Wildemist Isle

[i] My Experience [/i] I appreciate that this is Eugene's debut effort, but I think that perhaps a bit more streamlining and polishing would be required before I could recommend the game. First off, it takes quite a long time to get around the island. You'll often encounter save points, but a fast travel system (even if it only let you return to town) would be very welcome. This movement speed was especially egregious when it came to rebuilding the bridge - trudging back and forth to the lumber yard for four separate trips at a snail's pace to grab these piles of wood. Secondly, I found that there just wasn't a lot of customization in the deck-building aspect of the game. Most of the items represent a strict upgrade, and so there really isn't much of an opportunity to create a "build." Just buy and equip the most expensive items you can, and your deck will be better - there isn't too much of a reason to dig through the individual cards provided by each item. A more compelling way to organize a system like this can be found in Card Hunter, where you might want to keep a lower-level item because of the specific card or cards it adds to your deck and how they synergize with the other cards you possess. Lastly, after completing the game I reloaded my last save to try and find a few more of the "boss" enemies. However, the rocks that I had destroyed with dynamite had miraculously returned to block my path again. I was able to sort of "glitch" through by jumping and pushing into the geometry on the side of the rocks, but this represents a bug that may need squashing. And clearly, some players were able to complete the puzzle in the mine (looking at the achievement statistics). However, I never figured it out. I matched the symbols to the ones on the wall plates, and even tried turning the dials until all of them matched each other (the achievement corresponding to solving this puzzle was called "Match 3"), but nothing took. Despite my qualms with the game, I did generally enjoy the battles themselves. However, they just weren't enough to carry the experience. Even so, Wildemist Isle is a promising debut, and I look forward to the next project by Silver Swoop Games.