Warlocks vs Shadows

This game was fantastic when I played a long time ago, I wish it had mod support atleast so people can extend the lifetime with new characters or have community patches or somethin

This game is great. However, the dev dropped support early so content is lacking. Nobody plays online anymore. Still a fun game.

This game isn't terrible. It's shallow, poorly balanced, and has little content, but it's not terrible. The reall issue I have with the game comes down to the price point. I'd have been ok with paying, say, five dollars for this. Fifteen was entirely too much. Pick it up on sale if it goes down really low. It's fun for a few hours. Otherwise, don't waste your money.

Gameplay is extremely shallow, doesn't encourage different playstyles or strategies. Characters and enemies are poorly balanced, certain characters feel vastly superior to others. Not a game worth paying for.

Fun but very, very hard without mates to play with.

This game gets a strong recommendation from me due to the amazing pixel art, fantastic controls, interesting layouts, and the diverse characters. However, if you wish to tackle this game, you are either going to need some friends to play with (locally or online) or be willing to grind and grind and grind. That is really the only bad thing I can say about this game, you will have to replay levels just to get your character where he needs to be to make the game fun. Because of this, at times, it feels like a chore rather than a game. BUT, that is the only bad thing I have to say about this game. If you like fighting like games, platformers, and/or action adventure, and want a game to play with friends, Warlocks vs. Shadows is amazing.

This is what could have been a very cool game in the spirit of Risk Of Rain. Unfortunately the developers did not put enough effort into polishing the gameplay and balancing the difficulty level. There is no real challenge, no penalty for death und no variety. Most enemies can be defeated by mashing a single button. Especially the later bosses are no challenge at all. Many of the player's attacks just automatically target the nearest enemy, so it never really feels like there is actually any skill involved. The loot and the shop system are also a joke. Most of the time I had way to much money but there was nothing better to buy compared to the gear that had already dropped. The only thing the devs got right is the presentation. The music, the graphics, the sound and the animations are really nice. But that is just not enough the save the game. Don't buy!

Pros:

- It's fun for a decent while solo, despite its simplicity.
- Good variety of heroes to choose from.
- Excellent fun when you have friends to play with. (See cons section for details).
- Fast paced and can get the blood rushing.
- Art style/theme is unique.
- Decent music.

Cons:

- Pretty repetitive.
- Netcode is really really bad.
- Sometimes your save file will just flat out erase itself for no reason.
- Totally improper scaling of enemies. 1st area is too easy, 2nd is only slightly harder, and then 3rd area destroys your face.
- Rainer is the only hero worth playing? The others may have interesting themes of mechanics, but they really suck in comparison.
- The developer pushes out updates at the speed of smell. I'd wager at this point that the game has been abandoned. If I could have gotten a refund for this, I would. I just gave the game and developers too much faith.
- The enemies aren't interesting, and they're either really easy, or unimaginably unfair.
- Horde mode is a good idea, but it's capped at the point where you are permanently silenced (unable to use any skills) by enemies and die. Losing regardless of how good you are is a really bad design concept.
- Horde leaderboards are plagued by cheaters, and there's no accountability.
- Gear "choices" aren't really choices, since there's clearly superior equipment that you'll never want to substitute out.
- Music is really really really really really really repetitive.

There's not really much to explain about the gameplay that you can't see in the trailers.

It's a 2d hack and slash that has monsters attacking in waves. After the last wave you advance to the next stage until you reach the end of an act.

You level up and upgrade your skills, you can find and buy gear to increase your stats.
Unfortunately, there are no unlockable abilities, only things to unlock are the characters.

There are plenty of playable characters to pick from, which all play differently.
Sometimes they might seem pretty weak at first, but that gets better as you level up your skills and get some better gear.

Difficulty is a little unbalanced, act 1 and 2 are quite easy, 3 is insanely difficult, 4 is really easy and 5 is medium difficulty. You get a boss on the end of each act, but those are not too hard either.

There's also an endless survival mode with a leaderboard to play.

