Xeno The Destroyer

Uhm. Hello and welcome to Xeno. The destroyer!
Xeno the Destroyer is a short comedy game made by PixelatedInkBottle in 2020.
Xeno (pronounced ZEE-NO) is a youthful individual and a villain wannabee. He has long dark blue eyes, an eyepatch on his left eye (we do not know why...maybe his cat is involved?) and pointed ears like an elf. Despite his desire to rule the world he seems to be a rather innocent and simple minded man, not really what you can expect from an evil genious!
Yes, because for some reason Xenos seems to be a genious: he has a hi-tech laboratory in a world where everything seems stuck in the middle ages, and he lives there with an intelligent talking (due to technological enhancements) cat Timothy, that has an important part in the adventure, planning his world domination.

The game is a simple and short walking simulator (you read dialogues, walk and interact, read some more dialogues and so on... the whole adventure will take you about 20 minutes to complete), there are no battles and just a couple of simple activities/minigames, but unfortunately the story ends exactly when it starts to become very interesting. Oh yes, I believed this game to be complete, but it's just a prologue or a first chapter of a longer story, since there is no conclusion to the (mis)adventures of Xenos.


Who? Me? I'm the reviewer that is writing this review!

But now let's talk about the best part of the games, or maybe those I liked them most: che custom drawings and portraits and the humor. I know, these are extremely subjective, but it's what distinguish the game, in a world made with RTPs and where the maps are for the most part average (and also really few, there are about... six maps in total, if I remember well! Excluding the variations. And yes, these are pretty mediocre) what stand out are the funny and optional dialogues that you can have with some characters that will make it clear that Xeno is a pathetic villain!

Then there are the portraits, that are many and not just for Xeno but for the three main characters of this adventure. They have a lots of expressions and there are also a couple of cutscenes that are also custom like the menu! Well yes, I liked these, the style is cartoony but fits the genre of this mini adventure perfectly!
What else? Uhm I do not think there is much to say about a game you can finish in less of half an hour. So let's go to...

The Final Verdict
Xeno the Destroyer isn't a terrible game but it could have been a lot better: with more story, dialogues, characters, activities... I mean the escape part is exciting and well done, but when you start to think that the game is taking off you learn that you are at the end! And an abrupt end, that even if makes more or less clear what is going to happen next, it does not resolve the situation. And that's a pity, I mean you can make a short adventure with a satisfying ending in thirty minutes, that's sure! It's not impossible, but I think in the beginning Xeno the Destroyer that this was planned to be a longer project.

It's a pity since I saw a lot of potential in the premise and how the adventure developes, even if some things are left obscure (like a couple of seemingly important characters that are just mentioned by the three protagonist, but never seen). Unfortunately I can give a maximum of 3/5 just because of the custom parts and some neat ideas like the part with the traps. This (half of a) story desperately needs a sequel!