea to most other rogue-likes, such as Binding of Isaac. Overall, the game is great in its current state and it’s development is still ongoing to fill in the gaps that are full of potential. I hope that Lewis can proceed to make the game how I feel it can succeed, and with the current updates it’s definitely moving in the right direction. 7/10

Peach Pie Productions pride themselves on their 16-bit twin shooter, while I was pleased with myself for uninstalling the game and hiding it from my Steam library... To never be seen again. The game was released on 10th June 2016 by the developer Peach Pie Productions of whom, is just a singular guy called Ben from Kentucky. Zombie Party is aspired to be a 16-bit twin shooter action-RPG and rogue-like. But instead, all I see the game as is a 16-bit shooter with a hint of closing the game. Zombie Party has four different game modes that you can play which include: Adventure, Dungeon, Arcade and Deathmatch. Adventure mode puts you in a variety of different level designs and will continually give you waves of enemies until you reach the boss, of whom you'll then defeat and move onto the next area. Pretty simple gameplay, the boss is the hardest thing about adventure mode. Dungeon is where the game wants the rogue-like experience but it just doesn't fit the shoes, instead you'll run around mindlessly killing off each level and then jump in a hole and repeat. It's extremely mind-dulling and then, of course you'll hit a boss who is relatively hard and you'll continue to play the mind-dulling efforts of dungeon. Arcade is probably only there if you're character's stats are high, as you'll need to defeat 10,000 zombies within 5 minutes, which sounds easy but there are just so many and with a low-level character it's near-impossible. It doesn't help when you can't see your cursor because it's just white and it's in the middle of thousands of bullets somewhere. Deathmatch was probably my favourite mode because it wasn't as mind-dulling, but obviously this mode is pretty shocking when it's just playing with AI in a 1v1v1 on a small and enclosed map. But you can't play multiplayer because it's atrocious. Multiplayer claims it's been in beta since March, and in 3 months of beta I still feel like it shouldn't have been released. Once selecting a game, 8 out of 10 times you'll get an error about how you can't connect or it'll attempt to connect hundreds of times to no avail. And 1 out of 10 times you'll join a game to be greeted with an unfortunate amount of 1s and 0s covering the entire screen and you can't do anything. However, once you're in a game you'll finally think how amazing it is you can finally play with friends! Wrong. Completely wrong. The level of response that the game will give you when you use your controls is extremely slow therefore making the game almost unplayable and a shocking experience as I feel that since there is no depth in the game such as a story where you'll continually collect coins by playing and buying stats, characters, guns that multiplayer would be the best option and for this game to work at-all, it needs to be worked on with the highest priority. According to people in the user forums and comments on the announcements, this isn't just my computer handling the game, it's a real issue that is in the game due to the development in Game Maker. The graphics are 16-bit and therefore don't look great but they're in the style where they don't look bad so I'll give some credit, although when playing you'll notice that over half of the enemies aren't even zombies, and that's just a let down. The music is fine, but the sound effects are poorly chosen. An example would be that when you pick up ammo you'll just here a click, one that you'll most likely have heard similar in other 16-bit games for when you get hit by a bullet and damaged, but nope. Not this game. The colour scheme for the game is crazy with so many colours it's hard to see what's even going on half the time, and that's only on the menu! Try actually playing the game. Clearly the game needs working on, the developer posted before they reached early access that multiplayer was completely fixed, when in fact it wasn't. Not sure how development is going to go over time but I'd definitely keep watch of this game if you're into 16-bit twin shooters, because there's probably some potential... Somewhere. 3/10

