Dread Rune 9+

Awesome game, fun to play

It’s pretty cool game. Dungeon crawler centered on surviving the horrors of the depths. Food and stamina and weapons with wear and tear on them. If you don’t watch your step you can end up weaponless hungry and naked in the middle of a boss fight. I appreciate the details in the animations. They Alden sometimes be quite unique. There is no class… well not yet. But you can earn the ability to permanently upgrade your toon.
Graphics are nice. Love for his craft is in the details. And I believe he will flesh it out more. It be awesome if he could center it more as a dungeon bloodborne/ dark souls catacombs romp fest. It’s worth a shot. I don’t get paid for this stuff. I just enjoy good quality when it’s there.

Okay-ish

The controls are iffy. When blocking your character winds up to block which defeats the purpose of timing blocks. Even when locked in sometimes you miss. I have no idea how to interact with the other npc’s. Tried tapping, looking for a button and nothing. Tutorial needs to show how to drop items for inventory management. Inventory needs organizational tabs. Sneaking needs it’s own button. A minimap or map would be really nice to have since everything is gray and looks similar. I’d love for there to be an option to see an item’s info without picking it up and then being able to choose to pick it up or not. This would also help with inventory management since you won’t hoover every item up. A spear’s range is extremely lackluster, the point of a spear(pun intended is to be able to hit your enemy first. I had to go in sword range just to hit them. All this aside I do love how it doesn’t hold your hand and it’s got a good feel to it. It’s almost perfect. It needs some polishing to be good. It has some nice potential. I’ll keep playing it for a while and I hope the developers keep my suggestions in mind.

Lack luster loot and bad controls with no targeting mechanic

Weapons and armor break way too easily. The ranged bow is useless seeing as it almost always fires in the wrong direction. If you stop to aim the ranged weapon it’s useless because the enemy is directly in front of you making a melee weapon much more useful. If all your weapons break you hit with fists for very little damage and your stamina is gone and you stumble and can’t fight while the enemy pummels you to death. Honestly that was the first 5 minutes of the game. I’m all for challenge in a game but the controls and worrying about how many times you can swing a weapon before it breaks is not fun especially with no way to repair. The loot you get from a rouge like game is half the fun and to know it’s just gonna break in 10-20 hits and then be gone takes all the fun out of it. Not to mention the times where I tried to pick up an item and somehow fell through the floor to the next level and died is either sloppy programming or just plain vindictive, aka not fun. Sorry for the review but unless younlike games where there is a huge delay between when you swing at a monster and when the attack actually executes I’d stay away from this game.

Developer Response ,

Hi Phantasm3D, thanks for your in depth feedback, I will take it onboard and try to improve, especially regarding the sword swings. Can I ask what device you are using, so I can recreate the problem at my end? Dread Rune does indeed have a targeting system, whilst still not being perfect, it would have solved your issue with the bow, the button is located on the far right of the screen and is introduced during the tutorial. Each dungeon floor is procedurally generated, and every single wall tile is destructible. Whilst being a unique/fun experience each time, as you found out, it can sometimes lead to problems, with items being flung out of the world. A note on weapon deterioration, the game is by design, meant to be challenging and punishing, stamina is there to stop the player spamming attacks, weapons break because weapons have to be found via chests or bought via traders, or repaired using repair kits, correct item use, using the characters special ability. As you progress through the dungeon, evry floor you gain a 'Legacy from the gods' stack, making runs easier. Everytime your character ranks up in the game, their maximum health, stamina and dash speed distance increases. Upgrading your character in between runs also improves your chances of winning. I agree, losing items too quickly doesn't feel fun, so this is something I need to address, but I promise when a run gets going, the items really start to snowball in your favour. Give it a second chance, I think you'll enjoy it. In the meantime I'll keep your suggestions in mind for the next update, all the best, James.