Fun, but feels unfinished

I really WANT this game to be great. It has all the hallmarks of something I would like: nice retro art, fun chiptune music, bright colors and lively sound design, a tongue-in cheek sense of humor, and endless rogue-like puzzle madness.

But the game, in its current state, feels like a game still in development. There are a few crashes that cause you to lose progress. There are some glaring bugs with the way items work and damage is dealt and calculated. But most of all the game is just blatantly unbalanced.

The stats are super ambiguous. Each character has a number of stars next to each stat which determines their strengths and weaknesses, and you can put points into stats as you level up. But theres very little explanation on how this works, and i find that any "strategies" I try to come up with have little actual effect. I can never seem to heal fast enough, shields are great, until you hit a boss, then theyre useless, and agility? What does it even really do?

Enemies are numbingly repetitive and easy. The game claims that different enemies have different resistances, but its difficult to tell what those are. The different "areas" you visit have different enemies, but they all act the same and theres no feeling of variety or strategy or progress.

Bosses are way overpowered. Want a long, protracted, edge of your seat boss battle? Too bad - by the second boss, you either kill him in a few hits because youve saved up an item or tons of attack blocks, or he kills you because HP and shields are NOTHING compared to boss attack power and frequency. This, coupled with enemies being so boringly easy, is very frustrating.

Items need to show up more frequently, you should be able to hold more than one, and purchased stat boosts should be permanent. Raise 1 Int for the next 3 turns when all Im going to do fight is some dopey enemy and it may take me 3 turns to even find a cluster of magic blocks to use? Instant useless game mechanic. There should also be MORE items involving controlling and manipulating the board - I feel like these are the items that will change the way I play and give me a sense of accomplishment.

The worst thing is, I feel like any and all of these issues would be glaringly apparent if the developer had engaged in ANY PLAYTESTING WHATSOEVER. This has all the elements if a really fun and successful game, but none of them fit together right. The game needs a math overhaul, based in some solid metrics on how people play it.

You gotta hand it to him though, the dev is just one guy. He worked on Fieldrunners 1 & 2, but it looks like this is pretty much his first game, so I cant hate on it too much, but it seriously shouldnt have been publicly released for another few months. By the way LOVE THAT THERES NO IAP. Id love to be able to support the developer in some other way, but its so refreshing to see a real game out there that actually makes you PLAY the game to win!

If you want a real strategy puzzle game, besides Puzzle Quest, check out DUNGEON RAID - totally boring and unassuming art and sound, but AMAZING gameplay with persistent unlocks, some great challenge, and tons Of items and skills that completely change the way you play.

StinOfSin about Block Legend