Recent reviews by Osma

Nice

Cheap (on sale), fun, well optimized. I get 59 fps average framerate on my old GTX 1050 laptop - settings set to very high, lighting turned down to medium. I only wish it didn't take over 100 GB of disk space.

Consider this a neutral review.

I bought this for Tavern Quests. I am happy with my purchase, but I hope there'll be more updates because a lot of bugs still remain. Seeing that some games got redux versions - I hope Tavern Quests could get one too. To this day, I think the game has good potential as a local multiplayer game.

Some possible features for redux:
1) Information about player gladiators could get saved for every level (eg. at lvl 1 tyour stats were <...>, at lvl 2 <...> and so on), then if two player characters fought, the higher level character could be "brought back in time" to make the game fair.
2) More players, maybe 6? Then a dice could be rolled to decide who goes first;
3) Two dice mode to make the game faster, if the player(s) have little time (could be a card).
4) Upscaled graphics where needed (some images are pixelated on high res), this could be done with a vector editing program such as Illustrator / Inkscape (convert to vector, increase size, export).
5) Vector art exported as images for increased performance.
6) Bug fixes, as said, there are a lot needed.
7) Bugs aside, the game needs a rebalance. A mage (intellect) build is infinitely more powerful than anything else, doing hundreds of damage each turn, thousands at higher levels. Even lvl 2 spells are viable to win the fight on the first turn.

Onto the bugs / issues. Not necessary to look through everything, but do consider to take a look at what I consider significant issues to help you decide about the purchase.

Minor:
1) Lightning spell lvl 2 costs as much as lvl 1, so after the first game, mages pretty much have all they need to dominate (provided that all the skill points are spent on intellect).
2) Mana recharge spell states it heals the player, instead of restoring mana, but it's only a text error. The spell does actually recharge mana.
3) Most minigames have time limits to limit the gold player gets. The game that requires the player to collect sandals by flying and knocking over monsters can provide hundreds of gold because it has no time limit. Minigame rewards need to be rebalanced in general, they're too inconsistent.
4) When defending in a fight versus AI, the name, health, etc. are on the wrong sides.
5) The castle siege minigame seems to be bugged, I found it impossible to hit a tower after destroying it half way, but maybe I'm not accurate enough.
6) "Fake" sandals that freeze you are actually not fake, as you do receive an actual sandal upon picking them up.

Somewhere in between:
1) Arena fighting (challenge) tile sometimes only gives 1 enemy choice and then the challenger gets to pick the prize, instead of the defendant, which is unfair.
2) AI doesn't get to use cards that player uses for special bonuses (2x gold on blue tiles, no penalty for red tiles, etc.). I think the card player chooses should be applied to all players and AI.
3) The walk backwards tile seems to make the player walk backwards for 1 turn and AI for 2.
4) The level of arena champions doesn't scale like that of regular fighters, making the champions not stronger, but usually much weaker, unless the champion has just been unlocked.
5) After stepping on a wandering monster tile, the monster may cover the check mark that lets the player start the fight. I am not placing this in significant because I found that there are more places that can be clicked to start the fight than just the check mark.

Significant:
1) The money rewards after each game don't match up with the "rewards summary" (the explanation of what the gold is awarded for). There's so much money given that the player can easily buy anything that suits their level. There's pretty much no money management. Money may as well not exist at all with a system like this.
2) AI never wins masks. Winning 1 mask as a player is enough for a guaranteed sandal.
3) AI chooses to play minigames or fight when it rolls dice number high enough to get to the end of the board, this way giving up the victory. In the same way, AI misses sandals which it could pick up.
4) Arena fighting (challenge) tile sometimes forces you to fight yourself (only one choice to pick an opponent, named undefined and with player picture). After this, the game crashes. If AI gets to fight itself, this may result in them winning NaN gold, which gives them a sandal for the most gold collected.

Should've been the game of the year back in 2016.

+

It's incredible how such a small application can have so many useful features. What's even more incredible is that this is completely free. If you're looking for a screen capturer, look no further.

10/20, would get called out for playing this again.

Important note: you can turn on vocals for the music in game through Options > Audio. Not everyone seems to know this, so spread the word. \m/

I'm going to cover the one aspect of this game that everyone seems to miss out and that is the music. In my opinion, music is what really pushes this game above others. There are several good zombie shooters and you could choose to play any one of them. But there's not a single one that I'm aware of that lets you blow up zombies' (or in this game, zeds') heads while listening to renowned artists like Demon Hunter. The tunes that are produced specifically for this game are also just mindblowing (check out the Halloween soundtrack by zYnthetic, it's insane). Even my friends who don't listen to metal find the soundtrack appealing. Me personally - I'm in love with it. Combine this with a huge player base, variety of weapons and zeds, high level of customization, frequent updates, no DLC and you've got yourself the best zombie shooter out there (imho).