Islands of the Caliph

+ old-school graphics & style - old-school game play.. perhaps to detriment (IE: no modern QoL features) - a LOT of time wasted back-tracking (but that's true to form for old-school games) - quite a bit of "where do I go, what do I do?" - towns and islands are maze-like - some quests are scavenger hunts to find stuff scattered through-out the mazes (ugh) - the religious aspects of the game are optional... until they're not Basically, if you want to relive how old-school games like Bard's Tale, Wizardry, etc used to be, but with a fresh experience, this is the game for you. For me, all it does is remind me of how annoying / abusive those old games were, b/c we didn't have anything better to compare them by. Those old games were often made obtusely harder than they needed to be in order for the game dev companies to cash-in extra on cheat guide sales. Caliph doesn't seem like it's trying to do that. Everything about it seems "fair" from an old-school perspective. There's some puzzles, etc, and you can figure those out. But, I'm just annoyed at how MUCH it sticks to old-school style game play when better systems / ideas have long since come along. EG: they insist on you doing a TON of back-tracking. I'm ok with the usual amount, but this whole quest is designed around you constantly running back-n-forth to one main guy's island to fetch a new letter to deliver to another island. That's one way to get players to go explore the other islands. Or.. you know, you could just have NPC's you talk to drop rumors about other islands and let the player's curiosity naturally have them go want to explore the other islands on their own. But, no... gotta spend half the game back-tracking over and over to get a new letter. Likewise, you'll explore dungeons, and find doors you don't have keys to yet. Ok, fine. These dungeons obviously hold darker secrets than just the surface-level stuff you can access right now. Guess I'll have to back-track later. BUT, their journal doesn't let you type in notes. So, unless you manually wrote-down notes, you'll be looking up a FAQ to figure out what previous dungeons need what keys that you might have now. And, even then, you'll be going back-n-forth to like every dungeon you've already been to to open up it's "extra area". Being a 2.5D blobber dungeon crawler, they decided to do the old trick of making every city a g** d*** maze to navigate. And every island has a city. And every city has multiple people you need to find or remember to come back to. And the islands themselves are then extended outwards with this maze-like structuring. It wouldn't be so bad, but they put trees and rocks blocking your path everywhere. So, you have to find an axe and hammer to smash your way through sometimes. The first island you start on is small, so this isn't a big deal. But, each new island seems bigger and more obtuse than the last, and with people or locations hidden more and more obscure or annoying places. EG: there's a shopkeep you can sell monster parts to. The first island has them located in a back alley of the city. Each island after that the person is somewhere outside on the island. You know, hanging out with all the monsters that should be killing and eating them. (wut?) It makes no sense other than the devs thinking it would be funny to do this because it's "old school" (IE: needlessly aggravating). "Well, that's just some shopkeep" But, wait, there's more! Not let's take 10 pages of a book, and scatter them through out all the locations on an island, and tell you to go find them all! Isn't that compelling game play? No. It's not. Does it emulate old-school games? Yes. Because they're quests back then were about as barebones as you could get. But, emulating the look of an old-school game is one thing. Emulating the absurdity of them is just off-putting. The reason getting around and back-tracking is so annoying is because you have to keep finding all the ships that go to all the places you need to go to. And, the first island sets the trend that each island will have 2 or more ships that sail off to who knows where. So, you have to remember where you need to go, where to back-track to, which boat to hop. It's like trying to go through a huge city and having to remember all the buses you have to transfer to. It's annoying. The game has a map, but it's only a local map. There is no world map that would make it far easier to understand which island has travel connections to other islands. You'll need to sketch that out for yourself on some paper, silly goose. (Again, they couldn't be bothered to add a few QoL improvements). I'll mention the religious aspects of the game. The game is set in middle-eastern Islamic setting. I don't have a problem with that. Anyone that's played any RPG's will have gotten used to learning mantras, spells, rituals, and belief systems from other games. (EG: Ultima series had you learn a belief system to become the Avatar). In this situation, they're using a real religion. And the guide tells you that trying to do your best to stick with it provides bonuses, so you won't have to be too stickler if you miss a prayer or such. That is until you get to the end of the game. Suddenly you need to be a stickler about what time of year it is, what you're doing, how you're doing it.. in order to defeat the big bad. Don't present something as "this is optional, and only benefits you if you do it well" in a game if you're suddenly going to force people to abide by it very strictly later in the game to succeed. It reminds me of Deus Ex when you could play most of the game ninja style until suddenly you're forced into combats. Don't make it seem like you can play a game any way the player wants.. until you then say "sorry, you must now play it MY way to succeed." It's aggravating. I actually liked the islamic system they had going on in the game, because it was an interesting way to learn about it and follow it from a sociological perspective. It was a "hey, this is cool, and there's some benefits if I can remember it. But, I'm currently fighting monsters in a dungeon right now." sort of thing. But, the end of the game it was rammed on you in "you WILL do this, or you won't pass." Well, sheesh. Overall, I wanted to like the game. But, it's not like other "boomer shooters" or retro-style games that emulate old-school games, but add in quality of life features. EG: I played Legends of Amberland 1 & 2, which emulate old-school Might & Magic blobber games. They added in QoL features that made the games fun compared to slogging through old 80's / early 90's games they were based on. So, this game may be for folks that want a more true-to-life old-school game experience. It's just not for me. We played old-school games back then, b/c it's what we had. That doesn't mean everything about them was fantastic. We've moved on with better ways to do things in games now. Emulating old systems in games just to be "old school" is just time-wasting and insulting these days, IMO.

