Reviews for Slasher Click

[FutureCopLGF]

Hmm, this was a bit of mixed bag! On first glance, it's easy to get an impression of this game feeling unfinished due to the lackluster presentation and simplistic, repetitive gameplay that just plops you into the world with no story or goal or anything, and indeed, I do think it would be understandable for a lot of people to not even give this game a chance.

The game's design can be a bit odd at times: instead of the world feeling curated to provide progressively stronger challenges that are custom-built like a story, the fact that enemies can randomly change makes it feel like it's just up to dumb luck. For example, there was one narrow path early on with tough monsters guarding it that overlapped each other that I felt was too hard and intended to be done by going back and getting the sandstorm ability to blind one of them to force a one-on-one. Imagine my surprise when I came back and suddenly the monsters were weaker and no longer overlapping: I felt really let-down that all my smart planning was pointless and that the game was just going to be arbitrary! There were plenty of other slight annoyances too like how the stats aren't quite well explained: yes, it does say that strength increases critical chance, for example, but by how much? Without numbers, I don't know whether I'm getting big returns for my investment or if it's just barely anything (and speaking of numbers, what's up with stat points adding +2 for most stats except endurance is your health instead of the stat and so on, weird inconsistency).

In spite of all of that, however, the game does have a rather addictive old-school RPG appeal to it, where you go out, grind some monsters for exp and gold, go back to buy some new equipment and new moves, and so on, getting deeper and deeper as you go. There's also a surprisingly deep level of strategy to the game: time only moves when you move, moves have a lot of properties to consider like uses and ranges and time commitment, enemy attacks are modeled as bullets which can be skillfully baited and dodged, status ailments like blind can be used to shrink enemy ranges to let you sneak by or prevent getting double-teamed by overlap, and so on! It rides that fine line of being simple enough that you can kinda zone out, but being active enough to keep you not feeling bored and quitting.

While the game didn't appeal to me enough for a full playthrough, I did think some of the combat design and retro grindy nature of it were quite memorable, so not too shabby! I know it might seem superficial and I do think that the game engine is more important to get solid first and foremost in development (so kudos on doing so), but some graphical improvements and special effects would've been much appreciated to sell it better!

Kwing responds:

Thanks for the really thorough review!

I was really on the fence about how much of a story I wanted to give this game. I didn't want to over-scope, but I didn't want to flesh out a premise that was shallow and cliche, either, so I basically didn't explain anything beyond the villagers complaining about whatever boss monster was the next objective. Still, it's no excuse to not have some kind of intro.

The enemies spawning was intentional. I liked the idea that the player might make different decisions based on the luck of the draw. For instance, if an area makes the player choose between two easy enemies and one hard enemy, that choice might be a bit different if by luck an easier or harder monster spawns in, or if you encounter a rare enemy color that you haven't collected yet. On the other hand, scenarios like what you describe with Sandstorm are also possible, and I see how that could be frustrating.

The stats couldn't be simpler. Your strength is the percent chance of a critical hit. 50 strength equals a 50% chance to crit. Endurance is your maximum health. This was an intentional decision as I find complicated damage formulas can often alienate the player and dissuade them from understanding the mechanics, and I wanted something that made immediate and intuitive sense.

I find it interesting that you called the game grindy, as I actually made a conscious choice for the game not to feel that way. Sure, you can always level up and increase your stats, but given that the stats are mostly only percent chances for certain events to occur, you can never just increase your damage output to the point where you can power through enemies, and this was an intentional way to make the underlying strategy remain relevant no matter how much level grinding the player did.

I do think for a sequel I would want the game to feature at least a bit more of a story (bare minimum have the different bosses be related to a common cause,) and perhaps an entire area dedicated to tutorializing the basic gameplay. Thanks again for the review!

[GreenAlchemistAdvent]

Ahh, finally got speedrunner, my time was 12;56.43 . I'm not revealing my technique until the game dev tells me i can but until then here's a hint: look for corners ;)

Great game not gonna lie! i love that it encourages speedrunning with the timer and the achievement

[PoorSods0]

gives off a runescape vibe
kinda wish I could export my save to my PC

Kwing responds:

I don't remember the specifics, but there are a few ways to find the directory where the save game cookies are stored on your computer and back them up (or modify them, if cheating is your thing.) I think it's somewhere in AppData?

A quick Google search can probably clear this up.

[ARandomDudeOnNG]

After 2 hours and 50 minutes I've completed the bestiary, fully charted the map, and collected every spell and equip in the game. I enjoyed this game.

[detergent1]

git gud lol