Ebony Spire: Heresy

Ретророгалик от первого лица с доступным исходным кодом под лицензией MIT. [h1]Первые пол часа[/h1] Управление только с клавиатуры. Чтобы уменьшить/увеличить (а лучше выключить) громкость музыки в опциях нужно воспользоваться клавишами wd (стрелочки и +/- не работают, точнее + «работает», но об этом позже). Запускается в оконном виде без возможности скейлинга. На большом экране будет мелковато. В игру встроена пока ещё экспериментальная возможность перехода в полноэкранный режим через +. В моём случае окно игры просто исчезло и её пришлось убивать из консоли. Внимание: прежде чем кидаться на окружающих — зайдите в инвентарь и наденьте броню с топором! Зачем убивать священников — не понятно. Поговорить с ними не получается. Ящики нужно тоже убивать, а все вещи поднимать. Враги чего-то не двигаются. А нет, двигаются, но как-то пока не активно… У вещей прописана цена, но куда их сбагрить — не понятно. Повороты времени не занимают. Теряюсь просто мгновенно. Уффф, наконец-то убили — рыцарь какой-то коррупнутый на 4ом этаже. Пора писать миниобзор. [h1]Почему?[/h1] Разработчик подкинул игру на потестировать в рамках моего кураторства [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/26105178/]Linux игры[/url]. Я небольшой фанат такого вида бродилок, хотя с удовольствием прошёл [url=https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198084019881/recommended/207170/] Legend of Grimrock[/url]. В основном я смотрю на то, как эта игра работает в среде GNU/Linux. [h1]Исходники и свободная лицензия[/h1] Не нравится куда всё развивается? Есть желание что-то добавить? Исходники игры официально доступны на [url=https://github.com/BacioiuC/Ebony-Spire--Heresy]github[/url] под лицензией MIT. Может так случиться, что создание игры будет интересней её самой. Так что дерзайте. [h1]GNU/Linux[/h1] Пол часа бродил без каких-либо последствий и проблем в среде Ubuntu 16.04 на ноутбуке со встроенной интелловской видеокартой. Экспериментальная возможность перехода в полноэкранный режим не сработала. [h1]Обзор входит в список [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1103944566]Игры, Linux, Steam, обзоры.[/url][/h1]

Слава Україні!

Pajitnov's Tetris, Pope's Papers, Please, Barone's Stardew Valley, Sexton's Unturned - game design history has seen numerous good titles developed entirely by a single person. There's something magical in the fact one human being can create a great game that captures our attention and doesn't let go. I have a soft spot for one man studios whose games are, logically, almost always an indie experiments solely depending on fans support, word-of-mouth marketing and in the last few years - crowdfunding. Bacioiu Ciprian's Ebony Spire: Heresy is one of those indie games that you desperately want to love, because you can see it wants to press all the right buttons in your brain's enjoyment department and yet it doesn't. It's like a tease that feels awkward, like a chase without any catch at all, when even the chase proves to be pointless. This is a dungeon crawler similar to games such as Dungeon Hack and Eye of The Beholder. Yes, these are older games and Ebony Spire tries to mimic those. Essentially, you're moving in first person view through designed (Classic mode) or procedurally generated (Infinite mode) levels trying to find an exit. On your way, you collect items and meet enemies you either attack or evade, that move on. Most interesting and positive aspect of Ebony Spire is its pixel art. You'll meet interesting enemies in not that interesting surroundings that get pretty dull as time goes by. And for the negative aspects, oh boy, here we go... There are three classes available to players in the beginning of the game. There's a horrific imbalance between these classes, making Berserker (blunt force trauma guy) the best one to use. Although the game's concept is nothing new, a complete lack of tutorial will make you die so many times without knowing what actually killed you (reading your stats will get you nowhere). Game kinda just drops you in there without any warnings. If it was an arcade score chaser, I would say - fine. But it's not. And it's pretty dull when you die for 10th time, only realizing then you need to equip your weapon before trying to kill someone. Aaaand then we come to controls - nonrebindable, completely confusing, WORST CONTROL SYSTEM EVER. Good luck to lefties. You use WASD to change options in the menu, but you need to use both WASD and arrow keys in combination if you want to strafe (A + D) or turn left and right (left arrow + right arrow). How about finding what your other buttons are? Game doesn't give you any clues, but you'll learn via Google you'll press O for opening doors, P for picking up stuff, I for inventory and > (in my case :) to climb to next level. Controls are unintuitive and displeasing. There is an option to make the game run full screen (by default it runs windows), but to do that, you will need to either Google it or ask the developer, so as far as I'm concerned, there's no viable way to run a game in full screen. And last, but not the least - you will see everything there's to see in less than two hours. No matter it's 100+ items and procedurally generated dungeons, Ebony Spire: Heresy doesn't excite me nor provides me with enough ideas to make me want to come again. It lacks a LOT of basic features, so you end up feeling like you've bought an Early Access title without EA tag displayed on its front page. As far as I can see, the last dev's comment on the discussion forums was in February and there hasn't been any update in five months. Judging by the fact this game got some heat generated by the fact Gamasutra published an article about Ciprian gambling with this one, pouring his time, money and strength into it and then not getting enough out of it, one can only assume (and hopefully I assume wrong) that development of this game, an essential development that will bring more features and fix bugs, is unfortunately dead. The source's code is freely available to all customers, so maybe, just maybe, we will get a modded version once, making Ebony Spire: Heresy, all it wanted, and needed, to be. *** You have reached the end of a review. However, there's more, plus giveaways, plus cool community of great gamers right at http://steamcommunity.com/groups/libereviews Follow the curator's page here: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10953338/

