Man, Not Bad It's Look Cool But Add More Plz
Reviews for "GemCraft Labyrinth"
good game
Grandes recuerdos con este juego
(I apologize for the length)
This is a truly amazing game. If Flash ever put out a "Greatest Flash Games Ever Made" collection, I would appalled if this game wasn't on there. This game has some of the most interesting, and unique mechanics I have ever seen, and it has a re-playability factor like none I've ever encountered. First off, what specifically stands out to me as things that make this game great:
1: Monster Beacons - Yea, they're a pain, but they add so many new twists. I have to carefully plan out every strategy, taking into account the buffs/heals the monsters will receive along the way. They're also destroyable, so that gives you incentive, but it also could screw up your strategy, if not done correctly.
2: Monster nests - For similar reasons as Beacons, these are great. They are destroyable, so you have some control over how many monsters spawn. But they also add a twist: your defenses will, normally, go somewhere between your orb, and the nearest monster nest. You don't want monsters spawning behind your defenses after all. It limits our initial placement of towers, and that initial placement governs our overall strategy.
3: Dual-color gems - What's more fun than a dual red-lime gem? The ability to hit multiple monsters at once AND have the damage increase as the level progresses. Or a lime-yellow? the possibility to do double damage, to BOTH monsters it hits! Waves of the larger monsters don't stand a chance!
4: Shrines - Yes, they're slow, they're inaccurate, and they can be expensive; but when placed correctly they are unstoppable.
5: Mana pool expansion - While the increased mana regeneration is great, and the larger size helps in longer levels, the best part of this is how the multiplier carries over to other things, like how much mana each monster gives when it's destroyed, and how much mana the orange gems can absorb per hit.
6: Guide - You have a strategy guide listed IN THE GAME. We don't have to search the twisted tubes of the internet to find some amateur blogger's tips from his last play-through. You have the guide LIST, EASILY ACCESSIBLE, IN GAME. For casual gamers like me, that is a huge help.
7: Amplifiers - The fact that you can have up to 8 amplification towers around an attack tower is awesome. And the fact that gems in amplification towers are installed immediately is pretty amazing too.
8: Apparitions - Direct skill points for defeating a more powerful enemy? Especially when that enemy doesn't attack you back? It's like a gamer's dream!
Things I DON'T like about this game:
1: Apparitions - Yes, I'm listing these again. They are a bugger to kill. They rarely seem to fly anywhere near my towers, and relocation half my gems to kill them is rarely a viable strategy.
2: Similarity - All of the levels seem to have the same process: Block off a few alternate routs, set up your towers at the best choke points, hit "Play", upgrade your gems as soon as you can. This is pretty much the strategy you can employ for ANY tower Defense game.
3: Difficulty ramp - For me at least, once I get past the first crafting pylon, the difficulty increases quickly. I find myself loosing constantly, then being forced to replay easier maps, just to squeeze another dozen exp out of it, hopping it'll be enough to level up, so I can get a few more skill points. This might be just from my lack of skill, but it's frustrating.
4: Demolishing - Only 3 demolitions per field? Why? Making a gem to use as a bomb, demolishing a tower, rebuilding that tower somewhere else, and waiting for the gem to re-install is taxing enough on your mana, and can nullify your defenses for several seconds. That alone should be enough incentive to pick one strategy and stick with it.
5: "Premium Edition" - Those very words anger me.
Suggestions for improvement:
1: Endurance mode - The first Pylon level is one of my favorites. I find myself replaying it, not for the EXP farming, or even to win it. I play it because it's endless. I love the trill of seeing how good of defenses I can erect and how long they will stand against the enemy forces. But that's all i get because the real endurance mode is premium only. This is what lost you the 1/2 star. Sorry.
2: More targeting options - The current set of targeting options are fair, but could use a few more. There have been several times I've wanted a specific gem to target the monsters with the MOST HEALTH REMAINING, or CLOSEST TO THE TOWER, but was unable. Consider adding a few more options there.
3.1: Specialized Amplifiers - I think we should have some control over what, and how, the amplifiers affect gems. Each color of gem should amplify a specific trait of the tower it's next to. For instance, chain-hit gems could increase the attack speed of the tower it's amplifying, but ONLY the attack speed. Double-Damage gems could increase the damage of the gems, but nothing else.
3.2: These amplification towers can obviously put out some power, but it seems some of it is wasted on useless buffs. Why would I want a damage increase on a lvl-7 bloodhound gem? The bloodhound is going to get powerful on its own accord, no help needed there. But if I could use all that power to buff its range, so it could hit monsters halfway across the field; or use the amplifier to buff its attack speed, so the bloodhound can hammer the monsters with bursts of deadly magic, that would add just one more loop into the whole mechanics, and so many new viable strategies into the game.
3.3: Another idea is that when a gem buffs a gem of its same type (Poison in amp, buffing poison in trap) the special would be buffed, but the normal buff isn't applied. For example: If by default, the chain-hit gem in an amp buffs the attack speed of the attacking gems, then a chain-hit gem would give that gem a greater attack speed. HOWEVER, if the gem that was being buffed was another chain-hit, the chain-hit in the amp would not be doing its normal buffing of the attacking chain-hits speed, but instead buffing its special.
A note on the Premium Edition:
I don't have it. I don't wanna pay for it. But I understand you are trying to make money. I actually want to say "Thank you." Thank you for only making a few options unplayable in the free version. Thank you for making those a complete game, beatable without premium. And Thank you for not spamming the screen with "BUY PREMIUM EDITION NOW" adds. When i first saw that there was a premium edition, I almost stopped playing because I assumed this was a demo/trail. Thank you for proving me otherwise.
All in all, this is a great game. It has provided me with many hours of enjoyment, and I hope that it will keep updating to provide me with many more hours. Keep up the good work. This is an instant favorite. 4.5 / 5 stars (-0.5 for the endurance mode only being able to be accessed from the premium edition)
it's a awesome game, but i think everyone would agree it needs medals.