Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £15.49
Where To Get It: Steam

It’s interesting how marketing can change your mind. If I, perhaps, hadn’t been told, by quite a few people, that Moonlighter was “Recettear with the bad trimmed off” , I would perhaps feel nicer about it. As it is, the comparison leaves me distinctly unimpressed, and I can no longer quite be certain that my assessment of it on its own as “Alright, but never really excelling at any one thing, including making me care” isn’t based on this comparison.

Will, bridger of the gap between Merchant and Warrior. Twice the work, half the happiness.

There is a world, a world with a dungeon. As with many worlds with dungeons, people exploit this one, and an economy surrounds it. Or rather, an economy is restarted by it, as Will, a Merchant who owns the dungeon shop Moonlighter, re-enters the dungeons for things for his shop. Cue action RPG with shopkeeping elements.

As with many ARPGs of the modern day, the key to playing Moonlighter well is to know when to attack and dodge, using a variety of weapons, judging enemy patterns. It feels meaty, I’ll definitely give it that… But it also feels frustrating, for several reasons. Inventory limits are a starter. Every trip to the dungeon, only 20 things (plus equipment) can be carried. Items stack to their own limits (usually 5 or 10), and both cursed and uncursing items don’t stack. Why is this system here? Mainly to add something to inventory management. Unfortunately, what it adds is… Inventory management.

Shopkeeping is similar. What gets added when you level up the shop once? Shoplifters. Extra work, on top of the work you’ve got from extra features. You can, eventually, get shop security, but in the meantime… Enjoy chasing thieves to hit spacebar over them, or lose your stuff!

Is enjoy the right word? I’m thinking, and I’m thinking that the answer is no.

“Now remember, this one can only go to the sides, this one breaks if you get hit a bit, this one stops that rule applying for the first thing with rules it…” Please stop. Please.

Similarly, there’s a narrative, and it starts… Well, honestly, it doesn’t start well at all. Will goes into a dungeon ill equipped, gets his ass handed to him by a feature never seen again, gets told “Don’t look into the dungeon” by his Wise Old Mentor, then gets given a sword by said Wise Old Mentor, who continues to tell him not to go into the dungeon. Getting mixed signals here. Meanwhile, something builds up as you explore the dungeon, where it appears the dungeons are not, strictly speaking, dungeons, but parts of other worlds, randomly snatched with their security features still active. Is there a reason for it? Yes. Is it revealed? Yes. Does it, eventually, get resolved? Yes.

Is it particularly satisfying? Not really.

Indeed, this is the main problem, narrative wise, with Moonlighter. There’s little to no pressure, it’s true. But there are also little to no stakes involved, not much of a reason to care about the shop, not much of a reason to talk to any townsfolk outside of the shopkeepers. There’s an economy, but since nothing seriously threatens that economy, there’s no real incentive to keep those wheels turning except… That you need to do it if you want a decent chance of getting to the end of the game. Long before which, due to the lack of either threat or incentive to spend, you will have more money than you know what to do with, because, despite the seemingly silly costs of anything above the second tier, the rewards from the dungeons correspondingly increase.

So, in summary? It somewhat works mechanically, in the servicable, achieves its goals way, but Moonlighter feels uninteresting, at least in part because there’s nothing, good or ill, that properly ends up pushing the narrative forward.

I will give the game this: To be an adventurer is to often perpetrate or be complicit in otherwise criminal activity, and it acknowledges it.

The Mad Welshman is sometimes confused by what his peers consider “With the bad bits gone.”

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £12.39 (Soundtrack £5.79, Game and soundtrack £18.18)
Where To Get It: Steam

Wizard of Legend is a tough game to write about. Not just because its gameplay is fairly simple, but also because, once you dig deeper… You hit bedrock fairly quickly. But it is a game which knows what it wants, and what it wants is many different visuals for the task of beating up fantasy wizards.

It definitely does this.

If a spell looks this impressive, you can guarantee you have to stand still to use it. Be cautious.

To give a brief summation, Wizard of Legend is a twitchy twin-stick shooter where a young person, on a trip to the museum of wizardry, gets sucked into the past, for the Wizard of Legend tournament, in which they fight through four grand masters (with, apparently, more on the way as DLC at some point), six roughly element themed levels (2 before each of the first three masters) , in order to both win the grand prize, and to get back home. Pretty normal stuff, as wizarding stories go. And this… This is kind of the thing…

Nearly all the ingredients are here: Elemental themes. A fair few enemies, some of whom are elemental themed. A whole boatload of spells (of which you start with four, can pick four of whichever ones you buy to start with, use up to six, and hold seven.) Improving yourself through play, by earning crystals in runs to buy new spells, relics, and costumes. Good music.

