Madness

This game is really poorly made
There is just russian language and i still dont get the point even after finishing the game

4/10

Slow, boring, and always starts in russian, some people might like this game but personally i think that even for 99p this game just isnt worth it

⠀

Thrash platformer. the presence of a storyline and kind of good pixel graphics (in the trailer). Launching the game what we are met with? The plot of two sentences and transfer to some obscure locations, with a lot of monsters and portals. There are no sounds and effects of damage to monsters, no choice of weapons, the plot ended on the first two sentences... Such hackwork was not expected in any way at all. It's unplayable! It's not interesting! Even the author of this thrash has better games!

Not even worth $0.49:

• Starts in Russian with no obvious way to change to English - none of the options on the main menu lead to a settings menu.
  
• Slow, boring gameplay. Why on Earth can you not attack when moving? It guarantees that you will take damage from any enemy you try to kill.
  
[*]An extremely jittery camera. Seriously, it's nauseating.

Прикольная и простенькая игрушка, но есть минус что на уровне с рычагом и волу нами, я не понял что делать. И игра настолько не популярная что я не смог найти прохождение.

Basic mechanic but got stuck after second boss

🛈 About an hour of gameplay and easily beaten.
Doesn't cost much so it's great for getting some easy
trading cards and a +1 to your perfect games.

✔️Easy 100% Achievements
✔️Trading Cards
✔️Easy cheese-able bosses
✔️Just chill gameplay

------------------------------------------------------

❌Language starts in Russian but it's easy enough to navigate
to the options by using your brain.
❌For some reason you can press #2 to arrive instantly at the first boss
and #3 to arrive instantly at the final boss. Not complaining but was a bit confusing! 😄

But you may as well actually play it like I did and beat it since you'll
be wanting those trading cards anyway - chances are you'll beat it and
still need to idle the game for a while for the last card to drop.

(ENGLISH + SPANISH)

"Madness", that's what grips you when you try to make sense of this game.

I don't know what crap the developers were smoking because honestly, it's way too bizarre for a simple platformer where you're the hero who has to save the world and face a thousand dangers.

The gameplay is... peculiar.

And the character movement and the way you fight bosses are really weird.

Plus, the bosses' moves are unfairly brutal, they make you want to throw everything out the window.

The music is the aspect I liked the most, really cool.

And the price is just a dollar, almost nothing, but honestly, I don't know whether to recommend it or not, it's just too weird. I'd give it a negative review, but take into account everything I said. It's neither good nor bad, but personally, I wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Locura", eso es lo que te agarra cuando intentás encontrarle sentido a este juego.

No sé qué porquería se fumaron los que lo hicieron porque la verdad es que es demasiado bizarro para ser un simple juego de plataformas donde sos el héroe que tiene que salvar al mundo y enfrentarse a mil peligros.

La jugabilidad es... peculiar.

Y el movimiento del personaje y la forma de pelear contra los jefes son re raros.

Encima, los movimientos de los jefes son injustos a más no poder, te dan ganas de mandar todo a volar.

La música es el aspecto que más me gustó, muy piola.

Y el precio es de un dólar, casi nada, pero la verdad no sé si recomendarlo o no, es muy raro. Le tiraría una reseña negativa, pero tengan en cuenta todo lo que dije. No es ni bueno ni malo, pero personalmente no se lo pasaría a un amigo.

Is this a joke? I actually had to let the game running so i could reach 5 minutes and write a review.
The game is in Russian and possibly the worst game i ever saw EVER

Very short and easy. Although the controls are really weird, the key to attack was "J"? Got this game with a steam coupon.

I beat the game in 0.3 hours according to steam.

a fun little game not that hard not too easy
its a bit like terraria but still pretty good

Madness is a rogue-like hack and slash adventure game with influence from other side-scrolling classics such as Castlevania. When I first began my journey into Madness I was blessed with a visually stunning opening sequence that introduced me to the plethora of interesting characters involved in the deep web of lore the game contains (not to mention the beautiful soundtrack). The game opens up into a short tutorial that teaches the player how to use the many moves accessible to the player in early game and then the fun begins. The game is broken down into a few large levels packed full of a variety of enemies types, secrets, easter eggs, and upgrades for your character. Every so often you'll come across a boss fight. These fights force you to use the skills you've learned from the previous level and truly put your skills to the test. The story absolutely riveting with plot twists that will shock you and lovable characters all through out. Over all this is probably one of the best games I've ever played and I'd recommend it to all players of all types. -Spinks

