TEMPUS: A Wizard Awakes

pretty great wizard game

Tempus has the potential to be a good game, and I didn't want to give it a "no" review. But after I playing it for nearly 3.5 hours, I just found that its game play and design flaws (or deliberate design choices) tipped it past challenging and into very frustrating, at least for me. Ironically, it is relatively easy to beat the game by getting to the end portal as long as you don't care about trying to save the critters - and I never managed to save even one in a number of finishes. The automatic camera angles obscure many potential threats (until they suddenly kill a critter), hinder trying to search for the hidden level or critters, and make it too easy to fall off the floating islands (taking the wizard back to the last activated restart point, but with dead critters still dead). The critters cannot be instructed to "stay still" so inevitably wander into enemy fire, particularly when there is a long line of them, and the critters can also be killed directly or indirectly by "friendly" fire, even when "un-woken" (which I wrongly assumed would protect them). I found the hidden level, but could not work out how to get out of the water (?) to the higher islands - overall this le…

A beautiful little game that gets very tedious very quickly with all the recharging, Also it completely trolls you by killing off all the critters.

TEMPUS: A Wizard Awakes is a small free adventure game that I think has a lot of charm for what it is. I play as a retired wizard who used to look after the flow of time, but now lives in a world made up of floating islands. Things are not exactly peaceful though, and I end up helping a little rock creature find its way back home. From there I am exploring the islands, solving puzzles, using magic and dealing with strange enemies made from the natural world. It is a simple setup, but I like how quickly the game gets me into its little world. The magic system is probably the part I find most interesting. Magic is not completely unlimited, and the game makes me think about how I use the energy around me. If I waste too much of it, I can end up with fewer options when I actually need a spell. I like that because it gives even the simple exploration sections a little bit of thought. I am not just firing magic whenever I feel like it. Sometimes it is better to slow down and make use of the world around me, especially since some friendly creatures can help me along the way. The puzzles and exploration work well with that idea too. The game takes me across floating islands with handcraf…

Audio is backwards, secret entrance is literally advertised on the front page of the game, game is slow paced, no way to go back to revive fallen friends, no explanation of anything other than basic controls. Not enjoyable

Fun game to speedrun!