Tangledeep
TL; DR Summary: A well-developed game with a wonderful soundtrack, funny devs (Jim), beautiful art style reminding player of SNES days, large number of classes, and a difficulty fitting for this masterpiece with an option to play without permadeath worth the full price and then some.
Early Access Review:
The devs are amazing and show care for their product. The game is still in development and I still feel like I’m playing a high-quality product. With that said, I am pleased to have picked up this game and experience it for myself as every cent was worth it. After placing over 300 hours into the game, I feel it’s time to make a quality review.
– Real player with 1308.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Turn-Based Tactics Games.
I usually do not leave reviews, but not only is this game amazing, it has received, in my genuine opinion, the most ridiculous and unreasonable negative reviews I have had the displeasure of reading among Steam reviews. This unfairly misrepresents the rating of this game, which should be higher, and would be if it weren’t for such reviews.
Let’s talk about difficulty first. I’ve heard things ranging from “game is too easy” to “game is too hard,” from “game doesn’t give good instruction” to “game kills you in unfair ways.” In my experience, the difficulty is right where it needs to be by default, and furthermore, there are in-game modifiers you can add to make it easier or harder. With no modifiers, just playing the game as it was intended to be played, I beat the main game on my 2nd try (first character died), and Shara’s story (which is likely way harder) on my first try. And addressing some of the previous concerns, again, as long as you play efficiently after learning the basics, the game is beatable and it won’t be luck that causes you to die; it is very fair. If you play well, you win, and if you make mistakes, you lose. That summarizes most fair and well-made games in existence. And again, there are modifiers to make the game easier/harder, and there are tips for when you die (for example, remember to use your healing flask, make sure you grab a ranged weapon, try not to fight in areas with the “Tricky” difficulty which means you are an area above your level, etc.) And it’s really not that hard to understand that the point of the game is to reach the highest floor of Tangledeep… you literally start on Floor 1, what do you expect? And regarding the “dying in unfair ways” claim that I’ve read, someone got mad that the game is apparently too easy until you fight a monster that reflects damage back to you and makes you kill yourself. So, pay attention to the extremely obvious shield effect, or perhaps read the modifiers the monster has before mindlessly swinging at it? Even aside from that one modifier, one should be checking the possible resistances or other shenanigans champion monsters (mini-bosses) and bosses have in order to play the game optimally. If you go in swinging without thinking, of course you lose. That’s not on the game, that’s on you.
– Real player with 119.9 hrs in game
Crypt of the NecroDancer
Over the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of testing an alpha of Crypt of the NecroDancer , a retro styled rhythm based roguelike.
A what?
Crypt of the NecroDancer is a procedural dungeon crawler where the player and enemies movie on the beats of the game’s music tracks. That may sound like an eclectic mix, but it works. It works really well.
You play as Cadence, a firey young woman who, against the better judgement of her elders, descends into the NecoDancer’s crypt in search of answers. The intro cinematic shows Cadence prone, her head against a blood smeared rock whilst her narration says, “I don’t know how I survived that fall.”
– Real player with 415.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Roguelike Games.
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a timeless masterpiece of an Indie game that never seems to bore me. I have bought this game on 3 separate platforms, and I don’t believe that I wasted a single bit of time spent in it.
Crypt is a very interesting and fun fusion of both rhythm and puzzle, while presenting itself as a dungeon-crawler. The controls are simple, but the skill ceiling is so insanely high for something so surface-level in appearance. Missing a button press on a note resets a stacking “Coin Multiplier” which rewards you for treating this game with precision, taking damage also does this. There is no such thing as “Mandatory Damage” in this game, you are perfectly able to control yourself in order to avoid haphazard conditions, and every single enemy has a pattern or “Tell” that indicates their movements, attack patterns, and the sort.
– Real player with 191.6 hrs in game
Arc Wizards 2
The war of the wizards begins!
This is an exciting action game with a 16-bit taste!
←↑→↓: move
X: Attack (Keyboard “A”)
Y:Plasma shot (Need 1/3 Ppoint ) (Keyboard “D”)
B:Force shield (Need 1 Point ) (Keyboard “W”)
●We recommend the Special Ninja Pack!●
Click here for details ↓
Read More: Best Difficult Exploration Games.
Cardful Planning
A fun puzzle game with a dash of metroidvania. It might not be the longest game ever made but it sure is fun. A speed run and least deaths mode also add to the replay value if you want to challenge yourself or others buy topping the leaderboards.
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Enjoy your puzzle platformers, check out Cardful Planning! Feels like it’s missing some culmination levels at the end but the dev’s looking into adding those. In the meantime, there’s already 50+ challenging levels and three game modes to get the most out of them.
