Разработчик: Fever Dream Gameworks
Описание
Marrow's setting is a burial site, made with purpose to mask the devices and cosmic crimes of those who occupied the hill's once flat terrain, now broken and mangled within the mountain's insides.
Echoing within the hollows are the screeches and bellows of this realm's old inhabitants, shades and abominations seeking to forget the noxious truths and presences they uncovered with their unbridled experiments, attacking those who disrupt their shallow grave and mingling with the spirits of those seeking redemption, who are keen to guide you. You who might contain the grit and steely mind to face the mountain's darkest, imprisoned Secret and free them all from their sins.
Marrow will test your wits and reflexes, forcing you to face off against dozens of enemy types, either through avoidance or confrontation using the small number of still usable blades and relics left inside the mountain.
Search and explore every dark corner of Marrow's setting to increase your Grit (vitality) and Clarity (magic). Grasp new skills like Pyro-burst and Grit Regain. Use the last Luminous Orb to create tones, defend against enemy attacks and solve riddles. Enter the Fissures to uncover the Echo Realm, pull back the veil of reality and explore the world with a different perspective, but be mindful of the new dangers which dwell at the edge of normal perception. Light torches and braziers to illuminate your way, blast from spot to spot using the Orbital Anchors, and much more!
Look and Listen. The Orphans are lost within the mountain, but when nearby you can hear them chanting a familiar song, one shared between you and your friends. Follow the withering melody and send the lost children back to the mountains top, to the house on the hill.
Features
-A subterranean world to explore and survive made up of many unique, handcrafted areas, Not random, Not procedural
-Dozens of ghastly ghosts, shades and otherworldly monsters, with their own quirks and weaknesses to contend with
-Numerous Bosses, some optional, stand between you and the Secret of the mountain
-Light your way, uncover the glistening Medallions of the deep to better illuminate the path ahead, ignore these crucial items at your own peril, without them you may find yourself nearly blind in the depths
-An ending hidden behind more than just the final boss, save your friends or suffer a fate worse than even those you left behind
-A persistent world, enemies beaten will remain beaten until a Save Point is activated, reanimating your once defeated foes (Bosses not included). Do you go back to heal but once again face the enemies, or stay the course and face the unknown ahead?
-SEND ME BACK, found an item but low on health, warp back to the last save room, but beware, if you attempt this rite after the Bell has rung it may prove fatal, robbing you of your progress
-Post Game Modes, Finish the game once (under any condition) to unlock Echo Mode and Survival Mode
-Survival Mode, face the challenge of finishing the game with a set number of lives, after your last one, the game will reset and save, forcing you to start over from scratch, Oh No! Don't worry about your friends though, they are safe but have left you dolls of themselves in the places they were hiding before, which now act as an Extra Life in survival mode! The goal is simple, beat the final boss as fast as you can and brag about your best Score
-Echo Mode, view the entire game as if you are in the Echo Realm
-Mix and Match your modes! Want to play Survival Mode and Echo Mode simultaneously, you can!
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7+
- Processor: AMD A10-5700 APU with Radeon HD Graphics 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 250 MB available space
Mac
- OS: 10.7+
- Processor: 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 14.04+
- Processor: 3.4 GHz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Отзывы пользователей
I think Marrow is objectively bad, but it's the best objectively bad game I've played.
Marrow is hard, and the problem with it is that it's hard in the wrong sort of way. It's not hard because it demands a high level of execution or strategy, as your skills will help you a bit but not as much as you might want. It's also not hard because of its obtuse puzzles or trial-and-error traps - it does have those, but those aren't the primary reason it's hard. No, it's hard in a way you might be familiar with if you've played some zero-budget games before - it's hard in a "this wasn't playtested" way.
In short, that means the levels and enemies were put together in ways that may look good on paper, but do not take into account how the player is actually going to interact with them. There's probably a dozen things I can complain about here, but the biggest one is that you cannot consistently avoid damage from several types of enemies. Their attacks are just too fast and erratic to dodge, so dealing with them mostly comes down to hoping they don't decide to hit you too many times. When combined with the confusing world design, long distance between checkpoints, and lack of renewable health sources outside of save points, progress often feels reliant on getting easy enemy patterns so you aren't worn down by attrition and wind up dying to something you couldn't reasonably avoid.
This also applies to the bosses. If a boss wants to hit you, it'll hit you, and if wants to not be hit, you won't be hitting it. When I won against them, it felt more due to them giving me easy attack patterns then anything I did. I think the developer even knew that this was a problem, since you have way more health than you'd expect the protagonist of a horror game to have, but you'll wind up losing it all to random projectiles anyways.
