Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox

Maybe the Idea of the game is excellent , like MM8

BUT

-loading world blocks every 20 seconds
-empty fields , walk,walk,walk...nothing here,nothing there
-graphics in 2022 should be a litthe better than amiga textures
-required optimisation , HD patch , 1 building slows down whole world
-price is a way to high for this product

I believe this game is going to be either a hit or a miss depending on what the gamer prefers. The game is very difficult but it is not fast-paced. In fact, the entire game requires some strategic thinking and a little bit of luck. First, regarding the genre of the game, it is a blobber. Specifically, it is a blobber where you are alone and there's no party turn-based battle system like Etrian Odyssey. Instead, the battle system is turn based on the square movement grid. You move around, you bump into monsters, and you hit them and they hit you back. Each square you move consists of a turn. Even more, the entire game is almost completely randomly generated except for maybe the starting area. For the programming expert, the random generation is basically a "seeded" random generator. That is how the world is persistent. So is the game decent? It really depends on your taste. If you like blobber games where you delve into dungeons, look for loot while avoiding and disarming traps, fight monsters turn-based and have to think a little and ration your potion supplies, and want an infinite gameplay version of that, this game is for you. The amount of dungeons and places to clear is simply huge and all of your level ups will feel like you have achieved them. The downside, however, is that once you understand this game and know what to do, the game can sometimes be a bit monotonous. The game suffers from a lack of monster variety, and the randomly generated quests needs more variety as well. The game is not vast and filled with different mechanics and build abilities like some rogue-like games such as Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. However, I believe it does a good job in creating the first "infinite" blobber and I can see huge potential for this game. For me, I personally enjoy this game and I would rate it an 7/10. Your experiences will differ from mine depending on what you like. However, I find it astounding that this game is developed really by 1 person and that there is still an upcoming expansion for it. I hope the expansion can really make the game much better and add in the necessary content to make the game more interesting.

The only thing this guy does is come up with excuses on why he hasn't worked on his game in years.

Not even worth it, if it was free.

It was a tough choice, sadly steam has no "middle" vote.

And i cannot recommened the game in this final release.
There are a lot of good things if you like old school hard games.

But there are four things that are really bad and they really destroy the game.

First:
Dungeons are all mazes with the same boring hallway after hallway. Every space on the grid is used. So almost no interesting places. All look the same. And there are not many different graphical layouts. You mostly use the map, because you even have a hard time to remember the way back to the entrance. And the dungeons are sometimes way to big and too empty at the same time.

Second:
NPC are worthless, they have no real purpose. A visit to the city is always only because of the vendors. Every city is the same "placeholder location" like the dungeons. Sometimes some specific shops are not in every city, but that is the only variation.

Third:
Not much monster variety. The monsters look good and are interesting. But it gets boring fast, because they are only a few different monster types.

Fourth:
The thing that let me stop playing. Bad balancing.
At the start of the game a few years back the balancing war way better then now.
The later implement item system was a good implementation, but really poorly balanced.
Example:
You find a good weapon and onehit almost every enemy the next hours till you level up enough (the monster level up with you too) and the weapon is outdated. Then the same happens again.

Before the new item system you had never such "wow i am god" and "wow i cannot beat anything" moments.
The game was harder back then and every new item has given you only a small improvement.
You were happy about every piece that made you stronger.
Not like now, at which only one item can make you superman.

Conclusion:
The game has a big potential.
The promise is interesting.
But it would be a way better game, if it had no "always the same looking and it is infinite" and more "Wow, the last 30 dungeons was really fun and there is a new monster type that i have not seen yet".

This game is the best example, that quantity is never better then quality. The developer is a really nice guy and he is full invested at his game. But it sadly get boring soon, because of the above four reasons.

