Golem Creation Kit

Golem Creation Kit is an older game from 2017. It's a venerable 8 years old at the time of this review.

One important note is that even though this is an amateur project, it does seem to be sincerely and genuinely made. I couldn't find any flipped assets, plagiarism or any other kind of insincere actions from the developer, but unfortunately genuine intentions alone are not enough to produce a brilliant PC gaming experience.

This is more of an E-book/Visual Novel than a game, which is a serious problem. Also, it's made with Ren'Py/Pygame, so you know straight away it's going to be garbage... they aren't serious tools intended for AAA game development, so it should be no surprise they can't produce anything of value.

However there is a game of some sort after you wade through the craptastic mountains of extremely badly written junior high school tier writing. Unfortunately the game itself is a ripoff of a game called "Doodle God", itself a ripoff of an iPhone 3 era mobile app called "Elements". All you do is click around to find things then combine them together to create a "golem" to protect you against angry villagers. It's a mediocre premise, but the way it was implemented is just garbage.

There's an overwhelming amount of mediocre Visual Novel/E-book style cutscenes in this game. The developers failed one of the most basic, fundamental requirements of game design.. "Show, don't tell." So you'll spend a huge amount of time not playing the game, but clicking through endless lines of poorly written VN text cutscenes because the developers couldn't work out how to relate their narrative through the game mechanics, and decided instead it would be better to compete with reading a book for your time.

We're here to play games, not read through hours of garbage intersituals. My gaming rig is not a Kindle.

From a technical perspective, the game 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.

The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just point and click stuff like a browser/Flash game. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.

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

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a modest spike in player counts for the game. But this only happened once, around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game 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.

So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 110,000+ games on Steam?

Golem Creation Kit has the cash grab price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.

For comparison, the $5 asking price for this game could get you games like "Battlefield V", "Batman: Arkham Asylumn" or "Civilization VI". No pixelcrap is worth $5. If developers want to get paid the same kind of money as real game developers who know how to do graphics properly, they need to learn how to do graphics properly.

I really enjoy the gameplay, but it's buggy enough that I'm getting crashes every single day of the game. Cannot recommend.

Undertale, but for people who like Oingo Boingo.

Golem Creation Kit is alright.

From the outset the game seems to be about making golems, but in truth, the main gameplay loop is about picking apart the environment to fill your kettle. The skill lies in picking the right objects in order to collect the elements that make your golem, something that is done through common sense and sound queues. Take a cloud and you get water, take a brick building and you get stone, etcetera. It's not a bad idea on the whole, and is quite entertaining as you scramble to get the right amount of a specific element needed.

However, it is the type of challenge this game offers that bothers me a little. As you play, you need to avoid making a golem that the attacking villagers can defend themselves against. Some of these are self-evident; the firefighter is strong against fire, the fisherman is strong against water and so on. However, the rest can only really be determined by trial and error, and every failed attempt means getting past a bunch of loading screens and dialogue in order to try again. It's tedious. It's also a system that limits creativity. Surely the hook of this game is to craft different golems through a selection of combination of your own choosing – and yet the game turns out to be about crafting the specific golem the developers want you to craft? It seems anti-thetical to me.

As for the story the game follows, I have little to say. The characters are nothing special and follow a very, very common route in terms of development. There are some light meta elements in there, trying to chock you as a player by acknowledging your existence. It's a bit cheap and has been done much better in other games. The way you unlock the true ending of the game is also quite a time-waster that I'm not surprised that few bother doing.

Overall, I have some difficulty finding the enthusiasm for this game. It's not a bad game, but at the same time I find myself becoming increasingly negative towards it the more I think about it. It's inoffensive in that it does what it sets out to do, but it also does little else worthy of praise. It was somewhat good the first time around I guess, but replaying it for the true ending was at the same time a chore. It's a game that is unfair and yet easily broken when you've iterated yourself through its challenge.

The verdict? It's alright. Okay. I don't think there are many games with the same premise, so if you like that, I see no convincing argument not to play it.

It's a tsundere Raven!

Play it for the Raven not the golems but whatever you do DO NOT anger the mirror.

Don't be an idiot like me that misses the other 2 landscapes of resources.

Short game which probably isn't what you think it is.

As a completionist (to be)... I try to get every collectables, but even when I'm refering to a guide I always seem to miss something. And you cannot just go back to certain days so you have to restart and do it alllll again.

It then becomes a chore and repetition. Not a game for me.

Short but sweet, surprisingly smart game. Rarely takes itself seriously, but does so with style. I'm not going to spoil anything, but just remember, deaf geezers don't dance ;)

The story in this game was an unexpected delight. I found myself thoroughly engrossed in it and thought the characters were exceptionally well fleshed out. They really nailed the fantasy whimsy, and even thread an interesting dash of horror through the whole thing as well.
The art is lovely and extremely detailed. The music and sound effects are also very appropriate to the theme.
As far as gameplay goes, it's more of a matching game with slight resource management than straight-up strategy. You basically have to figure out which golem will end up being the exception to the villager immunity rule, and gather resources accordingly to summon it.
There ARE definitely a few small bugs here and there that will slow you down, which can understandably make the timed modes in this game a lot more difficult to get through. However, if you're just looking to experience the main story mode, there IS an option to remove the timer.
All in all, despite a few mechanical flaws, I think this title is excellent. The story alone makes it all worth it, in my opinion.

