ParaDog

Intro

I'll admit upfront that it's going to be impossible to write a review for this project that meets the site's length requirements for reviews while also being spoiler free. This is because "Paradog" is disturbingly short and clocks in at around the seven minute mark or so to beat. As such there isn't a lot to talk about. Especially since artgame, the developer, went for an extremely simplified combat system. While there are hints the combat system was supposed to receive updates in the future. It's highly unlikely those updates are going to come considering the developer's last facebook post about this project is dated for October 22, 2016, which is only two weeks or so before the project was uploaded here. And as far as I'm aware the developer went radio silent on RMN in the same month this game was uploaded here and none of artgame's posts hint at them abandoning this project. Though, I suppose why this game was left in it's current stage is rather irrelevant. I figured I'd just reduce the number of projects with downloads on this site that haven't been reviewed yet.

Story
Summary

You play as a boxy dog that protects your master from the ghouls and goblins that haunt the night. A task you accomplish using garlic smelling farts, the all-powerful puppy dog eyes, and your fangs if all else fails. After all, you owe your master a lot for taking care of you and your going to repay them by keeping the horrors of the night at bay. Albeit the amount of terrors you need to deal with in this alpha build can be counted on one hand.

Spelling and Grammar

It's pretty obvious from the game's dialogue that English is not the developer's first language. Though considering this is an early alpha I'm a bit more forgiving about the numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes contained within this short demo.



Though this is definitely an issue that would have needed addressing in my opinion if this game had continued development, but maybe I'm among the few people that find calling the dog a "dully" instead of a bully annoying. Though I'll probably never be the best person to call people out for stuff like this.

Gameplay

"Paradog" features an extremely basic turn-based combat system that does away with the very concept of needing any sort of energy to use your abilities. It even does away with the very concept of numbers as far as your health goes. Instead it's represented by a meter that decreases as you take damage. As for the three fights we get in this game they are extremely easy. This is because the game allows you to endlessly spam powerful special attacks that do super effective damage against your enemies as well as inflict negative status conditions on the target as well. Though there are some hints in the alpha build that these moves are meant to be a lot more limited then they currently are.



Or maybe the goal was just to mock people for spamming special moves in order to win, but it's hard to take that sort of mockery seriously as a gamer. After all, why should I care if my tactics are pure cheese? At the end of the day my goal is to reach the end of the game and I don't particularly care how I get there if it doesn't involve using cheat codes. This means glitches and exploits are fair game in my eyes. It's why I'll click on the individual boats in "Rome: Total War" in order to move my troops from one location to another as quickly as possible.

At any rate if you spam the obvious best move for each opponent you'll quickly take them down in a few turns. Though I suppose that is a bit of a relief after spending about 30 minutes fighting two hungry hippos in "Etrian Odyssey III" the other day.

Graphics

Graphically this project really doesn't appeal to me. This is because I never really like the look of the blocky characters you find in games like "Minecraft". So a game where everything is obviously comprised of a bunch of boxes is rather ugly in my opinion even if some of the characters are rather bright and colorful.


I'm kind of lost on where Jack'O's going with his commentary.

Sound

Sound wise the game is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. At times it takes a while for the background music to load in and other times it just disappears entirely. The game also suffers from bad sound mixing as well since certain songs that play in the background are way too loud. The best example of this issue being the fight with Jack'O, but outside of those issues the background music is rather forgettable for me.

Conclusion

While "Paradog" is described as a disturbingly short alpha on it's title screen. I'd argue this isn't so much an alpha as a short game created for a game jam which is seemingly confirmed in the end credits which mention this game was created for the Learning Together Jam. This isn't to say that artgame didn't plan on expanding this game at one point and thus considered this an alpha. But this project does feel rather complete in my opinion. It just needs some polishing when it comes to dialogue and combat. Polishing it isn't going to get, but considering this project isn't listed as complete and no one else has scored it. I'm not going to give this project a review score.