Can't say anything about the multiplayer part, haven't tried it yet.

Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of replay value I think, unless you like to play all the characters.

Overall, pretty decent game to kill some time, I really got hooked and was a little disappointed that it feels rather short, so I suggest playing this in small doses.

Not related to the actual gameplay, but the developers seem really nice.
I originally wrote a negative review because of broken controller support and I was personally contacted by a developer after it was fixed! Now that's some service.

Alright, I feel that I got the most of this game within my ~6hours of gametime. Let's see why exactly I clicked Not Recommended button.

Quick summary

Pros:
-Fun, fast gameplay with some skill involved
-Many heroes to play, all of them have distinctly different abilities
-Loot system provides basic customization

Cons:
-Horrible UI and overall lack of critical information
-Poor dificulty curve, areas 1,2 are perfect, 3 is hard as hell and 4,5 are just a breeze. Same with area bosses
-Certain areas have extremely repetative gameplay, spawn points allow for easy abuse
-Almost no replayability aside from trying new hero

Breakdown

Gameplay:
Wave based action with some loot and skill progression. 5 Areas, 5 bosses. Many different heroes to play. Simple and elegant.

Loot:
You have 5 slots that you can equip dropped items to, there are few stats and around 10 Special Abilities attached to the items themselves. Not much creativity but does the job

Classes:
Truly outstanding feature of this game, all classes feel different, have different tactics and MIGHT have a few distinct builds.

Hero skills:
You have 4 skills (aside from 1 hero who has 7) and you can level them up. This will be very familiar to players of Risk Of Rain. 4 skills, 4 button to press. Usually is goes something like - basic attack, special attack, dodge ability and some sort of an ultimate, although it might vary from hero to hero.

UI:
Horrible. Well, maybe close to horrible but still really really bad. When you try to compare pieces of equipment you only see stat comparison that is already on the previous item. Example - if your item has no armor but has cooldown reduction and if the new item has armor and has no cooldown reduction it will just show you +33 armor and will not compare non-existent stats. It is REALLY hard to compare items at a glance and you have to constantly switch from item to item to understand if you want to use one or another. Skills APPARENTLY have two different power levels, 1 is before you put 4 points into it and 1 is after. This is NOT mentioned anywhere and seems like a critical piece of information missing. Some skills SEEM to get new abilities with new power level - life steal, health regen etc , but that is also NOT mentioned anywhere, skill descriptions are only visible in tutorial and do not provide enough information. You have a certain level requirements to upgrade skill beyong certain level, but that is badly represented and the only indicator is that they are not hightlighed during the level-up process.

Movement:
Very floaty, has almost no precision, hard to dodge certain attacks. Hitting flying enemies feels like a roulette as you cannot control angle of attacks

Mobs:
Decent variety, some really cool designs, some (IMHO) horrible decisions on mob power. Area 3 has the most annoying Spearman that is basically harder than any boss of the game

Bosses:
First 2 bosses are AS COOL AS THEY CAN BE! They are fun to fight, unique and present decent challenge. The rest are boring and super-easy to fight. Seems like the developer ran out of creativity\time to polish them

Areas and levels:
Hard to say. Some platfroms, some fires, some nice backgrounds. Nothing special, nothing bad.

Difficulty:
Super-weird. First two levels are nicely balanced and present good challenge. Third Area is just super-hard due to one type of monster who can silence your attacks, slow you down AND teleport to you to punch you. One wrong move and you are dead. Fourth and fifth Areas are easy, I have not died once and never even came close to being in trouble. It seems that the late-game might not be balanced hence the weird difficulty curve

Replayability:
In my opinion - none. Game is around 3 hours per run, by the end I felt tired and bored. Played a bit of horde mode, got even more tired and bored.

Overall:
Nice game, but has very little to offer for the price. I would only recommend to buy it of huge sale, around 2-3 dollars just to try it out

Cheers!

