Thanks for information. Pity, i wanted to find, preferably a game where i could have option to run it via Open GL ES 3.x then perhaps via METAL, at least for benchmark part of application/game.
addink Well-Known Member Apr 24, 2013 74 12 8 #23 addink, Nov 25, 2014 Maybe this game is fun in other ways than grinding for highscores? Anyway, I enjoyed it very much. It's not without its flaws though. The game is very linear. This struck me as odd since adding a couple of small side quests seems like very little effort when compared to all the effort that obviously went into the shaders and the creature design. The story is minimal. I like the concept of being lead by your own soul -it's almost philosophical- but there's no backstory to it. Also, the AI is a bit on the simple side, that said, by varying the shields and timing each creature does require its own strategy to defeat. Still it's a great little dungeon crawler. Well worth the $1.99 asking price. ramzarules Well-Known Member Sep 13, 2014 2,112 128 63 Greece #24 ramzarules, Nov 26, 2014 Last edited: Nov 26, 2014 My impressions after playing T. Keep for some hours : 1) Graphics and animation Before anything else, i found that the graphics and animation have a certain charm to them. Without being Metal-powered, or Infinity Blade quality, they took me back to this era of late PS1 to early PS2 action games. If i can describe it, it would be a mix of Tomb Raider 4 and that lovely game some may remember, Darkstone. They have the look of that era, but with a lot of polish and detail added. 2)Music The music is suitably ominous and dark, and gives off a great feeling of being in a dangerous castle full of traps and enemies around the corner. 3)Controls and gameplay The game controls surprisingly well, at first it might seem a bit weird but after a minute the upward swipe to attack and down to defend clicks, without restricting you from changing the viewing angle and attacking in an instant. And now the gameplay: it is fun. And it is difficult. Every enemy has its own pattern you need to react to, when to block and when to attack, and when you get too confident, you get a smack to remind you that you overextended that combo. Killing enemies gives you back some health, and souls that upgrade your weapon automatically, which also changes in looks. The game is linear, with a lot of locked doors at first, which you can unlock when you get an ability (like fireball for fire doors) or keys. There is a map, but it doesn't exactly hold your hand to guide you. You will probably spend some time blundering in the wrong direction, with your "soul" telling you it's not such a good idea to go there. You need to be careful of traps and enemies around the corner, because they hit *hard*, even on easy. More than half the time i was running in corridors with almost no health, searching for a good spot to fight enemies. This is where the game "Dark Soulises", you have to time your strikes, choose your spot, and run if you can't win. Honestly, the game gives me a warm feeling and calling me back to unlock more corridors with different abilities. It's a game that takes only the basic elements of 3d action games, but pushes them to greatness. Minor suggestions for the future, if the devs can do it financially: 1) more content, stages, costumes, characters. (Darkstone is calling you ) 2) i would love one big combat update. Enemy lock ons, dodge-rolls, more combos, to give the combat system more "coolness" factor (like Dark Souls, dangerous but always with options to roll block run) 3) a little easier map to navigate, i enjoyed stumbling around exploring, but a lot of gamers will probably be frustrated. All in all, if you think you would love a mix of Tomb Raider 4, Darkstone and Dark Souls, i would definitely tell you to get it. It's a linear, basic action-rpg done great. Well worth 2 euro in my view. Edit: wow, that was more a review than impression. Sorry for the length. gemineye62 Well-Known Member Feb 16, 2010 641 0 0 #25 gemineye62, Nov 26, 2014 Personally, I found the map to be helpful. The yellow star on the map shows an important location to proceed to. Once you get the fireball spell, the big orcs with axes become easier to take down without losing health. Unless you are playing on normal or hard, dying really makes little difference to the player. You just start back near where you died and continue on battling with no penalty. For me, the game plays well enough but , could have been better with a story that unfolded as you played further into the keep. Thanks Jetjet Well-Known Member May 14, 2010 1,711 0 0 #26 Jetjet, Nov 27, 2014 How many time to finish the game ? cthulhufan Well-Known Member Patreon Bronze Sep 5, 2013 145 0 0 Systems Engineer Missouri #27 cthulhufan, Dec 9, 2014 Game Impressions I just completed Tainted Keep and thought I'd add a few remarks about my experience with it. The story is minimal yet serviceable enough for a title that relies on it's game play to keep you interested in progressing. I found the game play itself to be remarkably fun for a touchscreen title that focuses almost entirely on melee combat. The controls can be frustrating at times and I think, for me, the biggest issue I had was the lack of lock on and circle strafe mechanic. Circle strafing can be done but I had such a hard time with it that I abandoned trying in favor of just running away and relocating to a better position. With that aside, I think the controls were fairly well done especially when I figured out that you can swipe and hold for combination attacks or constant blocks and all of the abilities/spells were located conveniently and were responsive. Blocking and stamina are implemented fairly well in this game with blocks generally needing to be in the direction (but not needing to match side, overhand or thrust) of the incoming attack . Some damage can penetrate your blocks and you will lose stamina while blocking in addition to not regenerating stamina at nearly the same rate as when you are not blocking. Melee attacks are pretty one dimensional and combinations are tied directly to the stamina you have. Fun but basic. There are three weapons in the game and each can be upgraded several times by collecting souls from fallen enemies and from caches spread around the map. Between weapon upgrades and a few items laying about you are able to increase your stamina and hit points as well as speed and defense. Other than that, there is no real equipment to gather or stats to build from what I can tell; this is no RPG, it is a melee action game through to it's core. Enemy variety is okay and about what I'd expect for a game of this type. Excluding boss characters I can recall seven: Spear/Shield warriors (2), Ghouls of some sort (2), Trolls or Orcs with axes, wraiths or banshees, wizards. There are also plenty of traps to avoid consisting of either spear or blade types. I found the placement of both enemies and traps to be fair and not cheap. Level design was pretty well done for a small game and many areas will need to be visited several times in order to progress with a good mix of halls, rooms, courtyards crypts and battlements as you would expect from being solely played within a keep. The map was, thankfully, very well done and functional. Textures and effects were also pretty good considering the fact I'm playing on a first generation iPad Mini. I know this game is optimized for Tegra 3/4 so I bet it looks pretty fantastic on a capable device. Even on my old hardware running iOS 8.1.1 the game was smooth and responsive with not a single crash. It took me about 6 hours to finish but I bet you could get it done in 3 or so if you really wanted to. With the exception of some cursing here and there due to lack of lock on or my inability to circle strafe, I very much enjoyed this game and finished it up in two play sessions. It reminded me very much of some of my personal all time favorites such as Blade of Darkness, Drakkan: Order of the Flame and the King's Field/Demon/Dark Souls games which is a massive plus. This game was a hell of a lot of fun for me and well worth the $1.99 I laid out for it. Hope to see more of this stuff in the future. Mekklesack Well-Known Member Sep 4, 2012 48 0 6 #28 Mekklesack, Jan 20, 2015 It's a great looking game, with an unfortunate name. # cthulhufan Well-Known Member Patreon Bronze Sep 5, 2013 145 0 0 Systems Engineer Missouri #29 cthulhufan, Feb 25, 2015 Well, now that this is free, I hope they can generate some interest. Hopefully the devs made enough for some pizza and beer. Exact-Psience Well-Known Member Jan 12, 2012 22,664 2 38 The Work-At-Home Guy Philippines #30 Exact-Psience, Feb 26, 2015 Yup. I posted my impressions on this great game in the sale thread and feel really bad getting the game for free when the devs really deserve the support. Exact-Psience Well-Known Member Jan 12, 2012 22,664 2 38 The Work-At-Home Guy Philippines #31 Exact-Psience, Feb 26, 2015 Here's my post in the sale thread: Holy crap i feel guilty not paying for this. I love the gameplay of this one. Does feel like dark souls lite. The simple but rewarding/punishing combat system is the strongest feature of this game for me. No mindless hacking and slashing, and every strike counts, as does every block. I usually dont like female protagonists since i like role-playing the game that it's me as the character, but in this one, the combat system makes it feel like a female character is a natural fit for the game rather than a rampaging