HORROR TALES: The Beggar

Horror Tales: The Beggar follows on from its predecessor in the Horror Tales saga, The Wine. Solo developer CarlosGameDev is back with his familiar style, showcasing breathtakingly gorgeous environments and a graphical finesse so uncommonly seen in Indie one-dev horror games. The horror elements do take a bit of a back seat here, and there are some shared flaws with this game and The Wine, but overall, I very much enjoyed my playthrough. The level of detail is phenomenal, even if the gameplay is a bit wonky. [b] [u]Pros[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Absolutely beautiful & extremely detailed visuals [*] Photomode [*] Variety of differing environments [*] Unusual story that seems creative (but a bit hard to follow) [*] Element of player choice in your actions [*] Variety of impressive powers [/list] [b] [u]Cons[/u] [/b] [list] [*] Slightly buggy powers that don’t mix well together [*] Enemy/character models are a large visual drop in comparison to environments [*] Physics bugs [/list] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3277785942 [h1]Story[/h1] Continuing on from the story in The Wine, The Beggar is a sci-fi adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world in different environments. Without discussing spoilers, the game encourages players to think for themselves and piece the story and its characters together as the game progresses. Make choices, see the happenings of this broken world from a different perspective and bend time and weather at your will. Note: I highly recommend playing The Wine before jumping into this as it is a direct continuation of the story and does not go back to re-explain things. The story is ..strange. Things make a bit more sense at the end, but it ends quite abruptly, like it is a main teaser for the next game in the saga, Iron Reich. There are not many notes or lore to read and no collectables like in the first game. The protagonist has a robot friend following him around and guiding him in the right direction for most of the game. He speaks very uh, rudely and it just does not feel like it belongs in the game. They try and explain his rudeness by his “polite module” being broken, or something along these lines but it is just strange as he seems to swear for the point of swearing and it does not make a lot of sense or seem to fit the rest of the game. Despite this, I like the story that the game is trying to portray and I am looking forward to see how this continues in the next release. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The Beggar is similar to The Wine in that it is mostly a light puzzle and exploration game, except this time, you have powers to control time, weather, levitate objects and more! There are many less jumpscares or scary moments in general, particularly in comparison to its predecessor. This time, Carlos has added in combat scenes. These felt perhaps the most cheap or non-quality scenes in the game. The model for Morvin (bad guy) is pretty stock standard and nothing special. The reason why I focus on this is because the environments are absolutely GORGEOUS! Then the next thing I see is green neon-skull-man??I found this quite jarring but I suppose everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and I do applaud the plight of the one-man team. Without spoilers, there are also some light moral choices which are not super obvious to players. I loved this as an addition and would like to see more of it in the next game. The combat was ok but as aforementioned, did not have the same merit as the rest of the game. You use your powers to throw objects at him. Do this multiple times and eventually he will falter. The physics on throwing is a bit tricky to navigate at times but is mostly ok. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3277785380 Puzzles were fairly straight forward and involved manipulating the time of day or weather to proceed. Change the day to noon to open solar-powered doors, flip circuits to ensure power is on, rain will flood certain areas to allow access. Different times of day will cause platforms to move around etc. Most of the powers worked with ease and I loved watching the day switch between noon, sunset and night. However, the protagonist also has a power to illuminate the area around him, but the button to do this is the exact same button as attracting objects towards you. This means that if you’re just trying to see where to go, you will have chairs, desks and whatever else coming flying at you. This seems like it would be an easy fix (I could be wrong) but the physics of the game were a bit off. Sometimes I would walk into something only to be scared for my life as the bucket or random thing ricochets off the walls with the loudest of sounds I wouldn’t really say this game is a horror game (except maybe for the games wonky physics). It does not try to build the tension or atmosphere as seen in the last entry to the series. Morvin is semi threatening but I wouldn’t say he was portrayed to be frightening. I don’t think this is a negative, but it does seem like the saga is going in a new direction which I do think is for the best, but the title is a bit misleading. [h1]Visuals & Sound[/h1] The game is undeniably gorgeous and this is by far, the best element to the game. Just like the bright sunny visuals in The Wine, Carlos delivers here too. However, the beginning of the game is in a very dark and bland looking environment that made me worry. I was looking forward to seeing the visuals I had come to expect from this developer. Thankfully, as soon as I reached an outdoor environment, woah! The sulphur crested cockatoos flying across the barren wasteland, the detail in lighting, shadows and textures on the Australian outback. I spent much of my time walking around taking in the sights. Despite this area being quite literally, a desolate wasteland with nearly nothing in it, the environment felt so meticulously detailed with every texture on rocks, fallen trees or cliff faces being extremely realistic. Watching the breeze lightly sway the plants and how the sun changes the horizon between noon and sunset was relaxing. The photomode is also excellent and the amount of technical settings is reminiscent of much larger studios. Indoor environments absolutely pale in comparison to the outdoor environments, but I would absolutely love to see this developer release a walking simulator game with a pure focus on the visuals. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3277169977 Audio was a standout during the “boss battles” and felt almost unnecessarily hyped for what was actually going on but nevertheless, I enjoyed it! [h1]Technical & Stats [/h1] [quote][b]This game was played using a keyboard & mouse, and with the following PC specs. I played on maxed out settings averaging 100 FPS :[/b] AMD Ryzen R5 7600x 5.4 GHz 32GB DDR5 5200 CL36 RAM Radeon RX 6800 XT 2560x1440 resolution NVMe 3.0 SSD Windows 10[/quote] [b]Playtime:[/b] 3.5 hours or less to complete and 100% [b] Controller Recommended? [/b] Player choice. [b]Replayability value:[/b] No. There is a chapter select to mop up some last achievements if you missed them. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Horror Tales: The Beggar is a short game, with a short story and some outstanding visuals. Being developed by a one-man team, I am blown away by the attention to detail and creativity that has gone into this game. Although it has its shortcomings, namely its issues with physics and controls for powers, this is a great little game and exceeds the quality of most small-team horror titles here on Steam. Although the horror factor is no longer the focus of the game, I am really excited to see where CarlosGameDev takes the game next, and I applaud all of his efforts thus far. [quote] If you would like to see more reviews written by me, please follow my curator page and help support my work [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34936724/] Cookie Reviews[/url]. [/quote]

