Preview: The Uncharted Roads of Marco Polo (PC) ~ The Road To Development

Today I have something quick unique to present to you. Not too long ago, I met somebody on a Facebook group about point-and-click adventure games who was developing a new title. The game is called ”The Uncharted Roads of Marco Polo” and it looks extremely interesting to me. I suggested creating an article for the developers and they agreed. So, here we are. I’m writing a preview article for a game that only released some screenshots and a small trailer video. But there is more! I had the chance to talk to one of the developers of this game called Josip Makjanic and we are going to talk about the uncharted road that took him to this development. So, with that said, it’s time to dive into this article and invite you to leave a comment in the comment section with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

 The pitch

So, what is this game about? The developer provided me with a bit more information about the game. Basically, the game is a point-and-click adventure game like Broken Sword and Monkey Island. You can also compare it to Captain Disaster, Another Code R, Time Hollow, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton or the CSI games.

The game takes the player all over various landmarks in Croatia to solve puzzles and have a grand adventure. The story will be based on historic locations and figures. At this moment, the game is in its pre-alpha stage and has over 60 locations planned together with various characters to populate them. The puzzles will be in the style you would find in the Broken Sword or the Monkey Island series.

Pre-Alpha means that the game is in a sort “draft” phase. It means that everything is being prepared to go into the production of the game. Compare it to baking a cake, the moment you plan to bake a cake and make a list of which ingredients you will need and for whom you are making the cake… Those are things you would do in the pre-alpha stage of development. You can read more information about the development cycle on this Wikipedia article.

Personally, I love games that take place in unusual locations around the world. So, this game takes place in Croatia and is being developed by Svarog Interactive. This 4-man team is also based in Croatia. Now, the guys from there also send us a little teaser video that you can find right here:

I have to say, this teaser is extremely impressive. Right away, I noticed that the art style resembled the art style in the first Broken Sword games. Like the Broken Sword games, the locations are extremely detailed and colorful. Unlike the Broken Sword games, the animation like the leaves and the flies on screen… Well, the location feels more alive than ever. I find it rather enjoyable that everything looks quite realistic and those flies, man, they look so goofy I love it.

If you compare the Pre-Alpha video to the screenshots I shared on top of this article, you notice some big differences right away. First of all, the dialogue system looks a lot cleaner. You get dialogue boxes with character portraits on top. Also, you notice that on the bottom right corner, you have a bag. Most likely, this is where your items are going to be stored. So, you won’t have to go to the top of your screen for that. In addition to that, in the right upper corner, you notice that there is a gear icon. This will most likely be a way to go to the pause menu.

Sadly enough, since this game is still in extremely early development, there is nothing more I can show you or talk about. I can’t wait to see more and I’m going to follow the development of this game quite closely.

Yet, if you want more and you speak Croatian, you can read this article with one of the developers by 24Sata. Now, there is also this YouTube video where the developer talks about his road towards development. While the video is in Croatian, there are English subtitles provided. Sadly, the subtitles just stop around the 5:11 mark, so there are 2 minutes without subtitles ☹.

Now, before we continue with the interview with Josip Makjanic, one of the co-founders of Svarog Interactive, I want to share some links where you can follow the project as well. They have a Facebook page and Twitter page.

Let’s talk

Jonez: Welcome Josip Makjanic, co-founder of Svarog Interactive. Can you give us a small introduction about yourself?

Josip: Hello Jonez. My name is Josip Makjanic, a co-founder and Game Designer in Svarog Interactive.

Jonez: In our conversation over mail you told me that this isn’t your first game. You worked on impressive games like Serious Sam 4 and Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope. Serious Sam is an amazing series from Croatia, your home country. Was it always your dream to develop games?

Josip: Yes. I was always fascinated by it. I started making video games not so long ago, but I sort of designed games in general since I was a kid, by designing them on paper, writing stories and creating concepts. When I lived in a high school dorm I used to make versions of Warcraft, Diablo and even Counter Strike on paper that we played with dice, and people from the dorm would come and play in our room.

I was always fascinated by it and loved creating, so today, with some experience behind and with some good friends by my side, I thought it’s time to start working on our own video games.

Jonez: On the road to the developping of “The Uncharted Road of Marco Polo”, you created two other games called “Day in Dementia” and “In Memory”. Both games have a similar concept and art style. As a side note, I have to say that I’m touched by “In Memory”. The story behind it, a game to honor the dead of your mother, I have one word for you: respect. Respect man. Now, I noticed that both games were created in Construct. Are you using the same engine for this game?

Josip: Thank you. 🙂 Both of these games were made in Construct 2, and were created as a personal project. I don’t even know if I could call them games, but rather some sort of experiences that meant a lot to me personally. Marco Polo is being developed in Unity since it gives us more freedom from the technical sides of things.

Jonez: In our conversation, you talk about an open-world RPG. So, this point-and-click game isn’t the only title you are working on? What is this open-world RPG game or is it more a testing ground for possible future titles?

Josip: We are huge fans of Point & Click games and huge fans of RPG’s. We grew up on those games and always wanted to make our own worlds that others can enjoy with us. So, we are working on an open-world RPG system and have stories and concepts, but, we don’t like to rush ourselves, as we know how ambitious and big these projects are, and we would, of course, need a much bigger team. So before it happens, and we hope it will, there are other, smaller projects in mind, but we are going in that direction.

