Mahluk:Dark Demon

Mahluk:Dark Demon is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. This mobile app is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. In this iPhone mobile app, you control some monster thing using an art style ripped off from Microsoft's Limbo (dark foreground etc etc, so overdone, but amateur devs love it because it's easy to do and requires little effort or talent). You can double jump but the gameplay is primarily orientated around brawling/slashing. It's worth noting this isn't an asset flip as far as I can tell, it's just not very good, but the sea of mediocrity from mobile devs is very wide, even if it's not very deep.

From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.

There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. To make matters worse, there's no mouse input, despite this being sold on PC as if it were a PC game. This is unacceptable and somewhat insulting to PC gamers. It's a good demonstration of the poor attitude the developer has towards PC gamers, and this attitude has resulted in yet another defect in this mobile app.

Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.

These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

Mahluk:Dark Demon didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the mobile app, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the mobile app didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for double jumping, trivial to get (it's the first thing in the tutorial), but less than 16 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the mobile app. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the mobile app.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this mobile app was with players reveals a surprise... there's a very healthy spike in player counts for the mobile app. But this isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 16 percent of players bothered playing the mobile app for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this mobile app to have so many concurrent players who weren't even playing the mobile app? Trading cards. Players will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game. That tells us people only really bought this mobile app for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the mobile app just has a couple of players every week running up the mobile app and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $4 USD, on app stores, it's $1 USD. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay FOUR TIMES THE PRICE for a crap mobile app where the developer couldn't even hire someone who can do real art, just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this is a mobile app, is priced to insult and gouge PC gamers, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend. Just who do they think we are?

Mahluk: Dark Demon is an excellent game for anyone who loves classic platformers and wants to have an engaging experience with beautiful graphics, fantastic music, and interesting gameplay. Despite some flaws, the game has its charm and is worthy of attention from genre enthusiasts.

games should be an escape, a moment of fun and relax
instead has been years where all sadistic developers have come out
they make games that they dont want you to finish, where you need to start to swear since the beginning and want to smash something
level 1, tutorial level (i say this cause you are presented with signs that gives basic initial instructions), 20 secs or so into the game and you have 2 saws that are already so much pain to pass
if this is level 1, i cant imagine what's next..too bad i'm late for a refund
i wanted to like and enjoy this game, i love the style
i'm encountering a lot of these games with this nonsensical approach, hard for the sake of it, punishing without skills required, to satisfy some niche..i don't get it..i'm tired of wasting time and money
there should be a label for this category, similar to that non sense of souls-like
you dev, enjoy your dozen of players..

Mahluk: Dark Demon defines itself as a retro 2D hack and slash platformer, but sadly fails in almost every aspect. The game is far too easy and repetitive, level design is uninspired and contains some awkward jumping sections. In other words, Mahluk: Dark Demon is not a game I would recommend.

Broken Achievements.....not a game for an Achievement hunter.

Good game,good price.Would like to see crt scanline retro look for this one like the developer did for Ghoul boy game.Glad to see shop items added.This developer does retro style games right.Simplistic jump and kill platforming games with tight controls.If you and enjoy retro games you will be happy with this purchase.

This game could be nice with a little more work. The worst part is the controls. They can be configure in a screen before opening the game, and in another one in the game. Both are incomplete (no "Revert to default button"???), and they're not even working together. As a result, they're doing everything except what I want to in the menus and while I play the game. I wrote to support, they replied they've tested three controllers, nothing else that could help. I replied and I never heard about them since then. It's a pity, 'cause I really wanted to finish this game. Now, I'm just going to uninstall it and forget about it.

Got this on sale 50% off so $1.00. When i typed this up I had 3 hours in the game and only 2 levels left. I so far have played this game at $0.34 an hour ($0.65 at full game price).

Pros
+Decent Platforming for the most part, some of the later levels had jumps that where a tad annoying (A ceiling above you that would cause you to easily mess up a jump and fall to your death)
+Rather easy combat, some enemies can be more challenging but most die in 1 to 2 hits with the normal sword.
+I enjoyed the art style.
+I quite enjoyed the soundtrack.

Neutral
~Has a few upgrades, the health one seems like the best value as it adds 2 health.
~You get a double jump but only if you jumped yourself, you only get one jump if you fall off a ledge.
~Short game (This is in the neutral category because it's a very cheap game.)