Marrow is unfun and frustrating, not in a cool artsy way but in the way a Mario Maker level made by your little cousin might be unfun and frustrating. While I think this precludes it from actually being considered good, I'm still going to recommend it. I suspect anyone reading a review for a game this obscure is the sort of person who has evolved past the desire for games that are simply good and is now looking for ones that are interesting, and Marrow is very interesting.
Marrow displays a very strong sense of style and an unwavering commitment to an artistic vision. Said artistic vision involves it being opaque and unfair, (in a very intentional way, unrelated to the stuff I was complaining about above) but if that isn't a dealbreaker for you you'll probably get something out of it. You many not enjoy it, but you'll certainly find it memorable.
yes
I'm not sure I would really recommend this game to everyone.
I mostly give a thumps up because I think the dev had a vision, that would not be very popular, but stick with it. And I think it's more commendable than anything else.
For the game itself?
The enemies and world design is pretty cool. Music is suprisingly good most of the time. Sounds design is unique and memorable.
But it's really hard. It's also very not clear where you need to go. A map would have been nice (there is a guide with an hand drawn map that is very useful if you are stuck). Some places are very weirdly design (reservoir save point is so absurdly hard and isolated, you should almost avoid it). And the last boss can kiss my ***.
A memorable but janky experience.
Invisible enemies hit you when you try to do jumps and there's no explanation or reason for it and the game is way too dark and I don't know why I should care.
Playing Marrow was a road of thorns
I was divided between giving it a thumbs up or not until the last moments when the credits rolled, but fact is, after a 20 hour playthrough, I realized that giving it a positive meant ignoring that I woud only recommend Marrow to 3 people out of 100's.
For all that is worth and speaking with total nostalgia, the dev absoluted NAILED several aspects of those games in visuals, gameplay, progression and most important --- the FEELING; like you are playing one of the first attempts of making a Metroidvania ever made. Monsters and enviroments feel really gritty and muddy in a good way. Marrow definitely feels like it belongs into one of those creepy, forgotten games iceberg on youtube.
Unfortunately, all the praisable aspects aren't enough to chip into the mountain of flaws where the game got buried underneath for all those years.
Progression is hard
No boss you beat, no powerups, puzzles, areas or teleporters are acquired or unlocked until you save, something that might sound just a bit off considering the modern gaming standarts, but turns out to be incredibly challenging because Marrow is the Scrooge Mcduck of the save points. From the start of the game you already have the ability to teleport back to your last save, but unlike the expression saved by the bell, you are killed by it. In-game, a bell will ring after about 4 or 5 minutes since your last save, trying to teleport after this sound will instantly melt Daniel.
You can speedrun to accomplish something or grab an upgrade then use the teleport, but in 90% of your playthough you won't be able to do so. The trek back to a save point will probably kill you many times and start a sequence of failed back-and-forth loops that will grind your teeth to dust - which makes HP and MP upgrades quite valuable and those'll be what will make-it or break-it to progress further, doubling as soft-checkpoints by recovering all HP and MP.
Praise where it's due --- the game got some well thought level design, secrets are defintely well hidden, there's plenty of puzzles and powerups DO matter a LOT. Unlike other games it's incredibly hard to progress beyond some areas if you haven't gathered enough grit and clarity upgrades.
But the problem lies on its execution.
"Sounds like my kind of game"
Nope. More than likely, it's not.
Marrow's core issue is how it's flawed by design. It's intentionally unpolished in a half-assed mimicking attempt of the old gens. Its an indie dev's first game who left things as they were and kept on trucking until he finished creating it. Then left it unpatched. It's admirable and deserving of praise.
It's a pain in the ass.
At some point I didn't felt like I was playing challenging, hard game that felt unfair like La Mulana, no, I was fighting for my life agaisnt a hair-pulling amount of jank that felt surreal. By squinting my eyes, I swear I could see the spectral form of the developer right by my side shrugging and whispering in a raspy creeping voice "it feels more cheaEEaallEEeenginiinggGGggg tHis WaeeeeeAyyy".
