Trials of the Gauntlet

Honest review, though I must admit that I received the game for free. First and foremost I must point out that this game is made as a mid-term or finals project by 5 students attending Full Sail. With that out of the way, I can say that I did think that the game was OK. It's very short, able to be completed in about 20 minutes if you really get the hang of the controls (more on that later), and I was able to get through it in about 45 minutes. The game has a visual charm that goes back to early SNES and Genesis platformers, before the game studios really got their wings with those systems. You can definitely tell where Broken Dinosaur Studios got their inspiration for Trials of the Gauntlet. Unfortunately, the sound is a bit lacking. Some (most) enemies don't make any sound when they perform their attacks, and those sounds that do play can end up gliching out. One such time occurred when I died and the death sound kept playing over and over for about a minute. The music is obviously inspired by the action platformers of the 16-bit era. It does bring back fond memories of those days. I found it was a bit subdued, and fades into the backgroud as you play, however, making it a bit forgetable. The tracks aren't very long, though, and end up looping quite a bit. Again, this is quite a bit like the 16-bit days so it's passable. Gameplay is reminiscent of Castlevania, if Simon Belmont were able to use his whip as a grapple and wielded a sword. In fact, it kind of made me wish for a new 2D Castlevania featuring a Belmont. But you've got your standards, here. You can jump, and eventually double and triple jump. The grapple allows you to reach different heights, and even swing between platforms. Unfortunately, the controls leave something to be desired. When you first start the game you are greeted with a setup that allows you to remap the keys. In this menu it is obvious that some support for controllers was started, but never finished, so you're stuck with using the keyboard and mouse for the controls. Here's where the game fails the most, or maybe where I fail. You use the mouse to aim your grapple and, depending on how the screen scrolls, you can end up overtaking your mouse and firing the grapple in the wrong direction. Movement is a bit wonky as well, as you can be running at full speed and suddenly slow down for no reason at all. This makes jumping between platforms more difficult than it should be. If you accidentally let go of your movement key in the middle of a jump, you lose all momentum and cannot gain it back if you press the key again. However, you do have the benefit of sometimes gaining a big boost to speed and jump height if you are hit by an enemy or jump into spikes. This can help you get out of hairy situations. Overall, you're faced with a decision: Buy a $2 game that you can get the full value out of in spite of its drawbacks, or pass and not miss out on anything. I got the game for free, but I wouldn't be angry if I had paid for it. I've spent more on games that I ended up hating. I'm all about supporting up and coming game devs, though. My history of purchasing Early Access games can attest to that. So I say go ahead and get it. It's not as if you're helping the devs buy a new Ferrari, but you are helping to support the dreams of 5 students. If I were scoring it, I'd give it a 2.75/5.

Non et les succès ne fonctionnent pas.

it wasn't good

Quick short fun game - Totally worth it to just mess around in. Greatly put together but an awesome dev team! You can check out when I streamed it here: https://youtu.be/JEMr6B1rOag

A nice little platformer. It takes a while to learn to use the controls with keyboard and mouse. Good tutorials. May be better with a controller. Haven't finished yet, but I think it's a short game.

Für 1,99€ bekommt man hier ein echt witziges Game. Ich habe es noch nicht durch, weil die Steuerung etwas tricky ist und ich mich bei sowas immer etwas doof anstelle. Es macht aber trotzdem echt Spaß und ich werde es definitiv weiter zocken :)

Great game so far. hae not played a pixelesk type game in a long time. It also has a really great soundtrack!

Trials of the Gauntlet es un juego corto, con unas mecánicas de juego que no están del todo mal, pero con un control muy impreciso. Juegas con personaje al que le cambiaron las manos por una espada para atacar y romper cosas, y una cadena/gancho para agarrarse de algunas superficies. La historia es olvidable, trata de ser contada con algún cuento sobre el padre del personaje y Thomas Edison, y por eso gira entorno al tema de la energía. El final es el peor de muchos que he visto, y pareciera que se hizo de prisa porque al menos hasta ahí el juego no me pareció tan malo. No compren el DLC del Soundtrack, no vale la pena. Y el juego, tampoco. Yo lo jugué porque me lo regalaron, pero es un sacrificio que hice por el bien de la humanidad. Postdata: el juego está en inglés. Y no presten atención a los logros de Steam. No los desarrollaron a la fecha, y no creo que lo hagan después.

Un gioco molto semplice ma comunque divertente da giocare. Non dura molto ma le poche parti presenti offrono un buon livello di sfida. Un vero peccato per la parte grafica, che non è curata alla perfezione, ed inoltre con il boss finale l'assenza di feedback visivo potrebbe creare confusione sull'efficacia del metodo di attacco utilizzato.

I was gifted this game, and honestly I was not expecting much. I was actually very pleasantly surprised, and when I paused halfway through, I found myself super excited to et back to it. I'm also not usually a huge platformers (mostly because I suck at them), but this was really fun to pick up, the controls (ended up) being really intuitive and it's a really enjoyable game. Could have played for a lot longer! Great art, cute story, would love more!