This is a great game for players who love experimenting with the environment and finding secrets.

Great game for such a small pricetag.

Gameplay is funny enough to entertain for some hours, not really balanced, but the point is about having fun with it and facing the consequences later if you don't planned ahead. And planning is hard when you really barely know what you're doing, wich is really part of the magic in the first run.
Story is well written and was intriguing enough for me to play it three or four times to uncover some of the mysterys.
Also, Endless mode seems to be a good enough challenge to have some more fun with the gameplay, so i'll probably come back a little later to put some more hours in this.

Fun and original gameplay, good stories, nice pixels, overall a game that deserve some attention.

I've only played it for a short time now, but it's actually quite a charming fantasy visual novel. Really nice retro artstyle, music and writing.

The "golem creation" is actually more of a minigame/framing device, so don't expect too much out of it, but it's still quite silly, where you collect random stuffs from the environment and put them into a cauldron, to scare villagers (and some villagers might have immunities to certain golem, etc).

The meat of the game is actually a fantasy VN that's hiding much more than what it is in first glance.

I haven't actually played that far, because when I first tried it, there's tons of bugs. But that's also the reason why I put this review now before I actually played that much further. The dev is a really cool guy and he instantly fix any bug I reported.

Independently from that, this game is actually charming enough that it deserve a positive review, I know I'm going to put a positive review later from what I've seen so far anyway. I just decided to give it now because how cool the dev is.

Alright, this is a weird one.
SInce your master is away, you defend the tower against angry mobs (with different immunities) by creating Golems. These range from funny over classic to plain stupid (towel-golem...). In between attacks there is a nice and interesting story between you, the appretice, the master's familiar raven, and the tragic entity trapped in a magic mirror who knows more about one of the three others, than you might think. Inherently a funny game, if you disable the timer.
It contains one of the heaviest jumpscares I am willing to tolerate. But boy, did they get me. I liked every other aspect, it's a nice game with funny golems and a picture search (almost hidden object part) for ingredients. It does everything right logistically, you can skip text, you can Alt-Tab without problems, It runs well and it includes everyone by simply allowing to disable the ungodly timer (THANK YOU!), making the hectic and more than challenging clickfest into a nice narrative with fun and relaxing gameplay in between.
I personally found all endings depressing, but that's maybe just me. To get all 6 endings, I would say you NEED a guide and about 12h. Otherwise you can get a good experience for a good price. Create a Golem today!


Follow my curator at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28337205-Fair-Minded-Witness/

I bought GCK initially for the golem creation, but also, in large part, for the witty writng.
I am going to continue to play it, after reaching one end, because there still secrets to uncover and I want to get to the bottom of the mystery.
It seems simple and feel good at first, until you start asking the wrong questions and get a few slightly disturbing surprises.
Also, Qork is both hilarious and adorable, in his weird way.

TL;DR Charming graphic, quirky characters and lot of secrets. Heartily recommended.

This game is a real gem. It's one of those games were you *think* you know what you're playing and then you realise the gameplay is just there to distract you from the real point of the game.

The gameplay is pretty annoying but it's a mixed bag for me. The tutorial gives you the *basics* but it doesn't actually SHOW you important details, specifically the fact that you can move the screen around in each area. I personally had a slight problem with it in that you had to press the buttons to move it just a little bit, as if it's on a grid-like system. It would've been nicer if you could have it slide along like on a bar but the areas are pretty small anyways. The game works in that you collect ingredients from three areas, throw them into your cauldron, and hopefully create the right golem. There are several villager types with their own immunities to certain golems. An issue I had with this is that, several times, I seemingly came *very* close to not being able to fight off villagers because ingredients don't come back, except for one method which requiresyou to sacrifice a 'stat' of your kit(inventory space, power word, or time). The developer assured me that there is always a way to fight off villagers, which makes me think that they generate the villagers based off of what ingredients you have available to you because otherwise you *would* be able to get stuck, especially since you can actually waste ingredients hypothetically. Another issue I had was time, because if you don't play with the time turned off, the game gives you a time limit from the second your begin your ingredients collecting, and it is *very* difficult to do it quickly in my experience, even with the time upgrade. It gets worse later on when you end up having bad remaining ingredients and the game just becomes unfun when you're constantly restarting the day, especially since checking the gate screen(to see the villager immunities) takes up time, which is very precious. Solution is to just turn off the time and enjoy the game, because otherwise the flaws of such a system shine too bright, unless you're able to handle it.