5 years in Early Access, Malevolence has been released as version 1.0! Normally I would say yeah!! but I have reservations about it being released. I can't help but feel that this game has been rushed out to be able to say "it took a long time but we finally arrived!" After playing for a while (character is close to being level 11), my conclusion is that this game is not a complete product and the author is saying that whatever is missing is coming out as a dlc ! The greatest strength of Malevolence are the dungeons which are, to a certain point, fun to explore, they are huge (45 x 45), multiple levels, and contain a variety of props to interact with (boxes, chests, fountains - with mostly negative effects, and more). But there are also so many traps that you disarm a trap and move one step only to have another trap. The disarming method is original but quickly becomes annoying as you have to do it so many times. And this does not include the traps that requires a spell to disarm. In fact, there are by far more traps then monsters in a dungeon floor! Another problem are your torches: they don't last very long, and time is used as you are fighting a monster yet you can rest for 2 hours and your torch still has the same amount of use left. If you light a torch, save the game, load your game, the torch is gone. Still the dungeon can be interesting to explore until the traps gets to you.

The other part of the game is the great outdoor! Boring! Go up one hill, down in a lake, up a hill, (repeat), desert biomes have lakes and rain.

The third aspect of Malevolence are the town or city. You can sell almost anything provided the town has the proper shop. Guild quests are absent (coming in a future DLC), crafting (DLC)

Let's talk a little about your stats: the basic str, dex, cons, etc... keep changing but not progressively. They sometimes go up but mostly down. I am at 0% str and cons, 45% charisma and so on and how is that helping me and how did I get there! Further more you also have things like "Thorough" = 0, "Steve Irwin" = 3, "Parfait" = 3 and so on! Please help me here, what is a stats called Steve Irwin??? I know Tasseloff from the Dragon Lance series so it must be my disarming skills, bust I'm not sure. And Parfait is French for "perfect"... perfect in what?? And what is "Horny Swordsman"??? So, when I look at my character page, the only thing I know is that I am at level 10, close to 11 and I have no absolutely no idea what advantage I get by going up a level! To me, the author is just trying to be "original" in his way of establishing the character's progress which is a bugger for me!

Now I will not talk about the music which can not be turn off nor can you reduce the volume!

I was left with great deceptions on seeing that not much has change since I played it 5 years ago and waiting for a dlc that might make it what we expect from Malevolence is not honest to the supporters of an early access game. At this time, I will not recommend this game, specially at the price it is currently selling for. There are great games out there with more content, better graphics, more enjoyable at a lesser price. Sadly so!

Wow. After all the years it´s finally released !

Grid based game, turn based fights.
Really 90´s graphics and an old school RPG. Created with much heart blood and is having a good soul of a game.
It´s not a so called retro game, or old-school-like, it IS retro (in all the good way it can be).
The dungeons are giving me the "good old times" feeling.
I like the sounds and the music.

It´s really hard at the beginning. Never surrender. Never give up. But always remember: try to sleep to fill up your life energy,using "P" key ! But sleep can be interrupted by enemies. A chance to find some more loot.


I will update my review after some more hours.
And, again, sorry for not best english writings ;)

This game does not get updated for regular buyers. Only a select few people are allowed to play these supposed updates. Everyone else in Early Access has seen very little progress for the last 2 years.

Wait for release, if it will ever come, definitely do not buy this in early access.

I waited a long time to purchase this game, and finally bought it when I saw the magic and boss systems announced as coming soon. I want to make it very clear I have played only enough to make sure that it worked on my old computer. That was in the first half of last year.

I waited to start a playthrough of the game until the update adding those major systems was released, as in my estimation the procedural bosses and magic system were a huge part of this procedural game. I have not started a playthrough yet, as these features have not been released to Steam's early access players yet and are only available to certain community individuals. (I am unclear as to which individuals were granted access; it is my understanding that there is a separate community elsewhere, started earlier, that has some sort of EARLY early access).

Communication with the Steam community is filtered through a small group of elite testers / community members that are also the only ones with access to the current beta. I purchased the game with the understanding that I'd have early access to the content that is published as being worked on, but instead it is only available for private testing. Please do not mistake the large number of news posts listed as being updates that have been made to the version on Steam.