All for one and one for all! I read your story mate, don't give up and follow your dreams!

While I can essentially get behind the game's concept, a coffee break dungeon crawler with a bit of the rogue within it, I cannot really point to any one element of this game and say "Yes, this is good", with the possible exception of the quite decent spritework. I can also say that, while clunky as hell and occasionally hiccuping in terms of performance, I experienced no bugs in my playthroughs. Beyond that, I can only describe the rest of it as competent or worse. Ignoring the ever-present onscreen buttons (which cannot be hidden as far as I can tell), I played entirely using keyboard. The controls work well enough, if with a slightly awkward layout.. There wasn't any sort of character sheet or similar function to access as far as I could tell, though since one's attributes seemed based entirely on gear I suppose this isn't that much of an issue, not to mention that I never found myself challenged enough by the game to actually need it. This game is astoundingly easy. While I don't expect every game to be brutally difficult, there weren't really any points during my experience where I felt myself come even close to dying. The game has several consumables, and I tried them out just to see how they work, but every enemy I came across I immediately oneshot (including the final boss) and no enemies were able to even approach overcoming my defenses, which the game had no qualms providing plenty of. Just to make sure it wasn't my choice of class, I started another run with a different one and the game still proved completely unchallenging. I won on my first real attempt, and didn't even realize I won until I realized that after killing the final boss I was just stuck in the the final room, unable to do anything. Truly, the UI was my greatest opponent during my time with the game. Having to hit the v key while standing on an item or pile to examine it was annoying, as was having to pick everything in a pile up unti I got to the one item out of it I want. Even more unhelpful was the map, however. With the game's dungeon floors being a series of simiar looking square rooms and corridors, the first person view makes it easy to get lost and a map is a very useful thing to have. However, the map as presented is just a top-down view of the floor tiles immediately around you, making it borderline useless for helping to navigate. I could list many more little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ - A carry weight limit so large it never mattered, several typos around the place, enemy AI that just walks around and throws items randomly - but I feel it unnecessary. The game is short, easy and simplistic, with the whole experience just ending up bland. It's said way too often, but it legitimately felt like the game is unfinished, a work in progress with features, mechanics and balancing yet to come. There is an essentially fine core at the base of the game, and with some number tweaking and polish this would probably be a decent little time killer, but as it stands I can't really recommend it unless you're extremely sold on the concept and have run out of alternatives.