It’s very important for us to first understand how everything works and make many tests so we don’t waste time or get lost in the projects we’re developing, which makes the development much more enjoyable and better organized. So yes, we are making tests and preparations for other projects, but Marco Polo is a priority and is written as a trilogy. We are also huge fans of traditional drawing and animations, so I don’t think we will ever want to part with it. 🙂

Jonez: Now, let’s get back to The Uncharted Road of Marco Polo since that’s the game that I’m previewing with this article. I’m rather curious. Why about Marco Polo? If the game is set in Croatia and Marco Polo is a merchant from Italy. Of course, there is this debate about his birthplace might be Croatian as well… So, why the decision for Marco Polo?

Josip: The game is talking about historic figures and real places, and players will learn so much about Croatia from it, and while the game has many real things people can learn about, it’s story is fictional and we won’t get involved into that debate, but will rather focus on some other, more interesting aspects based on his life, and how to make an enjoyable story and experience in general. 🙂

Jonez: Are you developing this game full-time or are you developing this game on the side like the Corpse Party developers GrisGris? Also, how do you make sure that there is enough budget to create this game?

Josip: We are currently working in our free time, so that means that we also have other jobs, doing freelancing and helping each other out, but we believe that soon we’ll be able to work full time on the game, and when that happens, we will inform everyone about it. If we don’t get a publisher then we will definitely go Kickstarter with playable Demo, Trailer and some other interesting things in mind. So the game’s development is currently going smoothly without too many investments, but we will definitely depend on a publisher or Kickstarter later if we want to finish the game in a reasonable time.

We also don’t want to go on Kickstarter without having some quality content that people can enjoy before considering supporting us. 🙂

Jonez: You told me that there are, including you, 4 people working on this game. Can you tell us a bit more about the team and the talent in it?

Josip: Yes, there are 4 of us and we all have some projects behind us. There is Alen, our technical guy who makes sure all the systems work in general. Devis is our character artist and animator, and Andrija is our manager. I make backgrounds, write a story and making a game design in general, but we are all highly involved in each part of the development so there is a bit of everyone in every aspect of the game. Andrija, for example, came up with the idea of Marco Polo, so we all worked together to make a story that will fit the game’s mechanics.

There will be behind the scenes when it comes out. 🙂

Jonez: And as a final question, I would like to ask what are your favorite parts of being a game developer and what do you dislike in being a game developer.

Josip: I like how rewarding it can be. It sure isn’t easy to make a game and that’s why I started with those small ones. To build strong foundations and to be able to better understand it and move on to bigger projects. 

And the better I understand it and the more I know about the technical side, the more I can enjoy the creative parts of it, so I guess after every day of work you get rewarded with new knowledge and skills, and I find it very enjoyable.

The bad part of the development would definitely be one issue in the industry in general, and that’s the crunch. I’m not talking about a month or two of crunching, but about the developers who crunch for 6 months or more.

It’s not healthy and I believe that the health of those developers should be in the first place and by organizing yourself better before getting into developing a certain project would save many from that.

It’s a huge problem and something we want to avoid and not be a part of, so that’s one of the reasons for our long preparations and organization before the project even starts. I maybe went a bit off-topic with it, but I believe it’s very important to talk about it

Jonez: And with that, thank you Josip for the interview and the answers! Thank you for answering my silly questions and talking about games and development. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Josip: Here’s a few words for the gamers out there. It is a huge compliment for us to be compared to a classic such as Broken Sword, as we saw many of you talk about it, and we are happy that you love what you see at this stage of development. It will maybe remind you of it, as we see it already do but I just want to say that we don’t want to be another Broken Sword in the end, as Broken Sword is a timeless classic and we don’t want to compete with it, nor I believe we can.

But what I believe is that we can make an enjoyable experience that will make your time worth playing it, a game on its own that we would like to play too, and that’s what we hope to achieve.

We want to make games like they used to be, or at least, make them feel like they used to be, and even though we are not the most experienced studio in the industry, we will give our best to make them worth your time, and try to be better with each one.

Thank you. 🙂

Jonez: And as a closing note, you can follow Josip’s personal projects over at his CrobbitArts Facebook page!

Ending of the article

And with that, I have to call this article a wrap. I want to thank Josip Makjanic for the interview and the material he provided for me to write this article. I’m quite hyped for this game and I can’t wait to play a demo or see more. Yes, I have quite the weak spot when it comes to well-crafted point-and-click adventure games. I love them more when there is a certain charm to it, like with this game.

This game looks to have quite some potential. Currently, we got only some screenshots and a teaser video and it’s already looking quite amazing. So, here is to Svarog Interactive, keep up the good work you guys! You can do it!

So, I’m curious. Do you think that this game is as interesting as I think? Have you noticed something I overlooked? Tell me in the comment section down below. And with that said, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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Publishing: “Ship of Heroes” Successfully Completes First Combat Alpha

First combat Alpha demonstrates successful game integration, delivers fun gameplay experience for real players.

State College, March 1, 2018 – Heroic Games announced the successful start of Alpha testing for the combat systems of Ship of Heroes, by enabling mixed teams of developers and supporters to fight three enemy groups in Apotheosis City.  Video highlights from the Alpha can be seen here.

“We’ve taken several teams through the combat Alpha, and we’ve been delighted to find that the players loved the gameplay,” Casey McGeever, CEO of Heroic Games, explained.  “They have also given us a list of improvements they’d like to see, and we’re hoping to expand that list with feedback from our forums.”

Heroic Games reports that the combat Alpha uses all of the elements they’ve been showing to the world for the last 14 months, including their signature heroes, the Apotheosis City environment, their offensive powers and powersets, enemies, UI, AI, and several other gameplay features, all of which are integrated into the Alpha version of the game.

