Manor of the Damned is a retro inspired action RPG that invokes the memories from the great console games of times past. The game has a deep storyline, intense action, puzzle solving and exploration. You play a destitute wandering vampyre who agrees to help rid a village of a raiding specpyre family. The game features multiple weapons, semi-destructible environments, retro inspired sound effects and graphics, an industrial music sound track, and vampyres that turn into spectres and feed on souls!
So after the update that made it not crash upon launch, I finally got to play the game. I wandered around for a fairly long time, being told that the doors I was trying to open were mostly locked, found a sword, eventually found that the stripy thing was a gate you could smash down and walk through, then found a lot of more locked doors.
There was one room I could go into, which had a bunch of people standing around I couldn't figure out a way to talk to, and one area had some enemies that would cling to me and then poof when shaken off, but I couldn't figure out a way to fight them as such. At the end of the area, cutting through some vines revealed another door, which was locked.
Suddenly an exciting higher-tempo music track started playing! I continued to trundle slowly around trying locked doors until eventually I got bored and closed the game.
Well done implementing the basics of a game engine. Now it's time to start actually working on making an enjoyable gaming experience. Consider getting some playtesters who haven't seen it before, and maybe a UI/UX guy.
Rijn the Specpyre in... Manor of the Damned! is a simple game similar in form to The Legend of Zelda. Item acquisition is the primary method through which the character develops just as in Zelda. Bits of story in texts and character dialogue serve to advance the narrative. Experience is an absent game mechanism. This is too bad as monsters serve no other purpose than as obstalces that slow your progression through the story.
The setting of the haunted manor is one the strongest qualities of the game. The tile set is gorgeous and helps to create a somber environment that is threatening in mood at times. It works to provide the perfect locale for which Rijn finds himself wandering within. A lot of love and focus went into making the sprites.
Combat is unfortunately straight forward without providing many opportunities to develop strategies. Some enemies throw projectiles while others have aura effects that need to be avoided. One of my favorite enemies is the tentactled beast lurking in the floor who throws books off of nearby shelves at you -very Lovecraftian in its inspiration. It is usually a simple matter of waiting until the enemy is defenseless before striking. Just like in the classic Nintendo games, you are able to align yourself just so your attacks strike the enemy but their strikes do not. It may be abusing the game rules, but it is possible with some foes. Some weapons are able to be combined to devasting effect. If you wield the torch in one hand while firing the crossbow in another, you get fire arrows. It is very gratifying watching an enemy run into others only to set them in turn on fire.
I wish there were more to the game such as puzzles. The combat wears thin quickly and while the story provides something to focus on, it is unable to overcome the grinding experience of combat. Give the demo a try to see if a combat-centric action game is what you are looking for.
Rijn the Specpyre feels a bit like a mashup between Zelda and Castlevania. Sold? Sold.
On a more serious note... Quick breakdown of the game
Gameplay: usual top-down ARPG view and gameplay, save points, all the classic goodness. Some weird collisions here and there (the first boss for example), but it feels about fine. Minor gripe: hotkeys 1-4 are fiddly as usual (AZERTY keyboard).
Music: pretty good, sets the mood in a fit fashion.
Looks: just what you see in the screenshots. A bit square, but nothing off-putting.
Story: Can't begin to tell how good the writing is. The only one minor problem is, in fact, the title of the game. That says a lot. Apart from that, reading the game books is a pleasure in and of itself. Well worth the price for them alone.
I wrote a review for the game here (http://www.gamebanana.com/reviews/30).
This game is great, I gave it an 8/10 simply due to how short the game is, I wish it was a bit longer.
It's still a very good game and it is worth buying.
Game-play 10
Lots of fun.
Stability 10
It runs stable under Ubuntu 11.10 64bit.
Good music, I like this game. :)
Really cool game, Zeldaish with vampyres