Gladiato Potato

[h3]Steel up for the arena and slay waves of egg-shaped potatoes in this seemingly simple indie... until you look under the hood to discover a surprisingly diverse arsenal unlocked through luck and crafting. Sprinkle skill trees and stat points and it you won't notice an hour or two fly by as you evolve into the ultimate warrior.[/h3] [i]Note that this game is in early access, so contents may change and not be reflected in this review[/i] Survivors-likes have certainly exploded in recent years, primarily because they're a fairly easy formula to emulate. GP is fundamentally one, structured around increasingly difficult foes from all directions, and a randomized upgrade choice at the end of each successful round. Your options allow for a measure of build flexibility, since you can count on, say, life upgrades if your core stats are fully offensive. Survive 25 rounds, and you'll be crowned champion. But what sets GP apart from the numerous other wave defender games is its crafting system. One that, at the time of review, honestly isn't explained well. You're shown that you can buy two sticks from the shop and drag-and-drop them to form a pointed spear, after which you're pretty muc…

This game is hardly playable in its current state. The gameplay loop is unbelievably boring and repetitive. Enemies just rush at you without any real intelligence. Starting out, your only option for combat is to whack a stick, stone, or leaf and move around. All those weapons feel identical. You just click the button and whack. Want to buy a new weapon? Good luck getting any significant amount of coins from killing enemies. Your only real chance of getting coins is to complete the game's "objectives." Which means you have to suffer round after round of a total snoozefest until you take enough damage, deal damage, kill a certain amount of enemies, etc. Then even when you can get better weapons, who cares? The game has no variety or challenge to offer. There's nothing to work towards. It's insulting that this is being sold as an early access game - this is early prototype material. Very disgraceful. The developers seriously need to step in and add more to this game if they're going to be selling it.

Simple wave-based game that needs to balance certain things. The first thing you must do is purchase a weapon from the store. The most common are a regular stick, a stone, or a leaf. Although the pick is random after each round, you can pay a few coins to reroll and possibly find a slightly improved main weapon or something new. Better stuff is pricey, and you may not have enough money. In this situation, you can lock a weapon and return for it once you have earned enough. When bought, weapons are dropped on the main screen and can be moved around. There’s a physics engine included so you can use one weapon to push others to the edge of the screen and beyond. This creates a problem. If you push a weapon too far, you won’t be able to select it. Such as weapon is lost because it doesn’t respawn at the center of the screen. This can be very painful if it happens with an expensive and powerful weapon. Money is acquired by beating enemies and obtaining loot, but mostly by accomplishing the main and daily missions. The more you play, the more you will earn from doing basic things such as kill the required number of enemies or grabbing coins. There are no experience points from the e…

duuude i didnt expect much but im kinda glad that this is not just another survivors like type of game and some cool mechanics as the crafting for better weapons i love it tho

At first I was a little confused due to the lack of tutorial, but I went to the store page and read the info boxes, and thats how I learned about combining objects to make them stronger. The game could definitely benefit from a short in-game tutorial. The first 20 minutes or so I felt very powerless, getting flatlined over and over again, and I wondered if this game was designed to be played with multiple people instead of trying to troupe through as a solo act - But, then I realized the point of the game early on was not to defeat opponents, but to earn coins to use to build stronger equipment. After figuring that out it felt a lot less burdensome, and like I was actually accomplishing goals, but I wish getting stronger at the beginning wasn't so vague and time consuming- I think its something that will potentially put off having long-term players. The skill system, and getting to choose a temporary power up every time I beat a level was very well implemented, and I enjoyed seeing the differences each one made for my next round- It made me wish maybe there were separate classes to choose from, or builds to play- Like archer, swordsman, etc, that would have different pros and con…

Both a roguelike genre and extremely fun It makes you feel the sense of progress as you play. You don't want to put it down. I really liked the game