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Sacred Reviews: Dumb Castle

Introduction

Dumb Castle is a simple platformer/shooter game that was developed by Marrend as an entry for Retromania, an event celebrating the fact that RPGMaker.net has stood tall and proud for a decade now. An accomplishment that feels far more worthwhile then my attempts to post over 5,000 videos on youtube by the time of my 4th anniversary on youtube. Though, I suppose I've gone off on that tangent for as long as it deserves, but the fact that this game was thrown together in a hurry for a site event does mean that I'm willing to cut it a lot more slack then I'd show a game like "Nakaishi Wars". Especially since this game looks like it was hobbled together in a hurry in order to comply with the bonus time restraint of making a retro game in less then 10 hours.

Story
BLACK KNIGHT TERRORIZE VILLAGES GO SAVE!


On the story side of things Dumb Castle is pretty simple affair, which is pretty fitting considering it's meant to be a retro game. Though, I do wish the black knight could have been tied into a reference with "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Especially as how this game never truly ends, but endless loops. Much like how the black knight never backs down despite how many injuries that are inflicted against him.

FU FU FU! MAGIC NOT GETTING TO ME!


Or at the very least the game could have given the black knight a much longer monologue. As it currently stands the black knights so called monologue isn't worthy of the name. After all, a proper villain monologue should leave the enemy vulnerable to attack. Though, I suppose it would have been a bit of challenge to write several boxes worth of "Engrish" dialogue for the black knight.

Gameplay

"Dumb Castle" is a pretty simple platformer/shooter game that allows the player to jump from platform to platform as long as the platforms are in the same row as well as only a single column apart. As such the platforming on display in this game isn't all that impressive. Plus, it doesn't help that it's impossible to fall to your death in this game.

On the shooter side of things you can only fire a single projectile at a time and as long as the projectile is on screen it's impossible for the player to move. As such, you'll spend quite a bit of your time simply standing still in this game as take pot shots at enemies in order to get them out of your way. Though, thankfully all of the enemies in this game can be taken down with a single shot from your wand of blasting. Though, you may find yourself a bit disappointed at the fact that you can't take long distance shots at enemies on the y-axis.

Visuals/Music

In terms of graphics and sounds the game makes use of several assets found in RPG Maker VX Ace. As such there isn't anything particularly interesting about this game either in terms of its visuals or music selection. In fact, the total number of background songs and enemy assets on display in this game can easily be counted with the use of your fingers alone. Though, I suppose that isn't too much of a surprise seeing as how this game can be beaten in less then three minutes.

Conclusion

"Dumb Castle" is a pretty simple game that feels more like a demo or teaser for a much longer project then an actual game onto itself, but as I mentioned previously. My standards for projects like this are a lot lower then normal. As such, I'm willing to cut this game a lot of slack and give it a much higher score then it'd deserve normally.

Posts

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Since you're here, guess I'll say it.

I like your videos. The commentary is decent, especially when you get annoyed by the design choices of newbie rpgmaker games. Speaking of which, I wish you'd played more rpgmaker games from here than like 5 element runs of pokemon. Or maybe you should try a pokemon randomizer run, I remember one of my randomizer runs where Gary the champion recked me with a celebi. Good times. Anyway, about the game being reviewed. I watched your video on this game (among many others), this game looked really easy since you can shoot down all the enemies from a safe distance. It fits the theme though I thought at first it was gonna be like the classic donkey kong or something.
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