Bard's Gold

Scratches the platformer itch for a while, but the inverse difficulty curve means that the replay value isn't great. By the time you get one of each upgrade, the game becomes a breeze, and the roguelite upgrades make it even more so. Beating the hardcore mode didn't allow me to invest in the roguelite upgrades, so I guess you're just stuck replaying the game on medium to grind and... make the game even easier? That said, it's still a solid game, fwiw.

Nice game !, varied, with shops with lots of power-ups.
Even if you die, you can buy certain things in a screen, before a new game.
Had much fun and will come back to it.

If you enjoy the game, leave a good review, devs that make a fine job deserve it !
Also gamers need to find the good games, so I read the reviews.
Tata.

This game is awesome, kinda hard to get into at first for me but then I got into it after finding the secret gems and such!
Though I did find a bug, where if you're inside of a secret room like the tower of patience or flamey's treasure you cannot pause the game, there's just no pause menu...

Is something wrong with my PC or this game does really not support xbox 360 controller? And why it's just 3 controll profiles without option to set it manually?

Controls are stiff, you die frequently and your inventory is lost when you do. And they have B.S. invisible traps that spike you from off screen. Not a lot of fun.

Fun little Game with some random elements. Worth The price, especially on sale.

What it is in few words : A decent nostalgia-fueled Platformer romp, short and slightly hard, sprinkled with some RogueLite elements.

Now for a more detailed approach. Starting not from the good, nor from the bad - But a fair warning about who this game is intended to. Ever wanted to feel that 90's buzz of poppin' a cart and playing an old-school Platformer, only this time you don't wanna plug your console or replay the same emulated game for the zillionth time, this game is for you. If you play recent, Retro-influenced Platformers inspired in older games but with polished modern gameplay in a pixel art casing, you might want something else for this one you'll likely find too raw.

First and foremost, the controls work fine and are responsive enough, but they are deliberatedly *clunky* in very subtle way. You'll find your jump is slightly shorter that most low height platforms, forcing you to master the double-jump early one. You'll find that when wielding Tri-Knives, the ones who shoot downward, almost always hit the floor and you'll have to stick out of the platform to high lower height enemies. And so on. All this made in a way which forces you to adapt, but never in a "I pressed this and it didn't work manner".

The level design goes for the good ol' "Hard(ish) but fair" formula. It is *VERY* solid. No death I had in this game I could describe as in "This map was poorly designed and it asked from me something it couldn't". No death I had in this game was even bad luck as in "This time, the enemy projectiles just lined up in a bad way" and that stuff can happen even in well designed games. But yes, every death I had in this game was for not being careful enough, for rushing. Protip : You have a look down button. Use it.

Gameplay is predominantly platform hopping and trap dodging while killing mostly harmless but inconveniently positioned enemies. Rarely their attacks will hit an average skilled player, but they often be in places where it's hard to hit them without risking exposure to a trap, another monster or the very thing you're trying to hit. Levels often have shops where you can buy weapons and upgrades using the treasures you plundered in the World. After a few levels you fight a boss and defeating it clears a World, allowing you to start from the next World in further games, except in Hardcore mode, where you must always start over. After finishing a run comes the RogueLite part, where regardless of success or failure, you get to access the Skill screen, where you get to spend all the currency you didn't use during the run in various passive effects that might help you on the games to follow. You get new things to invest in the form of skill books you find in the game.

So, the basic mechanics are done right. What about the audiovisual experience ? Ehhh, this is where things get slightly sour. Our hero looks the part mostly fine, true to 16-bit classics, but many enemies are crudely drawn and the backgrounds get progressively horrendous. Some levels, especially the last World and the Halloween-themed ones look like someone drew it with a mouse on MS Paint. Reminds me of the "Doujin" era of PC games, where fans of famous franchises made clumsy games on haphazard authorware such as The Games Factory and MultiMedia Fusion from ClickTeam. Another type of Retroness if you ask me, just not the one intended - Pixel art would be just fine, perhaps they though of it as unoriginal ? And those awful fonts straight from a text processor, very generic and unpolished. But hey, I assume that if you play Retro games, prolly not the case that you're looking for fine looking graphics, so that didn't have much bearing on my enjoyment.

