Dark Gates

This game got seemingly good reviews and people compared it to Monsters' Den on Kongregate which I loved. Games like this are all about collecting loot, building unique characters, strategy and tactics. The 8.99 price tag was a little steep, but I knew based on how much fun I had with the Monsters' Den games that it would be worth it. This game has no loot, no strategy, no tactics, no dimensions, no plot, and no fun. I could have made a better game and I don't know how to code. This is possibly the largest waste of money I've ever spent in my whole life and I would really like it back. :(

Not sure about the others but I quite enjoy it. Yeah it has it's foibles but most indie games do. Can't say I had any trouble picking the controls for this, all seemd straight forward to me. Arrow keys for movent and space bar/enter for action. Thing the only thing that tripped me was selecting spells but even then it was quite easily setup. There isn't much in terms of an leveling system or loot but it doesn't really matter for such a simplistic game. If you're more for that sort of thing then you're probably better off on Diablo 3. The graphics aren't going to win any awards but it makes it seem a much more retro feel to it. Could probably do with a few tweaks for aesthetics sake but doesn't take anything away from it in my eyes. Think 2D Legend of Grimrock and you're on the right lines for what it's about gamestyle wise. Far as the plot goes, I simply just put a band of warriors together and went about killing everything in sight. Seems to be more about how long you can persevere? Honest rating for this? 6.5/10. Playable and enjoyable but as with all indie games, continued improvement will see the score rise.

This game might not be for the newer generation of gamers. If you are used to Super Mario Bros, The Elder Scroll games, or D&D type games like Baldur's Gate, then you probably won't appreciate this game. Dark Gates is an old school (as in late 1970s, early 1980s) style fantasy board game. If you would like to see where this game got some inspiration from search for the SPI games "Deathmaze" and "Citadel of Blood". When comparing Dark Gates to those SPI classics, you can't help becoming excited. I LOVED those old solo games where all the pieces were chits, and 2 six-sided dice. There wasn't much of a back story, and most of the game play was random. Dark Gates captures the style, fun and atmosphere of those SPI classics. If you are an old school gamer (NOT necessarily an old school video gamer), then you will appreciate this game. If you want fancy graphics, lots of diversity in the dungeon levels, and lots of equipment, quests, and hundreds of monsters, you probably are better off looking elsewhere. I would recommend this game highly to those who enjoy solo or small party fantasy board games, even if you may have never experienced the SPI classics mentioned above. This game definitely has the feel of a classic/vintage board game. [PROs] Similar in Style and Play to classic SPI board games from the 70s/80s. Numerous Heroes to experiment with in order to get a party that best suits your game playing strategy. Large levels with many monsters, locked doors, and various objects to interact with that may result in a bonus, or punishment to the player, or party. Basic ability to upgrade your hero's skills, mastery, vitality, resistance and more. A nice, yet not long and drawn out back story that quickly explains the history and existance of the labyrinth and the unnamed boss who you ultimately must defeat. Each time you play the dungeon/labyrinth is randomly designed, and stocked. [CONs] Movement can feel slow and might annoy some players, but others who enjoy those old board games might appreciate this. I got used to it. While there are many heroes to choose from, you cannot create your own customized hero from scratch. Basic upgrading of one's heroes. Not much depth when compared to leveling and upgrading heroes in D&D, or other fantasy style games. Spell casting costs health, NOT mana thus if you are not careful and you cast a spell that costs more health than the caster has, the casting will cause the caster to die. Dungeon levels are the same textures, and graphics. Not much differences in the looks of level 1 2, or 3. [In Closing] Dark Gates is a fun, old school (potentially painful to newer generations of gamers) fantasy style board game with light RPG/tactical features. For many years I wished for a computerized version of Deathmaze or Citadel of Blood and was extremely happy when I first stumbled upon this game in one of it's earliest releases. I've stuck with the game ever since and have beaten it a few times and STILL always enjoy coming back to it! Get the comic book if it is available here on Steam as it also gives a little background/story about the game and a group of heroes who were entering the labyrinth to seal the Dark Gates!

