TAURONOS

I’ve played 2 hours straight this classic arcade-maze style, that was inspired by the Theseus myth and the Crete’s labyrinth with a captivating medieval interface and friendly approach that makes it really easy to pick up, that genre has been quite rare in the past years. Basically as a first task, the player must avoid the traps that require a little action and a simple strategy while using the usual WASD keybind to get to the maze center without being killed by the Minotaur. Decent storyline and presentation, simple, yet deep mechanics, good map design (also there’s a custom map option, although i haven’t tried it out), excellent challenge level. Here’s one element which did surprise me in a most pleasant manner, the voice acting is featured only through the protagonist’s monologues and inner thoughts. Also, I want to point out, it caused me tension i almost ♥♥♥♥ my pants at the first time i heard the Minotaur coming at me. So i assume the sound design is great and well synchronized. I surely recommend this for fans of medieval-arcade.

Urghhh! What to do? What to do? On the one hand, some sense of professional integrity suggests that spending twenty minutes playing a game isn't enough to give it a fair and properly critical go, but on the other hand: When said game is this stupefyingly dull, do I really gotta sink all that wasted time into it just to cross my t's and dot my i's? ♥♥♥♥ that! Life is too short to spend any time arguing with random, meaningless people on the internet. I know the devs have put some effort into it (more than a little, much less than a lot), but, frankly, if the game was less ♥♥♥♥, then...uh...well, I wouldn't be leaving this review. But it is ♥♥♥♥, and, so...... You're in a maze. There's a minotaur in the maze. Occasionally it will roar at you, whilst displaying the keen directional awareness of a brain-damaged homing pigeon as it menacingly approaches with the shuffling gait of an arthritic geriatric. The minotaur is a bit emo, and sometimes sulks "mwah! but I doan wanna attack you! why don't you boomers wanna make love, not war? Is it because you can no longer get it up at your elderly age of mid thirties to early forties? It best not be some rampant Minotaurism that you be sayin' no to this hot hairy bull boo-tay" Sometimes it does some other things, I guess. I might be crediting it with too much intelligence, but I do vaguely recall it being mildly in the near vicinity of managing to be ever so slightly threatening. At least until I just ran right past it without any tension or fear generated whatsoever, and it wandered off nonplussed in the other direction. Kind of scratching my head here what the minotaur is meant to do, exactly. I'd kind of assumed: be some measure of tough challenge, but, er.....nooooo. It's a shambling cretin. So...that just leaves the traps. And, the traps, well....♥♥♥♥ them. You can't see them. Can barely dodge them. And they don't affect the minotaur. ♥♥♥♥ the traps, for being an irritating nuisance that offer no tactical depth to the game-play, and add no excitement either. You wan't massive weapon choice, huge skills tree's, customizable armour, and super-chain-combo kill-streaks? Yeah? You do? Ooops! Nyeah....there's none of that. So what can you do? Well....er....I mean....you've got a torch, and er.....you can...point it....to illuminate things that aren't *coughs* illuminated. Even more amazing is this....steel yourselves.....you can aim it in different directions to the one that you're walking. Whoa! The difference modern technology makes *puts hand on chin and gazes off thoughtfully into the distance, wistfully thinking about how far we've come since the primitive days of Pong* And you can run, so yeahhhhhh......on a technicality, at least, it's not a walking simulator, so....yayyyy? I haven't even bothered to check if you can put away the torch, and so lessen being seen. Mainly because it's so easy to avoid the minotaur that even if that was an actual mechanic, it wouldn't be required. The number of times it killed me? zero. This one bit where it was pretty much a long corridor, and being chased by the big M? trap after trap, after trap, after trap. And then some more traps. Number of deaths in the game up until this point? zero. Number of deaths during this sequence? 15? 20? Who knows! I do know that at no point was the big M ever the cause of death. Amount of satisfaction had while playing? piffling! Can you jump traps? nope. Can you dodge traps? nope. Do they add anything to the game? nope. Are they just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoyance? yep. I could say it's a finely balanced balancing act between accessibility and nuanced game-play mechanics, but I would either be lying or incredibly delusional. It's really basic, and really boring. Think of a simplistic game of hide and seek where the seeker can't be arsed to play 75% of the time. There's some voiced dialogue, but it's cheesy fluff. Almost cheesy enough to be amusing, though only almost, and definitely aware it's not going to win any dramatic awards. I might have got the wrong end of the stick here, but it doesn't strike me that narrative prowess is what people are going to play this for. But then having played the game-play....well, I find the notion to be confounding that anyone would want to play this for that either. I'm sure some people will say It's only £4, but why waste the money? Does the worth of a game increase with a lower price point? if it was 50p it's still going to be a waste, because it hasn't magically got less ♥♥♥♥ through some financial alchemy. If such a simple game doesn't grab you in twenty minutes, and is a vacuous waste of space, then it could be argued the developer has done a piss-poor job as far as first impressions go. Albeit at the same time giving you a very good impression of what to expect from the rest of it i.e not much. Where is the pull to come back and play this some more? What about this is meant to have hooked me in? Just another cheap game trading on being cheap. If you haven't got the extra to spend on something else, then that sucks, but it is what it is. If you do have the extra, then who the heck is gonna choose this pish?