brute, as the main character does feel somewhat fragile, but strong enough to take on the baddies. The exploration is also superb. I love how this is a huge seamless map instead of single loaded areas with load points to the next areas. On the downside, a couple hours into the game, and i can see similar looking rooms. Pretty forgivable though, as most dungeon crawlers kinda fall into that. On the downside, there doesnt seem to be a lot of variety in the enemies yet, but im sure i havent seen everything yet, so looking forward to seeing more dynamic enemies, maybe even boss fights hopefully. The inventory system and acquiring new equips feel a bit lacking, but it's not like they are bad. I just felt like it could be expanded a bit more. The visuals are superb for what the game aims. Dynamic lighting and realtime shadows are huge features in this game. The main character's sprites doesnt look as sharp as the enemies when up-close, but it does look good. One more flaw i can point out is how much the camera swings around when facing left or right with the movement stick. In combat, moving away from the enemy makes the camera swing around real fast that you have to turn around and block an enemy you cant see on the screen. Maybe an option to slow down or even remove the camera turning when you are using the movement stick, since the right analog stick already serves as the camera control. MFi controls are really well done. Im using a Madcatz Micro and it plays perfectly as intended. It's a pretty unique setup with the MFi controller, but very intuitive in most parts. Left analog is for movement. As mentioned above, the camera swings at full speed when you turn left or right with this stick, and i think that is the game's biggest flaw. Right analog stick is pretty dynamic. Tilting the stick left or right turns the camera around. There is no need to turn the camera up or down, so it was a genius move to put the attack on the tilt-up and block on the tilt-down on the right analog. I think it's really an awesome change from the norm. Those who dont like this setup, the right and left triggers double as block and attack respectively. Overall i think this is a special game, one that's done really well, but still open for huge improvements that can potentially even match console titles. Cant wait to see more from this developer. On the downside, it went free twice now without a lot of buzz going on. There's no IAP anywhere in the game, so helping in the game's visibility on the appstore is all i can do now so i hope more people buy the game. Like i said, i got it for free and i feel guilty now that i've played it. Exact-Psience Well-Known Member Jan 12, 2012 22,664 2 38 The Work-At-Home Guy Philippines #32 Exact-Psience, Feb 26, 2015 Really great game. Been playing this for 3 hours straight and i just had to stop coz work's been piling for the past 3 hours! eek! I intend to play hard mode when i complete normal mode. I skipped easy as always. cthulhufan Well-Known Member Patreon Bronze Sep 5, 2013 145 0 0 Systems Engineer Missouri #33 cthulhufan, Feb 26, 2015 Thanks for adding your thoughts on this great little game, EP, hopefully with your stamp of approval more folks will try this one out. Great write up, btw. I see it is available on the Google Play store (U.S.) for $1.99 still. I may buy it for my phone also just to give them a sale. It is sitting there with a four star average out of 209 reviews so at least they moved a FEW copies there. aeschylus72 Well-Known Member Apr 13, 2012 108 0 16 #34 aeschylus72, Feb 27, 2015 a bit of a long shot, has anyone here got the SteelSeries XL as it does not work in this game, controller works fins in other mfi games so I have no idea why it would not work killercow Well-Known Member Apr 8, 2009 3,784 3 38 https://twitter.com/killercow #35 killercow, Feb 28, 2015 How come nobody is talking about this game? I wholeheartedly agree with EP, this is an excellent game and probably the most gorgeous third person iOS game I've ever played. I do feel bad picking it up for free and I hope that everyone will try it because It's been a long, long time since I've stayed glued to my screen for 2-3 hours straight. I have a steelseries stratus XL and everything works fine here. Have you tried rebooting your ipad? ramzarules Well-Known Member Sep 13, 2014 2,112 128 63 Greece #36 ramzarules, Feb 28, 2015 Glad to see this game getting some attention from forum regulars Exact-Psience Well-Known Member Jan 12, 2012 22,664 2 38 The Work-At-Home Guy Philippines #37 Exact-Psience, Feb 28, 2015 Finished normal mode in about 10 hours. Great game, good amount of exploration and dungeon crawling (i wish there was a randomly generated crypt or something where some gc leaderboards can