Stormworm+ is a fast-paced 3D variation of the game Snake, and alongside it comes free headaches, fury and a repetitive beat. Afrobeast Games initially released a predecessor called Stormworm on Android in 2014. But since then Afrobeast have evolved to form a new, higher quality version of the game labelled Stormworm+. The game revolves around the character roaming different planets (which are just different shapes) and collecting data cubes which will make the snake larger by one block per pick-up. Pretty simple concept, but then it gets complex… While collecting data cubes, you’ll have to deal with a whole pallet of coloured glows and flashes, which are extremely bright, every time a cube is collected which will force you to go partially blind for 0.01 seconds, and also form banging headaches. As you build up your size and become king of the world, it’s going to become a bit cramped and you need to keep your eyes peeled for power-ups, which can cut you in half to help save space while another power-up will increase your score by thousands! There are a variety of planets such as sphere, cube, pill, and my favourite: Droplet. They all make the game different each time you switch planet, giving off a whole new experience. Alongside the selection of planets, there is also a mixture of game-modes: Classic – Power-ups and slowly speeds up Simple – No power-ups and no speed changes Action – Spikes will kill you, also a spike shield pick-up exists Timed – Given 2 minutes (Plus timer pick-ups of +5) to get as many points So this all sounds exciting, but what will keep you playing? Surely it’ll get boring after you’ve played them all to the best of your ability? Nope! There are 36 different achievements full of challenges to beat and also global scoreboards to compare yourself to. The fun just keeps on rolling in. The music sounds great and definitely suits the game, but I feel that it’s too slow in comparison to the late-game when it becomes more intense. There’s only 1 song and it becomes pretty sickening after 30+ minutes of game time, but you can play your own music after muting the volume. Graphics are relatively simple, which can be seen when you turn down all of the fancy graphic options but when restored to default, the glow really helps create the right ambience and add to the fast-paced game-play. The controls seem on-point with a whole selection such as the standard “AWD” and arrow keys, however you can also use your mouse and space bar all combined as one. The controller felt like it allows the snake to change directions much faster than the other controls, and also seems like it needs a bit of practice to get used to controller, but the vibration is a great feature to implement and adds to the game! Overall, the game is amazing which will keep you hooked as you will continually be saying “one more game,” and playing another 50. The only imperfection which affected my scoring of the game was the single song. It’s almost a perfect game. 9/10

In a world where unacceptable games pass Steam Greenlight, is Unforgiving Trials: The Darkest Crusade. A dreadful game that needs a complete remake. It’s horrible. Unforgiving Trials is developed by Amaterasu Software, and it sure is amateur… On their Twitter bio they state that their company is a 4-man team, while on the Steam store it’s a 5-man team. Already starting well, huh? They are set in the Republic of Croatia, so we’ll cut them some slack. In the game, you start off in an inn with a broad selection of characters which have unique abilities and skills. Obviously, they include archer, wizard, paladin, knight and a whole host of interesting ones such as a thief, or a blood mage. Each character has their advantages and disadvantages and you’ll need to play around to create a balanced team. The goal of Unforgiving Trials is to clear the world of an eternal darkness full of monstrosity. Like the game. It’s a monstrosity. You’ll continually head east after fighting multiple waves of enemies, then you’ll get time to heal and buy potions and you’ll repeat the process. That is the entire game. It’s rinse and repeat. There’s probably a story at the end of it somewhere, but no one will make it with the repetitive battles, boring gameplay and a story which doesn’t grab you. In terms of playing the game, I came across so many errors which just completely ruined the experience, while others just made me laugh at Amaterasu Software. While in the inn, I spoke to everyone and came across way too many spelling mistakes and sentences that didn’t make sense as they missed words out. Although this isn’t usually a primary problem, but due to the lack of gameplay they should probably proof read the base of the game. The combat is not interesting as it doesn’t add anything fun, it’s just the standard RPG combat where you’ll select the attack, then the enemy and wait for it. This is what you’ll be doing for the entire game aside from picking new party members and buying potions. I was personally bored after the 3rd battle but urged myself through the game to find out it’s still the same old useless junk. While playing, the music will decide it wants to mute itself and the game will go completely dead silent, and then you’ll hear attack sound effects for five minutes straight before the music remembers that it’s not playing and decides to kick in again. It really dulled the experience because the music isn’t bad, and sort of fits the RPG theme, but the game does not play well in silence. In terms of graphics, it looks like a simple RPG Maker job, and that’s fine if you want to make a game in that, but when going into battle the monsters fought will look entirely different to the rest of the game as-if they’ve ripped them out of a nicer-looking game and plonked them into this. Sometimes the controls like to play up and not do what you want, you may sometimes find yourself alternating between mouse and keyboard to achieve what you want. But it’s fairly smooth. Overall, this game is extremely repetitive, full of errors and it’s in no way fun. After 2 battles you’ll realise the entire game is a grind for achieving nothing. The only decent thing about the game is the nice selection of characters you can choose from. 2/10