[h3]A TITLE WITH GOOD IDEAS AND STUNNING VISUALS BUT THAT FEELS MORE OF A TECH DEMO THAN A PROPER GAME[/h3] Carlos Coronado comes back with the second episode of his [i]Horror Tales[/i] series. [i]The Beggar[/i] is a game that has conceptually good ideas and visuals but overall it feels a half-baked product that required more time to be developed, as it needed more diversity in terms of gameplay and a longer playtime, especially for the required price tag. What I liked the most is the fact that you are able to manipulate the time and the weather conditions in order to solve the environmental puzzle. I really liked the art direction, there are some stunning post-apocalyptic landscapes. It is possible to capture them with the built-in photo mode, that allows you to make some adjustments to the image and apply some filters. The level design is very linear and does not give any room for much exploration, but I enjoyed it. I think that some things have improved since the last game: the cinematics are better and there is a new character that actually speaks, giving more dynamicity to the story. Unfortunately the pros end here, because there is an overall poor implementation. During our adventure we need to face two kinds of enemies: a humanoid monster with a skull face and some dogs. While the first seems pretty responsive and also challenging to fight, the latter are pretty buggy and they easily get stuck on doors or trees. The combat system is pretty frustrating: the only way that we have to fight is to pick objects from the ground, use some kind of charge (that takes around 4-5 seconds to complete) and then throw them at the enemy, in order to damage them. If we are hit by our opponents, the character will drop the object. We are not able to run while we are charging. Moreover, we cannot grab anything while walking. You need to stop in order to actually grab something, while you are chased down. I wonder why the developer did not add a power that allows the player to just launch some kind of magical bullets, especially considering that The Beggar already has several tricks up to his sleeves. I do not like overly complicated puzzles, but the enigmas present in this title are really basic and extremely easy to solve. [b]FINAL VERDICT[/b] I understand that a solo developer needs to face a lot of challenges, and I try to be understanding, but I finished this game in about two hours and the price is almost 12 euros, for a title that clearly is not complete and that it looks and feels more like a tech demo. Despite being part of a series, the narrative ties with the previous chapter are very weak and at times forced. As I mentioned in the review of [i]The Wine[/i], I believe that building a series like this requires more resources and people, in order to have a good and cohesive product. I hope that the next chapter will be better, but I am not sure if I am going to give yet another opportunity to this dev for [i]The Iron Reich[/i]. I really suggest to Carlos to stick with games like [i]Infernium[/i] and [i]Path Of Thalamus[/i], because this is clearly where he is shining.