It’s not badly made but is extremely basic, simpler than Amberland for example. There’s not much here unless it’s your first dungeon crawler maybe. A few different armor and weapon types, several islands with a similar town on each, some fetch quests mostly involving food trading, talk to these people, defeat this enemy. It’s … fine, but I don’t see anyone getting excited about it. Good graphics and music.

I did not complete the game yet, but I am enjoying it very much. This game puts you in the setting of a low fantasy medieval middle-east where the region, or world, seems to be in a post-cataclysmic flooding event, as the only lands left are the peaks of the former land masses that were flooded hundreds of years ago. Throughout these hundreds of years, the people of these regions lost touch with not only each other, but their faith and culture. Some of the leaders look to other sources of power, such as the dark arts of magic, whilst others still hold onto their faith. It is up to you to help reuinite the Islands through your righteous deeds. Fans of Oriental classics will thoroughly enjoy the in-depth Islamic "mythology" of Djinn and other spiritual concepts. Playing through the game, it very much reminded me of TES:Morrowind. You start out with nothing, no guide, and you choose your own path. You start on your Homeland of Salam Island, and from there you can make your way to the surrounding 8 other islands. There is a Main Quest (from what I know so far), but this is not all there is, not by a long shot. There are other side quests that are very interesting in their own right (The Five Pillars). I don't want to be biased when making this review, as I am a Muslim myself, and that is what intrigued me to this product, so I will also say the main thing that I disliked about the game is that you technically only have a single save slot per "character" or "game". You can have 3 different games, but each can only be saved onto 1 save slot, and there is only 3 save slots in total. This makes the game a bit more hardcore as you can't just save scum. When you are defeated in combat, or die to illness, you are given the choice of loading your last save, or continuing on with less money and a couple of items lost (nothing you cant bounce back from). Overall, the thing that made me love the game the most was the way the developer created it in such an amazing educational manner. As I said before, I am a Muslim American, however there are somethings about my religion that I did not know about, such as the Islamic Months, which can be found in a book in-game. You can really learn alot about Islam from just playing this neat little RPG. The story is intriguing enough to make you want to keep finding more information. The game is excellent in it's level design, clearly taking influence from amazing classic CRPGs, you got dungeons, you got outdoor areas, and you have different enemies. You really can't go wrong with this game for $10. Not only will you have fun, but you will also learn about what Muslims truly believe, and who knows? Maybe this could be the bridge to your own spiritual journey of finding the meaning to life, or finding your own truth. I'd recommend it to anyone nonetheless. P.S. This is a great game to play while fasting in real life LOL

TL;DR: Recommended for fans of the genre, but with a few caveats that players should know going in. The Good: - Beautiful look and feel. Very immersive and evocative - Emphasizes the most palatable and devotional aspects of Islam for very unique worldbuilding - A reasonably believable "low fantasy" setting with lots of travel back and forth between islands - An important, but not too challenging survival system (food, medicine to treat injuries, etc.) - The world really feels open despite the confines of a "blobber". You can go many places before you're necessarily ready to progress, and the game will send you back to familiar locales later in the plotline - Auto-mapping is old school friendly in that there is no note-taking. Many players (myself included...next time I play) would benefit from a notebook alongside the keyboard The not-so-good: - After about 6 hours, I realized that I'd made a couple of glaring mistakes that are making the game EXTREMELY tedious, requiring a lot of money grinding and sailing back and forth in order to proceed. - Standard keyboard controls are not good. The combination of buttons necessary to interact with menus and objects is quite clumsy and results in a lot of mis-types - The amount of description and flavor text for quests is problematically minimal. The journal is basically unhelpful beyond stating "look for this thing" - The leveling up and character development system is not very important. I never found an area where combat was so challenging as to require spending any points on attributes Things to know before purchasing: - There is absolutely NO tutorial, and a fair number of large-impact decisions in the game. These have an impact not only on story, but on quality of life and convenience within the game world (LIKE FAST TRAVEL, OR LACK THEREOF) This is exciting and encouraging, but not for the casual gamer. If you make rash decisions, you may pay dearly! - NO mouse whatsoever - There is a lot of exploration required. One must either be EXTREMELY thorough or do some guesswork in order to find necessary keys - A notebook is probably recommended for those serious dungeon crawlers out there - There is very little available online for walkthrough/hint assistance. I have read and can understand people getting stuck and abandoning the game Speaking of abandoning, that is what I have done after my handful of hours. However, this is good enough that I will come back to it...after re-reading my own notes above!

