Apparently I was missing something.. it was in this thread!
Thanks :)

It's ok, I just feel kind of bad about Unepic getting kicked out. :P

Indievania is getting more and more interesting games. The most recent additions include Xotic, Out There Somewhere and the BETA of Qasir al-Wasat which I've been keeping an eye on for a while now. I'm glad teh devs chose to go with the DRM-free options of self-distribution, Desura and Indievania. :)

Did anyone else here try "Cardinal Quest"? I really like the soundtrack and the graphics, but I'm of two minds regarding the gameplay.

Is there any point to it, am I missing something? If I'm not mistaken you can't save your progress, which isn't all that unusual for a Rogue-like, but if you die you don't even get any statistics (like "You were killed on level x by monster y") and as far as I can see there's no highscore table or anything like that, and gameplay doesn't change much on a second run. Is there any goal? To reach the deepest level and fight the minotaur or something? But how many levels are there? How much time in a row does one have to invest to complete it?

I've read that dying in Cardinal Quest is less frustrating than in other rogue-likes, but I think for me it's quite the opposite, because dying in CQ makes me realize how pointless the whole thing was, while with other rogue-likes I feel it was still worth playing because it was an interesting experience and it will be remembered by the highscore list or tombstones.

Seems like a big time waster to me and not very rewarding to replay, also seeing that the gameplay only consists of finding items and stairs and grinding, with the occasional strategic choice of what spells or potions to use. You don't even have to think about what items to equip - auto-equipment is a feature of the game - but what else is there to do then? :/

Well, I'm glad I didn't pay $10 for it; I think that kind of money would be better invested in Dungeons of Dredmor (or donated to authors of freeware rogue-likes with a greater replay value).


EDIT: Oh, it seems CQ is actually $5 now (IIRC it was $10 once but isn't anymore). That seems a lot more reasonable.

Does anyone know the normal price of these games? I'm not seeing a normal price or discount percentage.

Climb to the Top of the Castle
Inside a Star-filled Sky

These two interest me but I doubt I'd play them for a little while.

If you see $4.99 & $7.99, those are the regular prices. They were $1.00 & $1.60 until Tuesday, but now the sale is over.

pre-ninja'd! I was going to say this but you beat me to it.

So I can't buy Cthulhu Saves The World anymore? What's up with that?

Hmm, yeah I'm getting that too. I know they took down games with DRM recently, but I don't think CStW has any DRM so this is pretty confusing. I've tweeted the game's developer, I'll post if I get a reply.

Click "Specials" for specials!


On a side note, I haven't quite gotten to playing Climb to the Top of the Castle yet, but it interested me enough that I bought it. As for Inside a Star-filled Sky, I found that it became boring and frustrating much quicker than I would have expected. It's an experimental novelty at best, but certainly not something I would pay full asking price for.

Good thing I resisted the temptation to buy it then. :)

Does anyone share my feelings about Cardinal Quest or am I barking up the wrong tree? Most reviews that I've read give it the thumbs up but I thought it could do with some improvements to make it worthwhile, like some kind of highscore table, a quicksave function and additional content like gold and shops or something to give you more to do. I'm not opposed to casual games at all, but IMO the way CQ turns rogue-likes into a casual game makes it less fun to play because it takes most tactical options away from the player without offering any other gameplay features in return.

I'm not very confident that CQ will be polished and improved though, seeing that I read the dev is already working on CQ2. :(

Cthulhu Saves the World is still available from GamersGate for 1.99 $/€. It is labeled as DRM free.
I bought CttTotC and it's a nice little distraction, The Woman Of My Dreams (tm) and me both found it funny and entertaining.

A share your feelings about Inside A Star-Filled Sky. The game is very crude, uses a very frustrating way of targeting, doesn't offer much variety, and hinges on a single idea that gets old quickly. There may be something to it that I haven't discovered yet, but I'm not sure if I really want to spend more time on finding it.

I bought CTTTOTC when it first launced at $10 because I loved the free pre release build which was a finalist in the Indie Game Challenge a few years ago. I was kinda disappointed that it got a price drop, but found that it was worth it as it is a fun retro style platformer. When I beat the Normal Difficulty for the first time, I realized how hard this game was as you get no continues. If you buy this game, play the easy difficulty as sson as you unlock it so that you can learn to get through the early levels. The last few levels which are not in easy are pretty dang fustrating.

Rather not buy from them.