According to the folks that are in communication with the developer, as soon as those with access to the beta have finished testing it, we'll have access to the stuff they've already tested. I have no reason to doubt this.

I can not recommend this game as an early access purchase because it is not clear to purchasers that content added to the beta will not be made available to all early access purchasers. Based on Steam's "Yes / No" recommendation system, I must mark it as a "No." I firmly believe this game will be worth purchasing in its final version, but I do not recommend purchasing this as an early access title, due to the limited beta access given with purchase.

It's great to see an old-school RPG that is actually "old-school" and not "retro". The feeling, atmosphere and layout feel like a trip back to the RPGs of old without the hassling UI or unintentional confusion that comes with playing my old favourites in a modern setting.

The fact that the entire game is procedurally generated is just icing on the cake! The game just seems so expansive with this procedural system and the developer is bringing more and more to the table with each update.

Definitely a must have for the explorer type players and a pleasant nightmare for completionists.

Avoid early access version. Wait until they release "completed" version. There are numerous reasons already listed by other reviewers. Just barely playable and updates come once every few months. At this rate it'll be done in 2040 and will be retro retro retro style by then.

-It's not yet there-

Early access means: you should be willing to play the game in its current state. You probably won't.
There's not much here really. I obviously misread the reviews because the online features are not there as of now.
In the sum it's a playable ALPHA like a proof of concept or something.
At the moment there is the exploration of dungeons, restocking in the city and repeat.

Gameplay is or will be a mix from Might and Magic turn-based RPGs like MM3 and Daggerfall (The Elder Scrolls 2)
All weapon or character portraits look awful even compared to those old games like they were made in MS paint. I hope those are placeholders. Loading screens are decently pretty (and loading takes long like the latest Might & Magic).

This might one day evolve into a (good) game but that's still far on the horizon.

I will update this review in about a year or so.

As of now you should only buy if you want to support the devs, there's not much plying the game.

There was a TON of potential in this game, but the creator's vision is flawed. I'm walking through a town and I can't even see the wall at the end of an alleyway because the render distance is so small. They've said it needs to be that way in order to do this and that, but it really just ruins the immersion. They sacrificed many potential gameplay options in order to pay "homage to the 90s era FPRPGs."
Older RPGs are great. They have depth and variety, unlike the current games that pander to the lowest common denominator. The creators should have taken these great old things(which they did), and make a game with a current engine that could also support enhanced gameplay.
Long story short, there have been improvements and detriments to gaming, and I thought this game was going to take the great parts of both eras and make a game as deep as they used to be while improving by way of using modern technology.
btw- Most of the things they say they are missing because the game is "a homage," are actually missing because their engine(which runs poorly because they chose a larger world over improved gameplay) can't handle it. Or because they simply won't put in the time to implement them(and keep in mind this game got like 500+% of the funding they originally asked for, so that is an unacceptable excuse).


I wanted to like this very badly, but I just can't. If you want to play a game that plays and feels like it's from decades ago, get an actual one from decades ago(legitamate advice, those games are great). This (sometimes even intentionally)fails to improve on those ones, so there is no point in spending your money on it. This could have been great, had they put more effort into mixing in some modern technology and ideas

Fantastic 90s style RPG with some incredibly immersive dungeon crawling.

First of all, the game is still under development, and as such it isn't very well optimised. I'd ONLY recommend getting the game if you have a pretty good gaming PC.

Graphics: Not state of the art by any means, but stay true to what exactly the developers are trying to achieve with this game.
For people with older/less expensive PCs there is a low detail mode, which I can't say I really like the look of, but at least it's there.

Sound: Fantastic music; especially the piece in the loading screens while waiting to enter towns. The sound effects also stay true to the feel of the game and sound similar to what you'd expect in the 90s. You'll hear monsters grunt and groan as you make your way through dungeons and it really adds to the atmposhere of the dungeons.

