Dreadful River Reviews

Looks like the devs have abandoned this one and are just leaving it out in the store to try to pick up a little revenue. I tried the early access version. It seemed fun, I wanted to support the devs, and I also knew that I wanted to play the full version, so I bought it. Turns out that, when I play the full version, the graphics _still_ say "Early Access" and you still have a button that takes you to the page of their feature roadmap. Ugh. It's very hit-and-miss to try to figure out the gameplay unless you're already accustomed to games like it because there are very few pop-up hints. I can't figure out how to save your progress while in-game; you can only "save and exit". If you ask questions about how to play the game on their official Discord, your questions go mostly ignored. So, to recap, it looks like they did a lot of work to get the game 80-90% there, then they changed priorities to other projects and they just decided to put it out in the store to see if they could get some money from the work they've already done. I'm a fan of these overhead-at-an-angle realtime adventure games, but this one handles the viewpoint poorly. Normally, you're over and behind the character(s), and you can zoom in and out as you please. However, if you walk your character so that there's a wall behind them, the viewpoint immediately zooms in so that it's right where the wall/ceiling/object is (so that all you can really see is the back of your character's head, filling your screen). This is _infuriating_ when walking through a dungeon where the ceiling height is always changing. My guess is because the devs couldn't figure out how to (or didn't get around to) have intervening barriers turn invisible to your view, so, unable to see through them, the viewpoint has to move close enough to the character to be in the room with them. I love the concept of the river kinda pulling you through the adventure, but... man... it's just not polished.

A very fun passion project and a great way to pass the time without needing to get too immersed, but you can if you want. The gameplay is simple but fun and the world and characters are charming. 7/10