Wall World

Is not a 1-1 copy. The game is "ok", clearly is highly inspired in Dome Keeper but trying to made something different. We can say that is the same "mine extraction" genere (?). To me is more an exploration of the core mechanic of "mining", trying to add their own vision of the game. Is not all that polish than Dome Keeper, but with a fraction of the Dome Keeper price (2 dolars in the momento of this review) is ok for me. If you want something similar to Dome Keeper is a good option.

Obviously it is easy to compare this to Dome Keeper but, I think games using genres to make their own thing is an absolutely fine affair. It becomes about whether something diverges and does it's own thing enough. Wall World does this in enough places making it its own thing. The addition of your bass being movable adds an extra element to the 'ward away' gameplay that Dome Keeper has. Dodging and mobility will be the difference between continuing and death. Being able to construct outside of your "dome" also adds new levels of strategy. "Do I find a part of the wall that has two caves close together so I can cluster up my turret buildings, or do I build resource miners to farm upgrades for the Robospider?" Everyone will make you ask different questions about how you will tackle the oncoming difficulties. Although, because you can up and leave a mine at anytime you are forced to make decisions diffferently than you would in Dome Keeper. In dome keeper, being in the dome is strictly reduced to shooting oncoming enemies. The game is beautifully crafted, from the animations to the backdrops and enemy variety, the world is teeming with interesting and varied things to look at. Whilst it is a short affair, I find myself coming back to it over and over again. Bite sized games that leave me wanting to do better on the next run.

Alawar has already managed to combine beautiful pixel look with a good gameplay loop and an interesting premise with the game Necrosmith. For me, as a sci-fi fan, Wall World is naturally more appealing. One element that makes these games so great is progression. You start from a very inferior position but with each playthrough there is noticeable progress due to the interesting upgrades (I'll just say Mole Torpedo). And towards the end, you're so superior that you simply wipe away entire waves of enemies. The price called for this game is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. You easily get 10 to 15 hours of gameplay for what? Five euros? Alawar should really rethink its pricing policy. I think even 15 Euros would be justified. The only real criticisms are the controls and the story. Sometimes keystrokes are simply not registered when they overlap with animations. But that was already improved in the last patch. The story, on the other hand, is a completely different issue. It's only lightly sprinkled over the game in small amounts anyway, but still keeps the player somewhat engaged. The ending, on the other hand, is unfortunately unsatisfying in my opinion. Here, another small cutscene would have made a lot of difference. Conclusion: Absolutely recommended! A wonderful game without extreme challenge and a great progression system. More of this please, Alawar!

Wall World has a lot going for it: A fascinating premise, gorgeous pixel art and a fun rogue-lite formula that keeps drawing me in. Unfortunately, once I played for a sufficient amount of hours, a lot of little irritations started to compound on themselves. The weapons are interesting, each with its own function at different moments in battle, and you seem to get a good, random variety of them... but in a heavily weighted order that seems to guarantee you won't see new ones until much later in the game. The exterior backgrounds are beautiful, and there are different climates and weather conditions that make the world seem alive... but the wall itself is a black void enclosed by grey lines, and the only splash of colour is the tile-set you're digging through. A little cone of grey rock is the only indicator of potential dig sites. The seemingly infinite wall is an enticing mystery, and you can find caves with NPCs and journals that hint at the true nature of the world... But half the time it's a joke or reference without substance, the worst of which break the fourth wall and shatter immersion. The interface is intuitive and most of the time easy to read quickly... but there's a lack of information and detail that obscures whether a given effect will really work like you expect it to. Once you have more than one weapon, you can cycle through them with Z and X, but the weapon selector doesn't show the order in which you cycle through them. The game seems filled with these aspects that look great at first glance, but then begin to show their flaws after you spend a little time with them. I'm hoping the developer can apply the necessary polish, because that's all this game needs to go from middling to great.