Recent reviews by Empy

This game is not good. It's not godawful terrible, but I also do not recommend it.
First off, the game is riddled with what seems to be random crashes here and there, and even bugs. I do a run geared out and next thing I know, I turn a corner and the game crashes. An because of the nature of the game, I have to end up starting all over again. Also, food and potions seem to be too generous of a drop as well. A lot of the time I find something to eat or drink, so surviving becomes easy If you go around and grind. The game gets really repetitive. Even if each level is randomly shuffled, eventually you find all the different combinations and the game stales. Not sure, but it also feels unfinished in general. There's a level somewhere in the middle of the game that doesn't even feel like its finished at all, like it was planned to be fleshed out later or something. And on top of that, there's just not enough content. It's too short. I know it's supposed to be a simple dungeon crawler rouge-like, but I guess I was expecting 10 times the game judging from the trailer footage I saw years ago and was impressed by.
On a positive note, the art is great, I love pixel art, especially with the low poly aesthetics. The artist(s) did a great job. The music's pretty nice as well. But this sadly isn't enough to salvage the game.
Overall, probably a 2/5 from me. But only because its 15 dollars.

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REVIEW UPDATE [2022 September 15]

Since this review has been made I have played delver for roughly 2 years on and off now, and have clocked in 60 more hours in recent times and so far even getting 12 orbs in one game, so I assume my thoughts here compared to some other negative reviews hold some merit. The review is still relevant, however I wanted to go a bit deeper into my reasoning now that I have more experience with the game.

So, what are some things that I still have problems with?

The game has potential, It's there, however i noticed some quirks about the game that even a lot of the other negative reviews point out, and that's how monotonous it can get regardless of how much variation the game throws at you, and how lacking in content it is especially for how much it costs to buy (still 15 dollars at the time of this re-review), and there are a lot of games 15 dollars or less that have much more content and variety so the value here is still lacking.

The game has a lot of mechanics that are luck based that can slightly change every run: the weapon stats, the enemy locations, the tiles used in each level, and the like. But this is simply not going to make exciting new experiences every run. I mean, just having random layouts for the same 4 dungeon types isn't going to make the game any more exciting than it is. And maybe that's the problem: There's only 4 dungeons. The problem is just not enough content is there to shuffle around, so regardless of the layouts you still end up with what seems to be the same exact game every playthrough. The lack of content only compounds this issue.

To add to that fact, I mentioned in my old review that there was something odd about the "Lost City" part of the game and how it looked unfinished. I eventually learned and turns out it was a teaser for a planned expansion that never happened. And as far as I could tell, the developers of this game never explained why. Well, my theory as to why it's the current state it is in right now was because the devs looked set on making this game much bigger than it currently is with high ambitions set for this game but I suppose they just lost interest. And to top it all off, absolutely no new content has been added since 2020, having to rely on modders to take the brunt of development instead, bug-fixing notwithstanding.

Some of the mechanics I encounter in this game are questionable regarding their usability but nothing too bad. Other than that, the game still has a habit of crashing or giving me long hang times, which is annoying.

I like the game for the most part, it's just the way you collect and store items I dislike. Also moving chests around can be a pain.
All of the items aren't balanced. Some of the magical items are either completely useless or whatnot. All items should be useable in some way.
Building is mostly fun.
8/10

Graphics 5/5
they still impress me to this day, id imagine very good for 2009

Story 4/5
story doesn't make sense in some places, i dont want to spoil it

Controls 4/5
the controls get confusing sometimes especially when jumping off a wall backwards, Space Q Space I believe, other than that theyre pretty solid

Content 2/5
lacking, concept art hardly adds to the game, race mode could have been better like racing your ghost, no multiplayer parkour

Final 3.75/5

4/5
+Modding community
+Flexible sandbox construction
+Dupe creation and saving
+Multiple gamemodes like Sandbox, TTT, Dark RP, TDM
-Multiple glaring issues
-Unexplainable clientside crashes

great idea and concept for a game, but falls low.
game is too glitchy, sometimes unplayable.
i don't recommend it.
3/10