Keyboard Warrior

Got a reccommended YouTube video of the developer explaining what the game is. With all due respect, I didn't even finish the video before blasting off to the Steam page and buying it. For the price, this game is excellent. I saw some negative reviews below critisizing the game's sharp learning curve, but that's a false statement, if you ask me. This game is as challenging as your typing skills. That being said, if you have to look down at your keyboard to see the position of the keys, this is probably going to be a bit more difficult for you. But in my honest opinion, anyone who's finished high school and has had to write a few essays will be able to love this game, as when you get past the controls, what you have is an excellent game with a beautiful artstyle and banging soundtrack. The only complaint I may have is the fact that the menus are a bit rudamentary and confusing, but again, once you get used to them, they're also fine. I beat the first boss so far and am excited to get to the rest of the game <3 One detail I also noticed is that my GPU was a bit louder than expected for a game with PS1 adjacent graphics, which is also why I'm also posting my specs here, as IMO that shouldn't be happening here.

Big fan of groches games I think the game is nice overall i like how the keyboard is utilized, you dont see that kind of creativity that much anymore, thats mostly what i love about grouches games, he takes a crazy silly idea and makes a whole game on it with a lot of love and care put into it, its one of the things i love about indie games nowadays more than traditional games made by big studios. The artstyle is lovely, very retro, something you would see in a old arcade,i love it. Shoutout to SuitNtie, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ underrated. I like how all the 4 biomes have unique enemies. anyway i think thats all the good things i have to say i may forgotten some ill just comeback later to add. (the bad) I have seen some a few reviews talking about how the difficulty spikes during the middle levels, which i do agree, i feel like the desert biomes is where this happens. The desert levels feel like multitasking hell. you have to watch out for tumbleweed, i lost so many waves because i forgot to lookout for the tumbleweed that comes out of nowhere and snipes you like in MW2 lobby. The clouds could def be bigger they are like the size of an average 2000 dollar a month nyc apartment. Ill give some ideas on how to make them better later in the review dw. And most desert waves have atleast 2 diffrentt types of enemies so combine all of that it feels overwhelming. Snow levels are fine though random generated waves sometimes have no ice blocks or like 10 and you have to navigate them like a maze. Random generated waves do feel pretty unbalanced you can either clear them in like 5 seconds or a minute depending on what kind of enemies and how many spawn. (suggestions) alright so suggestions and some ideas on how to fix the bad stuff (im not a game designer, im not sure how good of a solution these things are) i feel like tumbleweed should probaply spawn less frequently and maybe slower? clouds if i remember they were the size of 4x2 so maybe 4x3 or 5x3 could do the trick. honestly somehow balance out the random waves, that will probably fix the slight difficulty spike mid game. PLEASE PLEASE ADD A BOSSFIGHT HEALTH BAR, i mean its cool to see some of the enemies have smoke coming out of them meaning they are half health but... y know it would be pretty cool and awesome and super duper sweet if you can add health bars to the bosses. im assuming the endless mode from the demo is coming to the game. at some point maybe, it was pretty fun and could make the game more replayable, it could be an post game reward like in Thunder Jumper. long yap session over 7/10

This game has a great visual style and a unique gameplay concept. It's definitely worth your money especially for the low price that is asked. In terms of the gameplay it can be a bit hit or miss at times and there is a very large skill floor before it properly clicks. Those acquainted with the full range of their keyboard and know where their fingers need to be for a specific key at all times will have a massive advantage over those who might only game using WASD and keys around that region. The character Santiago, an adorable mouse adventurer, mostly attacks by moving between the keys on the keyboard which translates to a position on the gameboard with the matching key, any enemy caught between the line made between the keys (either up, down or diagonal) will take a point of damage, most enemies take multiple hits. This leads to moments where the player can spam between something like Q and P to deal damage in a massive line to any enemy caught between. Ah but it is not so simple as being able to spam attacks as many of the enemies have a special action such as firing off pellets when struck or absolutely drifting around the stage and off screen so the player only has a small window to hit them. The player is not without their special moves either however, as you progress through the stages various bits of equipment will be made available which lets the player shift their loadout for specific encounters or to suit playstyles which is an amazing addition. Each 'biome' offers a handful of different mechanics as well as some unique and returning monsters for example the ice biome will have certain tiles which freeze the character if they either attack through a tile or land on the tile itself. The desert biome has a heat gauge where the player must park themselves under slowly moving clouds to cool down or risk taking a point of damage. The music is pleasant and hypes the player up for play, it's very arcade beat em up adventure coded. While the game is great I do have some gripes and annoyances that have spoiled some sessions for me. One of these is that sometimes you will attack through an enemy that will then perish however it will still do damage to you at times if you landed just behind them, this is pretty annoying as you only get 3 hits until you die and in the harder stages those health points can be critical. Then there's biome specific complaints, the desert can be extremely fickle and annoying at times with where the clouds spawn. How slow they are and some of the hazards like tumble weeds spawning from the left with only a gust of wind as a warning and sweeping across the screen very quickly before you can react as there are other annoying enemies that fire spikes in a + sign when hit or spawn fast moving somewhat tanky snakes so making fast moves to avoid the weeds can be a death sentence. Now normally that'd be fine, just don't stay near the left, but sometimes the enemies will be swarming the right side where the only cloud in the stage is currently and to reduce your rapidly increasing heat gauge you'll need to catch the next cloud spawning on the left side of the stage which moves very slowly. And while on the topic of clouds in the desert, the Boss Mechagregor will LOVE to camp entire clouds with its body that takes up 9 whole tiles and will either follow the cloud or stay on the left side of the screen so any new cloud spawning will be blocked, leading to taking hits from overheating or from his adds which are released whenever he is hit. I'd love to see the desert be made a little more player friendly if there are ever any patches or updates, maybe making the clouds larger, different shapes or blow in from different angles so enemies cannot camp them as easily. As a very small side note I'd also like to see the player's attack line be slightly wider too as some enemies that are unbound to the grid-like nature of the gameboard can avoid attacks by being between tiles which can lead to hits and annoyance. Overall I love the game, and a lot of my gripes I'm sure are skill issues on my part, I'm going to continue to git gudder and can't wait to see what else comes from the game.