be played around), good length, very good controls. Im getting ready to start hard mode in the next week. One of my favorite games to play with an MFi controller. IronJupiter50 Active Member Mar 28, 2014 32 0 0 #38 IronJupiter50, Mar 1, 2015 My controller doesn't work either. Works fine with other games. Reboot didn't help. Disappointed. NOEN Well-Known Member Jul 31, 2012 3,245 0 0 U.S. #39 NOEN, Mar 1, 2015 I feel bad for getting this game for free. It was sitting on my watch list and I forgot about it until it popped up with the sale. This is a really good game! I was hooked on it for a good hour last night! Hopefully with the new attention it's getting, this game will start picking up steam. aeschylus72 Well-Known Member Apr 13, 2012 108 0 16 #40 aeschylus72, Mar 1, 2015 got it to work, I turned off my ipad, then turned on the controller (obviously allready paired) then turned the ipad back on... that fixed it (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 2 of 4 < Prev 1 2 3 4 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Do you already have an account? No, create an account now. Yes, my password is: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
Maybe this game is fun in other ways than grinding for highscores? Anyway, I enjoyed it very much. It's not without its flaws though. The game is very linear. This struck me as odd since adding a couple of small side quests seems like very little effort when compared to all the effort that obviously went into the shaders and the creature design. The story is minimal. I like the concept of being lead by your own soul -it's almost philosophical- but there's no backstory to it. Also, the AI is a bit on the simple side, that said, by varying the shields and timing each creature does require its own strategy to defeat. Still it's a great little dungeon crawler. Well worth the $1.99 asking price.
My impressions after playing T. Keep for some hours : 1) Graphics and animation Before anything else, i found that the graphics and animation have a certain charm to them. Without being Metal-powered, or Infinity Blade quality, they took me back to this era of late PS1 to early PS2 action games. If i can describe it, it would be a mix of Tomb Raider 4 and that lovely game some may remember, Darkstone. They have the look of that era, but with a lot of polish and detail added. 2)Music The music is suitably ominous and dark, and gives off a great feeling of being in a dangerous castle full of traps and enemies around the corner. 3)Controls and gameplay The game controls surprisingly well, at first it might seem a bit weird but after a minute the upward swipe to attack and down to defend clicks, without restricting you from changing the viewing angle and attacking in an instant. And now the gameplay: it is fun. And it is difficult. Every enemy has its own pattern you need to react to, when to block and when to attack, and when you get too confident, you get a smack to remind you that you overextended that combo. Killing enemies gives you back some health, and souls that upgrade your weapon automatically, which also changes in looks. The game is linear, with a lot of locked doors at first, which you can unlock when you get an ability (like fireball for fire doors) or keys. There is a map, but it doesn't exactly hold your hand to guide you. You will probably spend some time blundering in the wrong direction, with your "soul" telling you it's not such a good idea to go there. You need to be careful of traps and enemies around the corner, because they hit *hard*, even on easy. More than half the time i was running in corridors with almost no health, searching for a good spot to fight enemies. This is where the game "Dark Soulises", you have to time your strikes, choose your spot, and run if you can't win. Honestly, the game gives me a warm feeling and calling me back to unlock more corridors with different abilities. It's a game that takes only the basic elements of 3d action games, but pushes them to greatness. Minor suggestions for the future, if the devs can do it financially: 1) more content, stages, costumes, characters. (Darkstone is calling you ) 2) i would love one big combat update. Enemy lock ons, dodge-rolls, more combos, to give the combat system more "coolness" factor (like Dark Souls, dangerous but always with options to roll block run) 3) a little easier map to navigate, i enjoyed stumbling around exploring, but a lot of gamers will probably be frustrated. All in all, if you think you would love a mix of Tomb Raider 4, Darkstone and Dark Souls, i would definitely tell you to get it. It's a linear, basic action-rpg done great. Well worth 2 euro in my view. Edit: wow, that was more a review than impression. Sorry for the length.