Audio effects are serviceable. The music starts catchy and charming but the last two worlds have slightly annoying songs. The ending theme is alright though. Nothing to write home about, but not nearly as bad as the graphics. Music taste is quite subjective though, but if you ask me if it's atmospheric/immersive, not really. But not dissonant either.

Content-wise it's very short. You have 3 modes : Normal and Retro are quite similar. In the first you have more lives, but in the latter you have better loot. Also, there is the Hardcore mode, where there are no checkpoints and you have to play through the game with a single life (There are unique upgrades to it however, making it far easier than it sounds at first). As for the levels, aside from bonus areas, there are only 4 Main Worlds and a winning run takes around 30 to 50 minutes. So, you'll wrap up on this pretty fast even if you are a completionist as long as you're reasonably skilled. Still worth it though, since the pricetag is very modest.

All in all, it's a solid product. Not exceptional, but good enough to give you some hours of nostalgic fun.

This game is a solid platformer. It's pixel art is spot on and it's music is enjoyable to listen to. Though some bits, like controls and enemies/bosses, can be a bit iffy, it's mostly good on it's execution and game play. I do think that this game could use some extra achievements to improve it's replayability, it's definitely a great game for it's price.

During my play through and achievement hunt, I realized that this game had the right kind of difficulty. No really impactful RNG, no cheap shots. Any death that I had was completely my fault, be it bad timing or not paying attention. The game may be a bit bumpy when just starting out, but once you learn the game, it honestly starts becoming easier (provided you stay focused and observant). Eventually I realized that some of the weapons in the shop were tactically less useful compared to the best one Triple Knives. Just stand on a ledge and shoot at enemies below you. Game becomes a breeze. and that kind of broke the game for me a tad, but not enough that the game still wasn't interesting and challenging.

Sadly, some parts of the game seem like they are wasted, like the higher difficulties (since all the achievements can be gotten in normal mode) and some of the hidden rooms. Again, if there were achievements related to these kinds of things, I would play the game more, but that's just my personal preference.

At the end of the day, Bard's Gold is a great platformer that hits difficulty in the right way. It might need some improvements and maybe some additions to extend the game play, but overall the game is solid.

Pros:
+ Right kind of difficult
+ Nice art and music
+ Hidden rooms are fun
+ Strong concepts

Cons:
- Small hiccups of controls and enemies (One example listed below)
- Feels a bit short on stuff to do
- Some weapons feel far stronger than others.

I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the final boss is able to break through one-hit shields and kill you if he runs into you. Not sure if other bosses can too, but either way, it's jarring.

The game have steep learning curve. But when you discover skillbooks - the game becomes much sweeter.
Downside is that bosses(including secret) don't have a story to tell.

Update: It is sad that there no Steam Cloud save support and I am unable to copy my old progress.

The trailer gives an accurate impression of gameplay. The process of learning how to deal with the enemies and bosses and learning how to recognize and benefit from secrets is pretty satisfying. It's cheap and competently made.

Neat little game if you are bored and like rogue-like games and 2d platformers. Not really my cup of java, but it's fun to play around with. I'm just not good at these games at all so I don't enjoy them as much as other people might.

4/10 - "Cash me in the dungeon, how bou dah?"

This is a very well thought out platformer. I can't think about any cons.
It's a bit hard, but you'll get the hang of it. Great style and music as well.

8.5/10

Yeah, sure, throw Bard's Gold on the pile of fairly well-made, addicting roguelites with permanent upgrades. Nothing really new here, though. You'll definately get your five bucks worth out of it if you are into these kinds of games, but be aware - you have done this before.

Essentially, you go on dungeon runs to collect money, and when you die, this money allows you to purchase upgrades that persist throughout all future runs. Its a tried-and-true formula that creates addicting gameplay. The important decisions in each run boil down to 'do I spend the money to upgrade and make myself more powerful (and then potentially getting further to get more money), or do I just save it to have more money when I die'?

