Mystical Map

A really great challenge for just a few bucks! The option to choose your path and by extension the items/challenges you'll encounter on your runs is a really innovative idea for the genre. I found myself going for more runs just to see what cool item and secondary weapon combos could help me defeat the bosses. Hope the dev sticks with it because I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with next

Rogue-lites are one of my favorite style of games, as you always get a different experience! So far this game has been challenging in a good way! It's fun, the music is good, and the art is cute! The controls feel good, and the attacks feel satisfying. The traversing feels smooth, and I am always weak for a good wall jump! I'm looking forward to dying a lot, and then getting better as it goes! It feels very polished for such a low cost game!

The idea might be interesting, but the execution and combat are not great. The twist is quite intriguing. You have a blank map that contains random occurrences like combat encounters, new weapons, and healing. Before you may play the map, you must draw a path from beginning to end. However, you can only create a limited number of paths, so you won't be able to see everything. The empty rooms connecting events contain basic random enemies. Aside from jumping and wall-jumping, you can use a basic attack and dash to get away. Unfortunately, battle is bad. A room is filled with a variety of melee and ranged enemies who strike quickly. You will always lose health because the game does not encourage careful play. Dash is meaningless because it does not always negate damage and carries you too far, so by the time you return to an enemy to attack, it has already recovered for the next attack. This leaves you with no option but to lunge at an enemy and spam attack. There's the bothersome knockback. This is painful with spear lizards that keep attacking and pushing you back. The worst is when you're pushed into a new screen. Enemies can swap rooms, but this also regenerates their health. Some rooms include platforming challenges requiring you to avoid spikes. Because of the dash over which you have no control, you are continually dashing into danger. Chests contain relics. These can be either a perk such as more damage, or a secondary weapon. These weapons use energy that is in very short supply, so they can become useless after a while. They’re not that great to begin with either. An attack where you throw an uppercut always misses unless you activate it at the right distance. Defeated enemies gives you ink that lets you buy upgrades. Each stage has its own upgrades, and most of it are locked until you hit certain milestone. The most important is the one that lets you add more rooms to a map. You might make things easy for yourself by grinding ink and improving, but bad combat won’t allow you to see what the game has to offer.

Interesting premise but the game falls flat. The idea of creating your own level sounds good but the issue is you are limited to so many rooms so it ends up being a straight line to the end with one or two turns. The combat isn't good. Fighting enemies is a trap. There only reason to fight monsters is to gain ink which is used for some very limited meta progression. Since the enemies only drop ammo for your secondary weapon, fighting enemies just depletes your life. Enemies are damage sponges with the weakest taking 3 to 4 hits. So you end up doing a hit and run strategy for every one because enemies don't stagger. This means the best strategy is just to run from everything since most chests can be open without fight any enemies.

before playing this, I’d never seen anything where you can literally map out your own path like this… I guess Rogue legacy would be the closest thing (but on a much larger scale) because it will rearrange the map, but in this you control the arrangement, which is very interesting. since playing this I did find another game using the same map mechanic, but it wasn’t really that good (plus it didn’t have pixel art, so this game wins based off that alone!) Hope the developer decides to keep making games, I’d like to see what else he comes up with. *I know a lot of people have a bug up their bum-bum about certain assets being used by a lot of other people in their games, but if the game is good, and the assets aren’t horrible looking, I don’t get what the problem is? I think I have 5 games with this same character (maybe more), and I’ve grown quite fond of the little fella!

The game has an interesting premise, but doesn't do much with it. The map creation phase doesn't have much too it, just filling out a route with some room types. Most of your time will be spent traversing the map and fighting things. However, the poor combat and floaty jumping doesn't make either of those feel good.