Pixel Art: 1/5......(Drab) Immersion: 1/5....(Nothing but slowing walking through maze) Gameplay: 2/5.....(Hard...Slow...Boring) Controls: 2.5/5.....(Awkward) Value: 0/5........(Should be free) Difficulty: 4.5/5... -------------- Overall 1.3 (Difficulty always excluded) I really don't know what to say... I read great reviews for this game and after trying it, I have to say it is NOT worth playing in my opinion! All I can say is the graphic design is ugly, the sepia tone bland! You walk so very slow...slow very boring! Paid only $1 and that was too much!

怎么说呢，很有趣的小游戏。打折三块钱入手，很实惠。 但是我没有打通关，一共有五章，每一张大概是六七关的样子，我打到了第三章第3关就没有继续了。 就我玩过的内容而言，玩法很单调，就是探索地图，记忆地图，找到最佳路径。 解谜的成分基本不算有，气氛营造也只能算一般。 永久增益如果前面没找到加速就很难过了，有几次我路都找到了但是速度差一点点，但是你不确定是不是前面的关卡走错了，反馈很低效。 但从一个云《游戏开发者》视角来看，这个游戏有很大的发展空间。 另外，附送的地图编辑器很棒。

Игра отличная, прошел с удовольствием :) Но пока не разобрался как за Минотавра играть, достижение то надо последнее получить :) а информации почти нет по игре.

A legit good top-down cavern puzzler with a really good low-res art direction. I'm not touching the journey-as-metaphor aspect.

В целом TAURONOS очень интересный, и красивый, по своему, проект. Очень простая рисовка, тем не менее, приятная глазу. Особенно в сочетании с греческим оформлением. Так же интересная сама идея лабиринта и минотавра, особенно звук: чем дальше идешь по игре, тем больше каждый рев минотавра, который донесся до тебя сквозь лабиринт темных уровней, заставляет напрягаться. И дело даже не в том, что он начинает идти медленно, а потом постепенно ускоряется, а в том, что ты осознаешь и привыкаешь к тому, что уровни с этим чудовищем будут напряжными и интенсивными... и по прежнему темными. Можно, конечно, пронестись сразу к выходу, как найдешь его, но тогда ты упустишь все улучшения и дополнительные жизни(А игрок смертен. После отведенного запаса жизней - начинай с самого начала). И как Я сказал раньше, тут есть своего рода прокачка героя, которая состоит в том, что бы у "алтарей" повышать броню, скорость, выносливость и так далее. Эта игра во многом просто выглядит и играется тремя кнопками, но она интересная и красива в этой своей простоте. ... Тем не менее, меня эта игра и сильно раздражала в некоторых вещах: Никогда не любил в играх такое решение, как "невозврат". Вот закатился камень в коридор, и если это было рядом с выходом, хрен ты вернешься поискать еще секреты или улучшения... Очень часто люк минотавра расположен так, что закрыв его и оглушив монстра, ты не можешь никуда пойти, так как нельзя его обойти. Это вообще очень сильно испортило впечатление так как часть достижений завязана именно на это действие. Да и, банально, закрыв люк - выигрываешь немного времени для себя, что важно в этой игре... Во многих играх, что Я играл, можно было использовать сразу несколько кнопок, тут же нужно обязательно отпустить все остальные, что бы кнопка действия начала выполнять само это действие... Ну и эта игра очень сильно морально утомляет. За все время игр, только "Дум 3" был для меня очень интересной игрой, которую Я долго проходил из-за того, что она давила и сильно выматывала морально. Эта же игра просто интересная и очень сильно выматывает. Если автор хотел сделать такой эффект от сочетания лабиринта-темноты-минотавра, то на самом деле к этому можно прибавить и разные плохие игровые решения, что стали катализатором не простого морального утомления во имя "сложного удовольствия", а морального утомления во имя "неприятного и раздражающего утомления". ... Впрочем, за свою цену, игра полностью заслуживает того, что бы с ней ознакомится. В конце-концов и сюжет и оформление геймплея тут интересные. А если попасть на скидку, то и вовсе обязательно к приобретению.