Cons
-Boss's seemd very easy.
-Some very precise jumps
-Terrible use of waypoints. Best example being one level was extremely easy start then you hit the waypoint and its just a gauntlent of hard jumps and enemies places in spots to specifically cause you to lose health.
-Inconsistent terrain damage. My favourite here is the rolling rocks, no matter where you touch them they where an instant death (even if you jumped and landed on top). Various spikes would be instant deaths or a tick of health. I did notice that it was more wall/ceiling spikes where instant death and ground where just ticks of health, regarldess was a bit frustrating.
-The volume options didn't work in game.

Overall I feel like this game was enjoyable and would reccomend giving it a go.

It looks a lot more fun in the pictures than it actually is. The enemies are inconsequential, the hard part of the game is the platforming. It's listed as "retro style addicting gameplay", but I found the gameplay to have the opposite effect. It wasn't addicting at all, it just made me quit after falling down the same pits a few times in a row due to the limited controls. I like the artistic style, so I wanted to like this game. Came back to try to play it a few more times and just gave up on it. There's really nothing there to grab your interest and keep pushing forward. I suppose you get what you pay for.

I Tried to set up the controls! this and the interface was diabolical! this annoyed me so much I quit and restarted!
Then the in game controls itself are terribly unresponsive!
All in all I had the game installed for about ten minutes before asking for a refund!

I Wish Steam would start putting a Made With Unity warning label on these products!

Simple 2D platformer with good, chunky pixelated graphics and varied enough gameplay and platforming so as to remain fresh. Not simply another "Limbo" / Silhouette knockoff, it leans more toward something resembling a medieval, creepy, Tim Burton / Alice-In-Wonderland esque setting. The gameplay is simple but you also have a double-jump, spells to throw, and a basic attack. Haven't played enough to know much whether there are bosses or not. Not many cutscenes at all. Straight forward and to the point but well-made.

This is a great retro style platformer. Some of the jumping and crouching mechanics are hit or miss and feel a bit clunky. The story is meh (but who is going to play it for the narrative?). Soundtrack is pretty good though it does loop.
The art is also really nice.
All in all a great little game that I have enjoyed plus its dirt cheap.

Simplistic but fun. It was exactly what I expected it to be for the price. The visual and musical themes of the game are also done quite well. If you likew dark/gothic themed action platformers you will be at home with this one. Of course the most important aspect of any action-platformer game is the control and this one delivers with tight, simple controls.

Only one issue really:

The store page describes the game as having FULL CONTROLLER SUPPORT. At this time it does not. Not a big deal since all of the gameplay controls are available on the controller except for "switch weapon" which is bound to the keyboard with no menu option to bind it to a controller button. Also, the only way to access the in game pause menu is by pressing ESC on the keyboard as the START and SELECT buttons (XBOX 360 controller) have no functionality in the game at all. So just be warned that the store page is not accurate in this regard.

It's an okay game for a low price.
The art direction is interesting and I like the pixelated style.
The gameplay is a bit basic with up, down, and side-to-side movement as well as attack and interact.
Story, as far as I'm concerned is a kind of throw-away since you're only given a basic view on what happened in that world and the character who you're playing as; a nameless warrior amongst anguish who is in search of retribution.

Overall, it's worth the shot if you're into this type of game and style. And for the current price of 95p, can't really go wrong c:

Game looks OK and controls alright, but difficulty is wildly variant. The enemies tend to be trivial, but the game has awkward jumping sections where you get to contend with fiddly hit-boxes, jerky platform motion, and instakill spikey bits. The game doesn't follow normal platform game conventions for visuals - so while the elements are all plain-old platformer things, you're often surprised by how things behave. That was a disappearing platform? Really? I've played tons of platformers, and most follow visual conventions to tell things to players while still keeping a unique style. Eg. I just played "You have to win", and while it's a tough game, it quickly communicated to me what I needed to know to play.

And it's not just visual, it's "gameplay contract" stuff. Sometimes you have to blind jump. Sometimes blind jumps kill you. The enemies move erratically, like the frogs don't finish their jumps they just kind of come down when they want. Sometimes something is a functional graphic, sometimes it's just background (ie. you won't know what "spikey stuff" will kill you until it kills you).

