Behind Closed Doors: A Developer's Tale

It is a bold move to make the first half of the game simulate the tedium of office work and coding. Unfortunately, the second hald has some bugs that make it nigh unplayable. I really did not enjoy the Dungeon Crush game that the player develops. It is a shame because there is a lot to love here but it is bogged down by a bunch of poorly implemented games within games. https://youtu.be/L3G1Dp-OMPM

Depicting the life of a mere mortal man that is with wife and child but isnt manly enough to drink coffee or tea as a programmer, you set out on a journey to make a video game. While troubleshooting with your sweet coworker Steve, you are bogged down by the cruelties of life. You have an office party to attend but you must be there for your wife and although you finish your game the game isnt finished with you and that my friends is why being a developer just isnt worth it. This guy isnt even a real man he wakes up late every day blaming his wife for not waking him even though he could just set the alarm to a earlier time. He also assumes just because it is a sunny day he shouldnt have to work... you know... to support his wife and unborn daughter. The game drops off as far as entertainment value and becomes merely a stressful chore sucked of all fun. Even though I got this free I feel as though I should have gotten paid to play it. Played for the story and the story played me. I give it 2 keystrokes /10

I want to start this review by saying : thanks to the dev for offering me the chance to review the game before launch, I had a lot of fun and I feel that after playing for about 2 hours, I can safely say this game has potential. However, I can't really recommend it in it's current state for a few reasons that I'm sure can (and will be) patched up once the game is released. I'll start with the positive and finish by the small problems. From what I've been able to play so far, the story is fairly interesting for an indie game even if it's quite slow in its progression. In the first part, you play as this game dev guy that has to go to work (even if he doesn't want to) and discover his daily routine which mostly consist in waking up late, talking with his pregnant wife, eating breakfast, brushing his teeth, then going to work (mostly consisting in responding poorly to emails- I don't honestly get why he's so mean but hey, that's his personality I guess - & developing a fairly simple platformer). That part was fine & mostly played as expected. The routine part wasn't too much of a hassle and I enjoyed discovering the daily life of our protagonist. I didn't really enjoy the platforming part due to the simplistic and quite rudimentary gameplay making it a bit hard to finish the levels but that wasn't a major problem. With a bit of patience, you always end up making it however, I don't totally think that part was necessary but I didn't hate it like some others reviewers have. However, the real problem comes with the second part of the game where the gameplay totally changes and becomes a bit more arcade with run & gun elements. I don't want to give too much information about the plot but basically, you end up in that series of otherwordly arenas where you have to shoot/avoid slimes running after you and survive for some time. The concept is great but due to some bugs (mostly the lack of aim), you really have to get lucky & it becomes nearly impossible to win, even with some skills which is why I stopped playing. In conclusion, this is an interesting and promising little indie title with a lot of good elements but it needs a bit more work before I'd really tell someone to go and try it.