“I’ve been following Ship of Heroes on my channel for a while and I was so hyped to be among the first to go on a Combat Alpha Run,” Brandon Cooper, gaming video blogger “Positive Gamer,” said. “”As a previous City of Heroes player, I am beyond excited to let you know that I finally felt at home again. Even in this development stage of the game, it felt so good to flex my superhero muscles once again! There are many superhero MMO’s on the horizon, but I’ll be playing Ship of Heroes.”

This is the second Alpha test for Ship of Heroes, following the successful demo of their character creation tool (CCT) last September and October.  The devs report that they are working on an upgraded version of the CCT, which they plan to preview later in 2018, incorporating ideas from their supporters.  The same process will be employed with the combat mechanics shown in the current Alpha.  “We are developing Ship of Heroes with continuous feedback from the community, and getting feedback has been a key goal of this Alpha,” McGeever said. “We now have real supporters, not just devs, using the signature characters we made in our CCT, in our city.  We’re running a client/server arrangement with players from two continents, no lag, and high FPS, fighting and winning and getting dust and loot.  That’s not just an Alpha, that’s a very advanced and successful Alpha.”

The enemies shown in the Alpha highlights footage were all introduced earlier in the game’s development, but now they have new and interesting powers.  Each enemy group favors different tactics and needs to be fought differently in order to win.

“We’ll be conducting additional Alpha tests during 2018.  We want to try some kind of raid test, and we also want to return to the CCT for another round of feedback and improvements.  We want to see about larger tests, with more participants, to help us assess the practical numbers of characters we can have in an instance of Apotheosis City during normal gameplay,” McGeever added.  “We’ve made a lot of progress so far, in just under two years, and we hope that this continues to be the case.  A Beta is scheduled for the end of 2018, but that does depend on the results of the intermediate Alphas.”

The Ship of Heroes team, which includes both volunteers and professional game developers, has a very good record of expanding SoH on a reliable schedule.  A growing body of gameplay videos can now be viewed on the MMORPG’s YouTube channel.  To get the latest news and influence the development of Ship of Heroes, register on their official forums.

About Ship of Heroes

Ship of Heroes is a new superhero MMORPG that combines the best elements of space and hero games aboard a generation ship traveling the galaxy 500 years in the future.  Ship of Heroes will have both PVE and PVP content, along with complex harvesting, crafting, trading, and combat features.  The game promises a family-friendly environment, along with an innovative storyline that allows players to explore the gigantic generation ship, join raids and counter-raids against alien ships, and land on multiple worlds as the Justice moves through space.  The developers began work on the title just seventeen months ago, and are hitting a very rapid development schedule; Heroic Games has already shown an impressive amount of high-quality in-game content, especially for a pre-Alpha MMO.  Visit us here.

About Heroic Games, Inc.

Heroic Games Corporation is a State College, Pennsylvania-based independent developer, and publisher of cutting-edge Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs).  The firm is currently focusing on the development of a single title, Ship of Heroes, which was announced in November of 2016.

First Impression: Mind the Vikings (PC) ~ Very Alpha

Official Steam page

The game I wanted to talk about today is already released in an early alpha stage of development. The name of the game is “Mind the Vikings”. This game has been released in early January on Steam. While I got a review code from the developers, they wanted that I wrote 100% my opinion, and that’s what you will be getting. For this review, I played version 0.4.1. The game was also updated with various new features while I was playing this game for this review. In any case, let me talk about my first impressions of this game. As usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Vikings in a sandbox

Do you remember the first night you had in Minecraft? The time you are dropped into a sandbox with a world to explore. Well, I got that feeling when I first started to play Mind the Vikings. Like Minecraft, this game doesn’t really have an overall story.

This is a breath of fresh air for me. If the developers are planning to add a story in the full release of the game, I hope that they make it a separate mode to the main game. In this game, you start in a randomized land and you must decide where you place your main base.

When you decided on a spot, Vikings start to join you. The goal of the game is to create a base for them and decide which jobs they do. Also, you should maintain peace, to a certain degree, in your clan.

Something I decided is that I want to know as little about the future of the game as possible. I really think that this game will be much more exciting if I don’t know what other features this game will bring. There are already a bunch of hints on the Steam Store page and they all sound interesting.

It didn’t take long before I had a small Viking village up and running. Various lumberjacks gather, and miners were gathering resources. At first, I was going to complain about the lack of the tutorial, but I think the game doesn’t really need one at this moment. If the developers decide to make a tutorial, I think it would be a great idea to do something like Minecraft and achievements. Where the achievements are there to guide the player but if you want to learn to play this game by playing it, you can ignore the achievements.

Early Stages

At this moment in time, the game is in pretty early stages of development. There isn’t too much to do in this game, but I do have a few things they can polish up already.

First, the camera is pretty good if you have a QWERTY-layout. The game didn’t recognize my AZERTY-layout. You can also move the camera with the arrow keys, but I much more prefer the ZQSD keys, since around there, the buttons to turn around the camera are located.

Secondly, I want to talk about the “exit menu”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s the strange name the “pause menu” has. Something I found strange is that you can still interact with the game to a certain degree while the pause menu is open. Two examples: you can recruit new Vikings or click on a house and navigate to the location of the Viking who lives in there. I think it would be better if the pause menu appears in the middle of the screen and makes you unable to do interactions like that. Because this menu appears in the top right of the screen, underneath the gear icon, I didn’t always know if the game was paused or not.

Third, I think it would be helpful more things in the UI had visible “quit” buttons. A button to close the options menu for example. I know that this menu is closed by using the right mouse button, but I have a feeling not everybody will realize that.

