Player Comments on Sword arena

As explained by just about everybody else, it could have been greatly improved by just adding some story to the game. I think it is a good start though, and can be pretty good if you take the time to improve it.

Attack. Defend. Attack. Defend. Attack. Defend. Attack. Defend. That's the game. Just saved you five boring minutes of your life wasted.

Anyway, I rarely give a serious review, but fuck it, I decided I'll try it today. This game is bad. I mean bad. There's no enjoyment to get out of it. There's not a drop of description for anything, so for all I know I could be an anthropomorphic glob of some grey goo with a long sword attacking the reanimated corpses of the Presidents, and honestly that sounds way cooler than I thought it would. Fuck it, that's what this game is, whacking zombie JFK with a sword over and over.

So what does this game have to offer beyond a combat system that is nothing but attack, defend, repeat until one of you falls over? Absolutely nothing. It gives you character creation as simple as 'are you a boy or a girl?' (hint this has no effect on the story) and 'what class are you?' and then it just throws you into the game with no reason for you to be there.

Like sure, some games have no plots. But those are things like quizzes, personality tests, etc.. I mean, take a look at something like Tower of Riddles. It easily could've been just a game of 'answer the riddle correctly then answer another riddle until you get to an end game link', but no, there was a story involved, something to engross the player.

Delve, which this is clearly a rip-off of, had a simplistic plot, but it was there: you're dungeon-crawling because you want treasure and you're fighting fantasy monsters. What does this have in the way of plot? You're a whatever thrown into an arena for whatever reason fighting whatevers. Who am I and what am I fighting? Why am I fighting it? Where the fuck is this arena?

I mean, sure, you can fill in the blanks like I did with anthropomorphic grey blob man chopping off Abe Lincoln's limbs, but the thing about stories are that they're supposed to present to you a cohesive plot. This just... Doesn't.

Now, as for the gameplay, I covered it like twice already. Click attack. Click defend. Repeat. The only variation is you'll be able to defend more I guess if you have a high defense and you can attack with other weapons you buy or receive from the game. It's such a boring system. It makes just wanna... Wanna... Wanna fall asleep...

Now, leveling up makes no fucking sense. Everytime you defeat an enemy, you get 100 EXP. You can choose between putting that into your defense, your speed, your insight, or your health... Well let's get it out of the way that the only stats that matter are health and defense. Insight, as far as I know, does jack shit. Same with speed. Defense allows you to take less damage when you, well, defend, and health... Well, I'll get to that.

Now, with health, you might figure upgrading it will increase your maximum health. No. After a fight, you do NOT regenerate health. Now, if you want to regenerate health, you have to upgrade it. And get this, remember how earlier I mentioned that you get 100 EXP? Well, upgrading one stat puts 50 into that stat. Fucking. FIFTY. That's half your EXP gone! You can't choose how much you put into a stat, you have to choose between putting fifty into this stat or fifty into that stat!

Now I get it, considering there are only two stats that do anything in the game, it makes sense to just half your EXP into those two, but what if you're on your first playthrough and don't know that? Then you're not sure what the fuck you're gonna do.

Now, as for the scripting, it's not bad. I mean it could be a lot better, but it could definitely be worse too. The author, to quote Mizal, has figured out scripting, but not how to piece together an enjoyable game with it. Polish up your scripting skills a bit and find someone who knows how to, I dunno, WRITE, and you might make yourself a good little RPG.

My rating for this is a 2/8, because the idea of the grey blob fighting dead presidents made me chuckle a bit while I was playing and plus the scripting wasn't completely godawful.

A lot of effort has been put into this combat system, and I think you have basis for something interesting here. At the moment though, a game like this is always going to lose out to games like Dungeon Stompage which have both a superior & easier to understand system, and include a well-written story.

Well, you tried?

Tip for anyone just wanting a point: choose No when it asks, 'Is this your character?' It drops your health to zero and takes you to an End Game link for some reason. (From there, the Play Again link is also broken...)

Anyway, Delve! this ain't. The author understands scripting now, sort of. Great, but not how to piece together an enjoyable game with it.

Reading 'You attack the enemy with your dagger!' over and over and over as I whittle their HP down four points at a time is not a good experience.

Buying a weapon doesn't put it in my inventory, and the item isn't there to retrieve when I go back. Instead I'm stuck on the purchase page with no link to leave it. (That's 'purchase page' because I won't call it a weapon shop. No shop is described and the game contains not a scrap of description to give this spartan experience of repeatedly clicking a link to watch numbers change any flavor or interest at all.)

All the fun of taxes. No story or characters to speak of, only a hyper-linear, underwhelming combat system. It's technically written in English so I guess it's a 3/8, but that's all I'm comfortable saying for it.