You probably won't like this game, but I did. Things you'll consider a minus, but didn't bother me: - It has no depth. - Animations are cheesy. - Sound and music are forgettable. - There's very little challenge. - Nothing seems to scale. - It's extremely exploitable. This you might consider a plus: - It's easy to 100%. - You can support an indie developer. - You probably didn't pay full price. - The devs often respond on the Steam forums. - You might recognize some of the character icons. 9/10. Would 100% a casual RPG again.

И очередная игра, с которой я ошибся. На первый взгляд, это такой рогалик, с необъятными лабиринтами, разнообразными монстрами и перманентной смертью персонажей (но всегда можно набрать новых). Вполне достойный геймплей, хоть графика и бои - из середины 90-х. А на практике всё оказалось гораздо банальнее, причём из-за мелких деталей. - Лабиринт действительно необъятный, и это хорошо. И он сохраняется между сейвами. Но... за закрытой дверью никого не видно, поэтому всегда приходится гадать, раз, монстры крайне однообразны по своим привычкам два, и у монстров сохраняется только качество "есть/нет" три. То есть, можно иметь полный лабиринт "напуганных" монстров, которые тебя уже не атакуют, сохраниться, вернуться - и начинать пугать всех заново. А шанс там далеко не сто процентов. - Жизнь восстанавливается крайне редко, и только случайными событиями. А тратится - постоянно, как на битвы с монстрами, так и на использование заклинаний. В итоге физически невозможно устраивать долгие рейды, если ты не самоубийца. А после сейв/лоада начинай проходить заново, с оставшимися монстрами, как написано выше. - Инвентаря нет. Лута, соответственно, тоже нет. Есть деньги, но не тратятся ни на что, кроме возможного подкупа монстров (что просуществует ровно до первой загрузки) и апгрейды героев. Параметров героев тоже нет, впрочем, кроме тех, что даны изначально - и это жизнь, скорость, спецумение (Ability) и спецскилл (Skill). Только их и можно прокачивать. Есть ещё слоты заклинаний, куда можно брать заклинания - но только после случайных событий, и неизвестно, что возьмёте. - Прокачка довольно оригинальна. В том смысле, что опыт даётся только за убийство монстров и в пропорции 1:1 с нанесённым ударом. Так что секрет успеха - качать соответствующее умение. Соответственно, герои с высоким умением качаются сильно быстрее, чем герои с низким на тех же монстрах. Те, у кого оружейного умения нет - обречены на ме-едленную прокачку, пока не найдут хотя бы одно заклинание. - Героев фиксированное количество и вполне определённый ассортимент. Никакого подбора, никакой случайности. Видимо, если умудришься убить всех, тут-то игра и кончится окончательно. Вердикт: вложи авторы чуток больше усилий в эту игру, я бы даже играл. А в нынешнем виде это тянет только на одноразовую флеш-убивалку времени. Не рекомендую.