But it feels lacking, and I’d have to agree with my peers that the theming, while distinct, still keeps the rooms of the game looking quite samey. Oh, occasionally you’ll run into something definitely themed, such as elemental enemies and traps, but while the former add interest, the latter, like all trap/challenge rooms, are… Well, trap/challenge rooms. Here’s the environmental thing to dodge while getting the chest. Here’s the environmental thing to push enemies into while avoiding it yourself.

Every boss has a couple of cool, element themed puns. Just to keep it ice and interesting, and chill you out before getting frozen out or dropping that avalanche on them…

The spells, and to a lesser extent, the bosses, are definitely more interesting. Most can be upgraded once to add an effect, such as BIGGER FIST for the Earth Fist, or a freeze chance, or something similar, and others can be improved even further by becoming Signature Spells, which, when fully charged, really let rip. There’s even some tactical consideration, as the nastier spells freeze you in your tracks unless you dodge-cancel, and yes, the elemental damage does count for something, although it can sometimes be hard to tell in the chaos. Relics add some variety, but, as with any roguelike, roguelite, or roguesumawotsit, you don’t know what they are at first, can’t check in a run (which is an annoyance), and whether it synergises well with what you’re doing is as much dependent on proc-chances as skill.

It’s fun while I’m playing it. I can’t deny that. But, on the outside looking in, when a run is over, I’m not entirely sure how much I’ve learned, beyond enemy patterns. I’m not sure how much one thing or another contributed to my run, because it’s not always clear. The fun is in the moment, and while that’s not a bad thing, it does leave an odd aftertaste to the experience of playing Wizard of Legend.

Some enemies have elemental attacks of their own. That perfect half second before I flop over and die through, essentially, overconfidence and miscalculculation.

Or maybe I, and other critics, are overthinking things. Sometimes we do that. Either way, Wizard of Legend is, as noted, fun in the moment, mainly confusing when you’re letting rip, but with good telegraphing, and isn’t a bad addition to the twin-stick rogueapalooza stable. That’s all it needs to be.

The Mad Welshman is a jack-of-all-elements.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: $19.99 (Approximately £15 , 657 copies remaining of first access at time of writing)
Where To Get It: Itch.IO
Version Reviewed: o.14A

It’s a decidedly eerie feeling, finding yourself. No, not in the sense of discovering your personality. I mean, discovering you, or, more accurately, an earlier clone of you that didn’t make it, for whatever reason. But that’s part of the “joy” of Beacon, a third-person twin-stick game where you are a clone. And not necessarily a faithful one, either.

Hrm, there’s something different about me… Oh, I redid my hair in the vat! Niiiice!

Okay, that bit takes some explaining. While Beacon is indeed another twin-stick, procedurally generated shooter with persistent elements, those elements are mainly (in the present build, at least), genetic. Abstracted genetics, harvested from things that maaaaaybe wouldn’t have genes (like the PRISM robots) , but genetics nonetheless… And these attempts at improvement through genetic tampering have a reason. The original Freja Akiyama (the protag) died on landing after crashing on this hostile and ever changing world. But that doesn’t mean her base personality wasn’t saved, and that she doesn’t want to get off the planet. So, she has a clone tank. Sometimes, it works as intended, taking genes from local wildlife (robotic or otherwise) , and sometimes… It makes drastic changes, both to her body, and to her perception of things.

It’s one hell of a clever conceit, and it’s backed up by a good, low-poly aesthetic, some good secrets (Of which I’ve discovered a few, and not quite got the hang of quite a few more), a variety of weapons, and a relatively limited enemy set that nonetheless gets tough, and scary, pretty early on. Good soundtrack, good idea, good aesthetic… So… What’s not so hot?

AHsodoffsodoffsodoff! (Dodge-rolling is the only way to get some range here)

Well, every gun has a minimum range, and there are a couple of enemies, specifically the Quick PRISM Robot subtype, that are annoying as hell at the present time. It’s not just that they’re faster than you. It’s not just that weapons have a minimum range. No, it’s that they can also shield themselves, and that, honestly, is a bit much. They are, unlike, for example, the flamethrower robots, not so much scary, or tense, as annoying to deal with. There’s also a lack of permanence, right now, in the things you’ve found, which is a bit of a shame, if understandable.

Still, this is already a promising start, with a lot to explore and deal with, a lot of weaponry of different types, and, once you get further in the game, you start to uncover an interesting mystery. I mean, robots and buildings do sort of imply previous habitation… Do they not?

Note for next clone: Chaingun slows you down. Also, construction failing, almost died due to plates falling. Be careful, sister!

The Mad Welshman #37 loves his spindly little robot legs. The Mad Welshman #36 says they don’t quite suit him though. Please help solve our “discussion” without chainguns getting involved.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £15.49 (£19.48 w/soundtrack, Soundtrack £3.99)
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access 1, Early Access 2

City of Brass, it’s safe to say, had charmed me pretty much from the first. It had some issues, which have mostly been resolved by the developers, and now, just a couple of short months from the last time I looked at it, it’s jumped from 0.5 to 1.0, full release.

