Battow - Mages And Monsters

So many of the pictures moved. All my friends had simultaneous heart attacks.

The core gameplay loop of clicking somewhere to launch a projectile attack and hoping it ricochets in the right way to hit the enemy is not fun. There is no tutorial and nothing is really explained. For example, there are "gems" or something floating in the level, and if your bullet hits them, the gems disappear. What are the gems for? Do they give you points? Are they required for a secret ending or something? I haven't been able to figure it out. Similarly, there's also a treasure chest which, if you shoot it, opens. But what the consequences are of doing that still elude me. No idea if I've unlocked something by doing that, or if there's a hidden score counter somewhere that I've incremented or what.

There are also angles where if you click there, the bullet spawn and then immediately collides with you, causing you to die. That is to say, you can't shoot "behind" or to the left of yourself, because any attempts to do so will immediately kill you.

Beyond this, the game has no real redeeming qualities to make up for the lackluster gameplay. The art, for example, is rather jarring, and it's not always visually clear what counts as a wall (and thus would reflect your bullets) and what's in the background. The choice of font also makes it hard to read what any of the text says. The music is also unpleasant to listen to.

The UI design is quite questionable: For example, the "quit" button is in the middle-right of the main screen, which just seems totally random.

Weird game that feels like it was meant to be something much bigger, but instead ended up quickly cobbled together from whatever assets the developers had available. You notice this immediately from the welcome screen, which only has a couple of very simple buttons. One of them, the exit button, literally has the word “button” written across it. There are no settings or options either, so the only thing you can do is press play.

Once you start, you’re greeted by five mages that represent the game’s chapters, with each chapter containing four stages. Progression is completely linear though, so you have to clear everything in order. Every stage is essentially a fight against a single enemy repeated five times, but at least each of the five characters faces different opponents. Overall, the mechanics are extremely simple, even if the game barely explains anything and some elements initially feel pointless.

Each stage takes place in a single screen with your character on one side and the enemy on the other. The goal is to hit the enemy with projectiles, but there’s always some kind of obstacle blocking a direct shot. Because of that, projectiles can bounce, so the idea is to aim at an angle that lets your shot ricochet into the enemy. You also have to be careful because shots can bounce back and hit you instead, instantly failing the stage. Thankfully, retries are immediate, so you don’t have to replay the entire level.

What the game never properly explains are the two objects found in every stage. There’s a treasure chest that opens when shot and a gem that cracks, but neither seems to do anything at first. Later on, I realized they actually work as shields that absorb a hit if a projectile reaches your character. The same rule applies to enemies though, so if their projectile hits a chest or gem first, you’ll need to land an extra shot to defeat them.

Unfortunately, the bouncing mechanics feel inconsistent and unreliable. Most of the time, shooting at the floor or ceiling causes the projectile to bounce back toward you instead of forward, making surfaces feel oddly uneven. Enemies never seem to deal with this issue and always fire perfect shots.

Another frustrating problem is that projectiles can bounce differently even when fired at the exact same spot. One attempt might fail completely, while the next somehow lands perfectly. Because of this, there’s very little actual strategy involved, and success often comes down to repeatedly trying until the game gives you a favorable bounce. By the way, projectiles bounce around endlessly and only disappear when they collide with another projectile.

Thankfully, most stages are short and can usually be cleared within one or two attempts, so progressing through a character’s set of enemies only takes a few minutes. The reward for completing everything with all characters is a collection of unlockable images, along with the related achievements.