Most frustrating is that it has a "lives" mechanic - so you can restart from a level checkpoint until you're out of lives. I understand this is how games used to work, but there's a reason games don't work this way anymore - it's frustrating and boring. It's not like the game is trying to get my quarters or something; all this does is encourage the player to kill themselves until "game over" if they're at the start of the level with men down - because you don't want to work your way to a checkpoint if you've only got one guy left. Suiciding is boring.

Also, the power ups are lame (and, again, feel irrelevant since the challenges in the game seem to be mostly environment). Like, the ice projectile thing freezes an enemy, but you can't go hit it while it's frozen. That's lame. There's no joy to the combat. You don't feel like you're chopping at dark demon monsters, you're just kind of waving your sword hitbox around and dealing damage.

Anyway, enough complaints. The game seems to basically work, and I'm sure most players will get their $1 worth of entertainment here. But I thought I'd give some feedback that's hopefully helpful either to the developer or potential players.

This game is actually pretty good. I bought it because it was cheap and I'm poor. However I would definitely pay more for this game. Just beware that this is pretty challenging.

Mahluk is a surprising platformer, especially considering it's price point. A diverse set of levels and enemies populate this game, in it you will find many shadowy creatures to destroy. The levels are well designed and present a fair but fun challenge. Be careful so you can get your revenge against that evil god dude.

Overall 10/10 would buy again! <3 :D <3

A neat platform game from a Turkish developer.

PROS

Neutral

Cons

7.5/10

Remember the old coin-op, low-res hack-and-slash games of yesteryear? So does the dev of Mahluk: Dark Demon! Remember the charmingly bare-bones mechanics, the simple-yet-enjoyable gameplay, the relentless side-scrolling from left to right, with just a wee bit of up and down? Yep, he fondly remembers all that too!

Remember the way that you only had so many "lives", and if you died, you went all the way back to the beginning of a level? Remember the punishing difficulty, from practically the word "go", where you have that one tricky jump which takes two minutes to get back to, even if you're starting to speed-run the fucking level and ignore all the juicy collectables along the way, just so you can get back and try/die in that one spot yet, yet, yet again?! Yup. The developer of Mahluk: Dark Demon remembers that like it was only yesterday. Shame he had to be such an unforgiving cunt and follow that old-school formula to the absolute fucking letter.

Since the advent of semi-frequent checkpoints and permanent saves, I really don't need games to be this unforgiving any more. If I want unforgiving, I can get a job, or receive marks back from my university lecturers. I still want games to be a teeny, tiny bit of FUN, goshdarnit. And doing the same few minutes of a level over and over and over again is no longer my idea of fun. It ain't the 80s any more.

Trust me, there's a lot of recent gaming trends which I dislike as much as anyone - hell, seemingly more than just about EVERYONE - like "open world" games where you grind for eighty hours and buy houses to put "wives" into and pick up and buy and sell stuff 'til the friggin' cows come home. And I don't mind the odd bit of primitive graphics, sound and gameplay as a bit of an antidote to the mega-uber production values we're all so accustomed to these days. But the "spirit" of old-school gaming doesn't need to mean implementing every single limitation of those old games which I thought we'd gratefully left behind DECADES ago. Give me a sword-and-sorcery version of Limbo any day.

I'm certainly not going to give this game a thumbs-down, as it has a nice sense of "style" and certainly does what it sets out to achieve. And what it sets out to achieve is admirable enough, it's just sadly not quite my "thing". Maybe it'll be YOUR thing?

I think I've told you all you need to know. Suffice it to say, only stubbornly stone-age era (aka "hardcore") gamers need apply. Wusses like yours truly should probably just stick to games which - while they don't necessarily "hold our hands" - at least give us a leg-up every once in a while.

Serkan Bakar, you are one truly ruthless mother-fucker. Congrats on the game, one way or another.

Verdict: 6.5/10.

(PS "Our old retro style addicting game will be now one of your top favorite free adventure games." Last time I checked, $1.19 USD on sale wasn't anyone's definition of "free". You may want to remove this from the Store page description before the bitching hordes come out to play in the forums, my friend, hahaha...)

Only 3 levels in, not bad so far.

The few problems I have so far is that;

• The mouse is off in the main menu in 1920x1080
  
• You can't change the volume of the main menu
  
• The hint signs don't change if you have a controller plugged in
  
• Sometimes upon landing on a dissolving platform you don't get a double jump
  
[*]No way to switch weapons without using the e key, and no option to change that key in the keybinds