No Review Games on Steam: Cryptic Escape

 I am doing a podcast with my friends about games (check out The Adventure Mechanics here) and I decided that I need to try for accountability on actually releasing a game.  In that pursuit, I'm reviewing Steam games with no reviews to get an idea of why they failed.  Here is the transcript for Cryptic Escape:

 Welcome to the Adventure Mechanics, I'm Chandler. It's that time again for another side quest. Today, we're going to continue our no review games examination with a title called Cryptic Escape.  Cryptic Escape was released in June of 2024 by LionEY Games.  According to their itch.io page, their first game was released in 2022. They have seven other games on their itch page as well. After releasing Cryptic Escape, they released another game in 2025.  So, they still appear to be an active developer at least at time of recording. 

What is cryptic escape I hear you ask?  Cryptic Escape is a top down real time dungeon crawler without combat. It sounds like a conflicting premise, but it works surprisingly well. In cryptic escape, you will run around each dungeon level collecting coins and opening chests. The denizens of the dungeon will chase you an attempt to stop you from collecting coins. As you tell deeper into each dungeon, you will run into stronger and faster enemies. You will also run into traps and switches that block off areas of the dungeon. You can use these to your advantage, but if you're not careful you may run over a spike trap and and your run there. You can also use potions to become invisible, run faster, that sort of thing. The game claims to be a rogue like, but I don't necessarily get the feeling that it has a fully baked progression in the game itself. That being said, you can save some progression by purchasing upgrades to your abilities in the shop after each run, making future runs easier.

It sounds like a great premise, doesn't it? Well, it is. But the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. The camera movement feels off somehow. It moves the way I expect it to, but it seems to move way to aggressively to get the player into the back third of the screen.  In a more polished game, it would ease the player into that 1/3 so they can see ahead, but not so fast as to cause potential motion sickness. In cryptic escape, there's no lurping or easing, the camera just speeds there. It's a novel experience, but that camera needs to be fixed.  And bad feeling isn't something that's obvious when you look at the trailer for this game, either.  The sound effects are serviceable, but they feel amateurish. The same applies to the music, as well. After one level you will want to turn off the music because it's just that repetitive. 

On my first playthrough, I was able to get awarded achievements for getting through the fifth level of the dungeon just by playing the tutorial. That's a pretty big oversight, and it looks really bad when that's your first experience of a game. Paradoxically, after my first run, I was able to get the welcome achievement. It feels like the achievement system they included is actually worse than not having any achievements at all. And you have a very short window to impress your players, I want to make sure you're achievements fire off as expected. 

That being said, what is good or interesting about this game? The premise is very good in terms of idea. The randomized dungeons feel well constructed and although they are procedurally generated, there's still enough wiggle room to get by enemies without having to cut down long hallways.  The variety of enemies are introduced on a level by level basis, easing the player into harder and harder situations. This is a good game design. And although the artwork is basic, it serves its purpose well in context. Especially if the developer is trying to call back to rogue and it's offshoots.  It just feels like a game jam level of effort and polish, though. 

Let's talk about a couple elephants in the room for this game. First and foremost, despite not having AI anywhere else in their game as far as I can tell, the capsule art for this game is AI generated. And I can almost guarantee that many gamers that would be interested in this game didn't give it a chance because of that. I know it's a shocker, but AI generative art is not popular with players. And if your first contact with them, the capsule art, is AI generated, you are going to turn off a lot of players. And I think that's exactly what happened here. I feel like LionEY games understood that players don't want generative AI since they didn't include that in their subsequent game.

The second metaphorical elephant is the zero review moniker. I didn't do my due diligence and actually check if there were any reviews for this game. Turns out there's 11 of them. So technically that disqualifies cryptic escape from being a zero review game. Looking at the reviews, however, I suspect that all of them were comped. And comped reviews don't show up in your review queue. And looking at the reviews left, it appears that most of them are one to two sentences saying the game is good.  To me, this looks like the developer trying to get over the 10 review threshold to have his game show up. That's not a bad thing, per se, but as shown by it appearing in my zero review list, I don't think the way the designer did it worked.  So, a little bit of a lesson for everyone, I guess.

So, with all that being said, how can cryptic escape be made better? The first low-hanging fruit I would pursue would be to rework the music and sound effects to better reflect what they're trying to make. And by that I mean crunchier sound effects, more variety of music, that sort of thing. If the point of the game is to be in the dungeon, make it feel good to be in there.  That's the centerpiece of your game, after all. Make it sound like that's where you put most of your effort. 

There are some small visual effects on screen when you get too close to an enemy. I think this is a good first step in making the dungeons feel better. As another piece of low hanging fruit, the designer could add torches and dark spots to make it feel darker and less like a game jam. A greater variety of props in the dungeon, and maybe dedicated rooms to add a hand curated touch, would go a long way to making each dungeon level feel unique. And like the audio portion, you want to make sure that the player feels like this is where you spent most of your effort. The level of effort that's in here now is fine for a short game. But I get the feeling that this game wanted to be more than what is actually there. And because of that it feels hollow. As more monsters populate the dungeon levels, it's somewhat alleviated, but it's never completely gone.