Pros:
+Cheap, yet well-made game
+Music is oddly catchy
+Yeah its a bit addicting (but kind of in the same way that idle clickers are addicting - in a dumb bruteforce kind of way)

Cons:
-Controls are tight enough, but it feels like a slog moving around at first
-Nothing fresh brought to the table, or any new ideas of its own
-Very grindy, of course
-Artwork is meh

Yeah, I play a good bit of this, but yeah, there are other games like this out there.

Not a bad game but... it's not a rogue-like. And it is too easy (if you compare to Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, etc.). For example, bosses paternes are very easy to learn... You just need to be a little bit safe and be careful about some traps to win this game. To expensive without discount. And if you want a REAL rogue-like plaformer, SPELUNKY is far better !

Bard's Gold is a very good platformer that draws inspiration Spelunky. You collect treasure throughout the levels which are mostly randomly generated with secrets hidden within the levels such as more treasure, items, and rooms that can be very rewarding. Some items make your character more powerfully, move faster, or better weapons. Enemies have different ways for attacking you causing you to change your strategy all the time and even moving further through game it keeps getting harder to add more replay value. Boss fights are honestly not that well made and just feel like much more powerful versions of the regular enemies just given more health and different looks. You unlock skills just like in Rogue Legacy where evertime you die all the treasure you found throughout the playthrough can be used to unlock skills to make you more powerful in the next playthroughs.

Conclusion: Bard's Gold is a solid indie game that you should check out if you like games like Spelunky and Rogue Legacy. Even a nice game to play while listening to a podcast or watching YouTube videos honestly lol.

Rating: 9/10

My recommendation is somewhat reserved. While the game is enjoyable and has a few flaws. The biggest is how dying appears to remove all your powerups. Only after playing for a while do you realize certain items block this, and you don't actually lose everything. Still, even with a bubble around you there are still plenty of instant deaths it seems.

The game is rather short once you get the hang of it. There is no reason to use a weapon other than the knife, and the game is completeable with very few of the "death" upgrades. The bosses are zero challenge if you arrive at them with a 3-knife fully powered up.

I like the secrets, including assembling the map. There does feel like something is a bit off though; on the first level if you find all the secrets you get a bonus heart. This doesn't appear to repeat on any other level of the game.

The hit-boxes of the monsters (for character contact) are unforuntately quite generous. Quite often I died without any visible pixels actually touching each other.

Oh, Bard's Gold, what a game !

This game is hard. I mean, REALLY hard ! this is a rogue-like where in every run, you will find some hidden traps, secrets and monsters. When you die, you can spend the money you've got into power up, and try a new run with the bonus you buyed, then you die again, and re-buy etc...

If you love rogue-like games, you will love this one, but if you're not, you will maybe don't like because of the difficulty.

But still, this game got some amazing musics, the character react well to controls and if you die, it's entirely your fault (no need to insults the pad).

The problem is, there is not enough people playin' it. So yeah, spread the words to your friends and come have fun with us !

I highly recommend this game !

I can't in good conscience give this a bad review. It is very well done, polished and generally fun. I agree with virtually everything the other positive reviews say.

But it is easily the most annoying game I have played in recent memory.

EDIT: The last couple of patches have helped with several of the annoyances.

Ledges are *just* high enough that you can't shoot over them, so you have to double jump and shoot on the way down to hit something on a ledge.

The arrows shooting from the edges of the screen are completely unavoidable in many cases, sometimes even by design, unless you know where they are.

The floating books are usually just out of reach and a pain to hit.

Don't get me started about the Tower of Patience.

Take a look at my library. I have played and beat many "hard" games including Mr. Bree, Super Meat Boy, Bloody Trapland, etc.

What you won't see there is many permadeath games. Even though this has lives, it's still game over when they are gone. This, coupled with the difficulty is just too much for me. I don't mind trying a level or boss 30 times. I do mind having to do the previous 6 levels over and over to do it.

So, given that I don't care for permadeath games, take my opinion for what it's worth. If you don't mind permadeath + lots of redoing of levels, it really is a fun game overall.

Edit: I wanted to clarify that when all your lives are gone, it's not exatly "Game Over". You can spend what you earned to increase a skill permanently (slowly...), but you then have to restart from the first level of that area.

more than 3 hours of gameplay,
i'm only on the edge of clearing the 1st world,
i'm confident to achieve,
everytime i die my frustration peaks, but i calm down when gems flow to my skills and restart immediately,
it will help i know,
i'll beat it,
someday...

