Navigating The Labyrinth

I love blobber games. Unfortunately I tried to make a party in this game, and I couldn't even type out each character's name as the game responded to each letter, moving, opening map, resting etc. Powering through that, after I made some characters, I tried to delete one and add a different one, the result was it added two of the new character replacing another party member. The first few minutes of this game has not been tested and is extremely buggy, which makes me not want to play anymore to find the rest. Please test your game, Refunded.

This is the third installment in Dragon Dropper's dungeon-crawling saga, and while it's mostly the same Bard's Tale/Wizardry turn-based/grid/first person deal as the first two games (Into the Inferno and Crossing the Sands), you can see an update in graphical quality, effects, and it seems like a bigger variety of monsters as well. I really can't comment on the story, I'm sure it involves killing something in a labyrinth somewhere; we're not playing for the story here. We want to explore, kill monsters, make our party stronger, and get to the end of the game at some point. Jason (Dragon Dropper) is an active developer, and it's great to see him roll out updates for his newest and older games around the same time (they run on the same engine). There is a bit of jank which adds to the charm (or frustration, depending on your tolerance) such as a bug when creating characters that makes you move around the map, and the music...the best way to describe it is what I imagine folk music would sound like on a high dose of psychedelics. If you're looking for a classic-formula RPG that features grid based movement, turn based combat, and fairly open exploration, grab any one of Dragon Dropp…

I'm very tentative on this game, but I am going with "not recommended" from the perspective of a player who has completed the two previous games. If you are new to the series and are considering starting with this one, this review may not apply as much to you. While I enjoyed the previous games in the series, they had a number of problems that have still not been addressed here, and it is becoming a bit wearisome. The camera glitches through buildings when you enter. Towns are cluttered with unclear graphics and non-interactive buildings. Outdoor areas are massive, but almost totally empty. Event tiles are completely unmarked, so slowly stepping on every single tile (including in those massive empty areas) is required. Loot is frequently underwhelming. There are multiple minor GUI bugs and oversights, giving the experience an unpolished feel. These are just some examples. I didn't mind overlooking these things before, but by the third game, they really should have been ironed out. This entry also makes the confusing decision to do away with all hybrid spellcasters, which I felt made character creation a bit stifling compared to Crossing the Sands. Out of eight classes, …

Third in the series and I feel it's the best one so far. This game has better graphics, better itemiztion, good class balance. If I had to pick on anything, I would say the game is too short taking me about half the time to finish compared to the first two games. Quests seemed to stop about halfway through the game and really the second half just focued on killing and navigating the different mazes to get to the end goal. The second half of the game felt like it was rushed to finish by not having elements that made the first half of the game more engaging (i.e. quests, dig spots, fountains, unique encounters, etc.) Some new elements (i.e. traps and spinners) made exploration more interesting but annoying. It would be nice to have the thief type classes have a chance to bypass these traps. The spinner was just plain annoting since you can always see the direction you are facing in the minimap (so really no chance to get lost). The spinner would be much more effective if the arrow on the minimap also changed to like a question mark or something. Also one quest where the choice has minor consequences towards the end. It would be nice to see these elements refined and expanded …

** COULDN'T POST ON TOWARD THE ICE DEMO ** I am now weary of this developer, I was looking forward to Toward the Ice until first two reviews pointed out problems. SO I download demo and the demo just stayed on loading screen. Gave up after Three Tries...... Really Disappointed I will look else where for these types of games *************************************************** General Like the Game A Lot Very relaxing dungeon crawler. A few things needed to improve it. A. Battle Text Box. I have to put the Battle Message speed down a lot otherwise the time between characters actions is so long. Because I put the speed the down, when the battle ends the Box disappears so fast I cant see final rewards. So if i want to see it I have play with slow battle settings which i don't like. The box should not be off this setting, it should either stay and let us close it or just fade out but fade in if you mouse over it. B. Keyboard Config There are problems with this. For example 'M" closes mini map instead of bring up big map. I have to click on mini map to bring up the the bigger map. There is nothing under control configuration to assign mini map or world map, they just don't exis…

I had fun with the game. The character system is reasonably solid and the itemization is decent. The core combat loop is entertaining and there is good monster variety. The maps are often pretty barren and there are no treasure chests to find on the maps themselves so exploring thoroughly is not always rewarded. There are a few bugs and graphical anomalies but nothing that ruined my enjoyment. I did play it to the end which is certainly something in this day and age.