And I’m happy to say that honestly, it doesn’t feel premature. In fact, it feels pretty good.

About as good, in fact, as the feeling of shoving this zombie into that spike trap.

City of Brass is a first-person, procedurally generated game in which our un-named protagonist has found the mythical City of Brass, a city cursed with immortal life by, as you might have guessed by the Middle Eastern aesthetic of the world, a group of asshole Djinni. With a talisman that grants you three wishes, a whip, and a sword, it’s up to you to enter the city, loot as much as possible, and hopefully beat the final boss and escape. It’s a game that uses smallish variations in its simplicity to add flavour and depth, and it feels good.

Let’s take the whip as an example. The whip, by itself, is a versatile tool. It lets you swing from certain places, grab loot and throwables from a distance, trigger most kinds of trap, you can pull enemies toward you with it, whip their projectiles back at them, or, depending on where you hit them, stun them, disarm them, or trip them.

And then, with a bit of money, and luck of the draw, you can give it a heck of a long reach. Or it can freeze enemies. Or it really stuns them. Clever stuff, and, if you want other examples, you can read the earlier reviews. But what’s new in the release version?

Enemies with shields remain something to be wary of. Which is still perfectly fine, gotta keep you on your toes!

Well, part of it is balancing. As an example, before, city guards were perhaps my earliest killers, because they weren’t stunned very long by attacks. Now, they stun longer when you whack them with a sword, so they’re less of a threat, and the early game is friendlier as a result. There’s also a new blessing that, on the one hand, removes your leaderboard score for the games you use it on, like all blessings (Meant to give you an easier time), but it totally removes the timer, letting you explore levels at your leisure. Nice!

But another part of it is Twitch Integration, allowing those of you who stream the game to add some interactivity and spice. While a niche feature, I can confirm from experience that this gets chaotic as hell, and, since planning around chaos is a core part of the game, I loved the heck out of it. To stroll through the first levels, only to be greeted by enemy cries in an empty room, for example, unnerved the heck out of me, which put my guard down a little later on, when my chat decided… To hit me with an entire group of enemies. Ouch. Also, nice work.

YOU DON’T FOOL ME, AND I HAVE AN EXPLOSIVE URN! WE’LL GO TOGETHER IF YOU VWIP AWAY, I SWEAR!

The Gatekeepers remain a fairly variable bunch, although they do seem somewhat more manageable overall, but, essentially, what I’ve said previously with City of Brass still stands: It comes highly recommended, a clever use of a limited toolset that makes me feel good when a plan comes together, with an interesting world, solid aesthetics, and clear, intuitive play.

Look away from the sceeeeene, I can take you anywhere! Spend a vision with me, a chaaaase with the wiiiiiind! (Rainbow’s “Gates of Babylon” remains an awesome accompaniment to this game.)

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £8.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access

Well, last time I looked at Bombslinger, I would be embarassed to die to the bosses, and often died to the enemies. By the time of release, however, things have gone back to a more natural order of bosses being more challenging than enemies. And what a set of bosses it is…

Ahhh, the sweet smell of nitro in the morning…

Bombslinger, as noted in my Early Access review, is a spaghetti western inspired procgen Bomberman style game. The basic idea is very simple: You have bombs, which hurt both you and the enemies, and clear terrain. Blow up enemies, collect powerups so you get more bombs, health, speed, and bomb power, ensuring you don’t die. Get to the end of the level, blow up the pattern based boss, go to the next level with more difficult enemies and bosses, until you win or die. Easy.

But Bombslinger adds a little extra, a little variety with its roguelike elements. On top of Bomberman style staples available like Big, Extra Splodey Bombs and remote detonation bombs, there are powerups that let you dodge roll, let you leap obstacles, and even ensure that those pesky obstacles are no impediment to your explosive revenge on the folks that killed your wife (Yes, like a Spaghetti Western, it’s got a story that goes some of the same places a Spaghetti Western would have, for good and for ill.) Some of these powerups are available at the beginning of a run, based on previous achievements (thus adding some incremental improvement in there too.)

For some odd reason, I’m thinking of Wolfenstein right now…

While some things (such as the earliest enemies being more tedious than tense or tactical) haven’t changed, the bosses have definitely improved. While the Firestarter boss is still heavily pattern based, he’s more threatening, getting more dangerous the closer he is to death, for example. The UI remains pretty clear (although the keybinding is a little odd, the clarity helps remind me what’s a special, what’s a consumable, and what’s an ability), the aesthetic is interesting (Essentially, it’s 2D sprites in a 3D space, as shown when you enter the shop, done smoothly enough that it’s only really noticeable in the shop), the music is quite nice, and, overall?

Bombslinger does nice things with its mechanical inspirations, and is well worth a poke for Bomberman fans.

The broom, while technically useless, does save a little time.

The Mad Welshman is a big fan of the old cannonball bomb design. It has history.

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