Fourth are two minor things. Why do I always see the company’s logo when I go back to the main menu and why isn’t there a load option on the pause menu? Two minor things which would be a great improvement of the game is this is fixed.

Fifth, put an invisible wall at the end of the map where the camera can’t go past.

So, when you are reading this, you would think that this game isn’t that good and is rough around the edges. You would be right about one thing; this game is rough around the edges. That’s why feedback for this game is so important. The developers ask for feedback like this on their Steam page. So, if you start to play this game and find a bug or have a suggestion, please go to their Discord server or on the Steam forums and talk about it. You will help to improve the game.

The right track

When I read the description of this game, I thought that this game would be full of action and split-second decision making to raise towns and fight various big battles on the sea. Well, that you don’t get into this game at this moment. Maybe in the future.

Instead, you get a rather relaxing game where you have to manage your civilization. In terms of gameplay, you can compare this game somewhat to Age Of Empires with a bit of The Sims sprinkled on top. I do have to say that I got myself relaxed while playing this game.

Even while this game is in the early stages of development, this game does somethings pretty good already. For example, music. It fits the game like a glove. The music is more ambient and relaxing like the music you can hear in games like Minecraft. I tested out this game with Minecraft’s soundtrack playing in the background and I must say, I think they made the right pick in terms of music.

Visually, this game is extremely well made. I really like the world and animations this game brings to the table. If this is the style the final product will be in, I’m quite pleased with the result.

Something I also really like is the way how you can build paths and how builds align themselves to the paths. When you built a path, you click somewhere to start a path. When you click again, you can make the path turn in a different direction. You must use “enter” to place the path. Now, it sounds confusing when I write it down here, but trust me, it’s so easy and great to use in the game.

At this very moment, the game isn’t difficult nor easy. This is because there isn’t an end goal for this game. And to be honest, I think that’s okay for now. This game should have a possible end goal like conquering x-number of villages or owning x-amount of land or defeating a certain general, but I think that this game will be better if it doesn’t have that.

While I could continue to talk about this game for a bit longer, I think I’m not going to do that. I’m going to follow the upcoming patches and new things added to the game. This game has a lot of potentials to become an amazing experience. I’m having a lot of fun playing this game and seeing it develop. I love to see the community around this game helping the developers out and making this game even better. At this moment, this game has an asking price of 11€. If you want to see this game get further developed, I encourage you to buy this game, play it and give feedback to the developers! I really want this game to grow to its fullest potential.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

First Impression: Dragon Of Legends (PC) ~ DRAGONS!

Steam page – Official website

Today I wanted to talk about a game that drew my attention instantly when I saw the pitch. The name of the game is “Dragon of Legends”. Now, I can’t explain why, but I have a big fascination for dragons if they are used right in stories. This interest led me to play a lot of interesting games like the before mentioned Legend of Dragons. So, when the developer of this game and I mailed a bit back and forth, he gave me a Steam Press key to try out the game. I want to make one thing clear, he said that he didn’t want to read the article before it went up since he didn’t want to influence me or my opinion. So, this will be my opinion. So, this game is still in early access and under active development. So, that means that the issues and things I talk about in this article will be irrelevant or changed when you read this article in the future. For this review, I played version 1.01 released on 22^nd December 2017. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game.

PS: on this date, the game has been released on Steam for one month! Congrats to the developers!

Signs of things to come

In this game, you play as a character you make and name yourself. In this game, you shipwreck on a beach and you find your mentor, Aldar dying. He provides you with his book and you set on a journey to unlock the secrets of that book. In addition to that, you must clear you and your mentors’ names for a big disaster.

That’s the story of the game for now. I wonder if the introduction will be changed in the final version, but I honestly like that there isn’t too long of an introduction. You get right into the game without any delays instead of having to sit through a long-winded introduction.

Before I talk about the game, I wanted to mention a strange issue I had with the main menu. The game usually boots in a windowed mode. If I full-screened the game in the main menu or the adventure menu, the UI glitches out and made some buttons hard to click. Yet, after I loaded my character, it fixed itself. This was so strange. It’s something you will only experience in the main menu and the character menu. Since the issue was back when I went to change the character on the load screen.

In any case, in this version, we can choose between three character classes. A mage, a warrior, and a ranged character. The editor to create your character has quite a few options, but the female characters aren’t in the game at this moment in time.

After I created my character, I was on my merry way, exploring the beaches my character just stranded on. A short explanation happens when your mentor dies and you must take his place. This is how your quest starts.

The story is far is rather enjoyable. The writing in this game makes the world come alive and has a unique atmosphere. You really get the feeling you start your adventure small and you work your way up to improve your skills.

While the controls of this game are currently hardcoded into the game, the developer actually said in the Steam Forums that you will be able to rebind the keys in a future version. So, for now, I must awkwardly switch between AZERTY and QWERTY. This isn’t a big problem at all since it will be fixed in the future. So, the game will be polished in the future.

Balancing combat & polish

Something I found surprising is that in a single-player, the game isn’t paused when you open the pause menu. This will be most likely a bug, but I hope this will be fixed in a future version of the game. If you want to play this game, remember that you will be playing a very early build. The game lacks a lot of polish and not everything is implemented into the game yet.

Something that should be polished is combat. Maybe it’s just me or the way how I play RPG’s like this but the combat is broken in my opinion. One of the first quests is to defeat 5 wolfs and 5 boars. Both enemies charge at you, making range combat difficult.

Something that could help is that you aim where you point your mouse instead of where your character is oriented. This could avoid unnecessary damage, in my opinion. Since I feel that it is cheap hits if you have a mouse pointer and you attack in the direction you are facing. It would make a bit more sense in my opinion.

