The Wizard's Lair

This game is EXACTLY what I was looking for. 1. Roguelike (in the purest form) 2. Relatively simple 3. Controller support.

its, really, not, that, good, and, im, not, sure, what, to, do, with, it

A decent enough little game that I could recommend on a sale; but the content here isn’t fleshed-out enough to validate anything beyond a dollar. The lack of any sound whatsoever is really off-putting. Even some royalty free sound effects alongside a basic ambient background track could go a long way in setting an atmosphere. There’s some additional minor critiques I had, but beyond aesthetics, the game functions as it should; and controller support is a plus. I hope you can fix these things and add some more stuff in the future; If you do I could easily recommend the game to others. You’re headed in the right direction and with a few refinements, I think this could be a really additive rouge-like.

Wow 2013... I thought for sure I was back in the early 80s but I like my C64 if I need some nostaligia cause frankly many of the titles played far better than this title... This is not the one... Try again.

This recommendation comes with a big caveat: as other reviews have pointed out, there's no "rest" command, so the only way to get your health back if you don't have any potions is by repeatedly mashing the "wait" button or walking back and forth, which would take several minutes and make the game unbearably tedious in the later levels when you have a ton of health. I used the free program JoyToKey to map one of the buttons on my controller to press the "wait" button 30 times a second, and this allows you to get health back at a reasonable rate. This function should be in the game, but I'm glad I was able to find a way around this problem, because other than that, I really like it. It's a short-ish minimalistic roguelike - I finished it in 8 hours (5 hours on Steam, 3 hours with the itch.io version, which is identical but doesn't have those hot cheevos) which for the asking price is totally fine. It's pretty chill, and there's not a lot to the combat, but I found exploring the levels, discovering things and figuring out strategies consistently rewarding. The game I'd most compare it to is Fatal Labyrinth on the Genesis, which is my favorite roguelike, but this game's even more streamlined - there aren't even any ranged combat options, no rings to equip, no magic wands. Combat is essentially just math - the enemies have almost no variation other than their damage numbers, so it just comes down to whether you have the equipment and stats to deal with them, and if not, whether you have scrolls and potions that can help. It's about as basic as an RPG can get. Despite this, I found it a pleasant experience. It's a good game to kick back and play while you relax and listen to some podcasts. If you're looking for a minimal roguelike RPG you can play with a controller, and you're willing to install JoyToKey, and you like games you can play with a podcast or stream on in the background, this is well worth the $3 asking price. Update: JoyToKey is no longer required since the Steam controller map tool now allows you to set a turbo button.

It's not a bad game but it really could use a basic tutorial from the start. Otherwise its not that bad but i will say it is like dark souls in 2d since if you are careful you can get overwelmed. But other than that is is a good game i'm going to try and beat it. update okay i beat the game and i have to say it is pretty good could use some music otherwise its not that bad. there is still some hidden achievements i still need to get otherwise the only annoying thing is the void monsters that teleport you when you get hit. Otherwise fun game i have nothing to complain about. - also thank you to you know who you are for gifting me this game. also this is not a joke review since its april first.

Simpler but not bad rl completely spoiled by fatal flaw: no rest command. You get hp back when moving or skipping turn; skip turn button doesn't repeat so you are forced to run up and down to get hp.

The Wizard's Lair is a roguelike game with simple graphics and gameplay. I've only gotten about halfway through the dungeon so far, but I have to say this is a little better than I expected. Some other roguelikes on Steam I played were a little underwhelming. Randomness was so wide in its range of benefits it seemed like all chance instead strategy. Enemies were so basic that it was really repetitive, and some games even don't have any enemy movement, so they just sit there and wait for you to bump into them. Whether you attack or not seems more puzzle-like than roguelike, and not attacking is kind of boring because you can't do anything else. There are a number of ways to make roguelikes uninteresting. But the Wizard's Lair is different. It doesn't have a huge number of enemies, but the ones it does have are at least up and moving around. After a while the levels are different. So far I've run into a labyrinth and a level that is all about teleporting around, and I imagine there has to be a few more. Not super thrilling (yet anyway), but something differnt to break up the monotony. One thing I don't like is in its attempt to be more user friendly than a typical roguelike game with 30 or more keyboard commands it maybe went too far the other way. For example, a common situation is that your inventory is full and you want to eat a mushroom or ration that you ran across. There doesn't seem to be an eat option right away. So instead you move one step away, hit "?" for the special screen, hit space for the inventory, select something you want to temporarily drop, choose drop, move back to the food, hit space to pick it up, hit "?" and then inventory, select the food and hit eat, and then move back to the item you dropped and pick it back up. I really hope there's an easier way I'm just not getting, because that's kind of silly. The graphics are kind of basic. They are retro-pixelly in a kind of a bland way instead of an artsy way. You know what I mean. But they work for what they are representing, anyway. All in all this is a shortish basic roguelike that might be a fun diversion for a bit or to learn how the style of games work. It's not to the level of some other roguelikes and roguelike-inspired games on Steam, but then it's cheaper, and certainly a lot better than other games that are the same price or even slightly more expensive. Steam doesn't have a rating system with number of stars from really bad to meh to OK to good to great. It's either thumbs up or thumbs down. Thumbs up then, because it's more on that side than the other one.