Sunken Spire

Removed spoiler form screenshot but shows I completed the game to its full degree.

Remember those RPG's you played in your childhood that were wonderful time sinks? Where you spent hours playing a game without realising where it all went.

Sunken Spire is such a game made for the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest. It's impressive for the time spent developing (1 month) and the recent hot fixes and future content will make this an engaging title to play again.

I'm going to review by Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Improvements and Overall for those who are feeling TL;DR

Graphics

Graphics are beautiful with custom busts and cut scenes. It's high quality art which really draws the player in. The ooze character is adorable and his custom artwork is a beauty to look at.

Alma, Elsa and the Golem are also great characters with wonder expressions on their face to situations they encounter.

Mapping is a delight in this game as well - its a beautiful layout without being confusing to navigation. The maps do not feel cluttered and each area feel alive.

I only noticed one mapping issue which seem to be a passibility issue but it wasn't game breaking.

Sound

Music is catchy with decent boss battle music and random battle music. The music for the dungeons is pretty good although I found some a bit too fast / sci-fi feeling for the atmosphere of this game.

Gameplay

Story

Easy to understand, it's funny with good writing throughout. It's got twists and really tender, heartwarming moments. However this is important REMEMBER TO GO BACK TO TOWN.

Although you are given a teleport stone you can kind of forget about it which is a real shame as the people you rescue give rewards and some great cut scenes occur when you rest as the inn (scenes normally happen after every boss fight) - the town is quite large and you could easily miss all these little things.

Progression

Each of the 4 main characters in the game learns skills and abilities in a different manner. Alma has to carry out research to unlock equipment and to build add-ones for the golem you eventually create.

Its pretty much like a job system in FF - simple but effective.

Elsa has to consume runes to craft equipment and learn new skills. This is quite fun but due to her slow speed it can take a while to accumulate runes.

Ooze (read slime thing) can shape-shift into various forms upon consumable items (various animals bits alongside status ups) - each of the slime forms is a traditional rpg role like support, attacker, etc.

Your golem is an automated battler who will learn various skills as Alma creates add-ons for it. You can customise their priority so you might focus on it being a magical attacker or a buff class.

Puzzles - Each area in the tower has a puzzle which you need to overcome. It follows some well known tropes such ice sliding puzzles, switch pushing, teleports although the first puzzle and poison themed floors is pretty entertaining.

Difficulty - Game difficulty is varied for battles. Tutorials teach you all the mechanics in an easy to understand manner.

One thing nice about Sunken Spire is that the status effects are effective against all enemies - yes even instant death attacks but bosses are suppose to have higher resistance.

The difficulty of the game for the main story however is very easy because healing is very accessible (lots of healing points) / quick escape (you can teleport away any time), you have a skill which makes you heal 50% of your HP when you win a fight and later on you can maximum heal all potions which makes the healing skills for Elsa kind of redundant.

The super boss fights can be very difficult due to the high damage of the enemy and relatively low defences of your team.

However I kind of cheesed myself through the fights thanks to instant death mechanic. I honestly can't say if it was satisfying because although you do need planning you could just load abuse until instant death connects.

The final fights at the end were interesting but you do have to grind. The battles are pretty damn epic here but I felt it was kind of rushed in it's present form.

Future updates I believe will make this added content when you finish the game.

Miscellaneous

There is some minor grammatical / spelling issues in some item descriptions (really minor - I only noticed them because I got so immersed in the game).

One event was bugged visually because I changed my formation (not even sure you need formation as you change between Alma and Elsa anyhow).

Improvements

It would be nice to have some custom busts for one of the super bosses in the game and I did notice a reused enemy type in one of the optional areas (some demon using tornado).

More skills / crafting options for Elsa. You can craft her best equipment in the game which makes the rewards from the people saved and exploration redundant.

As an overall thing - gold and rewards from exploring / opening chests, etc should be more noticeable. I understand its partly a game mechanic but who doesn't love to find some epic gear after a tough fight or thorough exploration?

I think some npcs could react in more ways - maybe more talk about your exploits or events with the characters you rescue.

The pace of the dungeon exploring could be slower so you need to return to town - for example something could be blocking your ascent so you need some help crafting a solution or something similar - this would encourage you to return to town and experience them awesome events.

Overall

Sunken Spire is a fantastic time sink and a great example of how to use RTP and combine it with fun and varied gameplay.

The game is a little easy and you could easily miss 50% or more of the gameplay if you rush through the dungeon but if you take your time you're thoroughly rewarded.