Shadowkin

Cool concept demo. Unfinished as a game. Nothing much changed if you played the demo. [h1]Positives[/h1] I mentioned it's a good concept demo, because in this game you have 2 characters have their own (in-run acquired) skill and shared items that buff those skills. Dying on 1 character transfers control to the other one, but obviously you lose half of your damage. You'll also find a few interesting skill designs. For instances, there are blades drop on the ground, and if interacted with fly in an arc. This potentially juggles them infinitely. One item can also have them interact on their own. Item design is quite good, as most of them have unique effects rather than boring damage buffs. For example: There's one that on specific skill activation can create sword that can be picked up to deal a strong AoE. The game's balance doesn't let many of those items shine. For example: the aforementioned sword is rare to spawn and doesn't seem to even take out half of basic monster's health at stage 2. [h1]Poor visibility[/h1] [list] [*] Late stage 2 your own attacks block a lot of vision. I gate this exact feedback to the demo. Somebody responded with "Disable visuals in accessibility settings". I'd accept it as a temporary workaround, but not a solution. [*] Unclear hitboxes and no enemy feedback. The only way to know you got hit is to see your health bar go down. [*] Bosses contribute to already poor visibility. [/list] There are also obstacles that block your movement, but not enemy projectiles that feel [h1]Weightless combat[/h1] [list] [*] Low damage/Tanky enemies (not a problem by itself) [*] Enemies do not get staggered (and usually don't react) when hit [*] Many enemies also move quickly. [/list] The things above make for combat where your attacks (even if they cover half of screen) never feel like they connect and/or feel weak as even basic stuff is dying really slowly. You're basically getting weaker as the run progresses. In developer's own words they went for Roguelike+Survivor hybrid and figured it's done well. I think that was a mistake, because now the game doesn't have the precise controls many roguelikes have, the power fantasy survivor games offer nor the weight due to being a survivor balanced closer to roguelikes. [h1]Contact damage[/h1] Combine contact damage with poor visibility, weird hitboxes, fast moving tanky enemies and the fact they don't get staggered and you get a lot of difficult to avoid damage that doesn't feel fair. [h1]Damage-sponge Bosses[/h1] Combine huge boss healthbars with poor visibility, attacks that cover half of your screen and still don't feel like they connect you get a very messy experience. Basically, you're evading boss attacks you can barely see while seeing so many numbers you can't pick out individual ones and the healthbar is barely moving. Boss attacks range from super easy to evade to impossible (either because of visibility, or because ridiculously imprecise dashes are difficulty to land into a tiny safe area that keeps moving). [h1]Skill direction[/h1] Some skills have odd controls as they aim (or get placed and move) in direction of character's movement, which is an awful choice, because you're ALWAYS running away from enemies. Using those skills essentially requires running, tapping back then running. While on this topic, melee feels awful, until skill size is increased to a point where it no longer qualifies as melee. [h1]Summary[/h1] This is a great tech demo, but mediocre as a complete game. I hope they tune it. If not I hope other devs carry the torch with some of the concepts presented in this game.

The game was good at first, sadly I can't recommend it as I refuse to support this dev. He makes a game, doesn't finish it and never solves bugs, lashes out at the community for any critisisme and then abandons their games and makes a new cashgrab with the excuse that they are burned out. It's just a scam at this point and the dev should be banned from steam.

✔ skills and relics are pretty complex ✔ you control one character and AI controls another, invulnerable one. Both level up at the same time, so you kind of make two builds at the same time ❔ no life leech or regen, even between stages except for one shop item (which can stack) ✘ extremely repetitive - you get exactly the same minor choices on every level on every run ✘ melee and ranged character archetypes only. They get exactly the same skills. Also melee is nearly unplayable, because you have to play defensively ✘ quite low number of relics and skills in general ✘ skills or relics you pick don't really matter, everything will work out but ✘ you absolutely have to buy life sustain and max life whenever possible ✘ you must know beforehand the moves of bosses no.3 and no.4, otherwise you can get bleed stacks that kill you within seconds from full life ✘ extremely easy at the beginning and extremely hard later on (unless you stack proper life sustain, then it's all easy and boring except bosses, which are unfair)

I'm finding this too difficult to be fun - specifically the boss fights, as they are just a constant barrage of AOE puddles interspersed with other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like undodgeable whirlwinds, or full screen "rain" attacks. There is little to no healing mechanics you can utilize, which for me makes the game feel like a constant fight to avoid chip damage. I was hoping this game might be closer to Horde Hunters or Warm Snow, both games with great consistent mechanics that still offer interesting variety over the vanilla Vampire Survivors. All that said, I don't think this game is irredeemable - there is a lot to love, it just isn't there yet.