Making badges on steam can be worth it sometimes. In this case, I got a 50% coupon for Tauronos. It’s appealing to give such a game a try when it costs me €2,50 and it seems to have its priorities straight. I can say with confidence that the game has been worth it after spending 6.7 hours on it. The game is mostly a mix of exploration, survival, health/stamina management and being chased by a monster in some stages. You have a light around you that lets you see your direct surroundings but the rest of the stage is dark. You have to be careful of traps or you need to avoid getting lost in a maze. Clearing rubbles takes time and running costs stamina. You can become stronger when you find upgrades for your stats (armour, stamina, interaction time, strength of light and movement speed). There are 6 chapters with each one having between 5 and 8 stages. The game also has secrets where you can find extra lives, health regen, unlocks for a map editor etc. There are different difficulty modes with easy allowing you to continue after losing your lives. But you will have to start from the beginning of a chapter. Game auto saves when you clear a stage. The most important aspect the game got right is the gameplay. It kept my attention because the levels are well designed, the stats and the upgrades work well with noticeable improvements every time, the game is challenging in the right way and it’s engaging exploring or managing your health/stamina. I played on easy and it feels like it’s just right in terms of challenge. Having to retry an entire chapter is a good motivator to do your best without the game being too punishing. The game seems like it could get frustrating if played on higher difficulties (I didn’t test this) and I normally hate being chased in games. This shouldn’t be a game for me on paper but it really works on easy at least. The chase sequences feel like puzzles and offer a bit of variety to the whole package. What’s surprising is a game like this having quite a bit of voice acting for the main character. I like it, it gives it a bit of personality. The achievements are also fun and will require playing the game twice. It’s great that you can get all the achievements on easy. There are luckily no difficulty related achievements. With all that said, the game has a few minor flaws. I’ve experienced one bug where the playable character got stuck on a wall with one specific stage. I had to exit the stage and retry a few times until it worked. This can be more of a problem on higher difficulties as you lose a life every time you exit the game if you don’t select ‘continue later’ after finishing a stage. It’s not possible to select stages or retry the ones you’ve completed. If you missed secrets, though luck. You can retry with new game. The game also only shows you what you missed after finishing a stage, it doesn’t show you in advance. This coupled with not being allowed to select or retry stages forced me to write down the stages with the secrets I’ve missed for my second run. It sounds pretty bad but the game is not long and there are some alternative choices where you’re going to replay the game anyways. And lastly, the game lacks variety in terms of graphical assets and color palette. The stages look a bit similar even though they’re different in terms of gameplay design. I’m impressed with Tauronos, I had a great time despite some of the flaws mentioned. The developer knows how to create a fun game and they made sure everything around it is of a decent enough quality. It’s one of those good examples where a budget is effectively spent while you can see it’s small. This game is worth a try if you like smaller experimental indie games and are on the patient side.