[h1]THE LOWDOWN:[/h1] Dark Gates is a grid-based party dungeon-crawler, with lite RPG elements. It is essentially a virtual boardgame representation based on the 'classics' of many years ago. The objective is to explore the dungeon reach the Dark Gates and destroy the "Unnamed" beast that threatens to destroy the lands. Exploration take place on a procedurally created dungeon across multiple levels and resembles a grid containing rooms. Encounters occur with creatures that can inhabit a tile. Encounter options consist of either: combat, negotiating or bribing. Combat takes place using WEGO-UGO, otherwise the party can pass unhindered. Characters attack using melee, ranged or magic spells. Permadeath ensures characters die and leave the party. Yet the game allows you to replace dead members of if you find it on your adventure, use the Resurrection spell to revive them. As you progress you can find clues as to the location of the Dark Gates where your goal lies. [h1]THE GOOD:[/h1] + Randomly generated dungeon. Albeit very similar as not much to distinguish one from another. + Get to choose your party from 20 or so archetypes. You may recognize some very familiar faces! :) + Simple mechanics. Quick gameplay. + Party gains gold and characters experience which can be used to upgrade their skills. + Easy to get into. + Straightforward to gain achievements. Most can be gained quickly. [h1]THE BAD:[/h1] - No character generation. - No loot to pick-up and inventory to equip characters from. - Bare-bone interface/instructions, resulting in a steep learning curve at the very beginning. - Either too short. Or too long! Mostly because there is no point of reference telling you which staircase is the nearest to the Dark Gates. Major oversight! - Party position not saved. Rather progress and state of the dungeon is. You have to essentially re-trace previous steps and then continue. - No mouse controls, 100% keyboard driven. [h1]AND THE ORDINARY:[/h1] * Nice clean-cut artwork. * A range of encounter options: Fight, Negotiate, Bribe; that are dependent on a range of character skills. * Decent range of magic spells which are fixed but, can be added to through exploring the dungeon. * Basic, if pretty animated combat & spell effects. * Very limited party organization and configuration. * Artwork, music & sounds combine well to generate a decent ambience. * Its fairly replayable but, very repetitive! [h1]VERDICT:[/h1] I dont think this game will appeal to anyone but purists of old dungeon crawl boardgames, or this genre of video games. Maybe if the game also allowed character generation and had a loot and inventory system it would be more of a game that I could recommend. Overall its just too basic, too simplistic to grab the attention of modern-day gamers. Unless youre like me and enjoy trying out and/or experiencing different games. I liked it but you can be sure it will not be for most players. It takes a brave developer to release a game like this, so Dark Gates should be admired for what it is! Playing it was fun but only consider getting it if you feel the need to kill a few hours with a short, basic boardgame adaptation that is basically okay!

This game is rather painful, I won't lie. I give most people less than 5 minutes before they quit and never play it again. There is very little to nothing happening here. You walk around opening doors and getting into fights with combats straight out of a MUD. There isn't even that much tabletop RPG granularity that you would expect in something claiming to 'capture classic tabletop RPG experience'. Mostly there's a graph paper based dungeon that is somehow worse than the actual look and feel of tabletop RPGs, particularly today where there is a lot going on. That point is almost moot though, as there isn't even any other people allowed in a game, so you're literally by yourself playing a game that was all about arguing with your friends about nonsense in a classic nerd rite-of-passage. It feels to me that you have to be in a particular place in your life, with a particular history, and trying to recover a particular feeling for this to ever be worthwhile.

Personal Rating: 4.5/10 So normally with a negative review, I would just say it's a bad game and that I personally don't recommend it, but I'll make an effort to justify myself. Also, I would like to state that this should not discourage the developer from making games like this. Pros: +The game touches on the genre of dungeon crawling, which even though I find extremely boring and repetitive, has a following of retro gamers +It is quite cheap (I got it for free) Cons: -The controls are entirely based on keyboard, which I assume is to give it an older feel. Even though other reviews say it's simple, the controls just to start a new game use a lot of keys that aren't obvious and you'll need guidance (6, 7, M, Space, etc.). Using enter would have been more obvious. -There is no explanation! You start the game and are immediately prompted to select a team (The characters all look like they were created by a LotR fanatic btw). There is no intro, tutorial, or even small explanation about the stats you are looking at. They will have some ability called "Dark Gates" that is never explained, but ends up being the ability to open doors in the dungeon without getting hurt (that aspect is the game's only unique feature). The effect of the stats is not explained at all, and there are also spells available for some characters. Thankfully, those are a bit more explained, but again, not having played the game before, the gravity of each one is quite mysterious. Also, the thing I assume is the "cost" of each spell is simply a number before its name, which if you don't pay attention, you'll mistake as just a numbering system. -Since the game starts abruptly, there is no storyline given. There is no plot or quest. It just becomes pointless. -The players to select are all preset instead of random. I found two humans that had all the same stats, except one had a slight advantage in agility. I'm sure if someone studied the game, they could determine the best picks for a "dream team". Also would make replay experience repetitive. -I think this is a bug, but when I tried to load a save, I was basically prompted to the selection screen, but with the selections preset. That means I could select a completely new team, which seems like "cheating". Also, I was placed in the very start, even though the map still had my explored areas. Navigating tile by tile is already annoying, don't make me retrace my steps... -Combat is a bit weird. I have to be careful with what I select. The characters frequently auto-play (due to there only being one attack option), but I was expecting to have to press Enter, and so I have made someone else do something right after. It is also hard to tell sometimes which character option is selected. -The whole negotiation and bribing system doesn't make sense. The bribing system is in place to justify the need of looted gold from battles. The negotiation I assume was a feature to "spice up the game". I guess I'll just chat with the spider so it'll let me go? The one time it worked, a group of ghosts got scared. Is diplomacy about fear? -Repetetive! The whole thing is simply walking down narrow aisles (full of dead-end, one-tile rooms which need to be opened with special skill cause they are DARK GATES!) and fighting hostile mobs (all your typical fantasy mob like spider, troll, ghost, dark knight, etc.) that progressively get harder by having higher health and attack power (not smarter AI though). All in all, I would not spend any money on this. This game seems like one that should be available to play online for free. It doesn't have advanced graphics, or large memory space needed, or special features, so I don't see why it needs to be a stand-alone. It is not hard to program and the graphics match the quality of resources available to developers for free online. Even free, I don't think I'll ever play this game again.