Now, I haven't been very deep in the dungeons, but there are opportunities to introduce more variety in layouts. It's important to make sure each run of the dungeon feels unique. And it doesn't right now.  Other rogue lite games, such as Spelunky, there are ideas such as moods for a level. I feel like cryptic escape would benefit greatly if there were some sub varieties of dungeons, especially in the earlier levels. The ultimate goal of this is to make sure that your players don't see the seams of your game so quickly.  As it stands, I could see the seams of the first dungeon very quickly. And I hadn't even put an hour into this game before seeing those seams. Especially in run-based games, you want to make sure that although you're doing the same thing each time, it doesn't feel repetitive. 

In the end, I feel like this game unfortunately is where it should be in terms of reviews. It's not as bad as some of the other zero review games I've played, but like pixel knight, the extra level of polish needed to get it out of low review territory just isn't there. And I feel like that's a shame. The premise is interesting. The moment to moment action can be compelling. But it doesn't have the longevity needed to actually make a full game out of it as it stands right now. If there was another polishing pass and the AI capsule art were removed, I feel like this game would stand up on a similar level as Pixel Dungeon.  And that's what comes to mind as a comparable game for cryptic escape. It feels like this game reached the point in development where content mountain comes into view and the developer said, "nah, I think it's good where it is."  That's a shame, because I feel like if they put in that extra effort, did some market comparisons, and polished their game up to their competitors' standards, this game would have found a larger audience than it did.  Without that work, it's doomed to the sub-one thousand review pool with so many other games.

Well, that's about all that I have for Cryptic Escape. As always, if you are the designer or developer of this game, reach out to me. I would love to talk about your game design process and how you made Cryptic Escape. And if you aren't and have comments and or questions, leave them in the comments below or reach out to me on various social media.  My handle is @jcsirron. This has been the Adventure Mechanics side quest and I will talk to you next time. 

No Review Games on Steam: Pixel Knight

I am doing a podcast with my friends about games (check out The Adventure Mechanics here) and I decided that I need to try for accountability on actually releasing a game.  In that pursuit, I'm reviewing Steam games with no reviews to get an idea of why they failed.  Here is the transcript for Pixel Knight: 

Welcome to another Adventure Mechanics Side Quest. I'm Chandler. Today we're going to continue the zero review games series on Steam with Pixel Knight.  Pixel Knight was released in 2023 under Eross Video Games.  It's not their first game, either on Steam or on Itch. They have since released the beginning of another game on Itch a month after releasing Pixel Knight in 2023. So, we aren't talking about developers first game here.  Although the developer may be inexperienced, they have released several games before Pixel Knight. It does appear they have gone dormant after their last game in 2023, with no notable updates or new releases since then, however.

But let's talk about the game in question.  Pixel Knight is a platforming beat 'em up. In it, you will face platforming challenges on top of fighting various flavors of goomba style monsters. The artwork is very good, although it is missing a lot of transition frames, such as jumping and getting hit. I'm not particulalry surprised, since I was able to find the asset pack used for the skeleton enemy on Itch.io.  As such, I'm not going to comment further on the art, since it's likely composed almost entirely from asset packs.  The choice of packs do work well together, which is is a point to the designer.  I will, however, note that even when you purchase assets, unless the license forbids modification, change them to fit your game, like making jump animations for the main player. I talked about assets more in a previous side quest if you're interested in more of my thoughts on asset packs.

The musical choices in the game are surprisingly upbeat and definitely make the vibe of the game more engaging. I suspect that the music follows art, in that it's likely a "best fit" instead of music composed for the game directly.  Like art, that means I'll only be critiquing on how it fits the game.  Some of the pairings, such as the level select screen, don't really match the rest of the theming.  If the designer chose music more holistically and went for a specific style, then the audio scape may have been a bit better. 

There are a lot of additional mechanics in this game that you can engage with, or you can ignore. There is a dash, for example that I never touched while I was testing this game. It shows in the steam trailer, but I never ended up feeling like I had to use it. Overall, this game is a decent representation of an action platformer, but there are a lot of things missing and that is holding the game back.

Let's talk about movement. In an action platformer, you typically have a ramp up to max speed ramp down situation. It makes the game feel like it has weight. This game is all or nothing in terms of speed. And that doesn't feel great. Jumping has no pre or post jump animations, and this makes it feel stilted while jumping. There's no animation of the player in air, either up or down, which only adds to the stilted feel of the movement. I didn't notice jumping itself feeling particularly bad, per se, but it didn't feel great, either.  And may the jump gods have mercy on your soul if you want to attack in mid-air.  That WILL kill all horizontal momentum and send you to the briny depths. I know it sounds like I am harping on this game's movement, and I am, but it is competing with the likes of Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Abathor, to say nothing of pure platformers like any entry in the Super Mario series. And missing the most fundamental mechanic of the game is going to turn off players at the very start. If the developers spent more time working on how movement felt, I feel like this game would have reached a larger audience alone. Level design needs to be changed as well. 

