Welcome Time Wasters!
This week I had a really awesome game that I wanted to talk to you about. However, I can’t do it quite yet. Instead, I have to push it back and hope I can share it with you all next week. Instead, I’m going to talk about Shadow Archers.
Shadow Archers is a simple game that has two shadowed figures shooting at each other with bows and arrows. You’ve likely seen games like this before. I know when I was in high school Bowman was all the rage for wasting time in typing class.
Shadow Archers is unfortunately a shallow game that doesn’t add much to the genre. It’s also a bit clunky. I never really felt like I was able to accurately control the angle and power behind my shots. Maybe the fact that this is a mobile game released for browsers is part of that, but it still feels very rough an unpolished.
A perfect example of the unpolished nature of the game comes from trying to select the different modes of play. There are five different game modes, but only two of these are actually payable. The others just say “soon” when selected.
Here’s another example of the lack of polish in Shadow Archers. When playing on Castle mode, players can select “Dymanic” or “Static”. Dynamic means that there are moving platforms that players can walk between. Except you don’t actually have to walk on the platforms. You can just leave the character hovering in air above a spike pit without any worry of danger. Also, moving requires clicking on-screen arrow buttons, which shows this game really never was designed for play with a mouse and keyboard.
Honestly, there are just so many aspects to this game that show its needs more work. From wind changing on each character’s turn instead of when both have completed a turn, to the lack of an angle data for making shots. Heck even shooting is weird because the player has to pull the mouse toward the enemy to draw back the bow. It just doesn’t feel natural.
The graphics in Shadow Archers aren’t all that important. Sure the shadow characters look nice and have okay animations, but that’s about it. The backgrounds aren’t all that bad, but some of them just feel like rush jobs. This would be easier to forgive if the gameplay wasn’t so bad.
Audio is the same as graphics in Shadow Archers. There are a few sound effects that are alright, but none of them really stick out. What does stick out those are the constant guttural sounds that come from one of the archers after death. They just keep going in the background and aren’t very well done.
Overall, Shadow Archers isn’t worth your time. The game feels rough in every aspect and just isn’t a good way to waste some time. Hopefully the developers will take more care on their next game. My advice is to just go play some Bowman if you want to satisfy that archery game itch.
Shadow Archers earns 1.5 GiN Gems out of 5!
I am extremely flattered by this wall of text. You of course are largely correct, and yes, it’s made for mobile. I’m just trying to attract a bit of traffic. The game is not a lot of things, but a lot has announced. This is because we do not know how the game will go, but time and budget we have terribly little. If the game will attract at least some traffic that we will be able to throw all the forces in the completion of this game, I understand, it is not quite correct to let the unfinished game, but it is free and can be regarded as a small test oo. In any case, thank you very much for such an extensive feedback and for the time that you spent for his writing.
Thank you for the comment and I hope your further development goes well.