Also, the difficulty for the first quest is might be a bit too high in my opinion. The enemies hit a tad bit too hard for the introduction quest of the game. Or that might just be me.

If you died during a quest, you need to restart that quest. I think that it would be a bit more interesting if the stakes were a bit higher. What I mean is that you should lose some items or some money instead of just respawning at the latest spawn point you activated.

Gameplay-wise, this game plays an RPG. While it’s currently quite rough around the edges, the game is still in early alpha. While it was tricky to figure out how I could equip armor and find things in the UI at first, as soon as I got used to it, I was able to do everything.

Another thing the developer could do to improve this game is by adding more sound effects. In the build I played, there was a huge lack of sound effects. I can understand that it’s an alpha build, but the world and game come way more to life if the right sound effects are used.

Some additional visual effects might be a great idea too. For example, you get a sound effect that plays when you level up, but a visual effect would be nice too. To remind the player that they leveled up and can spend points to upgrade your character.

I touched upon this earlier, but the game isn’t paused when you press “ESC”. Well, this is a lot of the UI. If you open the quest menu, you open a book with your quests. I understand the design choice since it has a story context. But, at least, pause the game so the player can read what to do.

In this version, some bugs are present. Of course, it’s an alpha build after all. For example, you can walk next to the doors and you enter the building. While you are doing this, you clip through the building.

Another example is, if you start a dialogue with somebody and you run into another direction so the character is off-screen, the dialogue box will follow you and disappear after a while. This can be fixed in two ways, either you lock the movement of the player until the dialogue is over OR you avoid that the textboxes move when they are off-screen.

The final example I want to give is the fact that you can use potions to heal when you died. I can go on for a while, but these things are things you can patch out in future development versions. That’s why this game is released in alpha, to iron out the bugs and add additional content. (Like, where is the potion shop?)

So far, I have beaten the first quest and tried to find as many bugs or issues with the game as I could. While there are a lot of things that could improve, most of them are not that game-breaking. The game that’s currently here is solid and enjoyable to play.

DRAGONS!

The visual presentation of this game is right up my alley. The pixel art and 16-bit inspired look, I find amazing. It’s no secret that I enjoy playing a retro game occasionally, and I get nostalgic seeing this artwork.

There is one minor thing I would change in terms of the UI, and that is the portrait in the top left of the screen. It would add so much if that portrait changes into your character’s face. If that’s planned for a future release, please do it.

If I could change one thing in the game, that would be the font. I mind opinion, in some places, the font looks blurry or badly rendered. Also, it made me think of some places there were some black bars or white spaces between the UI.

The animations are good. While some of them lack impact due to not having sound effects yet, some require just a bit more work. Like, the stunning animation. I would think it would have more impact if the character wobbled a bit.

So, in terms of the presentation, you also have the music. The music is rather calm and melodic. I really enjoy this music and I think it really fits the game quite well. Maybe this might be just me, but it makes me nostalgic for the MIDI-music from back in the day. If the soundtrack would be sold for a cheap price on Steam, I wouldn’t mind buying it and add it to my playlist when I’m relaxing.

The game does autosave, I think. I have no idea at what points it autosaves though. So, I think adding an animation for that would be nice. Like a map screen, that would be a handy feature to have as well.

Trying to review an early access/alpha game is a tricky thing to do. On one hand, you know that there still some work that needs to be done to finalize the game while on the other hand, I want to review the experience I just had. At its current state, the game needs a lot of improvement, but it’s on the right track.

Personally, I believe that if the developer continues with the development and improving the game, I think this game might become even better. At this moment, the game is a bit rough which makes the 10€ asking price a great price to try the game out.

If you enjoy or find interesting what I have talked about, give this game a shot. It comes recommended from me. It has quite a lot of potential. I’ll certainly keep an eye on this game while it develops further since I enjoyed this game quite a lot.

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to see you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

(12+) Waifu Fight: Dango Style (PC) ~ Featuring Priom

Official website

Some time ago, the developers from Waifu Fight Dango Style asked me to take a look at their game. So, today we are going to take a look at it. But, I wanted to do something special. I asked my friend Priom to also take a look at this game. He wrote his review over at Arpegi forum. I advise you to read his review first before you continue to read my article. So, in my article, I’m going to quote his opinion and then write mine. So, we are having a “fight” of our own. Before I try to force out a joke too much, let’s get right into the review of this game. Note, that I have put “12+” in the title. Since some visual elements aren’t for younger audiences. But, hey. Enough stalling. Let’s go reviewing. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of the article. One thing, I have to stress that this review isn’t a paid review!

Note: This game is still under development. So, the things said in this review might have been changed if an update gets released. We both played Alpha v2.18 for this review. 

Do you want to meet the developers of this game? They are going to be attending these cons: Corpus Christi Comic Con in Texas on 22nd – 23th July and San Japan X in Texas on 1st, 2nd and 3rd September.

Game Quicky: Mini Metro (Android) ~ Transported Over There

Official website

Mini Metro is a game I own twice. Once on Android and once on Steam. Truth to be told, I’m mostly playing the Android version. I play this game quite meta… Since I play this game mostly on the train to work. Yup, playing a public transport sim on public transport. But is it worth your time to play it yourself? Let’s take a look at this game in this game quicky. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the article and/or the game in the comment section down below.

Positives

The game is so simple and easy to understand, there is no tutorial really needed. You need to draw lines between the stations so the right shaped dot can go to the right shaped station (the white and bigger figures in the screenshot).

The UI (user interface) is amazing! I love how the menu system is set-up as a sort of poster you find in the subway system.

