I’ve been reviewing Liberated Pixel Cup Games. This is one of 48 Games.
Disclaimer: I’m also competing in the cup, I’m not a judge!
Defeat of the Ancient One [Game Entry] [Github Repository]
This is a Single Player Tactical RPG made in Python (I really like Tactical RPGs). Running it on Fedora 17 is as simple as “python2.7 AncientOne.py”, which launches a game window titled “Ancient Juan” for some reason. Inside joke, perhaps?
Anyway, the game features Terra, a Healer/Fire Mage, Buster, the strong Swordsman / Airmage and Archie, an Archer that dies very often can cripple enemies.
Your goal is to seal off the portals (Green shield thingies) by destroying them. These portals spawn enemies, so it’s double-important that you destroy them, before you are overrun with enemies. To counter the huge number of enemies, some of your attacks can hit multiple enemies, often killing waves at a single shot.
There’s just too many enemies though, I saw the Archer die several times due to him being outnumbered and just smacked-to-death before he even had a chance to either run or get healed. Same with Terra, one turn she’d be fully healed, and before her next turn… death-by-a-thousand-hits. Buster was the only one that was naturally strong (Lots of defense, plus the Whirlwind attack that hits many enemies) so he should be the first one you send out the door and into the battle.
The enemies were varied, with pigs, mages and skeletons being the cannon fodder, (And those mages hit with ranged attacks, so be careful!).
My main complaint against this game isn’t the difficulty (Though I couldn’t beat it in 3 tries and gave up for the review), but the camera effect that sort of gets you dizzy… You see, every time an enemy character takes his turn, it would try to move around the smallish map back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until it was finally your turn. After a couple of turns, it was just too much to stand and I ended up turning around while the enemies just pummeled my team.
The other small complaint was that there is no visible damage effect. You can’t see how how badly they’ve hurt your characters until you mouse over their HP, which is another reason why they died so often: I didn’t check their HP levels as often as I should’ve.
You can gain HP, plus stat boosts and attack bonuses when you level up, by either killing enough enemies or destroying the portals.
I liked this game, I’m probably going to revisit it after I finish playing the rest, just to see what happens once you actually Defeat the Ancient One.
You should give this game a try if you’re into Tactical RPGs, as well as a good challenge. This is one of the best entries I’ve tried so far.