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Dark Gates simulates old-school board games like "DeathMaze." It's a minimalist idea, to be sure, but one that it does very well. The player selects 6 characters to form a party (many are multi-class and can use both melee and ranged weapons, as well as offensive and defensive magic). Once they breach the front entrance of the labyrinth (there's a back story that explains its existence, but it's typical fare), movement tiles are revealed in a similar fashion to "Dungeon Quest" in order to simulate the Fog of War. There are doors that may or may not be trapped, events to find, chests to open, and, of course, encounters. Each game is randomly generated. Party members can be replaced or swapped at will, and they can be upgraded as their exp increases. The usual stat increases are here, but there are also Masteries that can be raised (such as the bonus they get to their melee weapon) and Skills (such as a bonus to successfully navigating Traps). This may not be the popular opinion, but I actually like this game. I've been playing the DRM-free version for the last six months (as I write this review, Dark Gates has been on Steam less than a week), and I appreciate that it feels like an old-school board game. I don't even have a problem with hitting Enter (a common complaint is that the mouse is not used, although it should be noted that the game does claim full gamepad support), because rolling dice would take just as long, if not longer. It's not supposed to be Skyrim; it's a board game. The description even states that it "tries to capture classic tabletop RPG experience," and it easily achieves this goal. Does it have amazing hi-rez ultra smooth graphics with Oculus support? No, but why would it? The graphics are perfectly serviceable for what it is. (EDIT: The developer has recently addressed the complaint of hitting Enter too often, by automating this process somewhat. ) Dark gates is a simple game with simple rules. It might be too slow-moving for some, and I'll admit that the sound gets old very quickly. But, in my opinion, the very things that irritate some players are what make the game work for me. Gameplay isn't overly convoluted, which makes it easy to pick up and play in 5 minute increments or for an hour. The Fog of War keeps things interesting, as does the opportunity to try to settle encounters either through force or diplomatically (by Negotiating or Bribing). Different monsters have different abilities to keep things tense (for example, spiders cast webs over random party members, making them unable to fight). That said, I do believe that $10 US is too much for what this game is. I'd recommend it, but at a price half that, as it really feels more like an iOS game than something designed for PC. Dark Gates is a lite, board game-inspired time waster. There is nothing particularly deep or strategic about it; this isn't an RTS by any means. Those players who are looking for something simple to pass the time will enjoy it. All others should steer clear. For me, it's a fun and interesting diversion when I don't want to think too hard or button mash. Recommended, but make sure you know what you're getting before pulling the trigger. [One quick aside: There is misinformation around that states the game doesn't tell you what the controls are, which kind of baffles me. Every time the screen changes, the keys that are usable on that screen are displayed as icons. You can see this in the game's screen shots if this is a concern.] (Edited for purposes of clarification)