한국어 평가가 아직 없어서 선발대 기분으로 느낀 점 적어봄. 멀티게임 같아보이지만 실제는 혼자서도 하기에 아무 문제없다. 2P는 자동조종, 게다가 잘싸운다. 플레이어가 죽으면 2P 조종이 가능해져 실제로는 잔기 역할. 번역은 큰 문제는 없는듯. 근데 고유용어에 대한 설명이 부족해서 좀 아쉬움. 스토리 없음. 본인기준으론 재미는 있었음. 의미없는 이런류 장르에서 잘 보이는 20분 시간때우면서 버티기가 아닌것도 맘에 들었음. 스테이지는 도전과제로 볼 때 아무 6(1~10)스테이지까지 있는 듯? 6스테이지 보스에서 죽어서 그 후는 어찌되는지 모르겠음. 스킬트리가 많은건 맘에 드는데 적당한 노가다로는 이 스킬을 다 찍어볼수가 없음. 스킬을 올리기 위해서는 일정수의 적을 죽여야 하는데 스킬포인트가 많이 오르지 않는다. 스킬 포인트를 찍는 다른 방법으로 도전과제를 달성하면 스킬포인트 1을 주는데 도전과제 수도 많지 않고 몇개 빼곤 조건이 까다롭다. 엄청난 노가다를 하지 않을 거면 어느 한 쪽으로 특화된 스킬트리를 타야 될듯. 도전과제 관련 : 똥손은 100%는 커녕 70%채우기도 어려울 듯, 노히트 도전과제도 많고 다른 조건들도 그냥 무지성 플레이보단 약간의 의식을 가지고 해야 딸 수 있는 도전과제가 많다.(달성 조건은 친절하게 설명되어 있다.) 참고로 3번째 보스 피닉스는 화면의 75%을 채우는 범위공격을 하는데다 그 남은 25%에서도 범위공격을 해오는데 이걸 한대도 안맞고 깨는 도전과제도 있다.... (보스 클리어 자체는 똥손도 가능하고 컨이 되면 될수록 쉽다.)

[h3]Things that influence the review of the game:[/h3] The multiplayer is buggy, where the second player will be unable to dash if they pick up any dash skills... Remote play is even more buggy, where the second player will be unable to hear any audio. Unfortunately, the dev does not seem to be fixing these major bugs. It seems like they have instead worked on a new game and released it last month. Not really expecting the game to be updated with new content, but at least fixing the major bugs would go a long way. If you play single player, neither of these bugs will affect you. However, I believe there are a couple more bugs that I didn't encounter that others did and it does not look like they have been fixed either. Over half the meta progression skill tree nodes are boring and it takes quite a long time to earn skill points and the skill tree sort of drives how you will play the game based on what you selected, so it doesn't allow for much variance during a run. [h3]Things that don't directly affect the review of the game, but would have been nice:[/h3] Would have been nice to have skill tree loadouts and the ability for each player to select them, as each player doesn't always want to play the same way as each other. The prologue/demo had what looked like placeholders for 5 characters to pick from, but then they were never added and only 2 characters are playable. There was talk about maybe adding a third to the game after launch, but it might never happen. With the way relics are set up, it makes more sense for both players to go the same elements. Most relics do something to a specific element or procs off of using specific elements. Since players are not able to pick their own relic and must share the same one, that means that it's far better to both use the same elements so that each can benefit from the relics.

Lots of build variety. Skill tree lets you augment difficulty how you want. It's like 10 bucks. Perfect amount of time for price. Perfect kind of game for couch co-op shenanigans. Remote play-together for playing with friends who don't own it. Only gripe(s) is the amount of content enemy/stage wise, feel like enemy variety / stage variation could be a little better. Maybe some other form of NG+ system could be added other then skill tree augments. It feels bad investing into difficulty scaling with earned experience points. Solid 8/10 as is.

Far less content than can normally be expected from other games in the genre Very little variance between runs The only meta-progression worth speaking of is the skill tree, which is full of uninspiring options

its actualy pretty good, but it feels unfinished and its seems like the dev have droped the project, sadly...

https://youtu.be/qA2KC-Eyito Upgrades and progression lack enough punch to make player choices feel impactful. Causing the elements that work well not stand out enough to elevate the game above others.