Ive played 5min and got all the achivements so you know what kind of game this is ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Introduction

Having received a 50% off voucher for Madness through Steam badge completion, I bought it out of mere curiosity. I played this game for six minutes, giving myself time to experience the game and get all the achievements. Normally, I would carry on with most games until I had played at least 15 minutes, but unfortunately, from what I played, I deemed those six minutes of gameplay to be telling enough of this game's quality, or lack thereof. As a game developer in-the-making, I also have some advice for the developer in several sections of this review, which they are free to take or ignore as they see fit. For those looking to study game design, play this game to see what not to do (assuming, that is, that the developer doesn't grow and improve the game over time, which is still possible); for those looking to sit down and play a good game, I'm afraid you're wasting your time here.

Menus

To start with, I'm only going to touch upon this before getting to the meat of this review: the menus are poorly designed. The game's default language is Russian, which is an odd choice, given the game's Steam page is in English. I'm going out on a limb here and assuming the developer's native language is Russian, in which case: I'd personally make the default language the language of whoever you're selling the game to. If you're selling Russian copies, fair enough. English copies should start in English, Russian in Russian, French in French, etc., although this is less an issue in a platformer - it would be much worse for an RPG! No real harm done here, and I appreciate having multiple languages, but just something to check next time. There's only one sound option, which defaulted to Off. I'd recommend having two options minimum: one for sound effects, one for music, and having sliders for each is also good. Both should probably default to On, though.

Game Feel/Gameplay

Madness' game feel is awful - the movement seems to be default Unity 2D movement physics, which is inappropriate for an action platformer such as this. The movement should be snappy and responsive in almost any game, but especially one in this genre. The character is unable to attack while moving for no discernible reason and has poorly-conveyed actions (attacking animation plays after attack, movement animation is unnoticeable, jumping has no animation whatsoever, etc.). I would recommend that the developer either redraws the hero's sprites entirely to be more dynamic, or at least uses public domain sprites that do a better job for animations.

(Side note to the developer: did you make the character unable to attack while moving intentionally? If so, I propose an improvement. Have attacking override movement; that is to say, when the character attacks, he should stop moving - attacking should take priority, movement should stop. This would massively improve your game feel, make combat feel tighter and more responsive, and help players understand the type of game you've made better. After all, this attack logic is standard in many games, not just action platformers, unless the player character was intended to have great mobility in combat. In that case, attacking should be possible during movement.)

Now for enemies and hazards: spikes used with smart platforming can create situations which are deadly if the player messes up, but satisfying platforming challenges in this type of game - or, at least, a fair yet threatening hazard for the player to overcome. These spikes failed in every aspect that good spikes in a platformer could fail in. Aside from graphical problems which I'll talk more on later, they offered no tangible threat or challenge to the player character beyond "Well, you took damage I guess", and may as well have not been there in the first place. They don't need to one-shot the hero, but spikes can do more than minimal damage to him without being unfair.

Enemies, likewise, were boring in how the player fights them, how they deal damage, and how they're defeated; there is almost no interesting combination of platforming and combat here, apart from one slime which could be taken out while holding onto a vine due to its elevation on the ground. Not to mention the fact that, in order to do damage to enemies, because of the general ineffectiveness of the hero's attack, he must take damage in order to kill enemies - could be an interesting concept for a platformer in general, but almost certainly not what the developer was going for. Well, at least invincibility frames last a well-balanced amount of time...

Sound Design and Music

There is one music track that plays within the game, which on its own I have no opinion of; however, there is no variation to the game's sound design, not upon death, nor upon jumping or landing on the ground, nor taking damage. The only sound effect appears to be used for attacking an enemy. This, at least, is something to build upon, as I understood when my attacks were hitting, and when I missed, purely from this sound design. Add a graphical effect for when the character's attack hits along with this sound effect, and the developer could start to build upon the otherwise lacklustre combat. Sound complexity should ideally scale with your project, so this isn't something I can critique too far, but I'd also recommend using silence for buildup of tension before a boss, and perhaps boss music as well.