The visuals of this game are kept really simple and clean. This way I can focus more on the gameplay. Also, I love there is a day mode and a night mode. There is only a visual difference between the two modes. It’s like the “dark theme” in various Android apps. Speaking of the visual design, you are able to “move” lines so you can make your network more visually pleasing.

The screenshot feature is lovely. This way you can make your own screenshots to share. Since the game is randomized each and every time, this is a fun way to share your most amazing moments in the game.

The game is really addictive to play. When I’m waiting for the doctor or the train, I play this game on my tablet. While this game could be played on phones, I think it’s more fun to play on a bigger screened phone or a tablet. This game is really challenging as well. I have almost finished all the maps, but I’m stuck at the last three maps.

At first, you think that 16 levels aren’t that much. But you can play each level in 3 modes. And not only that, you can keep playing these levels after you have beaten the goal to advance to the next level. Also, each gameplay mode offers a new style of playing. You have a normal mode and a hard mode. In the hard mode, you can’t erase tracks. And the 3rd and quite recently added mode is an endless mode.

This game gets bug fixes and new options very regularly. Oh, and before I forget this game got recently a new gameplay mode. The endless gameplay mode!

Negatives

I have to go real nitpicky to find negatives for this game. So, here are the negatives of this game.

In some maps, I don’t like the color combination of the lines that much. Some colors don’t fit each other in my opinion. But, while playing, I don’t mind that much.

In the Android version, I miss a feature that’s present in the PC-version. And that’s a way to remove a line completely from the map to redraw it. That would be extremely handy.

When you have more than one line arriving in a station, it’s sometimes difficult to select the right line. In some cases, I had to try three or more times before I was able to pick the right line.

Sometimes, it’s confusing to understand why an empty train doesn’t pick up any passengers and rides to the end first. I have seen this happening more than once but it doesn’t happen all the time.

This game is way too cheap. Seriously, I see this as a negative. This game is worth more money than the developer is asking for it! I would gladly pay double to play this game on Android.

The only real negative in this game is the soundtrack. Maybe it’s just me, but the soundtrack in the Android version is nothing to write home about. I even think that there aren’t more than 3 tracks present in this game. And if I remember correctly, there is more music in the PC-version. Yet, the music present is pretty good and is nice to listen to. I think that more variation would help the game a lot.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a great time waster for a real cheap price, look no further than Mini Metro! It’s one of the best games I have ever played on Android.I can’t recommend this game enough.

The game is almost perfect in my eyes. The fact that I had to nitpick to find negatives for this game tells a lot. If you like puzzle games, you owe it to yourself to pick up this game and give it a try. Casual game fan? Play this game too! Seriously, it’s a fun game.

In any case, thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this! I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

Score: 90/100

First Impression: Venture Forth (PC) ~ Alpha Peek

Official website

First of all, this is an impressive project. This game is made by a small indie developer and has been in development for over two years. They mailed me because they wanted me to take a look at this game after I wrote about Delver. Since this game is in the same style, they thought I might be interested in it. Indeed, I am. While it took me a while to take a look at this game since I was extremely busy, I finally found the time recently. So, let’s dive right into Venture Forth. This article is written on an unfinished build of the game, this is also mostly meant to hype the game a bit and give some feedback to the developers. Ready, let’s go! Alpha build of the 4th July, here we come!  (And as usual, feel free to give me a comment with your opinion of this game and/or the content of the game.)

Warning: This game is in one of my favourite genres. Also, I wasn’t able to make time to write this article, so I had to push it back for almost two months. And also, when I’m asked to write an article, I try to give the best feedback possible. So, prepare yourself for a longer article then you are used of me.

What needs more work?

The developer said to me that some of the visuals are place holders. So, I’m not going to talk too much about that. While I honestly think that some items and 3D textures look mighty fine already, others like a potion is just an arrow in this current build.

Most likely, the fact that we are missing a menu for options like key-bindings, starting a new game and all that is something that is still in development. If it’s not, please would it be possible to give the player the option to change how they want to control the game? I live in one of those weird keyboard countries where the lay-out of my keyboard is not qwerty, but azerty.

An annoying bug I found in the game is that when you want to switch from full screen to windowed mode, it kept running in full screen. This game uses the usual enter+alt method, which is no big deal. But they might want to look into this bug. Hopefully it’s not because of my own made pc.

This is just a feature suggestion of mine. The map is set up quite interestingly, but what if you give each area a different colour on the map. Makes it easier to see which area ends where. Just a minor thing.

Something that’s not that minor is the lack of lighting in some areas. Don’t read me wrong, I think it’s nice that they went for the realistic approach and make the areas where natural light can’t come through, it’s extremely dark. But when you use a torch, it gives off barely enough light to even properly navigate the dungeon. The area “The Nest” was a perfect example of this.

I could complain about the lack of a tutorial yet, the game controls and plays like any other typical dungeon game. One thing I think they should really change and that is the starting area. You start out having to jump down a ravine. Not once, but if I recall correctly, about three times, you loose some health and this will set off a handful of players to not play the game. It’s not really inviting and it gives the game the first impression of using cheap tricks. At least in my opinion.

Same with some puzzles. This game uses a few puzzles where you barely get any hints. Without spoiling too much, let me tell you. When you are stuck and have nowhere to go, try a staff. It took me way too long to figure this out. I’m not saying it wasn’t rewarding to find this out, but a subtle hint when you enter the area would be nice. But really subtle. In the current version of the game, it was a nearly see-through wall. Hinting that there is something at the other side. But before you got there, it was a long hallway. Maybe put in the rocks an image that looks like the staff somewhere in that hallway? That’s what I mean with subtle, something you wouldn’t notice or easily miss.