The game is 100% wave by wave, not a side scroller. It's kind of fun but for most people it'll probably only provide you with a couple of hours of fun.

Most of the characters are not powerful enough in the early game to progress. The first character is infinitely better than all others.

This is just EA. There are a lot of glitches and bugs
but its pretty fun 2 play 9/10 :)
-need difficulty setting
-need more stages
-need more kind of items

but It's really awesome game btw RECOMMEND!!!
-who ever play Risk Of Rain before would love this <3 u can upgrade ur skill w/o pick up scepter
-There are equipment and stats which is really cool!!!(I love Cooldown Reduction the most)!!
-and there're a lots u have 2 try it by ur self :)

So I just beat the game 5 minutes ago, so all of this is fresh in my mind... where to begin...
Warlocks vs Shadows is a button mashing, heart racing, holy shit kind of game. You have moments when you are in total control of the action and have nothing to fear, then you have moments when shit hits the fan and you are frantically running all over the place! It is already an amazing game even being early access. There are some Pros and Cons as of 4/11/2015 but im sure they will fix them!

Pros
-Multiple classes (Go Guardian!)
-Variation of Enemies (Hate the crab looking ones)
-Great response to controls and variety of spells!
-Great idea for multiplayer
-Definitly could have replay value!

Cons
-Multiplayer needs to be worked on (glitches)
-No replayability at this point, or using the same character and repeating story

All in all, I would rate this game an 8/10. IT has all the right ideas and mechanics to make it into something that i would tell my grand childeren about as i bore them with my stories of video games past! Please if you are on the fence about this game support them so they can improve and make something that will definitly give you what you pay for!

First Impressions: This is a great game. Looks like Risk of Rain, but even more chaotic, and levels!

Pros:
Fast Paced action
Upgradeable skills
Great boss battles
Online Co-Op
Great music, Needs more though.

Cons:
Buggy. (I've lost my saves 2 or 3 times, one of them that was around 75% complete. Additionally, when hosting, your save overwrites the other players save, but keeps their levels and gears.)
Multiplayer and Single Player games ARE NOT separate on the same profile.
Repetitive. Arenas can only be played so many times before you run out of things to play.

Total: 7/10, because of bugginess. Definitely something I"ll come back to after it finishes.

Early Access Review
Well done! Very excited to see what the dev does with this game. 9/10 first look score.
Pros:
Ice Witch (character played) Seems well balanced! Hard to come by these days. Games that seem fairly balanced at least.
Enemies are very creative and are distinct. Enjoyed learning their traits and how to fight them.
Item upgrading is progressive and well paced.
Abilities were fun to level and combined nicely with each other AND with item ability procs.

Cons:
Being a grinder, I felt I should be able to return to previously visited levels. Not the case (yet?).
Certain elements of levels seemed unneccesary. I was able to sit in a corner if I felt like it, game didn't really force me to use/dodge elements of the environment.
Ability tooltips are a must.

Suggestions for the developer:
Interactive items on levels (explosive barrels, buttons that activate level things when YOU hit them, etc.)
Items that grant set bonuses
Jump height being a stat, make high jump accessible only areas
Secret cubbies on levels with chest/loot/health/etc.
Through this dev phase can we please new game+ toons or something >:O

There's always more things to suggest, but that's all I've got for now. I am glad I pre-purchased into this game, If you're on the fence on it and you can afford the $14, my vote would be to do it.

TL:DR - Worth donating to the cause, games got it goin' on.

The game feels fluid and responsive, and each of the characters I've played are fun with diverse, entertaining skills.

The only thing I'd say is missing is long term choices. The two exceptions to that are skills and equipment. You get to choose which skills go up first, which makes things easier, but it feels like inevitable progression. Most of the equipment isn't interesting, and feels like there are obvious best equipment for each character (which makes it feel like less of a choice and just an obvious assessment).

I hope to see more as this game develops.

When I first saw the game, I thought: "This looks awesome. What's the catch?"
When I first played the game, I thought: "I need to stop wasting my money."
Two minutes later, I thought: "This is even more awesome than it looked. I'm so happy I supported this game. I can't wait to see where it goes."

