Arcane Maelstrom

This game has a lot of potential but it needs to fix both the controls and inventory management. Check out my full Indie Impression: https://youtu.be/w7AU3dd5uaM

[h1]Rating: terrible (3/10)[/h1] [b] Introduction [/b] Arcane Maelstrom is an action adventure and dungeon crawler where you take on the role of an archmage that hunts the forces of darkness and supports the dwarves in the battle against the dark elf. [b] Gameplay & Story: 3/10 [/b] The story is sadly absolutely cheap and is introduced by a short intro video. There is a dark elf that once was a good guy and with gaining power he became the big bad guy, summoning forces of darkness. Some minor keystones of the stories are told by scrolls you find during your dungeon crawls. The gameplay consists most part of the game by pressing 1 and then spamming left click. Health potions are almost only filing inventory, since most enemies die in few spells so you only need mana potions. [b] Combat & Challenge : 2/10 [/b] The combat is absolutely terrible. It feels clunky, slow and unresponsive. Most of the time as stated, you just spam the damage spells to kill enemies one by one. The only "challenging" fights are monster with high hp so you have to take multiple seconds spamming spells, then using mana potion and spamming spells again. [b] Graphic & Interface : 2/10 [/b] The best details you will find in the game are some books in the shelves on some walls. Besides that you run through grey stones and look at brown doors. Not much more to say here. [b] Progress & Mini-Games : 3/10 [/b] It is hard to tell in which level you are, how many levels left, when you get your next spells, etc. From time to time you encounter new enemy types that signify that you did some progress. Besides that there is no leveling or anything similar. The only "mini-games" are consisted of opening the doors with certain spell combinations. [b] Audio & Immersion : 3/10 [/b] The music is some oldschool electro, which does not fit the game at all. The sound feedback is simple and not really worth talking about. [b] Side-Notes [/b] [list] [*]This game is single player only. [*]This game contains steam achievements. [*]This game offers none to minimal replayability. I dont see any reason why you would want to replay this game. [/list] [b] Summary [/b] Arcane Maelstrom is a boring dungeon crawler with bad graphic, unfitting sound, zero immersion and absolutely cheap story. I would not recommend this game to anyone and feel it is absolutely overcharged with its quality. I hope this review helps you making the decision if its worth buying this game. Rate and leave a comment if you enjoyed reading it. ~ForestWolf

EDIT Feb-20-2019: Game no longer runs! Crashes on loading! I had to quit playing Arcane Maelstrom. The game has major problems and poor design choices! -The UI is super clunky. The dev's eventually had to add hotkeys to use potions. You use the right mouse button to switch from an aiming reticle to a cursor so you can click on stuff in your belt, but then you can't look around, so it leaves you totally helpless in battle! IMO, to fix this, they should have used the mouse scroll to select items and the right mouse button to use the items. I don't know what they were thinking? -Preset key commands. No options to bind key commands. Hope you like using WASD to move around. Also, having to use E, R & C keys for potions, makes you have to either stop using the mouse or the keyboard movement keys. Your choice! Either choice you will get hit in battle! -Whenever you pickup something, a window pops up and you have to click an "Accept" button to close the window. It is a definite game breaking design choice IMO. It completely breaks gameplay immersion! It happens even during battle! It makes the game feel like one huge tutorial! -Enemies freeze in place and stop attacking! You cannot kill them either. You can still pick things up, open doors, complete quests and exit the level. -Graphics and animations are pretty old-school and need polishing IMO. I guess the graphics are okay-ish, but the animations could use some work! Plus they need optimizing. It heats up my GPU fairly fast for such small rooms and simple textures. I had to quit playing as it was silly to continue playing when enemies simply freeze up. It could just be a glitch, but it's just not worth my time when there are so many games in this genre that are much better! I would give this game 4 out of 10 stars. Buy at your own risk and on sale, but I don't recommend it. It needs work and an UI overhaul!

Using inventory items is rediculous. No ability to assign hot keys. Graphics are lacking Having to click accept on constant notices is annoying and not needed. Game is repetitive. This would make a much better mobile device game to play when bored. The controls are absolutely rediculous, right click for cursor to select items from inventory and use them?