Personally, I found the map to be helpful. The yellow star on the map shows an important location to proceed to. Once you get the fireball spell, the big orcs with axes become easier to take down without losing health. Unless you are playing on normal or hard, dying really makes little difference to the player. You just start back near where you died and continue on battling with no penalty. For me, the game plays well enough but , could have been better with a story that unfolded as you played further into the keep. Thanks
Game Impressions I just completed Tainted Keep and thought I'd add a few remarks about my experience with it. The story is minimal yet serviceable enough for a title that relies on it's game play to keep you interested in progressing. I found the game play itself to be remarkably fun for a touchscreen title that focuses almost entirely on melee combat. The controls can be frustrating at times and I think, for me, the biggest issue I had was the lack of lock on and circle strafe mechanic. Circle strafing can be done but I had such a hard time with it that I abandoned trying in favor of just running away and relocating to a better position. With that aside, I think the controls were fairly well done especially when I figured out that you can swipe and hold for combination attacks or constant blocks and all of the abilities/spells were located conveniently and were responsive. Blocking and stamina are implemented fairly well in this game with blocks generally needing to be in the direction (but not needing to match side, overhand or thrust) of the incoming attack . Some damage can penetrate your blocks and you will lose stamina while blocking in addition to not regenerating stamina at nearly the same rate as when you are not blocking. Melee attacks are pretty one dimensional and combinations are tied directly to the stamina you have. Fun but basic. There are three weapons in the game and each can be upgraded several times by collecting souls from fallen enemies and from caches spread around the map. Between weapon upgrades and a few items laying about you are able to increase your stamina and hit points as well as speed and defense. Other than that, there is no real equipment to gather or stats to build from what I can tell; this is no RPG, it is a melee action game through to it's core. Enemy variety is okay and about what I'd expect for a game of this type. Excluding boss characters I can recall seven: Spear/Shield warriors (2), Ghouls of some sort (2), Trolls or Orcs with axes, wraiths or banshees, wizards. There are also plenty of traps to avoid consisting of either spear or blade types. I found the placement of both enemies and traps to be fair and not cheap. Level design was pretty well done for a small game and many areas will need to be visited several times in order to progress with a good mix of halls, rooms, courtyards crypts and battlements as you would expect from being solely played within a keep. The map was, thankfully, very well done and functional. Textures and effects were also pretty good considering the fact I'm playing on a first generation iPad Mini. I know this game is optimized for Tegra 3/4 so I bet it looks pretty fantastic on a capable device. Even on my old hardware running iOS 8.1.1 the game was smooth and responsive with not a single crash. It took me about 6 hours to finish but I bet you could get it done in 3 or so if you really wanted to. With the exception of some cursing here and there due to lack of lock on or my inability to circle strafe, I very much enjoyed this game and finished it up in two play sessions. It reminded me very much of some of my personal all time favorites such as Blade of Darkness, Drakkan: Order of the Flame and the King's Field/Demon/Dark Souls games which is a massive plus. This game was a hell of a lot of fun for me and well worth the $1.99 I laid out for it. Hope to see more of this stuff in the future.
Well, now that this is free, I hope they can generate some interest. Hopefully the devs made enough for some pizza and beer.
Yup. I posted my impressions on this great game in the sale thread and feel really bad getting the game for free when the devs really deserve the support.
