Bard's Gold Reviews

Bard's Gold is a very good platformer that draws inspiration Spelunky. You collect treasure throughout the levels which are mostly randomly generated with secrets hidden within the levels such as more treasure, items, and rooms that can be very rewarding. Some items make your character more powerfully, move faster, or better weapons. Enemies have different ways for attacking you causing you to change your strategy all the time and even moving further through game it keeps getting harder to add more replay value. Boss fights are honestly not that well made and just feel like much more powerful versions of the regular enemies just given more health and different looks. You unlock skills just like in Rogue Legacy where evertime you die all the treasure you found throughout the playthrough can be used to unlock skills to make you more powerful in the next playthroughs. Conclusion: Bard's Gold is a solid indie game that you should check out if you like games like Spelunky and Rogue Legacy. Even a nice game to play while listening to a podcast or watching YouTube videos honestly lol. Rating: 9/10

[b]Yeah, sure, throw [i]Bard's Gold[/i] on the pile of fairly well-made, addicting roguelites with permanent upgrades.[/b] Nothing [i]really[/i] new here, though. You'll definately get your five bucks worth out of it if you are into these kinds of games, but be aware - you have done this before. [i]Essentially, you go on dungeon runs to collect money, and when you die, this money allows you to purchase upgrades that persist throughout all future runs.[/i] Its a tried-and-true formula that creates addicting gameplay. The important decisions in each run boil down to [i]'do I spend the money to upgrade and make myself more powerful (and then potentially getting further to get more money), or do I just save it to have more money when I die'?[/i] [b]Pros:[/b] +Cheap, yet well-made game +Music is oddly catchy +Yeah its a bit addicting (but kind of in the same way that idle clickers are addicting - in a dumb bruteforce kind of way) [b]Cons:[/b] -Controls are tight enough, but it feels like a slog moving around at first -Nothing fresh brought to the table, or any new ideas of its own -Very grindy, of course -Artwork is meh [b]Yeah, I play a good bit of this, but yeah, there are other games like this out there.[/b]

This game is a solid platformer. It's pixel art is spot on and it's music is enjoyable to listen to. Though some bits, like controls and enemies/bosses, can be a bit iffy, it's mostly good on it's execution and game play. I do think that this game could use some extra achievements to improve it's replayability, it's definitely a great game for it's price. During my play through and achievement hunt, I realized that this game had the right kind of difficulty. No really impactful RNG, no cheap shots. Any death that I had was completely my fault, be it bad timing or not paying attention. The game may be a bit bumpy when just starting out, but once you learn the game, it honestly starts becoming easier (provided you stay focused and observant). Eventually I realized that some of the weapons in the shop were tactically less useful compared to the best one [spoiler]Triple Knives. Just stand on a ledge and shoot at enemies below you. Game becomes a breeze. [/spoiler] and that kind of broke the game for me a tad, but not enough that the game still wasn't interesting and challenging. Sadly, some parts of the game seem like they are wasted, like the higher difficulties (since all the achievements can be gotten in normal mode) and some of the hidden rooms. Again, if there were achievements related to these kinds of things, I would play the game more, but that's just my personal preference. At the end of the day, Bard's Gold is a great platformer that hits difficulty in the right way. It might need some improvements and maybe some additions to extend the game play, but overall the game is solid. Pros: + Right kind of difficult + Nice art and music + Hidden rooms are fun + Strong concepts Cons: - Small hiccups of controls and enemies (One example listed below) - Feels a bit short on stuff to do - Some weapons feel far stronger than others. [spoiler]I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the final boss is able to break through one-hit shields and kill you if he runs into you. Not sure if other bosses can too, but either way, it's jarring. [/spoiler]

Oh, Bard's Gold, what a game ! This game is hard. I mean, REALLY hard ! this is a rogue-like where in every run, you will find some hidden traps, secrets and monsters. When you die, you can spend the money you've got into power up, and try a new run with the bonus you buyed, then you die again, and re-buy etc... If you love rogue-like games, you will love this one, but if you're not, you will maybe don't like because of the difficulty. But still, this game got some amazing musics, the character react well to controls and if you die, it's entirely your fault (no need to insults the pad). The problem is, there is not enough people playin' it. So yeah, spread the words to your friends and come have fun with us ! I highly recommend this game !

This game is awesome, kinda hard to get into at first for me but then I got into it after finding the secret gems and such! Though I did find a bug, where if you're inside of a secret room like the tower of patience or flamey's treasure you cannot pause the game, there's just no pause menu...

Nice game !, varied, with shops with lots of power-ups. Even if you die, you can buy certain things in a screen, before a new game. Had much fun and will come back to it. If you enjoy the game, leave a good review, devs that make a fine job deserve it ! Also gamers need to find the good games, so I read the reviews. Tata.

Scratches the platformer itch for a while, but the inverse difficulty curve means that the replay value isn't great. By the time you get one of each upgrade, the game becomes a breeze, and the roguelite upgrades make it even more so. Beating the hardcore mode didn't allow me to invest in the roguelite upgrades, so I guess you're just stuck replaying the game on medium to grind and... make the game even easier? That said, it's still a solid game, fwiw.

I can't in good conscience give this a bad review. It is very well done, polished and generally fun. I agree with virtually everything the other positive reviews say. But it is easily the most annoying game I have played in recent memory. EDIT: The last couple of patches have helped with several of the annoyances. Ledges are *just* high enough that you can't shoot over them, so you have to double jump and shoot on the way down to hit something on a ledge. The arrows shooting from the edges of the screen are completely unavoidable in many cases, sometimes even by design, unless you know where they are. The floating books are usually just out of reach and a pain to hit. Don't get me started about the Tower of Patience. Take a look at my library. I have played and beat many "hard" games including Mr. Bree, Super Meat Boy, Bloody Trapland, etc. What you won't see there is many permadeath games. Even though this has lives, it's still game over when they are gone. This, coupled with the difficulty is just too much for me. I don't mind trying a level or boss 30 times. I do mind having to do the previous 6 levels over and over to do it. So, given that I don't care for permadeath games, take my opinion for what it's worth. If you don't mind permadeath + lots of redoing of levels, it really is a fun game overall. Edit: I wanted to clarify that when all your lives are gone, it's not exatly "Game Over". You can spend what you earned to increase a skill permanently (slowly...), but you then have to restart from the first level of that area.

Controls are stiff, you die frequently and your inventory is lost when you do. And they have B.S. invisible traps that spike you from off screen. Not a lot of fun.

My recommendation is somewhat reserved. While the game is enjoyable and has a few flaws. The biggest is how dying appears to remove all your powerups. Only after playing for a while do you realize certain items block this, and you don't actually lose everything. Still, even with a bubble around you there are still plenty of instant deaths it seems. The game is rather short once you get the hang of it. There is no reason to use a weapon other than the knife, and the game is completeable with very few of the "death" upgrades. The bosses are zero challenge if you arrive at them with a 3-knife fully powered up. I like the secrets, including assembling the map. There does feel like something is a bit off though; on the first level if you find all the secrets you get a bonus heart. This doesn't appear to repeat on any other level of the game. The hit-boxes of the monsters (for character contact) are unforuntately quite generous. Quite often I died without any visible pixels actually touching each other.