Before I move on to the more positive parts of the game, I want to talk about something that won’t help with the first impression as well. The first enemies you encounter are a bit too strong in my taste. Actually, that’s just a nitpick, since if you know what you are doing, the enemies can be quite the pushovers.

What is already good?

I’m not going to give criticism on the music. Well, honestly, the ambient music that’s playing in the background. The reason is that it helps building the atmosphere quite well. That there is only one melody/track that plays, I can understand. It’s an Alpha after all. If they weren’t planning to add some more music, then a problem could arrive. Some players would get annoyed by the repetitive music and this would turn up as a negative in various reviews.

Earlier I talked about the map system. As a fan of these style of games, I could start complaining about the difficulty to see rooms and all that… Honestly, I think the map is one of the best features in this game. It’s a fully 3D view of the world you play in. It also shows some hidden things in the map, most likely put there from the developer to control the game. (read: spawning enemies or helping with the lighting of an area.) Which is a really cool touch.

That the enemies aren’t shown on the map is something I’m on the fence about. On one hand, you could say it’s annoying since you can’t plan your strategy. On the other hand, it really helps build fear into the game. You never know if an area is safe to cross or not.

The game runs quite smooth already. I got a steady 60fps, which is quite nice. The sound effects are actually perfect for this game. There weren’t many sound effects I would change. I would add a few here and there like for when an enemy switches equipment.

Yes, that’s a thing. Later in the game, the enemies will switch weapons. Long range combat, they will use a bow. Short range? Well, prepare for a sword fight. In this game, you can also prepare a few load-outs. Choose carefully though, since this game doesn’t offer an inventory system. So, that means, when you want to use your potions, you will have to use a load-out. You can also equip two items and armour. Logical, since we only have two hands. This is the reason why you need to plan out your strategy quite well.

So, the actual controls are mighty smooth. While I think they should add a run button in the full release, the aiming and such is extremely nice for an alpha. Also, this game would benefit from a crouch move where you can’t fall off ledges, like in Minecraft.

I think I talked about everything I wanted to talk about so it’s time to wrap up this article.

Conclusion

I really love where the game is going. I understand that this game is still in alpha and needs some polishing. But truth to be told, the base game is there. The core idea is present and it puts a new spin on exploration. It’s not simply a clone or just an explorer game. It tries to do something new with the different load-outs you can easily switch between and the amazing map.

It can become a great game, if they worked on expanding the first impressions that the game gives you. If I would give it a score in it’s current state, while keeping in mind that it’s an alpha build, it would be around a 7/10.

Thanks for letting me play this game, I actually enjoyed myself. Don’t be afraid to send me a review copy when it’s fully released guys, I will for sure write a full review about it then.

Anyway, I think I will leave it at that for this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed preparing and writing it. And please, give their official site a look, they deserve it.

Game Quicky – Gamer’s Thoughts: HomeSick Beta 0.1

Recently I joined a crew to make do the testing for a game called HomeSick. It’s going to run on the RPG Maker engine. I have reviewed a game in the past, so yeah. Remember the Legend of the Ninja? Anyways, in this article I’ll talk about the first demo they put out for us to test. The testing is private, so I won’t provide a download link. Also, they announced that they are going to release an updated version in the upcoming days, so I might write an update article then. Anyways, let’s dive right into this game. Let’s analyse it. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment on the game and or the content of this article. 

Early access

I want to thank my friends over at Gamers’Hive to grant me access to this beta testing, even while the spots where full. Crying Man Studio’s are the developers of this game. They release development video’s here and there. The fans can give input into the game by giving comments. This is clearly going to be a labor of love.

Compared to what I played in the past in the engine, the direction they are going with this game is looking good. Graphically, the game looks nice. Everything fits together nicely. While there are some sprites I would change to match the emotions of the story, it’s a known bug.

A suggestion to the developers from me is that in the graveyard, you could put the names of the beta testers on a tomb stone? Like the beta testers are buried there? It sounds fun, but it’s totally up to you guys.

Testing it

Because this game is at it’s alpha / beta stage, this game is far from finished. I could start nitpicking on some collision boxes not being there and etc., but that’s when the game is ready to be polished and finished up.

There are a few things I didn’t like from my first experience. The soundtrack of this game is really great and helps to immerse yourself into the world that they created. Until I heard the theme of the battles. It feels out of place. It doesn’t feel action-y enough. It’s too calm to be an action theme.

What I mostly do to judge a theme is listing to the music with my eyes closed. If I’m able to create a similar scene that fits the music then is actually displayed on screen, then the music is fitting. But the battle theme didn’t pass.

They know that there are several spelling errors. Honestly, I thought that the writing was too generic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay, but you feel the Dutch influence as well. I offered to help rewrite some lines, but I haven’t gotten a reply. Simply because not so long after I started to write this article.

Final thoughts

I know, this is an extremely short article. Most of the bugs have been caught that I wanted to talk about so, I think it’s not really needed to talk about them in depth in my article.

It might be better if I wait until the updated beta is released and then take a more in depth look into it.  This was my initial experience and so far, it’s going good. I wish the developers the best of luck and cross my fingers that the final product will be amazing.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time guys, take care!

Gaming Nostalgia #3: Why I adore portable gaming so much.