Gameplay: Turn based. Each map is marked by a squared grid. Each movement uses a turn. Pretty simplistic, and really easy to pick up and play.

Dungeons: By far the best part of the game; this is what the game is all about after all. The dungeons are dark and eerie, requiring a lit torch to see where you're going. They range from small narrow corridors with many twists and turns to great halls filled with pillars. The dungeons of Ahkranox are also incredibly dangerous. You're never too far from some sort of monster, or even worse, a trap!
Yes, traps play a big part in the dungeons. They range from explosion and poison traps to boulders and spikes, and if you're not careful, they just might be what kills you. When a trap is in your vicinity, your purple gem will glow and you can search by clicking in front of you and attempt to disarm it.
Monsters also require some thought as to how you'll approach them. You'll hear their groans and when you get close your green gem will glow. Whilst combat is simple, it still requires some thought. You know the monster is there, but can't always see whether it's only a little imp or a man stomping ogre.
Dungeons also have secret passages which are indicated by your red gem glowing. You just simply click the correct wall and it opens up.

Loot: There is tons of loot in this game. From new weapons to books to potions to troll pubes. (or something like that)
Loot can be found both outside dungeons and inside. It can be obtained from barrels, chests, crates, monsters, urns, tables, and so on. As for monsters, you'll often debate whether or not the loot is worth the risk.

Difficulty: Malevolence is an incredibly difficult game overall. However, it is only really as difficult as you make it for yourself.
Everything comes down to being prepared, forward thinking, being careful and knowing when you're beaten. You really are your own worst enemy in this game.

Permadeath and Leaderboards: By selecting permadeath, your save data is deleted when you die. (obviously) But when you play a permadeath character, there's a chance that if you can survive long enough to reach a certain level, that you'll make the leaderboards.

Land Claiming: Any time you find a new area you can hit f11 and see who who discovered the area first, or claim any already unclaimed land. The world is infinite, so there's always a chance that you can put your own name to something.

In short: If you're looking for an immersive, challenging dungeon crawler with a retro feel, this is it. It's already fantastic to play and can only get better with time. :)

This is probably one of the most worth-while buys in a long time, that and Endless Legend. This game is an amazing hardcore/old-school RPG. Incorperating some of my favorite features, such as FPS view, grid-basedness among other things but adds new features too. Including a infinite procedureally-generated world, but that world stays persistent for everyone plays once its generated. I will warn though, for the niche gamer, not everyone. Do beware as the graphics and other things are out dated but that shouldn't matter too much if you dig it. But well worth it, I reccomend to RPG fanatics.

Procedural Generation allows small teams of gamers to create huge 3d worlds. Lets support these guys and we'll be able to remove bean counters and stockholders from the equation of making a video game.

A turn based rpg within an infinite world what is not to like.

Although early access the game has a lot of content to come but at this point in writing the game has a lot in it and a lot to explore and loot.

Those seeking a hack and slash game will soon find themselfs looking at the loading screen a lot. Combat is not a click click swing weapon as fast as you can. The game does not work like that. This game is HARD and i do mean it you will die a lot but if you can step back and think of your next move when to cast a spell or when to use a potion and or when to run you will get a lot of of this.

Graphics take a wee bit of getting used to and the limited tiles for dungeons just now do make them a bit samey but it is the gamepay this game shines and this game does have a lot to come which can only enhance a great game.

Also of note is the music which sets the mood for the game.

For old school rpg players this is well worth the time and money. It wont be for the action rpg players this is not what this game is about but if you do like to explore an endless world and being the first to discover places then this is for you.

