I've played quite a few of the games so far, and I'm going to do my best to review them honestly. No point stepping around issues.

There may be spoilers of some sort ahead, so beware.

(Listed in the order I played them, by the way)

Right. Let's get this started. I'm going to begin by saying that I'm pretty darn impressed by some of these games.

Note that I'm not going to rate them on a scale, I'm only going to say what I liked and what I didn't. Please take any criticism in stride, and dish it out in return.

The war has come

Right. So by what I read in the readme, it's an aRPG of sorts, where you can choose the violent/peaceful route.

Regrettably, the game gobbled up all my CPU time and moved at a snails pace.

I did play through up to the part where I wandered onto the battlefield… but I couldn't really do much.

I'll leave off on rating this as I couldn't really play it as intended.

Dungeon Ace

When I fired this up, I instantly thought 'Commodore PET Dungeon crawler'. And that's where the analogy stopped. The resolution used for the wall textures, for one, was jarringly low with sharp jagged pixels everywhere, but the knights that popped up here and there where smoothed at the edges.

I played through to Floor 2, level 2, then had to leave it.

I applaud the creator of this game for taking the trouble to implement a basic crafting and map system (With marking), but the game becomes mundane after a short amount of time (No variation on the walls, for instance).

I'd recommend that, for further reference, you take a look at one of the most famous fixed-view '3D' dungeon crawlers, Eye of the Beholder, to pick up some tips for dealing with the genre.

Abyss Mage

My first impressions, this being an RPG Maker game, was that it was a decent effort on the part of the creator for the fact that it managed to stay almost completely away from the RTP, with sound effects being the exception I believe.

But after the initial forest level, and getting to the cave, I had to give up on playing.

The stat balancing could use some attention, as having what amounts to a one-hit-kill enemy in the caves (The skeletons), and only a 50/50 chance of being able to escape, kinda makes it fustrating; especially when there was no visual cue as to where to go next.

I could probably get a lot further in this if I resorted to grinding, but a note: I hate grinding. It slows games down.

The artwork was a little odd, but the effort put in is apparent.

Shattered World: Beneath a Stone Sky

Yal… damn you. You go and make not only a game in one of my favorite genres, but you do a good job of it.

I'm basing this review of my playthrough of the second demo; I didn't feel like playing through the new update again, although I'm about to try transferring my save game from the demo to this, and seeing if it works.

I loved the art, which reminded me not of a SNES, GBA nor Genesis game, but actually of the PC-Engine, and Amiga.

The story is decent enough for the amount of time it was created in, but a couple of 'complaints':

- The MIDI music. Maybe you should try using XM/IT/S3M and using GMFmod to play them?

- Not being able to disable the MIDI music.

- Having to Perform my choices, then still have to End Turn.

- Not being able to run on the overworld or in non-combat zones =P

But otherwise? Excellent job on this. Have a cookie.

Jared the Friendly Pumpkin Online

WHY did we not have this? This is an outrage! This along with Jared the Friendly Pumpkin Forever…

Bombshell

Nice presentation, which looks like it might fit and belong on a GBA, DS, or iPhone. The art was simple but polished enough, and I get the premise of the game (Kinda like a tactical battle game. Needs moar multiplayer. Hotseat is difficult these days for no reason other than that IT'S MY SEAT. GTFO. [/battleEnsues][/lolWorms2])

It was a little difficult to get into the game, because no AI. Unless I missed something.

Still, a solid entry and definitely something to keep working on.

DungeonMen: Men of Dungeons

Now this… this is the game I was hoping for. A nice long(ish) RPG experience, with a style of art that reminds me so much of the classic 16 bit console era, gameplay that reminds me of Dragon Warrior, and enough story to keep things interesting.

The music was fitting, though the castle theme felt a bit repetitive after time (My own fault, I spent considerable time looting the castle prior to setting forth to adventure and whatnot).

Now, I'd say more, but I have some doors to smash. EXCELSIOR!

Some of the things that annoyed me though:

> The long wait in a battle before I could actually battle.

A suggestion is to reduce the wait time or increase the enemy and player

wait count if you use one to make battles start faster.

> In the second Swamp area, with the rafts, I did the following:

I took the left raft. Took the next two down. Found an awesome sword.

Then I used WarpWing, warped back to town, and bought some extra

supplies.

Returned to the marsh, took the right-hand raft, got some swag again

but was backed into another corner, so once again: WarpWing.

When I returned this time, neither of the rafts would respond.

Proving that these are not merely 'one-way' rafts as the game suggests,

but one-ride rafts.

> Town/Dungeon movement. Feels like it's running at 24FPS. If you're

trying to make it more 'authentic', don't get the wrong impression

that SNES games run at 24FPS. Both the NES and SNES ran at 60FPS

on NTSC TV's, and the PAL versions ran at 50FPS (They were locked to

the standard for their region AKA: The TV's refresh rate, which

made sense).

Sleep Season

Now this game was a bit of a surprise. Interesting concept gameplay-wise, but it felt a bit… sluggish. The controls didn't respond as readily as I would have liked, and combat felt a bit longer than it needed to be.

Felt distinctly Mother-like crossed with Interweb-frags in the humour department. I just knew that one guy would be called Dick…

Next step would be to port this to TI calculators everywhere and give bored math students something better to do with their time…

The Twilight Realm

Holy shit. Kilin. Seriously. This was better than I was expecting by a long shot, but I'm pleased with what I've got: A tricky but definitely entertaining bullet-hell/RPG with good music.

Haven't finished it yet, but the story is very… unique so far. At least, I haven't read one like that in a while.

A few nitpicky things:

- The rune puzzle thingy in the Forest of Rays was kinda… impossible the first 16386 tries…. Got it on the 16387th.

- The Plane area is disorientating with all that empty space…

- I don't know why I'm picking up apparently useless party members.

Care to enlighten me?

Another thing (After playing through the terminal band):

- The Aethereal band… what the heck am I supposed to do here and

where do I go? I managed to move south, but then a purple cloud

poisoned and killed me… ;_;

Well. The graphical work in this is great, IMHO. A few things that are too simple/out of place, but that's probably due to the time frame provided… This would work out nicely as an iPad game, I think.

Beluas and Castles

I liked the intro presentation, well done. I haven't tested the online capability, and nor will I. Haven't got enough time.

But I will say this: An interesting concept, though it felt like a bit of a restrained Terraria formula.

The taming of enemies was, at first, entertaining if it wasn't for the fact that they died all the time.

Anyway, I played until I built a boat, crossed the sea, then got stuck in the boat when trying to get out.

End Matter

Right. I'm almost positive there are a few I haven't played yet, but believe me, I'll get to it. I'm only able to devote about 1 hour of gameplay time to each game at the moment, since I'm gearing up to start my day-job.

Anyway, congratulations everybody who entered on actually entering. You've

done better than those who gave up.

Well, good luck everybody in the voting process. All we can do now is wait nervously…