The very short version is: So many things are wrong that I cant complete the tutorial. (I'm not even sure its possible to fail it, endless wave thing) Feels like early alpha on kickstarter.
I will not refund it, because someone accomplished his goal and made a game, he deserves something for that.
Ok so, it would be wrong to offer nothing but criticism, thus ill start with the good.
Good stuff: Behind the clumsy interface, there is a potential depth of gameplay here. The idea of alternating between heroes and towers is not bad, and crafting crystals mid fight as well as non-tower structures (gathering, fusing) could have some weight in forging a deep strategy later on.
Oh also... NO BUGs! (so far).
THAT BEING SAID...so...the bad...I should have made a list before writing this. (keep in mind, this is to help, so, with all the love in the world, please don't hate me X_X)
1) The whole game feels like a really early access here is the list as to why:
- Missing SFX on most actions, it would be shorter to list the things that produce sounds. (Hero mode has more sfx).
- Missing music in most menu and in game.
- Missing clear instructions in tutorial.
- Menus, UI, main screen, all feel incomplete, there is no personality to any of it.
- The assets aren't too bad, but I'm not convinced they aren't straight out of something else.
2) The game is actually very hard to play to unplayable for me:
- There is no slider for scrolling speed (or cursor speed), thus i cant use the keyboard to scroll/move around the map, it goes around faster than the flash with diarrhea. You can use the mouse, but that's hit and miss.
- There is no framerate limit, or options to limit them (v-sync), I got scared I may blow my GPU when it did not stop going full spin when the game ended, i had to launch something else to calm it down.
- No options to rebind keys, which is a shame because you have buttons to open various menus, switch between character and tower mode, etc.
3) Gameplay is very barebone and needs serious improvement
- The concept of tower + hero is not gracefully executed and doesn't accomplish much to stand out with either/both, aided and made worse by the depth of elemental options.
- There is no hero customisation or even knowledge of what is actually what. How much damage will my attack do? is there an element? whats my reach?. Missing statistics, maybe the possibility to change, looks, weapons, etc?
- The hero combat feels lackluster, you do not feel the impacts, the enemies are not hindered by them, the only way to know you hit them is if their HP lowers after you pressed the button.
- All of the hero attacks feels the same and the mouse is not bound to some attack by default, switching control scheme is not that big of a deal, but this is not top down, you use your mouse to aim in 3d anyways.
- Towers are kind of fine, they take a while to build, but that can be understandable, but the game puts them on a secondary role with the hero being the main thing, since you cant just build them upfront. You have to make syntetizers to make crystals to make towers and other things (golems).
- The way the game switch between both modes (build-hero control) is unusual. In similar game you either get build phases, mid gameplay build while in hero mode, or even pause to build. Here its all nonstop, with the downside of having additional manipulations and activities to track and enable, such as making crystals. It does not make it unplayable, but it feels like it hinders both mode. Maybe a small slowdown when switching to build mode would help?
- Only 9 levels, no achievement, no cards, no customisation available. Most Tower Defence on the markets offer more value at the same price. Unless you get Golem TD on sale...and even then, I am pretty confident many free ones may attract you more.
What else, I'm under 10 mins of gameplay time, will edit when I get 2 more minutes in :) (done, edit added)
Will edit later on when/if things improve! ill play 5 more minutes :)
-Lost out
