Shadows Of Thornkeep

[h1]Rolling Through The Bramblepatch In Your Underoos[/h1] [b]Shadows Of Thornkeep = Darkest Dungeon + Diablo + Legend of Grimrock + The Eldritch Horrors of Vibe Coding[/b] This game has only just hit Early Access, there is sure to be jank, and perhaps it will improve, but I wouldn't feel right about not at least warning other potential buyers about what to expect with this game. There is janky Early Access, and then there is borderline unplayable Early Access. Thornkeep is very much nestled deep within the latter. Some [i]thorny[/i] situations I came across: [list] [*] Thinking the game was bricked out of the gate due to being allowed to enter a dungeon WITHOUT A PARTY and not receiving intuitive direction as to how to build a party. [*] Endless typos and corrupted text strings. [*] An eternity of broken/bugged UI elements that resulted in things like "holding" a party member in my cursor and walking away from the party recruitment screen, "carrying" the picked up party member with me wherever I went. [*] Nonsensical enemy spawns/visibility that prevent you from moving in a strategic way through the dungeon, doing which is sort of a hallmark for every blobber since the 1980s. […

The game is great. You can choose the difficulty of quests, manage two squads of warriors, and upgrade your base.

I like the game. Neat old school RPG that creates immersive atmosphere. Regarding mechanics: you get 4 chars at a time for the journey, choosing from 6 (is it 6?) different classes with 2 different abilities. For the journey you only get to decide position of your heroes and in the fight when to use which ability which is limited by cooldown and mana. You ll be collecting resources in order to upgrade your camp, weapons and armour. And that is it, pretty simple, but it works. I would prefer more options in the combat (more skills and tactical actions) and some kind of char development, but for the given prize I guess it is nice little RPG developed by a single Czech (greetings from Czechia :-)) dev.

I am doing this review pretty early into my playtime, sort of a first impression review. This is also being done in Early Access, so if anything major changes, I'll update that, too, and I'll do an update once I've played more of the game. The first thing that popped into my mind was: this is very much a game like Darkest Dungeon, although with somewhat less content. That is to be expected, of course, at this point in development, from a one-man dev team, all that I'm trying to say is that this game has quite a few similarities with the aforementioned game. Every time you go on a dungeon run, a day goes by, and new heroes are available to recruit. You end up with a roster of heroes, not just one party. Your heroes get fatigued, and need to rest, encouraging you to rotate your heroes regularly. As you do runs, you get resources to upgrade your camp. I am absolutely not meaning for any of these similarities to sound negative in any way, but the comparison is definitely waiting to be made, and it's a comparison that I like to think is a fair one, and is meant to be a flattering one. It made me think of Darkest Dungeon... and I loved that game. The game wears its influnces on its slee…