レビュー書くのが難しいゲーム。別に凄いゲームだとか複雑なシステムとかがある訳じゃない、基本的にはただのクソゲー風味の良くあるFPS。だけど、どこがクソゲーなのかがはっきりしない。どこが良いという事もないし、どこが決定的におかしいって訳でもない、でもゲーム全体として見ると物凄い完成度低いし、プレイしていて苦痛。 ゲームとしては、銃器の代わりに魔法を撃つと言うだけの、普通のダンジョンFPS。面クリアー方式で、一面辺りはかなり短めのマップを、クリアー条件を達成しながら進んで行く形。クリアー条件としては、鍵のかかった扉(複数)を開けて進む、特定の敵を倒す、何体かの敵を倒す、一定時間生き残る、敵に見つからずゴールに辿り着く、など、種類は結構多い。 ゲームバランスはそこそこ良くて、一発でクリアーするのは難しい事もあるけど、一度か二度リトライしたらクリアーできるくらいの、難しすぎず簡単すぎずと言った辺り。 じゃあ何がクソゲー風味なんだよって話だけど、これを説明するのが難しい。基本的にはFPS戦闘のシステム全般の出来が良くない。魔法だから当然MP制で、MP満タンからでも通常攻撃は10発しか撃てないとか、敵に攻撃が当たった感じがおかしいとか、そもそも当たり判定がおかしくて通路の角とかまともに攻撃が通らないとか、逆に普通は敵の当たり判定も魔法の当たり判定もくっそ大きいから外すって事がなくて狙って当てる楽しさが無いとか、細かい部分で出来が悪い。 他には敵の攻撃に当たると一々硬直があって、敵から逃げてる時にやたらストレス貯まるとか、敵や味方全てのキャラクターに大きな当たり判定がある割に、通路が狭くてしょっちゅう移動を阻まれるとか、UIがおかしくてアイテム選択が面倒だとか(しかし、これでも最近のパッチでかなり改善されたらしい、他のレビューで書いてあるUIの問題は大体解決してる、それでも使いにくい)、バグがあって開放されるはずの能力が開放されないとか、ここでもまた細かい所かもしれないけど、色々出来が悪い。 色々悪いところを書いてもたぶん読んでる人は「細かい所を一々上げすぎ、結局普通のゲームでしょ」ってなると思う。自分で書いててもそう思う、けどプレイ感は単に細かい問題じゃないゲーム全体にズッシリと来るクソゲー風味を感じるわけで。そこを説明するのが難しい。まぁそのうち、説明の上手い人がもっと良いレビュー書いてくれるんじゃないですかね(丸投げ)。 全40面くらいの所を20面程度クリアーした辺りでギブアップ、このレビュー書いてます。ここまでプレイすると慣れてきてまぁこんなもんかみたいな感覚もあるのだけど、やっぱつまんないしやっぱクソゲーだと思う。このゲーム、まぁ普通のFPSでしょって感覚で買うと後悔します、自分もそうでした。勿論オススメしません。

the website does not exsist anymore(even using wayback machine). i bought this game explicitly for using the level editor. but now i cant. the tuts are not avaiable.

Biraz amatör kalıyor ama fena değil.

Неплохой таймкиллер на Unity. Стоит дешево и со своей задачей справляется. Большего ожидать не стоит. Это значит: тут нет глубокого сюжета, персонажей с трагической судьбой, крафта, открытого мира и прочей шляпы. Зайти - поубивать мобов - выйти. Если закрыть глаза на лаги - годно. Несколько советов в дорогу: - используйте анимацию удара мобов (при попадании около секунды + откат) - бейте с задержкой - без активных скилов вы бьете посохом: слабо, но с учетом первого пункта вы завалите мелкого моба без маны - в деревне сокровищ с призраков бесконечно лутаются зелья маны: после ее открытия проблемы с ними пропадают напрочь - по диагонали (верх/низ + стрейф) вы двигаетесь быстрее - используйте милишных самонов, иначе сами же пострадаете от их дальних атак - гигант легко убивается огнем + анимация удара + отход - просто не лупите автоматом и дайте анимации спасти вас задержкой - огонь+вода+воздух спасают на стелс-миссиях (после плащ+боты) - не забывайте про карту (tab после того, как подберете) To developer: 1. Think about marking keys on map - searching for them with low speed is a horror. 2. Fast attacks don't count - it freacks out. 3. Thx 4 game & key bindings.

Ok, it takes a little time to get used to the unusual (clunky?) controls, but when you do, you actually get a little, quite fun and challenging game. I haven't experienced any freezing enemies or other bugs. I have several, much more expensive games in my inventory, that much more deserve bad reviews than this one. This is definately not a grand game, it would be pretty daft to expect that for 4€, but what it does it does well. An oldschool dungeon crawler where your damage is elemental magic which you can merge and make new spells of, as you get more elemental skills along the way. You have to find the right keys or ways to open the right doors, as you are constantly attacked by hostiles. All in all you get imo more than than you paid for. You will probably not play this for 8 hours straight until you drop from exhaustion and dehydration, but a fun little game you can play for a while, when you don't have the time to get involved in one of your bigger and more complex games. 6.5/10 and recommended

This definitely has the feel of a mobile game that was ported to a PC. ISSUES: The method of controlling the inventory is awkward There is an odd jerkyness to the movement of the mouse, it feels like the game is trying to keep up with your movements, it's almot like the mouse is simulating using your finger on a tablet screen. The levels are small and boring and feel like walking through someones house from the front door to the back door. If you're looking for a heretic or hexen type game this is definitely going to disappoint you, if you want 5 minutes of play at a time and you don't mind tablet like games then you might get some value from it, but for the average gamer this is not recommended, city of brass is a much better option.