My only complaints are about usability.
1. You shouldn't have to choose a profile before being able to exit.
2. Please allow for gamepad customization.

Aside from the charmingly unconventional controls, this game has a very comfortable and innate feel. The videos and screenshots do it justice, but you really have to play it to believe it. It's not that expensive, so why not support cool indie developers?

Like risk of rain but seemingly more fast paced.

Pro's

• Cool boss battles
  
• Skills become stronger as you level them (and gain different effects/graphics)
  
• Fast paced
  
• Multiple characters , all with different skill mechanics
  

Con's (Early access!)

• No tooltips, if you start with the pyromancer thats the tutorial you get, swap warlocks mid game you get NO tooltips for abilities and are on your own figuring it out
  
• Only one healer in roster so far (Shaman)
  
• Melee characters have it kinda rough
  
[*]Few minor bugs (Early access, expected)

a fun couch co-op weekend game for a solid price at $12.

currently the game is a bit short (being in early access) and can be beaten in roughly 2 hours, however the variety of characters is quite nice! each character playing very differently.

if you like risk of rain or magic maker - youll love this game! its a fun 2d hack n slash bullet hell to share with your friends

hopefully a few of these will get fixed:

-more game content (levels and characters)
-leveling up characters individually instead of sharing the skilll points distributed (this would extend gameplay time)
-level selection screen
-increasing boss difficulty
-difficulty settings (normal, hard, insane)


even in early access, this game is worth the purchace as it has great potential in the near future! cant wait to see and play more!

So for a game in Early Access this has to be one of the most polished, near complete feeling games I've ever played.

I played through the first world in about an hour and the customization, abilities, character selection is all great.

In Warlocks you play as one of multiple characters on a mission to murder a bunch of shadow creatures in an attempt to something something something save the world? I dunno I didn't really read the story cards.

Story aside. This game plays incredibly well.

I don't know how much more content there is, however, just with whats there in all the items (Oh, yea you get items to be a more powerful Warlock) and the multitude of characters theres plenty of content to throw fireballs and poison darts at.

And I haven't even attempted any other modes but the story mode.

Worth your money.

Here's my first hour with Warlocks, and at the end I run through all the characters I had.
(It's probably still uploading it's so fresh)

https://youtu.be/jC4hKTu43zw

For more reviews and my bi-weekly podcast check out www.earlyaccesspodcast.com

Great potential. Needs work.

Pros:
_Excellent characters: If you're a MOBA fan, you're gonna have a good time here. Characters are varied in term of play style and a lot of them are fun to play. 5 are unlocked at the start, with more unlocked as you play the game. Easily the strongest point of the game.
_Pixel art style: A more personal point than a professional one. I really like pixel art style, this game looks quite nice in that regards.
_Great boss fights: The bosses are big, bombastic, chalenging and fun to fight against.
_The actual gameplay: On a minute-to-minute basis, the game is fun, nice control with lots of chaotic fights.

Cons:
_Terrible level design: The moment leading up to the boss fights are just rooms, each with waves of enemies spawning one wave at a time. It's really really REALLY lazy design. There's nothing to break up the pace either. No puzzles, no platforming. As good as the boss fights are, the levels leading up to them feels more like time sinks than levels.
_The loot system isn't interesting: Plenty of random loots here, but not all of them are interesting. As a matter of fact, most of them aren't interesting at all. If you're looking for the the kinda loot-generation depth of Diablo, Torchlight or Path of Exile, you won't find it here.
_Some characters need balancing: I'm looking at you, Fallen Angel.

Overall, you'll like this game if:
_You want a cast of well-design, diverse playable characters.
_You can overlook the overall design and focus on the excellent minute-to-minute gameplay.
_You dig the art style.
_You can stomach the levels enough to enjoy the (honestly great) boss fights.

The potential here is immense! But Warlocks needs more work to be truly great.

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