Here's my post in the sale thread: Holy crap i feel guilty not paying for this. I love the gameplay of this one. Does feel like dark souls lite. The simple but rewarding/punishing combat system is the strongest feature of this game for me. No mindless hacking and slashing, and every strike counts, as does every block. I usually dont like female protagonists since i like role-playing the game that it's me as the character, but in this one, the combat system makes it feel like a female character is a natural fit for the game rather than a rampaging brute, as the main character does feel somewhat fragile, but strong enough to take on the baddies. The exploration is also superb. I love how this is a huge seamless map instead of single loaded areas with load points to the next areas. On the downside, a couple hours into the game, and i can see similar looking rooms. Pretty forgivable though, as most dungeon crawlers kinda fall into that. On the downside, there doesnt seem to be a lot of variety in the enemies yet, but im sure i havent seen everything yet, so looking forward to seeing more dynamic enemies, maybe even boss fights hopefully. The inventory system and acquiring new equips feel a bit lacking, but it's not like they are bad. I just felt like it could be expanded a bit more. The visuals are superb for what the game aims. Dynamic lighting and realtime shadows are huge features in this game. The main character's sprites doesnt look as sharp as the enemies when up-close, but it does look good. One more flaw i can point out is how much the camera swings around when facing left or right with the movement stick. In combat, moving away from the enemy makes the camera swing around real fast that you have to turn around and block an enemy you cant see on the screen. Maybe an option to slow down or even remove the camera turning when you are using the movement stick, since the right analog stick already serves as the camera control. MFi controls are really well done. Im using a Madcatz Micro and it plays perfectly as intended. It's a pretty unique setup with the MFi controller, but very intuitive in most parts. Left analog is for movement. As mentioned above, the camera swings at full speed when you turn left or right with this stick, and i think that is the game's biggest flaw. Right analog stick is pretty dynamic. Tilting the stick left or right turns the camera around. There is no need to turn the camera up or down, so it was a genius move to put the attack on the tilt-up and block on the tilt-down on the right analog. I think it's really an awesome change from the norm. Those who dont like this setup, the right and left triggers double as block and attack respectively. Overall i think this is a special game, one that's done really well, but still open for huge improvements that can potentially even match console titles. Cant wait to see more from this developer. On the downside, it went free twice now without a lot of buzz going on. There's no IAP anywhere in the game, so helping in the game's visibility on the appstore is all i can do now so i hope more people buy the game. Like i said, i got it for free and i feel guilty now that i've played it.
Really great game. Been playing this for 3 hours straight and i just had to stop coz work's been piling for the past 3 hours! eek! I intend to play hard mode when i complete normal mode. I skipped easy as always.
Thanks for adding your thoughts on this great little game, EP, hopefully with your stamp of approval more folks will try this one out. Great write up, btw. I see it is available on the Google Play store (U.S.) for $1.99 still. I may buy it for my phone also just to give them a sale. It is sitting there with a four star average out of 209 reviews so at least they moved a FEW copies there.
a bit of a long shot, has anyone here got the SteelSeries XL as it does not work in this game, controller works fins in other mfi games so I have no idea why it would not work
How come nobody is talking about this game? I wholeheartedly agree with EP, this is an excellent game and probably the most gorgeous third person iOS game I've ever played. I do feel bad picking it up for free and I hope that everyone will try it because It's been a long, long time since I've stayed glued to my screen for 2-3 hours straight. I have a steelseries stratus XL and everything works fine here. Have you tried rebooting your ipad?
Finished normal mode in about 10 hours. Great game, good amount of exploration and dungeon crawling (i wish there was a randomly generated crypt or something where some gc leaderboards can be played around), good length, very good controls. Im getting ready to start hard mode in the next week. One of my favorite games to play with an MFi controller.
I feel bad for getting this game for free. It was sitting on my watch list and I forgot about it until it popped up with the sale. This is a really good game! I was hooked on it for a good hour last night! Hopefully with the new attention it's getting, this game will start picking up steam.
got it to work, I turned off my ipad, then turned on the controller (obviously allready paired) then turned the ipad back on... that fixed it
