Dawn of the Ashen Queen

A very beautiful and picturesque grid based "dungeon crawler" with a reasonable balance of exploration, combat / fighting monsters, some fairly easy puzzle / trap solving problems plus a decent character progression system. It also has some reasonable gameplay and design features with lots of items, equipment, spells and special abilities for your characters and is very much a 'story driven' RPG. The story is quite interesting. The graphics are very beautiful for a grid based "dungeon crawler" and are the outstanding feature of the game. The music is nice and fits with the atmosphere of the game well. The audio effects are basic but adequate. The user interface is fine. The combat is the usual 'two step' grid based combat / fighting like in Dungeon Master and Legend of Grimrock etc. The auto-map system is fairly good. The game took me about 21 hours to complete and I did not encounter any software crashes or bugs. Overall, quite a good 'story driven' grid based "dungeon crawler". It does not have the 'depth' or complexity of some other grid based RPGs but it tries to makes up for this by being a very beautiful and pretty game to play. I believe the game was made by one person which is very impressive.

Игра неожиданно короткая (чуть больше 10 часов) и легкая (начиная с середины игры, умереть практически невозможно в принципе). Но с интересными локациями и остроумными пазлами. Зато местами кривоватый в плане механик. И визуально корявый. Но большие пустоватые уровни. Зато сюжет неплох. Но наполнение скудное (например, телепорты применяются в одной комнате на всю игру, а ловушка-ротатор - в двух). И какая-то странная фиксация на дуэлях; битвы с 2 и более мобами одновременно можно за всю игру пересчитать по пальцам. Короче, ученическая работа. Могу посоветовать только тем, у кого выраженный дефицит Lands of Lore в организме (как у меня). А вот за следующими релизами этого парня надо следить, он безусловно талантливый, раз с первой попытки наваял кривенький, но далеко не самый плохой гриддер.

Old School Dungeon Crwaler mit Story und netten Charakteren. Gibt ein paar Bugs und hier und da clippt man sich in eine Wand, aber dennoch eine spassige 20 Stunden Kampagne. Secrets/Geheimnisse waren sau schwer zu finden, hatte nichtmal die Hälfte gefunden. (was mich anspornt noch nen zweiten Playtrhough zu machen :D)

My favorite games growing up was Wizardry I and Might & Magic and this game reminds me of those games. I really enjoyed the real time combat I thought it added to the game. Only one boss teleports away from you the rest are straight combat. Combat is mostly hitting the weapon or ability when it goes off cool down. I enjoyed most of the puzzles but I watched videos on the harder ones since I am not good at puzzles in general. If you like this type of game I would recommend you purchase the game.

A pretty good but flawed real-time dungeon crawler. Excellent map/monsters/gear variety, good story (no voiceovers), graphics and character development but simplistic fast-paced combat and some level backtracking in empty corridors. Some UI and performance issues in a few areas, a couple bugs but nothing major. I enjoyed my time with it and was hungry for more. The game (or a sequel) would benefit a more in-depth combat system and some more puzzles. Fairly priced for the amount of content but little replayability.

I like this game very good :) The only down part is the game has no Editor. It would be nice to have one :)

Dawn of the Ashen Queen ist eine großartige Hommage an klassische Dungeon-Crawler wie Eye of the Beholder und Lands of Lore. Das Spiel kombiniert nostalgische, rasterbasierte Erkundung mit modernen Design-Elementen und bietet eine lebendige, detailreiche Welt. Das Charaktererstellungssystem ist tiefgreifend und erlaubt es, den eigenen Startcharakter individuell anzupassen, während das erzählerisch getriebene Gameplay mit seinen zukünftigen Begleitern dich in die spannende Geschichte von Eshavon eintauchen lässt. Der Echtzeitkampf ist fordernd und bietet mit immer neuen Zaubern und Waffen beim Levelaufstieg viel Abwechslung. Besonders hervorzuheben ist das Level-Design – Rätsel, Geheimgänge und Fallen sind durchdacht gestaltet, und jede Umgebung, von üppigen Wäldern bis hin zu alten Krypten, ist visuell ziemlich beeindruckend für ein so kleines Entwickler-Studio. Die Liebe zum Detail, sei es bei den Gegenständen oder den Effekten der Zauber, unterstreicht die Leidenschaft des Entwicklers. Obwohl es kleinere Schwächen gibt, wie zum Beispiel stellenweise zu simple Gegner-KI, die nicht gemeinsam angreift, wird das Spielerlebnis dadurch kaum getrübt. Für Fans von storylastigen Rollenspielen mit einem klassischen Flair ist Dawn of the Ashen Queen ein absolutes Muss. Ich habe mich gefühlt, wie in einem modernen Lands Of Lore und auch ein besonders "trockener" Charakter, hat mich mit seiner "Meisterdieb"-Attitüde bisher außerordentlich amüsiert. ;) Habe das Spiel noch nicht komplett durch, aber kann es jetzt schon wärmstens empfehlen!

Great nostalgic fun reminiscent of Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, grid based dungeons. Good puzzles, creatures, and artwork. Wish there were more games like this.

Scorrevole e divertente! Chi ama il genere lo deve prendere. Certo non è un capolavoro, ma nell'insieme vale il prezzo. A gioco terminato si può dire che la grafica è buona, l'interfaccia mi è piaciuta a parte il fatto che non ci sono dei tasti veloci per pozioni e altro da usare al volo. Non ho scoperto molti segreti ma il problema è che se me lo dici alla fine del gioco è difficile capire quali ti sono sfuggiti, forse sarebbe meglio come in molte altre avventure mettere il numero di segreti per livello. Altra pecca è la mancanza della lingua italiana, infatti i dialoghi sono prolissi e con uno slang molto complesso che alla fine si capisce ma certo limita il godimento dei dettagli. Spero facciano un seguito con l'italiano!

You don't have to reinvent the wheel to make an enjoyable game, and that's exactly what Shattered Moon Games has done with "Dawn of the Ashen Queen". If you've played any fairly modern grid-based dungeon crawler like Legend of Grimrock, The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians, Vaporum, etc, you mostly know what's in store here. This isn't a deep RPG...you create one character and get a few different classes to choose from, and a fairly basic skill tree that you can expand upon when you level up. You meet the rest of your party throughout the adventure to make a total of four in your monster-slaying team. While the game does nothing new, the graphics and sound are top notch, and the writing is overall decent. It's your typical "kill the bad guy to save the world" troupe. The only thing slightly different here is the overall pace of the game is quicker. Your team moves around the grid more quickly, and so do the enemies. It's your typical "dance" combat maneuver, and you get one attack slot and one "spell" slot. The way you use items is clunky. There isn't a quick slot or anything to easily access scrolls and potions, so you have to open the individual inventories each time you want to use something, In the middle of battle, it can get annoying. I played the game on the higher difficulty and overall the challenge felt moderate. There are a smattering of puzzles and traps throughout, only one time did I have to check the forums for a solution. I'd rather have this sort of scenario than the constant frustration seen with overly difficult puzzles like in Vaporum: Lockdown, for instance. I only encountered on true bug in the game, it was early on and during a scene transition, the game would crash. I reloaded an earlier save and was able to progress through. Besides that, the only other real issue was manipulating levers. For some reason it would take multiple clicks at times to get a lever to go up or down. Seems like others have complained about it as well. While not game breaking, it does become an annoyance the more you play. If you're a grid-based dungeon crawling enthusiast, I recommend picking this up. The ending leaves way for a sequel, so hopefully Shattered Moon Games continues on with this title in the future!