E.X.P.L.O.R.™: A New World

Fantastic little dungeon crawler! I've only played 30 minutes but I see myself playing and finishing this one at least once. Bravo, Beem Media! <3

It's not an easy one to review this. It's a cheap, turn-based 'blobber' where you move your party of warriors, thieves and magic users through a selection of maps looking for the exit to the next one and fighting the hordes of monsters standing in your way. It's a labour of love by a single developer and although I didn't encounter any bugs, the best word to describe it is 'simple'. The maps are easy to navigate. There's secret passages but no traps or environment hazards. The combat is all about how much damage you can dish out and heal, no status effects or debuffs to worry about. The loot is straightforward and the character growth is linear with no choices to be made. It's short and sweet so it doesn't outstay it's welcome. I finished it in just over 7 hours and still have a little of the final map to explore. If you've got an itch for something not too taxing and fancy the thought of exploring a few grid-based maps while levelling up your characters and slaying some monsters then it's worth the cheap price. Just don't expect Wizardry 8 or M&M 6 levels of depth.

The full Review can be found here: https://youtu.be/Nr-Zfe7mDeM I would have wished that EXPLOR did more according to what the name implies...as in Exploring. Exploring of alien Planets. Having an adventure. I would be fine with low production values, similarly as in the spiderweb games, if the game offered good world building with great storywriting or if it offered great combat mechanics. But unfortunately that's not the case here. It's nice that the game does have at least a few texts and NPCs with quests, but overall there is really just a very minimum of storytelling here. And while I would neither classify the Dungeons, nor the Combat, nor the Characterdevelopment as catastrophy, they are just means to an end. If just one of the main elements of the game was great, you could have looked over the other ones. But as it is, the overall experience can't really convince. Fortunately EXPLOR does at least throw those mechanics overboard, which annoyed me the most in The Bards Tale 1, in the original as well as in the remake. You will neither find endless grind in EXPLOR nor the misery of randomized level ups. And so personally I would definitely chose EXPLOR over The Bards Tale. That said, the HD Version of The Bards Tale 1, originally from 1985, only received the lowest score from me, as I always rate depending on the gaming experience a game offers today, independently of the budget being used to create the game. And I can't give more than a thumb half way down to EXPLOR either. Even the average Crawlerfan (if something like that should actually exist) who would look over the presentation of the game in the steam-trailer, would probably not be convinced by the content the game offers, and I'd rather recommend other indie titles like "Legends of Amberland" or "The Quest". If, even after this review, you think like "I don't mind, I just want to chill and kill some monsters", then you might still get some enjoyment from the game. And considering it's price is less than 7€ or 8 US Dollars, and accordingly even less in a sale, you can't really do anything wrong in the case you still want to give it a try. Unfortunately Steam only allows for Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down, and to be true to my rating and to other Reviews I did, I have to give a Thumbs Down in this instance.

An interesting little blobber. "E.X.P.L.O.R..." is a true labor of love from developer Beem media. If you've played any other classic blobbers (EOB, Might and Magic, Grimrock, etc) you'll get the picture pretty quickly. Some things that set E.X.P.L.O.R...apart are that it is a much faster playing type game. No grinding, no heavy stat management, no 100+ NPC's to keep track of. It's a fairly light playing game, but a good choice if you are in between epic RPG's and want something a bit quicker to play in between. The gameplay and graphics are much nicer looking in the actual game then what the trailer video depicts. Visually, it's a hybrid of a cartoony-comic style and traced looking caricatures. I'd say the closest comparison would be to "Sword and Sorcery", but much simpler gameplay. Progression seems to be fairly quick in the game and will keep you playing a while without getting bored. As I've gotten older, incessant grinding has been a turn-off for me in games. "E.X.P.L.O.R..." does a good job of mitigating that problem. Create your six adventurers, hit the sewers, and set of on an adventure!

Fun little dungeon crawler that is totally worth the price.

Really cool and fun dungeon crawler. The visuals and interfaces are clean and easy to understand. Gamepad support is great and many details like targetting, minimap edge markers and item comparison are just done so well, you really get a sense fort he dev’s passion for this project. I hope to see more from this dev and I relly hope that this game gets the attention it deserves.

Fun. Polished. Worth 8 bucks for sure.

wonderful Game its worth it a little short but I have never felt so accomplished when I finished a game like this!

While not a complex game, or a long one (6-10 hours to complete), this is still a satisfying casual hack-and-slash. Progress is quick, and the steep power curve means that every level-up or new piece of gear makes a big impact. It's also very polished and well-programmed - any bugs here are negligible. There's not much in the way of combat tactics or party-building, but that works out fine for a straightforward dungeon bash like this. At only US $8, it's worth it at full price. Grab it when you just want to slaughter a horde of monsters and rack up experience points.

A fun dungeon crawler. Not sophisticated, but it does what it does well enjoyably. Low price for hours of fun. If you like these kind of games, then you will more likely than not enjoy it; if you don't care for such games, then this isn't likely to change your mind. Well, you've read through all of this, so you may as well buy it.