Gemstone Keeper

EDIT: Since my review, the dev has updated the game, and believes they have fixed a number of issues. I have not confirmed this, but feel it's worth noting. ORIGINAL REVIEW: Gemstone Keeper is a solid foundation in an unfinished game. The shooting mechanics, enemy behaviours, weapon combinations and art are well done and feel good, but between bugs, design failures, boring procedural generation, and just a lack of content overall, I don't think this game is ready for general consumption. Issues I had include: Only being able to see keybinds when you start a new game. Randomly not being able to start from the depth I got to on the last run. Not knowing what stats do. There are 5 bosses, and by the time you've reached the second, you've probably bought all the weapons and seen everything the procedural generation can throw at you, then it's just grinding through a lot of samey levels until you reach the end. The last boss relies on shields to stop you shooting it until you can break through for a hit, except one of the weapons is piercing, so it just ignores the shields and kills the boss in seconds. After a while, you can afford to buy a hundred medkits, buff your health, and then just tank from one end of the game to the other. If you're curious about other issues, I posted even more on the forums a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the dev doesn't seem to be interested in responding. Which, considering the game has only been out a couple of months, is a bit disappointing. So yeah, I do not recommend spending money on this game unless the devs make some serious improvements. Not likely, but if it happened, this could be a fun game. EDIT: Dev has noticed my feedback and says they're going to work on some of the issues I've raised, so that's something.

While I've only got a couple hours on the clock with Gemstone Keeper, first impressions are really quite good. The game plays precisely as sold, there's an interesting variety of enemy types, the moving & shooting is super smooth, the weapon combinations make for a fun arsenal, the gem collecting aspect is rewarding enough and the overall look & feel of the game, to me, has huge appeal. The somber, suped-up ASCII art style is awesome and shows from the dev a particular reverence for the roguelikes that started it all. Enemies are all easily distinguished and the shifting environment palettes from floor to floor help change things up during a run, although the everpresent hashtag walls are an inescapable visual sameness. There's a variety of trippy screen effects (identified in-game as "mists") that distort & obfuscate the play area, from watery ripples to a rapidly pulsing screen blur to just straight up fog-of-war-ing the edges of the viewport. These add flavour and interest to the floors where they occur but I must admit the pulsing effect makes me a little queasy; I understand their gameplay-altering intent but some control over the intensity of these effects would be most welcome for sensitive players. Sound design is excellent - atmospheric and polished with cold, ambient electronic music, glassy shatters, satisfying crumbles and squeaking monsters comprising the majority of the soundscape. I'd dig some additional audio feedback sprinkled throughout, such as when bullets impact, but everything that's here sounds lovely. The soundtrack sets the perfect mood and I'd totally listen to the main dungeon theme outside the game. One special detail worth noting is the tempo of the music shifts in response to a floor's current mist, turning slow and heavy when submerged or going double time when meth'd (for lack of a better term). On the configuration side, I very much appreciate the flexible graphics settings offered as the ability to disable filters & bloom gets on my laptop's good side. It's worth noting that graphic / audio options are only accessible from the escape menu, never from the main menu. Windowed resolution presets to switch between would be welcome, as opposed to the free resizing the game exclusively offers now, but there's an adequate level of configurability here, and while controls don't appear to be rebindable, the default is perfectly sensible for QWERTY users (WASD + mouse). The game detected (and plays quite nicely with) an Xbox 360 gamepad, but it would seem controller support is limited to xinput devices as a Logitech Dual Action wasn't seen at all. Tiny side note, the boot-up sequence is supremely charming and an early sign of the attention to detail & quirky personality present throughout Gemstone Keeper. I've run into some bugs during my relatively brief time with the game which have required the session be killed, such as getting stuck on a purely white or glitched-out screen. Here's a link to a thread on the community forums with more detail on the technical issues encountered: http://steamcommunity.com/app/522080/discussions/0/135512931365353024/ All in all, recommended based on my experience thus far. Gemstone Keeper is just begging to be played by more people, fingers crossed it finds an appreciable audience here on Steam :)

I really liked the base gameplay mechanics and interesting enemy variety, the music is wonderful too, really gets me into the mood to delve deeper. Collecting all the various gems is tough though, since it's rather random. I also had trouble with a lack of progression, There's nothing to spend money on since I couldn't figure out if it's possible to upgrade anything, though it seems like the mechanic is in the game. The bosses are very cool however and the various level types are unique feeling, would love to see more environmental differences. Overall I think the base game is good but it needs fleshing out a bunch.

ツインスティックシューター。４つの操作キャラから選択、ステージ道中雑魚を倒しつつGEMを集めてお金に換金しつつ五体のボスを倒していくメインモード、スコアアタック、ボスラッシュなどがあります。メインモードは30分もあればクリア出来ます。 　ステージをクリアするごとに戻ることが出来るハブマップでは銃と弾や回復アイテムなどが売っており、銃と弾の組み合わせで攻撃方法が変わりますが、バランスが悪いです。強い組み合わせ見つけたらそれしか使いませんでした。 　仕様かどうかわかりませんが、ストック出来る回復アイテムは初期HP100を超えて何回も回復できる、かつ何十個もストックできるので、正直死ぬことがありません。 敵の種類も少なく5、6種類程度しか居ません。ゲーム後半でも数は増えても強化されることも無し。ボスも武器の組み合わせによっては瞬殺出来てしまうのでやりごたえもありませんでした。 ゲーム難易度がガバガバなのでオススメは出来ません。