Enemies can't called unpredictable, they are downright SPASTIC and got one of the most insane randomly programmed AI I've ever seen. They got shots that fly with mach speed. Shots that can cross through WALLS. They can shoot you from a hundred miles away before you can even see them. They can shoot you BACKWARDS. Mages will blast you with fire magic that you can't predict. Some will jump like fleas. Enemies will teleport in a milisecond and appear over your head to hit you with no counterplay. Two enemies of the same type in the same screen will take a different amount hits to kill because their HP was differently assigned. Your character will flinch and get stunlocked endlessly. Hitboxes are wonky, sometimes you won't hit, once-in-a-lifetime you'll get blessed with a double hit because the hitboxes malfunctioned ---
--- but sometimes you won't have any issues at all because the AI won't trigger and the monsters just wont do much. You'll be flipping coins at the mercy of RNG and this isn't good gameplay design.
Take note: facetanking is a tactic that is approved by the dev. At a point, you'll get to save more hp and time just by backdashing on enemies so you get damage boosted in the other direction (another protip by the dev) instead of fighting them. By backdashing, I mean dodging backwards. You won't use the dodge for 99% of the game, the way it functions and is integrated is a bad joke.
The weirdest thing that happened, is that past mid-game, everything becomes incredibly easy. It was unnerving how the last few areas of Marrow are chill compared to stuff like the reservoir and necropolis. If you somehow manage to get past those two areas, the rest of the game will feel like a breeze, and you'll be callused enough for what it's left. At this point the dev had more than likely got the hang of creating stages --- or simply got tired of his antics in the startingr areas.
Puzzles WILL get you stuck
Fireflies are your major source of cues as to how to progress by hovering important stuff, where to find items and solve puzzles --- until they aren't enough anymore. Some of the late puzzles go way past simple abstraction, the hints of how to solve those aren't properly contextualized, scattered through the map in ways that will make them hard to be connected.
Saving all orphans is a must to properly finish Marrow and one was bugged for me, I had to use the music orb to play a song and the hint didn't played in the place it was supposed to do so. I ended up mashing directionals until I broke the puzzle somehow. The best weapon of the game is unlocked by finding three items that are very, very badly hinted of their locations and it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to beat the final boss if you don't have it.
But before talking about the last boss, let's talk about
The lore
I don't really think Marrow got a proper lore at all.
It doesn't exist inside of the game. It's not integrated by any manner. I can't even say that enviromental lore exists because there's barely any of it and you aren't given any proper context or idea of what you are looking at. All of the game's context is present in the game's store page, that's all there is and without it you wouldn't even know the protagonists name because he's not mentioned anywhere outside of the credits. To be more precise, the only text in the game are the name of the areas and a number of items that can be counted on fingers. The so called "lore" are a bunch of unasorted posts on steam plus a gamedev forum, and those read as an afterthought.
Okay, last boss
It's an experience similar to finding out that your drink got spiked and your are spinning in circles of the worst dance floor to ever exist, you shriek for help while drowning yourself in loud music and noises --- then someone kicks your nuts.
The last boss is invisible. It can teleport randomly to any part of the arena. It can shoot match-speed disco balls. It can fly above a point you can hit. You are supposed to use the magical orb to see where it is, but due to buggy coding this doesn't work as it should. It also got the highest damage in the game and you can't even TOUCH it since this damages you. Beating it is a matter of praying so its wonky AI gets it to stay in a sole place without teleporting and having RNG bless you with double hits on its not-so-functional hitbox.
So yeah. Beating Marrow is an euphoric experience because it means you'll never have to play it again. Still, I do admit that its definitely a game that will remain on your head for a long time. It's also a lot better than the dev's other game, Exoder.
And while it's weird for me to say this, I would love to play the developer's next game because Marrow definitely got a lot of heart at its core despite of all iits flaws.
The atmosphere makes up for every flaw people seem to encounter with this game. Highly recommend it if you have access to pen and paper to draw a map
Marrow is incredibly hard, in a lot of ways due to obtuse design, obnoxious enemy placements and terrible visibility, the ability to see your remaining grit and clarity being a limited use thing feels really bad early on, but by about halfway through, if you've been exploring properly you'll start to feel like you have so many uses that it won't bother you anymore. the lack of a map is also overwhelming at first, but can be lessened by drawing your own map or making notes.
The Visuals, sound design and setting are insanely good, doing a great job of making it feel like you are slowly descending into a location beyond human understanding, where people went too far.
the bosses are, in my opinion, not very good. largely requiring you to brute force or just stand waiting for it to be possible for you to interact with the fight and almost all of them have attacks/random enemy spawns that make them just not fun
overall despite all of the issues the game has, all the pain and suffering and misery it caused me, I came out having really enjoyed the experience, its a hard game to recommend, but if you think you can look past the flaws and go in knowing that some parts of the game are going to be really not fun, then I would definitely recommend it
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Fever Dream Gameworks |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 01.02.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 70% положительных (37) |