Pretty good so far: minor criticisms Difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, some more easy levels to get through would be nice. The desert area is especially noticeable for this, as there's so much going on That being said I see a lot of potential here, good job dev :)

Very fun but no matter what I do in settings I cannot get the screen to size correctly and the sides are always cut off. I would really appreciate if the dev would fix this problem it would make the game much more enjoyable.

Divertido, original, desafiante, bonito y rápido. Así describiría este juego. Se nota el cariño y la dedicación que los desarrolladores pusieron en cada detalle. La banda sonora me encantó; es espectacular y desde los primeros minutos deja claro el tipo de experiencia que te espera. Los gráficos son muy bonitos y los escenarios tienen mucha personalidad. Cada entorno introduce mecánicas, enemigos y obstáculos propios, lo que hace que el juego se sienta fresco de principio a fin. Si tuviera que señalar un punto negativo, sería la curva de dificultad. En mi experiencia, se siente como una montaña rusa: algunos niveles intermedios me resultaron bastante más difíciles que los finales. Esto ocurre porque el juego presenta nuevas mecánicas o ideas en momentos en los que todavía no es evidente cómo resolverlas, quizá aún no cuentas con el equipamiento adecuado o simplemente no estás preparado para ese desafío. No diría que sea injusto, pero sí puede llegar a ser frustrante. Aun así, disfruté muchísimo la experiencia. Es un juego con mucha personalidad, que se siente hecho con pasión y que recomendaría sin dudar a cualquiera que busque un desafío entretenido y original.

For a game with such a unique and frankly inspired control scheme, this game doesn't give you a lot of time to get used to it before it starts to get very difficult. A difficulty option would be very appreciated, and I imagine it would be even more so for people who aren't as familiar with their keyboard. The game also has a lot of rough edges, including some audio bugs in the main menu. That said, the art style is very charming and normally I would be happy to leave a positive review off the concept and visuals alone, even if I didn't personally love the game. With all that said... the reason I am leaving a negative review is because of my experience with the game's first boss. After several attempts, I defeated the boss "Treebane" and received the Steam achievement for beating the boss. I was then immediately killed by the razor blades that bounce around the boss arena, which persisted after the boss was defeated. I can appreciate that sort of hostile game design in some cases, but the fact that my Steam achievements claimed I defeated the boss really peeved me. Getting the achievement notification also made me think the fight was over. This absolutely has to be an oversight by the developers, but it really frustrated me, and made me further frustrated when I beat the boss again and realized I had to break open the treasure chest while still avoiding the blades. Mind you, this is a game where you can only take 3 hits (4 with equipment), and being in the wrong place is as easy as one erroneous keystroke. This is the sort of challenge you can expect with this game. This whole ordeal, combined with the fact that the desert and snow areas were already getting even more involved without much time to breathe, made me not want to continue playing - at least not without an option to lower the difficulty. One last minor peeve I would like the developers to be aware of: I really did not enjoy the fact that, upon transitioning to a new wave, you can immediately dash onto the keyboard after the board resets. My gamer instinct is to dash all around the board in celebration and to let off steam, but the fact that this behavior was punished with frame 1 teleporting into the enemy was not fun. This could be addressed by adding a brief window where the game does not accept inputs at the start of the level (with an indicator to let the player know when they can start) to prevent this from happening.