Ebony Spire: Heresy is a throwback to the old days of computer games, for me it brings back memories to my Amiga 500 days, used to play Eye of the Beholder for hours on end and never grow bored. This game has a lot of that feeling, each level has it's own progression in form of new environments and monsters and of course items! The character does not progress in levels, but by getting more powerfull items as he climbs the tower. This makes the game perfect for a quick playthrough, I actually like the fact that the game only have 10 levels, you can feel the end goal from the start, the levels are quite big, but it's not hard to find the stairs to the next level, so you can either continue to expore the current level in hope to get a kick-ass spell book or take your chances with the creatures lurking above. I managed to get to level 7 on my first playthrough, and it was a blast to see the diversity in enemies throughout the levels. So if you're like me and enjoy a stroll down memory lane, or just like to explore a new take on the rouge-like genre. I recommend you to test this game out!

I could see this being a game that I could love - but I feel that its barebones gameplay really drive me away from it. There is also the issue of the lack of information and description given for this game. I played through a game, found a cursed armor, and I 'assume' it killed me when I started wearing it. What information is there I can't really understand. Why does a Hand Axe have more value then an Iron Sword? It seems like its value doesn't change based on its stats either, so it is entirely possible that the Iron Sword will be better in every conceivable way it seems. Trying to figure out the controls is also a bit of a chore. It took a brief moment to find out how to throw things or drop items from inventory. Documentation aside, I can't say I think much of this game from my basic play of it. Enemies also seem to be extremely samish. They can do different things based on the items they are carrying, but it the formula of the game seems to simply be 'run up and kill em'.

A fun little dungeon crawler! Thumbs up for the flawless linux support. Also thumbs up for the permadeath mode! :)

I've bought the game to support its creator after I've read his post-mortem on Gamasutra. The game looked nice: a love letter to the old MS-DOS dungeon crawlers, with mazes to explore, monsters to kill and loot to gather. It turned out to be even a greater throwback to old times then I expected: the game made me remember how awful the interfaces were back then, and how user-unfriendly a game can be. The game doesn't utilize mouse -- instead there's a key for everything: O to open the door, P to pick up an item, I to go into your inventory, T to throw a weapon. Instructions page are barebones too, so the game provides a double journey of discovery: one as you explore the dungeons, the other as you explore the interface, trying to understand how the hell it's supposed to work. I gave up and dropped the game when I accidentaly pressed Esc in the wrong time and found out that the same button is used to exit the inventory and to drop the game and exit to the main menu. This almost made me shed a tear of nostalgia: yes, the MS-DOS games of old times were exactly this frustrating. Thumbs up to help the game's creator to pay his mortgage.

Ebony Spire is a grid-based RPG in the old-school style, but with a twist: It's designed to be played during a lunch hour or a coffee break. Imagine you're waiting for something, an email to come through, a bus, or the bath to finish filling... You want to play something, but are fed up with the bland score-chasers like Bejewelled and Temple-Run which get the adrenaline and endorphines flowing using blingy sounds, and bright graphics. What you want is something you can quickly dive into, but gives you a little bit more cerebral gameplay. I'm not talking of "Mastermind" level cerebral. I'm talking about stats and armour and weapons, levels and monsters, like an RPG, but all condensed down into a short 20 minute run! All the usual elements are there, character classes, a levelling mechanism (albeit a little hidden), weapons, armour, guns, spells... But stripped down so there's only a few of each, so you don't have to spend ages agonizing over which to use. Also, there's no weapon degredation, so no need to horde either. Just check to see if stuff's better than what you have, and if so, drop your old stuff, pick up the new stuff, and go squish things! If anyone's managed to make a better short-play RPG game, I've yet to find it. Bearded Giant have made an homage to all the old grid-based RPGs like Eye of the Beholder, or Dungeon Master, but slimmed it down into a really fast, enjoyable, easy-to-pick-up experience. It scratches an itch, but doesn't require a Baldur's Gate amount of time to play through... you can start/stop it at any time, and it's turn-based, so if you need to put the laptop down to pour your hot water into the teacup, just do it, the game'll wait for you to come back... Genius! The complete game can be run end-to-end in under 10 minutes. Of course, how you fare against the big boss at the end will depend on how you spent those 10 minutes... If you hacked and slashed, you'll be okay. If you spent them just running around and looking at the great old-school pixelly texture maps, meh, you'll have had a nice time, but I don't think you'll do so well :) So, slip on those +4 leather gauntlets, pick up that +32 Longsword, and go get 'em dungeoneer!