Cardful Planning is an exciting little puzzle platformer that features four key abilities, 50+ levels, and three game modes that really add to replayability. Challenging and cleverly designed
For more niche curation, follow me at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27440015-CSH-Picone/
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Dungeon Of Doom Puzzle
Half way there with the game. Love the ambiance and the way difficulty increases. Good balance of frustration and feeling of success when solving the room.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Super fun and extremely addictive puzzle game with good audio and spot on graphics.
Level design starts from introducing the player to the game mechanincs and progressively build up the difficulty as the player gets further into the game. Perfect!
Give it a try!
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Full Mojo Rampage
Review edited for release… still nothing but good things to say about it!
There is tons more I could say about this game and how much I enjoy it than what is in this review, so free to message me on Steam if you have any questions. I highly recommend this game if you’re looking for something new in your action roguelite/dungeon-crawling experiences… it was the most polished Early Access Alpha I had ever played, and is even better now that it is released.
Graphics
Very nice and consistently styled, even in the character screen. The choice in what a friend of mine put as “playful yet macabre” is spot-on, and a very nice change of pace from others (not that those are bad, but FMR is a unique breath of fresh air).
– Real player with 139.2 hrs in game
If you didn’t think there was enough “Gauntlet” in “Gauntlet”, you should probably invest in this. I will mention Gauntlet rather a lot in this “review”, btw.
The first point, and it’s a reasonably large one, that this game scores over Gauntlet is that it has genuinely random (thus replayable ad inifinitum*) levels and a fairly expansive character customization section make this a far more worthwhile purchase. Gauntlet promised randomised, limitless levels and failed to deliver, preferring instead to rotate a level through 180degrees or make you do them “the opposite way round” (from start to finish in a ‘death’ level, for example). It’s obvious, woeful and does nothing to hide the fact that you’re always playing from a small group of levels that can easily be remembered, no matter what way round they are.
– Real player with 32.9 hrs in game
Get Ogre It
cute aesthetics, cool music and great gameplay that makes it kind of a puzzle game, also has great value for its price.
i liked it a lot and recommend anyone to try it
– Real player with 10.7 hrs in game
Challenging roguelike with a non combat twist. Always had to stay focused or i’ll get stabbed
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Arc Wizards 3
My full S Rank play through here: https://youtu.be/YXQJ0dCfOlM
Game is a 7 out of 10 for me the creator definitely improved on it from naginata your sprite is still thicc compared to the enemies but I don’t believe your noggin in this game has near the girth of the geisha from naginata. I like that he added an upgrade system for your weapon in this one where when you get special move bar filling items your shot upgrades and if you take damage you lose it pretty nice reward for not taking damage. Bat form is so much better than jumping as well it can be irresponsive at times for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint but it’s a DEFINITE imrpovement to jumping in naginata. The special move in this SUCKS terribly compared to naginata. Stage 3 is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long and one thing that would take this game a long way is instead of focusing on making the game more difficult by making stages longer and adding a greater number of enemies would be adding different mechanics for enemy attacks quality quantity. Another change that would be super beneficial in this game but possibly a lot of work would be some kind of upgrade shop where you can unlock different attacks, special skills, etc. it would add replay value and just make the game a whole lot more entertaining. Definitely glad the creator made improvements though!
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Update: So, I was able to play again, and was doing rather well now that I understand what to do and how to do it. It was nice after a certain stage that when I died I could reload and try again from the same point, and not have to completely start over. Unfortunately, the game froze again and the character stopped responding to the controls. This really needs to be fixed because the only thing to do at that point is to close down the game which just makes me not want to play again. So until this issue is fixed, I cannot change my rating. Once that issue is fixed, I will change my rating from “No, I do not recommend,” to, “Yes, I recommend this game.”
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Arc Wizards
A simple, straightforward arcade game that makes for a fun playthrough. The controls are responsive (with shooting slowing down your movement, so it requires at least a touch of strategy), and the graphics are crisp 16-bit stile, with some animatino. Enemies appear when you advance beyond a certain point, meaning the best plan is to frequentl stop and deal with enemies before advancing. This causes a slower pacing than your average run-n-gun title, but not so much that the game isn’t fun. It’s entirely possible to trigger a few too many enemies and find yourself overwhelmed or having to do some tricky manneuvering.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
meh
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
KaveXplorer
- The game is good for its wide variety of play styles. The way that skill upgrades are randomized makes each run unique. + Some shrines can change how you play completely. + Nice graphic design. - The black guy skill hitbox is bullshit. - Switching skills is a bit hard. - No music. Overall it’s good, the dev said those bad point will be improved in the Full Release, hope what he said is true.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
I want to first off thank the developer for the free evaluation key provided to me. I also want to express that no keys have ever influenced my review or score in even the smallest way. The last Steam key provided from a developer made my MISS series and a 10% score… Just sayin'
KaveXplorer is a game that will likely appeal to fans of the Binding of Isaac crowd. People who enjoy rogue like games, bullet hell games, and action RPGs are also likely to enjoy this game. It’s very well coded, and is very challenging to play as well, like most rogue-like games are!
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game