This game has an interesting enough premise, an attractive visual design and even an incomparable price point.......but ALL of that is woefully underscored by an unforgivable and, frankly, asinine execution.
There has not been a single attempt to play this game so far that wasn‘t foiled almost immediately, in mere seconds by randomly placed, unavoidable obstacles.
Even when you do learn enemy movement patterns, it doesn't mean zip when they frequently block the only path forward with no reasonable way to either circumvent or eliminate them. And, this is to say nothing of the randomly-shuffled around pit traps and dead-end paths that can also instantly end your game without any warning or way to get around them.
This game could really have used some kind of basic entry level to ease new players into how everything works before beating them over the head with it all at once in the first go because, as it stands, this like teaching a grade schooler to swim by chucking them head-first into a damned kiddy pool with vipers in it.
Not fun and more than a little sadistic.
Edit to add: Alright...... Following the developer's addition of a new difficulty update and their personally entreating me to try the game again. I decided to do so.....although, right on the surface of it, calling it a "Wimp Mode" for "the most block-headed players" already has me thinking this probably was not done in anything resembling good faith (or even good taste).
Yeah....... Ok, Chief. 🙃
I'm going to consider this as an invitation to be as crass and mean-sprited as I was initially trying *not* to be about this humble offering.
Bon Apetit. 💩 Let's Begin! 😃
So, right off the bat, the *brilliant* idea put in play here to make this borderline unplayable mess into, y'know, a "game" that can actually be picked up and played for any appreciable length of time, is to remove all the enemies entirely from the map.
While this does show a rather surprising level of cognizance toward one of the main things causing problems with the game's playability........ it still doesn't really count as a "solution" to it so much as what a bratty, irate, and poopy toddler might do by snatching their toys away because you, the grown-up who bought them, was "playing with them wrong" (sorry, Jimmy.😏).
STILL, this mode does offer a better glimpse at some of the other previously nigh unreachable game elements that *would* be in store for players (stones to break walls, axes to chop trees, actual freaking progress, etc.) if not for constantly impassable and unbeatable enemies and obstacles dotting the only path forward.
Now, I am no game designer or developer myself and have nothing of the sort with which to credit my own name to. But I do PLAY an inordinately large amount of the things and it would seem to me the most endemic feature a game needs to have in order for people to enjoy playing them, is a reasonable means by which to either eliminate or avoid the obstacles in the game. I mean, that's as basic as bloody Pac-Man, for f**k's sake. 🙄
When your game routinely forces you to do neither and just die/lose, within mere *seconds* of play, that is just crap design. And I'm not sure that any block-headedness on my or any other player's part is really what's at fault here.
It would seem to me that perhaps a better thing to try might be to let players at least start with one of the temporary weapons or tools in the game to help them progress around a thoroughly blocked path when one is encountered in the early stage. Maybe make the game map a bit wider with fewer trees, walls and things in the way so there's more room to maneuver?
And maybe not block correspondence and criticism from players while releasing tantrum patches to insult them, hmm? Just a thought. 🤔
I'm eager to see if any of these suggestions get added in any future updates, but it may be a while before I check again. even a dungeon muncher can only eat a turd so many times......... 😊