I really liked the previous games by Mr. Carlos, mainly Infernium, and The Vine was pretty good too. But at all honesty I just can’t rate this game positively, it’s not a very good one. The Beggar introduces a bunch of mechanics that you don’t normally see in a Horror Game including using telekinesis to move and throw objects and even manipulating the world around you by changing weather and the daytime, and while all that stuff looks very promising it is extremely underdeveloped in terms of gameplay. Objects based puzzles never go further than “move a box right next to a wall to jump over”. World manipulations look very beautiful but all they do is basically "switching to nighttime to avoid sunburns, than turn on daytime to power a solar battery and than go back to night again" or turning on rain to get somewhere by swimming and than turning it off. Game promises to you some epic bossfights and indeed there are fights and combat but it is hardly epic as you just throw trash at the boss with your telekinesis and that’s basically it. Later game introduces some more combat mechanics and extra enemies but they don’t do much but wasting your time. Combat is super boring and also easy – I think I only died twice on my playthrough and both times I died by getting stuck between two enemies or an enemy and an obstacle. Game feels very incoherent. You get randomly sent to some random places including spooky abandoned hospital, Buddhist temple, burning forest etc. This hardly makes any sense and almost feels like a bunch of assets thrown together just because dev had them and wanted to use them. At some point you randomly run into a cave with a small puppy that you can feed and play with but this has no connection to the rest of the game and no real reason to be there. Story is pretty weird to say the least and is not very interesting either. The Beggar feels like a very ambitious project that simply does not work at all. The Vine was a simple game that was just fine in its simplicity. Infernium was flawed in many aspects, but it was really weird and original, and it looked completed. The Beggar looks like a mess of cool but unfinished ideas honestly. I don’t wanna sound too harsh as it is just a one man indie project but I hardly had any fun playing it and I can’t recommend it as well. I do like the other games by the same dev though.

Абсолютно скучный, не интересный, не хоррор. Все в игре сделано раздражающе. Если разработчик хотел сделать хоррор, то непонятно, чего бояться: полтора недоскримера, скучную пустыню с жарящим солнцем, а может "ой блин, платформа от меня улетела теперь ждать её возвращения"? Возможно, из игры хотели сделать интересный пазл? Пф. По итогу мы имеем наискучнейшие секции с перемоткой времени. Отдельный дискомфорт вызывает так называемая "боевка" в игре. Идея в целом нормальная, но в реальности, пока ты пытаешься притянуть хоть что-то для атаки, а потом ЗАРЯДИТЬ, тебя могут, как "тряпку", по арене кидать. Такой себе экспириенс. Не рекомендую ни как хоррор, ни как игру с головоломками.

7 / 10 This game took 2.5 hours to finish. + The graphics are exceptional, eye watering on max settings + For having such awesome graphics, the game actually ran super smoothly + The story is really interesting and connects to the developer's other games + Changing the weather and riding the platforms in the air was soothing and beautiful - I do not like the design of the main bad guy, he sticks out like a sore thumb in such beautiful environments - Charging up your hand for throwing objects and changing the weather takes a few seconds too long - None of the levels connect in a logical way, one minute you're in a hospital, the next you're in the sky, the next you're in a underground bunker etc - Sometimes the whole thing feels like an extra long tech demo and not a game - The last boss fight was a super annoying 30 minutes of throwing street pylons at the main bad guy with wolves running around biting you while he flies around in the sky. Its as ridiculous as it sounds, and frustrating. Despite its flaws I still recommend the game, most of it was alot of fun.

Beautiful game and fun to play, but the combat is atrocious.

Valoro mucho el esfuerzo, pero, aunque me gustaría poder votar en neutral, creo que The Beggar no consigue llegar al mínimo. Estaría mintiéndome a mí mismo. Hubo un punto en que sentí que este The Beggar no tenía tanto sentido como juego de terror pero que había encontrado algo en él. El sistema de físicas no era maravilloso, pero desde luego era fluido, y todos estos coqueteos con los juegos de puzles me daban lo suficiente como para una aventurilla puntual que podía resumir en un walking simulator con pasajes de plataformas y pequeños desafíos mentales. No me iba a cambiar la vida, pero todo era aceptable. Sin embargo, las terribles secuencias de combate y un diseño de controles más que cuestionable, acabaron por sacarme demasiado de la experiencia. Análisis completo en El BloJ: [url]https://elblojdeneojin.blogspot.com/2024/06/horror-tales-beggar-diferente-no.html[/url]

Me sabe muy mal porque he podido seguir el desarrollo durante un tiempo y creo que aun le faltan por lo menos de 1 mes de pulir el videojuego. Demasiados bugs de colisiones y en las peleas que se llegan a hacer injustas en un tipo de juego como este. Espero poder terminarlo cuando haya pasado un tiempo

Had to restart twice due to bugs. Enemy disappeared so couldnt continue(i assume i gotta defeat him before the next stuff), neccassary objects just not there, i regret buying it even on a discount, it looks good but gameplay is so far very unsatisfying and just plain BAD.

На удивление хорошо.