I heard about this game on a forum regarding rogue-like games, it said that this game was infinite so I looked it up and bought it. That was around 2 years ago and I gotta say that this game has made incredible progress in that time. The game is in a finished beta state, fully playable and totally infinitely huge, actually beyond huge, there is no limit. There are unlimited locations to explore, no level cap, I cannot express how much I really enjoy this game. And to think it was thought up and created by one man, with help from a select bunch of testers. The game is amazing and definately worth the money, if in doubt try the demo first. Now this isnt graphically superior, or story rich, but it is definately engaging and will keep one playing a lifetime if they wish. Currently I just bought the Steam version of the game and it displays something like 12 hours played, but that is in 2 days. I have easilly spent 200+ hours since my initial purchace and I am not ever bored, level up, re-gear, go fight more mobs. There is a difficulty scaling and certain dungeons are just more difficult than others, too tough? Go fight a different place. There is no lack of dungeons. My grade for this game is 95% which is very excellent. Try it today!

This game scratches that itch. I grew up playing the old ones- I think the first might have been Wizardry 1 on my Apple IIc iirc. Malevolence has the feel of those games but it really isn't one of those games. Ultimately, for me at least, the core being of Malevolence is that it is infinite and has an infinite number of ways to kill you. In almost all cases I abhor scaling in RPG's but it works for Malevolence- in fact there is really no other way it could work that I can think of.

I heartily recommend this game for anyone who relishes a challenge that could potentially never end. I really, really like this game despite some of the bugs that exist now (none of them show stopping for me). Alex has done a tremendous job and continues to develop and support a labor of love.

This is not a 'AAA' title and that is for the best. So if you are looking for infinite Oblivion/Skyrim this is not it. Malevolence is it's own beast and doesn't make any allusions to being something it is not.

Prost!

Game's promises are fulfilled. However, expect...
- Badly scaled monsters, due to monster difficulty being decided by your current area and your level rather than spawn location (you can kill monsters by running back to outside the town gates and then just blocking all monster hits)
- Long load times (There's a music jingle that plays if you enter a town... only once it actually ends you can play again... the jingle is about 30 seconds long, I think)
- More loading (overworld is divided into 20x20 grid sections. Or 25x25. Whenever you enter a new section... the game has to load. So when you're travelling from A to B, or just exploring, you'll constantly be pulled out of your immersion)
- Bad graphics ("you might have to tweak them to get a good result" = don't buy unless your monitor's native resolution is 1024x768 or 1440x900 - because otherwise, game will look bad. Especially trees.)
- Bad viewrange (~20 tiles, or about 100 meters). You know how there's towers and castles in this game? Yeah, well, you can 't see them until they're in a section next to your section. Meaning that if a castle takes up most of a section, you can't see it until you're 25-30 tiles away from it (about 125 meters). So when you cross a section border, POOF castle.
- NO in-game tutorial. There's one on the menu, but it's easily missed as it's at the bottom of the screen, far away from "continue game" and "new game". What do the gems mean? You don't know, nobody tells you and without knowing that you will DIE. Red = secret area, green = monster, purple = "important object". Which is a town, a dungeon, or a trap. Oh yeah. To exit a dungeon, step off the exit tile, look at it from an adjacent tile, AND CLICK THE LADDER/TRAPDOOR. Again, this had to be looked up online, after I fled from a monster, and found out that I'd easily have been able to escape, but because I was now pinned to the exit tile, I couldn't. Because my character can't stick his arms straight up to pull a ladder down.

In short:
- You don't get much information
- The game is hard because you don't get much information, not because of there actually being things you have to overcome.
However, if you don't find the above listed issues a problem, then this could be a game for you. Because of the game does deliver on the things it promises.

I've revised my review. For a Beta game there is a lot of content here. I think this game has alot of potential. I didn't realize that you would start at pretty much ground zero in each new dungeon you go into. I like to grind it's a way to veg out, You can constantly improve your character, but it seems like as soon as you finish one dungeon and are slaughtering everything the next one kills you with ease. I like to progress my character in game I want a powerful character not one constantly getting beat up by goblins. I'll recommend it just for the time I've played it.