Gemstone Keeper is a pretty solid roguelike. With some fun Retro Inspired Ascii Art Graphics, and a variety of Enemies & Weapons. The only thing to note for those that prefer a steeper learning curve from games like the Binding of Isaac is the challenge ramps up very gradually. So this may not provide a massive clutch challenge. Otherwise I found it straight forward and enjoyable. Somewhat relaxing. You can view my video first look video here to see the gameplay for yourself: https://youtu.be/s0YZe96665M

First of all, I really loved how this game pretty much only uses ASCII symbols for its graphical design. Very retro-y, while still visually pleasing for a modern game. It was nice seeing variety in level designs and mechanics, and I think the enemy mobs are cute. The movements are smooth, and the weapon aiming is very responsive. I also really liked the variety of weapons and how you can combine all of them with different types of ammo. So overall it's a pretty good game and I'm happy with my purchase. I almost don't have anything negative to say, but one issue is that it seems to freeze and crash at random. This unfortunately removes all the progress I made while in the caverns, but whenever I return to the surface it seems my things are saved for good. It doesn't happen too often, and it's mostly easy to catch up, so it's just a minor issue. One other thing is that the levels with the swirly mist effect make me kinda dizzy and uncomfortable, but when I get those I just rush to the other level and all is fine again, haha. What I personally hope to see in this game in the future is difficulty settings. I felt it got really easy at some point, and I got through the game (minus collecting all the gems) in less than an hour. It didn't take away much of the fun, but still, it would be nice to test our skills on a higher difficulty. One thing I found out is that once you get further, you can practically collect infinite money and buy infinite health kits to stack your health up so high that a horde of mobs isn't really a threat anymore. There could be more feeling of progression. Collecting gems and saving up for items is still nice, but it ends up feeling like you keep doing the same thing just to collect all the things. Maybe you can make some kind of levelling system so people can slowly earn their stats instead of buying temporary increases, among other things, like unlocking weapons or something. And otherwise it would just be nice to see more content in general. Maybe also a story around it, for more immersion and to build up interest. (I hope this doesn't sound negative, cause I really liked it and wish you the best!)

I might write another review when I play more, but for now here is what I think after reaching the first boss. (I won't be talking about the sound since my laptop was muted) I had played Gemstone at Insomnia awhile ago and enjoyed it. I brought it yesterday since it was on sale and sat down to play it today. I really did enjoy it and like how simple the controls are and how simple the game is so far. I do expect it to become harder. However, there are two things I need to make aware. The first is the bright purple light when you enter a portal and the bright red light when you beat a boss. Although I do not suffer from epilepsy, I found it too bright, harsh and sudden. The second problem that could have been my own fault is that the first boss can trap you in the corner and chip away at your health. I was able to escape but it still something that I feel should be brought up. But again it might have been my own fault. I'm sure if the first issue is dealt with soon, the game would be much better. So I give this a recommend.

满屏过时的ascii码 老气复古的3D宝石 地牢探宝的题材 一下子就吸引住我了 这款游戏=复古Roguelike+双摇杆射击 玩家要做的事情很简单:下地城->杀小怪->收集各式各样的宝石（gemstone）->返回地表->升级自己的能力—>下地城继续除四害搜刮民脂民膏... 背景音乐跟游戏本身氛围很搭，升级能力组合起来大约20来种 不太好的地方就是无论角色还是敌人的移动速度都偏快，目前还存在恶性bug 骨灰roguelike粉和钟情复古画面的朋友可以一试，或许这款游戏对你而言就是hidden gem~

https://youtu.be/ag-gcaDYV0c Dual stick shooters don't often cross over into the rogue like game genre making 'Gemstone Keeper' a bit of an rarity. The controls are responsive during play, but a bit wonky while in the menus. The ASCII art and faux CRT beveling lends a strong visual aesthetic but it tends to always be a bit out of focus and hard on the eyes.

[b]Note: My "review" of this game is more of an impression and this impression is based on less than 10 minutes of gameplay, so this isn't an in depth criticism.[/b] [b]I'm pretty sure the only reason I have this game is because of some indie bundle and the only reason I bothered to play it is because it said "Twin Stick shooter" and had an ASCII art style that reminded me of a classic, retro Rogue-like game from the DOS era of gaming called Kingdom of Kroz.[/b] [b]Unfortunately, Gemstone Keeper is nothing like that game and I find it to be extremely dull.[/b] Extremely basic Twin-stick shooter controls, weak sound design, ugly, repetitive cave dungeons, uninteresting looking upgrades. It seems to be a mostly numbers game of collecting gems and resources from rocks and killing simple enemies with various movement patterns. Outside of the art style, the overall game design and game play/feel is so uninteresting and unexciting for a shooter. Gemstone Keeper isn't exactly bad, or poorly made. It seems to do exactly what it intended to do, it's just isn't very fun among an ocean of games worth your time and money. That said, there are a few positive reviews on the store page, showing there are some people who like it. [b]I can only recommend this game if you LOVE the gameplay loop of rogue-lites, like twin-stick shooters AND enjoy the art style. Perhaps you will enjoy the "ever improving" loop of getting better at avoiding damage or getting better weapons, but with the over abundance of Rogue-lites in the indie market, there are certainly more entertaining endeavors out there.[/b]