The story is META AS FUCK. Pony Island levels, somewhat. I'll explain and reference this later, so SPOILERS ahead. It's a pretty good story with some layers to peel away at and it's got some depth and effort to it. The story is hidden away in two ways. One is the story being hidden in the interactions with the "Lady in the Mirror" and the second is being hidden within items/pages that you can find within each ingredient area. The first is META AS FUCK, such as pissing off the Lady and her closing the game, only to find that your save is deleted when you reopen it. Oh, but don't worry because it *isn't*. I worried a little at first but there's always a solution. There's another annoying instance in which you have to wait for dialogue and a screen to pass, takes about 5~ minutes. The second was VERY annoying. First off, it begins with the Lady telling you to find a certain item. I tried to do that, thought I found it, and returned to tell the Lady I found it the next to find out that... I didn't find it? The issue with this is that it's a story interaction, and you can only find certain items on certain days. Not only that, but lots of the items are hidden behind ingredient items in each map, so you can straight up miss items because you didn't decide to completely bulldoze the environment and waste resources just to find the items. Another issue is that if you only keep the items if you complete the day, so if you have to restart the day, you have to recollect the items you got that day. Long story short it is VERY tedious and annoying to find every secret.

So, the story is great but I'm going to go into some spoiler territory to explain it a little, so beware. Basically, it's very meta. The Lady in the Mirror is aware of you as a player, and you'll probably figure this out more or less on the New Game +, unless I misinterpreted the first playthrough experience. The gist of the story is that you, the player, are taking control of Fil, the magician's apprentice. The Lady of the Mirror is hostile towards you in the New Game + because of this, so pressing her on the "Why" and "How" of the whole game's situation is where you get most of the meta content.
There's more to it, though. I only got Ending #3 & #5(presumably the best ending), so I can't even comment on the entirety of the game. It's a very interesting and fun story to experience. I was tempted to spoiler more of the story to discuss what I think is going on but I figured experience it yourself would be a lot better and this review would make playing the game redundant.

Graphics and music are meh, so don't worry about that. They fit the game fine.

Great game if you like a little bit of resource management via picking items from a screen and if you like a seemingly simple story with a neat twist to it. It's extremely short, though.

ive been wanting this game for a while n got it on sale. ITS SO GOOD!!!!! i love making the golems and the bird character is really charming. its cute n pixely and just a very nice game all in all.

Why would theis game blame the player for creating chaos( ´_ゝ｀) The player doesn't even have much choice. So the best I can do is to delete this game and do not interfere their world?

The first thing you should know is that Golem Creation Kit is a light visual novel at heart, with the titular golem creation taking a back seat as a framing device and mini-game.

The second thing you should know is that it's a good visual novel. I'm speaking as someone who hates visual novels as a rule. Even the best examples of the genre are rife with clunky prose and atrocious pacing, and I simply don't have the patience for them. Golem Creation Kit, however, flows effortlessly, with smart prose and easy charm. It's a short, well-paced tale with some branches and genuine surprises, and shows that visual novels don't need to be densely-packed epics to be engaging.

The third thing that you should know is that while Golem Creation Kit has its share of glitches, the developer is extremely diligent about addressing them. During my playthrough I encountered a (game-stopping) bug, but I received a response within minutes of posting about it on the forums, and it was fixed within the hour.

Leaving glitches aside, Golem Creation Kit isn't without other issues. The mechanics are initially confusing, the interface can be unfriendly, and the golem-crafting is at best a diversion, and at worst an unwelcome distraction. The problem is that it has very little bearing on the plot - at least as far as I have seen, but I haven't seen all the branches - and seems to exist primarily to gate your progress. At several points I found myself thinking that I would gladly take the visual novel part without the accompanying gameplay. However, with perseverance, frustration gives way to understanding, and the challenge of building specific golems with runewords and ever-dwindling resources becomes an interesting affair in its own right.

As it stands, I recommend Golem Creation Kit on the strength of its charm and intelligent writing, albeit with caveats. With some quality of life upgrades my recommendation would be unequivocal, and thankfully, as at the time of writing, the developer seems dedicated to making the title the best it can be.

In the meantime, Golem Creation Kit is still well worth the price of admission. There are mysteries to solve, multiple endings and play modes to uncover, a creepy-ass mirror and a bird who is more charming than he has any right to be. What's not to enjoy?

This is a horror game. Surprising I know, I didn't expect it at all. I wouldn't even spoil it if I weren't afraid this game was going to be overlooked. To be fair, the game doesn't do the best job of explaining it's mechanics. And as I understand it it had bugs. But the story is worth it. Seriously, if you are reading this buy this game. I can't promise you won't regret it, but that might be a good thing.

Nice and fun game

The local Mage's tower is under attack by an angry mob and the mage is away, so you, the apprentice have to craft golems out of whatever is around to scare the mob away.
You do this by grabbing anything, from barrel to animal and chunks of mountains, throw it in a cauldron and see what comes out.

Theres a story that develops from day to day with interesting characters and some unexpected twists at some points.
Might not be for everyone, I really like it and at this price i'd say just give it a try

Quirky game with a unique concept. The developer is really invested in making it work bug-free and is open to any bug reports put in the community forums.

I just had to have this game soon as I saw it. I just want to be able to get past the third day but it keeps crashing. They will probably fix it.