If people ask me what my favorite console ever is, then I’ll answer that I choose the Nintendo Wii. My favorite handheld, is a way tougher question. It’s currently the Nintendo DS line but it was a close call between the Gameboy Advance and the Sony PSP. My favorite gaming platform, well that’s the Nintendo DS right now. Some may say that I’m a Nintendo fanboy. While that’s somewhat true I’m not only a Nintendo fanboy. If you read my blog, it’s quite clear that I also play other games then Nintendo games. One of my favorite games of all time isn’t even on a Nintendo platform. Anyways, it’s time to tell a story. A story about my past in games. Feel free to leave a comment about this story or/and your own experiences.

Gameboy

So, the computer I got because my parents didn’t want me to work or play on their computer was actually a pretty weak one for it’s time. It’s was excellent to introduce me into old school gaming but when I wanted to play more recent games, I have to be lucky and play them at a friends house.

Since I had a limited time on the computer and Belgium doesn’t offer any shows on TV concerning games I wasn’t able to keep myself up-to-date with the currently released games. I got interested in games that I saw at my nephew’s or friends place. So, of course I jumped the bandwagon of Pokémon.

I had a hard time to make friends as a kid. (Don’t worry, this isn’t the case anymore 🙂 ) So, most of my hobbies were things I could do alone or with my sister. Even as a child, I was addicted to writing stories and creating things. I didn’t knew that a laptop existed so when I got my own gameboy, my young mind went …. well … boom.

I felt like I was able to carry a small computer all around where ever I needed it. My experience with games before I got my own gameboy were nothing more then playing Pac-Man or Tetris on my aunt’s brick gameboy. You know, the original gameboy.

It all started with a bang.

I still remember a moment when I was at my aunt’s place and I just stopped playing Tetris. I placed the gameboy back in the drawer and when my aunt took it out and took one of the batteries out of the back, the battery exploded for some reason in her hand.

Normally, a child wouldn’t be so fond anymore of playing on that gameboy. Seeing things explode and people you love get hurt, it isn’t really the most fun experience for a child.

But the opposite happened. I wanted to know why the battery exploded and how I could prevent it. From that moment on, I started to ask technical questions about the gameboy. Like, which batteries that need to go inside it. I can be sure that since that day, my fascination with games started.

Oh, after finishing this article I remembered an important part of the story. When I was young, my aunt took me over to friends of hers. She had to babysit the two daughters who on their turn looked after me. And they had a box of gameboy games. That’s how I actually got introduced to a gameboy. Man, the memories coming back now.

I remember that even before I could play Pokémon, I was playing Super Mario on my gameboy over and over. I had never beaten it. Even when I try now, I can’t beat it. This makes one thing pretty clear to me. I’m not so good in platformers.

A genre I’m actually good at is the adventure genre. One day I was actually on a flea market. Since my family wanted to save on games, we bought our games there. I bought a Zelda game there. Best decision I ever made. Period. Since that day I was hooked to the series. I couldn’t stop playing it. I even stopped playing Pokémon because the Zelda games interested me more.

When I want to tell you guys the reason why I enjoy handheld games so much then I can tell the story in a way shorter version. I didn’t had access to the other systems. It’s the system where I find the most enjoyment. Since portable games need to be fun in short and long bursts. This fits my playing style just perfectly.

If you want to read more about my childhood memories with games, you will have to wait until I write a new article of gaming nostalgia. (Or read the previous two.) Since I see that I’m running out of space to write about one game of my childhood.

Dusting off: Lego Alpha Team

Wikipedia link

I was so pissed when this game broke on my computer. The game started crashing all over the place. Since this game is actually quite fun.

It’s a game about handholding but the other way around. You have to place tiles so your character can run in the right direction. You do have a limited amount of tiles of course.

This game challenged my young mind quite a lot. This game is the base of my love for adventure games and puzzling games. When it stopped working on my computer, I was allowed to play this game on my parents their computer. And only this game.

You really need to check this game out! Since I highly recommend it. And don’t worry, this game is on my list to talk about more in depth in the future of my blog.

Closing words

Thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading my story. I enjoy looking back on my past and talking about it. After all, I’m more of a story writer then an actual article writer.

If you want to be kept up-to-date with me, I advice you to follow me on Tumblr and Twitter. So, until the next time! Later!

Game Quicky #001: Catlateral Damage (PC) ~ Still in Alpha

Welcome to my new series! In this series I’m going to write (short) articles about a game, mod or experience which I wanted to talk about. This will mostly contain in development games, mods for Minecraft or SMF or simple experiences that make you as a person richer. I have no clue how frequent these articles will be so if you want more frequent articles of these, drop me a comment. Oh, this might be a great series to revive my Android games series. Remember those? Anyways, let’s dive right into Catlateral Damage. 

Official site

So, I got a tweet from a friend over at ButtonSmashersBlog of this game. Yet, I have played this game before. Thanks to his reminder, I wanted to write an article about this silly game. In real life I’m known to delay things. A prime example is this article. I started writing the introduction at mid February and now I finish it around the start of March. Being busy isn’t fun.

So, what can I say about this game? Well, for an amazing graphically beautiful game, you are the wrong spot. This game isn’t that. It’s a game where you play as a naughty cat… And for some readers, please get your mind out of the gutter. Thank you. This cat throws everything on the ground.

Your goal is to get a certain point value in a certain amount of time. Honestly, I haven’t beaten it. But some friends from Arpegi have beaten it.

I’m truly curious where this game is going to go when it’s fully released. I hear myself dreaming about more rooms and music. That would be awesome.

For now, this game is free. And I really recommend it as a sort of time killer. And if you are a YouTuber, an easy video. And I haven’t anything more to say about this game. I will keep an eye on this game and when it’s more developed, I will surely write a first impression.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the introduction to my new series. Catch you next time.