Elemental Mage Defense

My gambling addict friend said if I post a review on Elemental Mage Defense and it gets 350 likes and 150 Awards that he will buy me a case of beer and some vodka . So I'm just gonna leave this here.

"Elemental Mage Defense" is a laughably badly made Galaga/Space Invaders style 2.5D arcade shoot 'em up... you shoot bugs/monsters while moving left and right at the bottom of your screen. Yes, that's all there is to this. You do get a couple of different firing modes and game modes (but these are pretty much all the same). This feels a lot like someone's weekend Unity project. They got the project to build and immediately burned $100 on Steam Direct. Where it failed, disastrously. This comes across as something unambitious and "simple" in terms of implementation and technical quality and depth, more like a game dev tutorial or an experiment. It’s a classic case of a developer prioritizing the low effort needed to get a game listed on Steam over the actual delivery of a technically sound or compelling product. Whatever is needed to hammer out something "good" enough for Steam Direct self-publishing. This game looks a lot better visually than the actual gameplay. It could be the developer purchased high-end assets (no proof of that), or somehow managed to create okayish-looking assets while delivering a mediocre game, in this case it could be either... but there's no hard…

As someone who doesn't play PC often, it was a fun game to kill time and grind out when you are just wanting to have a chill gaming session. I really enjoyed it and will be coming back to play it and just chill. - Easy mode is for casuals for sure. It is nice and probably good for kids. - Hard mode was fun and a bit more on the challenging side. - Wall of death gave a nice challenge - Dodgeball was the most fun for me because I could just turn my brain off and vibe. I would like to see more of a difficulty ramp up but otherwise it was a good time. - Dimensional shift was fun and added a little complexity with the first person view and incorporating healing. - Rapid fire was the same as dimensional shift but with unlimited ammo - Danger room was fun with the same added healing. There seemed to be a pretty significant delay between shots that would cause some problems with slaying the enemies. - Also, there was inconsistency with hurtboxes or even hitboxes at times across all the game modes that could cause problems with surviving for longer times

Started with easy mode and it was pretty solid. Going down the list of different game types is what made it fun! Would like more direction other than how to kill. Didnt know the goal was 100 kills until i reached it then made it to stage 5 and was lost on the end goal. A set goal would bring me back.

This game reminds me of an old-school arcade game. It's an excellent game to play when just wanting to chill and relax ... that is, until the demon frogs come sprinting at you or if you are in "wall of death"! Then I become insanely sweaty as I spaz out, trying to defeat the enemy. It's a lot of fun. I can't wait to see what's next.

Best game of 2023 hands down