not burying the lede: this is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but I've chronicled my experience, so might as well post it all.
ward off hordes of approaching enemies by typing words. store page says it's a roguelike but it's a lie, as it's not turn-based. the mouse works in the menus, as does typing button text. basic typing game functionality that's not always present, and pretty much the only positive here.
various languages, stats, separate volumes (master, music, sfx and typing), plus an ambience toggle. why no slider for that? full screen or borderless option. why no windowed mode? and two gameplay toggles: one for backspace to only delete one character instead of a whole word, another to only highlight words matching the input exactly. not sure about the latter and didn't experiment, it's on by default. the store page shows a knockback option that's not in the game anymore (yet?).
6 playable characters with their own special attack, so why not make that ui element smaller to make them all fit? or add a scrollbar indicating there's more. I only accidentally found the last one by clicking rise/fall a few times. mouse wheel also works but what's wrong with up/down? all lower-case text is fine in a typing game that ignores case, but then why have capital letters in the character descriptions?
picked one, clicked next. still said 'select character' on top but it was about location and both rise/fall and mouse wheel stopped working. 3 settings but the first can't be selected. if it's unlocked later, why not put it on the bottom? can choose threat level and 3 modifiers: frail means instadeath on getting hit, perfect allows no mistakes, endless is endless.
so far so wonky, then welcome to the [b]completely broken tutorial[/b]. told me to keep typing, as abilities are targeted. nothing happened to the enemy, so I typed another word (search), ended up on an enemy-free screen, where nothing I did worked, except I could place a bomb and damage myself by typing random words. esc did nothing, alt+f4, let's try again instead of an instant thumbs down, I have time to waste. better result, maybe I ran out of time for the axe last time and didn't think to type bomb after. let's say we're both to blame.
xp gathering is automatic outside the tutorial but the level up screen only comes up by typing 'level' instead of pausing the whole thing when it happens to choose one of the upgrades. and instead of typing the name of the upgrade, it asks for random unrelated words, a thing that pissed me off in [b]touch type tale[/b] as well. man, that game is an undeniably very pretty disaster, but so is this, without the pretty part.
here's what happened after the tutorial. an enemy appeared right next to me, killed it and learned that xp isn't gathered instantly for some reason. what immediately occured was a snail gangbang, several of them showed up, right around me again, and killed me on the spot, but the single xp still made its way to me by the time I died. fun.
tried again, I'm nothing if not a masochist. the input box doesn't reset on death, have to remove the characters my dying guy left this mortal coil with. started with 2 snails this time, killed them, another gang appeared, did better, managed 7 xp, then died again. ding after 5, so I could've upgraded something if the game worked properly, but it's [b]so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hectic, even though there's zero indication of enemy behavior[/b]. they are static sprites that randomly move around, maybe attack, maybe not, then you die. you're supposed to survive 3 minutes, the second attempt was 14 seconds.
out of morbid curiosity I tried the other location. more manageable, with enemies approaching from the edges, and when you 'loot', it does pause the game and asks to 'open' it, then type more words. I stopped after a few, there were noises and animations, then it went away. no idea what I actually looted but the game remained paused until I started typing.
'pause' brings up a map showing special items and asks for one of the four cardinal directions, but it's not a grid and items aren't always in cardinal directions, so again, no clue how it's supposed to work or if you're supposed to move around instead of killing stuff or what. not that I could, as [b]typing any direction, or anything at all while the map was up, did absolutely nothing[/b]. I tried options, that worked, then back, was back on the map, [b]typed level and hit enter this time (was never necessary before, so not exactly my bad)[/b], and [b]the level up screen came up but the game unpaused and I got killed[/b]. game over on top, level up options still covering the restart and menu buttons. what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ piece of ♥♥♥♥ is this?
there are also a bunch of icons and numbers on the side. no tooltips, but I, again, accidentally noticed the numbers changing to words and back while the map was up. time, hp and xp were obvious, the rest are level, wpm, accuracy, kill count and combo. not a word of these in the tutorial or anywhere else.
I'm not one to complain about things that can be changed, so feel free to add any and all annoyances to your game, just make sure they're optional. in this case, difficulty can be adjusted, but why have it at 100 by default? and why 100 when it can only be changed in increments of 10? 90 or 100, so might as well have 9 and 10. and again, why not put the locations in a logical order? easier, harder, locked, not locked, harder, easier. as a final thing, I tried the snail place again with a lower number and it was easier but not by much. partly a skill issue for sure but it's mostly just ♥♥♥♥ game design and execution.