This is open world RPG/immersive sim done right, using a first-person discrete dungeon crawler interface, beautifully rendered. It delivers on something I'd been wishing for since playing Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (not to completion), and Eye of the Beholder 2 (to completion) - a sense of space and freedom, within the confines of an interface that makes it all manageable and clear. No pixel hunting. No obtuse dungeon puzzles (which might disappoint some EotB fans). Just a world that feels big, but is full of stuff and people to talk to. A larger goal and then some small ones that sometimes tie back into that goal. Choices that have consequences, some reversible, others not. Having gotten all the achievements, and finished the game, I still feel there's more to do. It always felt like there was a lot to do and find out. I got to the end in a somewhat roundabout way, and the systems were robust enough to let that happen. A few times I felt like I was stuck - but some additional exploration and revisiting some NPCs were enough to point me in the right direction. Sometimes the need for rest or food pushed me in weird directions - usually to my ultimate benefit. I found the Islamic elements refreshing - supposedly you don't have to engage with them too closely to win, but you kind of do for the achievements, they undergird the lore, and they do motivate the themes of the various quests of the game. If you are strongly tied to another religion, or irreligious, it might put you off, but I hope it doesn't. I come from a Jewish background, so the strictly scheduled praying and other duties tied to time of day and year felt familiar. Additionally, I've lived where I could hear the call to prayer from the nearest mosque, so this was a bit nostalgic for me. In short - give this an hour, and I'm sure you'll be spending many more.

出中文了，第一时间先给个好评。

This is a tepid recommendation for most people. Calling this an old school dungeon crawler is a bit of a stretch: it's really more like a first-person NES Zelda-like with a strong Muslim flavoring. The main thing you do is fill out your map on new islands, explore ruins, find treasure, and complete some very basic quests. How basic? Well 90% of them are either fetching fruits or books from other islands. The main quest is more interesting, but you probably will be wandering around unsure of what to do at one point or another. Like choices and consequences? There are some pretty steep consequences for being a bad guy in this game, from killing important NPCs outright to paying a ludicrous sum to proceed the main quest [spoiler] that's what ended my playthrough lol [/spoiler] The best thing about the game is definitely the aesthetic. It's unique, colorful, beautiful, and retro in all the right ways. Some of the characters look like they were made in MS Paint, but it adds to the handmade charm in my book. The music is all stupendous and puts you right in the mood. There's level ups, but they don't really do much. Purchasing gear is the #1 way to increase your character's damage and survivability. And the combat from beginning to end is attack when it's safe, block when it isn't. The whole game. It's basic bordering on ischemic. One thing I do like about the game is that some weapons have unique uses. Scimitars can cut down small shrubs! Hammers can smash rocks! Sometimes this opens up hidden paths to treasure! It's surprisingly satisfying, given how simple the game is at the core. It unfortunately has to be said because there's always [i] those kinds of people [/i] lurking in the corners of the internet, but this game isn't propaganda. Not unless A Christmas Carol is propaganda too. The game promotes monotheism, charity and helping those in need. A pretty basic "don't be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" ethos. You get a minimal EXP bonus for praying five times a day and fasting during Ramadan. That's basically it. You can safely play this game as the world's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Muslim and just enjoy the aesthetic uninhibited. You can even help a murderous pirate escape prison or a Satan-worshiping sorcerer summon an evil Djinn. So once again: not propaganda, just flavoring from (probably) the dev's personal religious beliefs.

I would recommend this with the caveat that you go in knowing: - Keyboard only controls - Cryptic quest objectives - You have to thorougly explore - Note taking really helps Unfortunately I got motion sickness when playing this game so I was unable to complete it.

This is a really great game! It stuck in my mind after playing the demo, but it wasn't until I learned the mechanics related to the pillars of faith that I trurly fell in love. In this game you can learn a lot about Islam and that's wonderful because as a white woman from Europe I could never do this in my entire life so that's really interesting for me. The game has also beautiful retro design. I have a little request tho. Could you upload OST on youtube or spotify? Because music is really great and I wanted to share it with friends which I already told about the game. I keep my fingers crossed for your future projects!

I installed the game and really enjoyed it for about twenty minutes before I had to quit to go and do some tasks. When I came back I was never able to get it to run again. RPG_001.exe failed. Tried un-installing and re-installing. Worked until I closed the game and then never worked again. Don't feel like reinstalling it every time I want to play. I guess this was built on an old engine which seems to be the issue so I can't recommend it until it's rebuilt on something more modern and stable like Unity or Godot.