For some reason, the designer has a fetish for blind jumps and jumps just at the edge of the players capability. I know that creates tension, but from level 1 to when I stopped playing, every jump felt like it was going to be my end. And, don't get me started on how the blind jumps we're not telegraphed very well. It even shows one in the steam trailer for this game. If you watch the video and that blind jump doesn't bother you, great, you might enjoy this game. But I don't know very many people that enjoy blind jumps. They weren't fun in platformers in the '90s and they're not fun now.

The one note jumps make all the levels feel absolutely basic. There is just enough detail in the background to not call it a test level. It's not much beyond that, though. If the designer wanted to continue working on this game, he needs to go back and think of the challenges that each level is going to have. The leaps of faith and blind jumps each level gets tiresome very quickly and there's not much beyond running from the left to the right with some borderline unfair jumping challenges in between. If certain levels were dedicated to more interesting challenges, or interactions with the enemies, then I feel like this game would have a lot more to it. I'll save most of my thoughts on the enemies for later, though.

The second part of the game is the combat. It is basic, but it has just enough feedback to the player that it is functional. It's not great, much like the movement was, but it is good enough. The player can strike from head to toe with one click and take out the vast majority of enemies quickly. Most of the enemies will flash when hit and emit a sound along with usually a pain state. This is the very minimum I expect from a game that involves combat. It does not do anything beyond this, though. Yes, there is a dash, but as I said earlier you don't really need it. There is also magic, but again, you don't really need it. There are a lot of stats in this game that you won't ever really care about. There's a lot of mechanics that you won't ever use. Do you get where I'm going with this? The designer put more mechanics in before they fully fleshed out any of the mechanics.  They're all functional, but none of them feel great.  Even fighting enemies feels bad in the trailer on the same page. It seems like the designer was trying to make it feel like a slower game than it is, especially when you can speed click enemies to death.  If I can speed click an enemy to death, why would I want to use dashing or magic? The main solution I can think of is to make the enemies more interesting. But that isn't in the game. 

As I said in the beginning, enemies will move left to right on a platform. Once they either hit the edge or the end of their patrol route they will turn around and go to their other edge.  This isn't bad for a starting enemy, but as far as I've gotten into the game, every enemy has this behavior. There are no static enemies that provide a combat challenge. There are no real flying enemies, aside from one that is placed slightly above your attack range. On that note, there are no range enemies for that matter. If they are found later in the game, like in the infinite dungeon, they are introduced too late to be relevant.  Combat ends up being one note and flat.  If there were more variance, it would make the game more engaging.  But as it stands, enemies don't add much to the game.

When you visit town, you will experience the trouble with UI.  You can open up inventory, magic, or whatever with a single button press.  That's not the issue.  The issue is when you want to do anything on the windows.  I was able to brute force myself into figuring out how to stash things, sell loot, and purchase potions.  I never could figure out how to upgrade equipment, however.  Sure, you can put your greaves in the upgrade window with components, but how do you actually do the upgrade?  The menu doesn't say, nor does it show anything helpful in the controls.  This game seems to revel in being obnoxiously obtuse.  For instance, you can not only open up the inventory, but you can open up the pets, magic, and trade windows all at once, too!  Not the type of thing you want to see in your UI.  At all.  Having more control explanation, possibly being optional to turn off in each menu, would go a long way towards making them more user friendly and understandable.

Does this game deserve to be put on the no-review list?  Maybe.  There is an interesting idea here, but it's either not fleshed out enough or not implemented well.  Pixel Knight feels like a game that was made by one person that did not get any notable feedback from playtesters before being released.  If it did get playtest time, it certainly wasn't blind playtesting.  And it made the game so much worse for that.  Yes, the game has a low price and yes, it's a relatively short play, but if the developer wanted it to actually find an audience, there needs to be a lot more work done, mechanically, artistically, layout-wise.  Considering I'm reviewing it years after the fact, I doubt it will ever reach an audience beyond the morbidly curious.  I certainly understand why it has no reviews after examining it, though.

I don't want to bash on this game any more than needed to understand why it's on the no review list, though, so I'll stop here.  If you are the developer and want to talk about Pixel Knight, please reach out!  I would love to hear what you went through designing this game and what process you had.  If you're just a listener and have thoughts on this game or this series, reach out below or on various social media.  My handle is @jcsirron.  This has been another Adventure Mechanics Side Quest.  I'll talk to you next time.