10/10


3 saati aşkın süredir oynuyorum,
1. dünyayı bitirmenin eşiğindeyim,
başaracağımdan eminim,
her öldüğümde tavan yapan hayal kırıklığı, elmasların yetenek puanlarıma aktığını gördüğümde duruluyor ve yeniden başlıyorum,
işe yarayacak biliyorum,
onu yeneceğim,
birgün, mutlaka...

10/10

Note:

I have been playing/testing this game off and on back in the original alpha stages of the game.


Premise:

As the title itself states, your family treasure has been stolen forcing you to embark on a quest to get it back. Sounds easy enough, right!?


Basic Gameplay:

As the developer himself states, there is no handholding when it comes to getting started. You are thrown into the first world with limited knowledge of what it is you are doing and/or trying to accomplish in order to progress. Personally, I enjoyed the beginning challenges of "learning the hard way." Some might not fancy such an introduction, but those aren't the people the game is aimed at. The developer has been clear on who his target market is and brutally honest that not everyone can hack it.

Is the game hard? Yes! Did I want to throw my remote control through the television screen a few times? Sure! Is it impossible? Absolutely Not!

I'm not a huge fan of repitition, however there are small things that were done to curb a lot of the monotony that comes with this style of game. Here is my top 3 personal favorites in order of personal importance:

1. Random Level Design (To A Degree)
2. Music/Sound Effects (Can Be Gamebreakers For Me)
3. Persistant Upgrades (Must Be Unlocked)

You might think these are no brainers or standard with most games now, but more often than not that just isn't the case or if they do have them the quality just isn't there.


Compare to:

Rogue Legacy
Spelunky



Score: 9/10 (-1 point just because I hate repitition, but I enjoy this game.)


Conclusion:

This game is awesome! Seriously worth every penny. I bought it full price and then bought it again for a friend. I know the review is vague at best, but a lot of the fun comes from learning how to play/progress on your own. I have included some personal tips down below for those looking for at least some small insight on how to/where to start.











***Spoilers***

Tips/Tricks:

1. Break/Kill Everything
2. Buy The Glasses First - Seriously, You Will Learn Why
3. If Time Runs Out - It Isn't Over

I am a big fan of rogue-like games, simply for the challenge posed by them. Bard's Gold is no exception to that rule. When I first picked up my controller, I died nearly instantly. I felt silly, dying to a stupid bat, so I picked myself back up and went in again. I cannot tell you how many times I've died thus far, but I'm enjoying every obsenity-riddled moment of it. The slightly randomized feel to the levels helps you learn where secret treasures are, how to navigate through the obstacles, and ultimately, get your treasure so you can buy upgrades. I have found this much more enjoyable because there is a somewhat unpredictable nature to the levels themselves. The enemies are always the same, regardless of the layout, but each different scenario gives you a better idea of how to kill the monsters around you.

Guidance-wise, there isn't much, other than some one-line remarks by the Bard (at the beginning of some levels); you basically have to charge in and hope for the best. The learning curve itself felt steep for me, at the very beginning, but after I was able to progress through a few levels (after a multitude of deaths), I became comfortable and was not losing my precious power-ups immediately after I had gotten them. Having the extra life skillbook from the beginning is very helpful, but I quickly became stumped while trying to locate others. It was slightly frustrating not knowing how to find other skillbooks; however, the emphasis on finding secret treasures was enough to overcome that obstacle.

I cannot emphasize this enough: don't think you're done with the level simply because all of the enemies are dead and you have a key in-hand! If the timer isn't out, attack like crazy and try to find those secret treasures!

The platformer aspect of the game is enjoyable; it relates back to old-school platformers that I grew up with. I'm not sure if this is happening for everyone, but I have some moments when the double-jump seems to glitch a bit. It happens sporadically, and I'm playing on a relatively new controller. It is a little bothersome, but it's not enough to make me stop playing. That is really my only complaint so far, which says a lot about this game. It is a challenge and make you want to rip your hair out, but it is one of the more addictive games that Steam has to offer right now. Well worth it!