DevilShaft: TheTower Reviews

I want to say this is the worst game ever made, but then I pause to consider where this game stands among the hundreds of other "worst game ever" that I've played. I have concluded that trying to figure out the "worst" of all the bad games is like picking up different pieces of poo in the off-leash dog park and smelling them all, trying to figure out the worst. Well, if you follow me, they're all crap so who cares which is the worst? Let's start with the fact that on a GTX 1070Ti this game runs the way Quake I used to run on a 386 with no graphics card. No instructions, no settings, no controller rebinding, nothing. The game starts and the tutorial tells you how to walk forward with the Thumbstick. Great! Next you meet an enemy and the floating tutorial text says to attack the enemy you see before you. None of the gamepad inputs will cause the attack... so what's going on? All the other gamepad inputs work... Jumping... crawling... rolling... but not attack? Ok fine, I have a Steam Controller so I'll rebind the (X) key to LMB so attack works. So I walk into the enemy and start hammering the attack button. There is no skill to combat, no managing distance, no anticipating or avoiding attacks. Nope, combat consists of pressing the Attack input until the foe dies. I should mention again, that even at lowest possible detail settings, the game is running at about 12 FPS on my gaming rig. Next I get to a series of floating platforms. Uh oh! I missed the platform and it sailed away. I guess I'll wait for it. So then I stand there for 30 seconds waiting for the platform to return. Finally it comes back and I mount it and wait for the ascent. Another 30 seconds of waiting. Oh boy! After I get off the first platform, another floating platform! But this one's timing has gone off synchronization and I missed it. So now I wait another 30 seconds for it to return, and the corresponding 30 seconds while I wait for it to elevate me to the next area. It as at this point that I get up to pour myself a coffee and when I come back I'm not on the floating platform anymore, now I'm back at the start of the game. What has happened? Oh well, another 5 minutes of tediously proceeding back to regain my progress. Then I get to a gap in the level, and you cannot jump it, you cannot roll across it, there is no alternate path. This is a 2.5D game where you can only go in one direction. Should be called a 1.5D game. After thrashing at the controls for 2 minutes to try to figure out how to get the avatar over the pit, I go inside hoping he will crawl up when he gets to the other side as he did once before in the earlier part of the map. Nope. Now I'm stuck in the pit forever. I restart the "game" and suffer the tedious 5 minutes of basically standing and waiting on platforms to get back up there. Same problem. Oh did I mention that on the way up there I see another enemy with floating tutorial text, but the text is backwards... I guess because the dev never played or tested this once? "KCATTA OT BML SSERP"... that's the tutorial text. This game is the ultimate piece of poo. I bought it because I thought it looked amateur as heck but I guessed there might be something worthwhile even at the 90% off I paid. WRONGO! Normally I let developers keep my 50 cents for these shabby games, but not this time. Give me my two quarters back, and I'll spend them on gumballs. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.