Story

Not much to say here. We receive a basic, skippable (hey, credit where it's due) cutscene, explaining that the hero drove the monsters from his village and is now going directly after them. Afterwards you get the occasional NPC who gives some dialogue. That's all fine and dandy, although there's not much of a story to communicate. How much story you intend to have in your game is up to you, but if you don't want a heavy story, you need good gameplay, game feel, and sound design to be your game's backbone instead - I'll keep this section short though, since story isn't my strong suit either.

Graphics

The graphics, no matter how primitive-looking, should show the player what's helpful, what's harmful, what needs to be traversed, and sometimes, if the level design fails, where to go. These graphics are primitive, which isn't a problem on its own; it's the lack of good animation and conveyance that's the problem here. Spikes blended into the background, making them difficult to traverse, and harder to detect as a threat. This, along with the bland level design, made them more tedious to deal with than an actual threat, which is a shame. I will say, at least invincibility frames are communicated decently for the graphical style - they're noticeable enough that I knew exactly when I could take damage.

Bosses

I found and fought the first boss handily, but lost. The boss flew around in a basic pattern and shot projectiles diagonally, and this could have been a fun boss if not for the game feel - this is really something the game needs to be successful. As for the boss itself, the design is basic, and the timings for its movements and attack are consistent, but it has very little animation, making it just frustrating to fight. For its attacks to be justified in a game like this, it should have some telegraphing. Frankly, if the boss had been well-designed, I may have given this game another chance. Oh well. I just noticed that the boss is nothing like the short footage in the trailer, as the cannons don't work at all and the boss is a bit slower in the trailer.

Conclusion

Madness is a pretty bad game, but the sad thing about it is that it has some potential buried in the rubble. To the developer: continue making games. This game was inoffensive through its pricing, but that doesn't excuse the game being low-quality - I implore you to take the advice I've given, and use it to make this game better. If not, at least make other, much better games instead.

i think this game has a good premise and an interesting mix of game play and story, but really needs some polishing up. making it easier to dodge enemies while attacking would be a great start, as you cant attack and move at the same time and your only real option would be to stand there, tank attacks, and attack at the same time. a visual cue of hitting the enemies would be great as well instead of only just audio cues.
i only completed one boss fight so i cant speak for all of them, but more interesting boss fights would be awesome as well. standing in one spot and spamming 'e' for the entire fight gets pretty boring pretty fast, especially when the fight can take 3+ minutes due to the amount of health the boss has.

overall, i think this game is good in a way but not worth it in its current state. would love to see it improved or some other work from the developer(s) as i do see some awesome potential there :)

Did not like the game, you dont have that much range for attacking, and I was done in 5 minutes. game starts in russian, which I did not download it in.

The style is not bad and with some interesting mechanics and it could be a fun little game. The game has nothing to offer, no challenge, no story, nothing. The price fits the overall feel of the game, cheap.

Review:

It really is madness to pay for something like this!
It's a short game with no story...
The controls are kind of broken and there are some other bugs which makes the gameplay a little frustrating.
Pixel graphics that are actually not that bad...
Relaxing and cool music, it's repetitive but I really liked it!
One thing to notice is that the game starts always in russian, so for first timers it's nearly impossible to understand where they are going to...
Very easy achievements, unlocked them all in 15 minutes of gameplay, I have more than 1 hour of gameplay because I wanted the rest of the Steam trading cards to drop...

Recommendation:

As the game always starts in russian, click in the 3rd main menu option and inside of it click on the 3rd option too! There you have it, a readable video game...
For the other reasons I can't and will not recommend it... If you're an achievement hunter it's worth it but only on sale!

Rating - 24/100

Short, easy, no story, no replayable...I bought it for 0'59€ I dont regret it but I cant recommend it.

Slow, boring, and always starts in russian, some people might like this game but personally i think that even for 99p this game just isnt worth it

This game has the best strory I've seen in a game since Leisure Suit Larry or Undertale.

Also, the ambiance in each world makes it feel so much more alive.

I overcome various difficulties, traps and demons.

What really sold me for this game was a lot of bosses, is different complexity of battlefield.

Do yourself a favor and buy it now.