The Weaponographist

Introduction: Do you like games like Torchlight and Diablo? Do you like Rogue-like games such as The Binding of Isaac? Well, have I got a game for you! From the creators of Concursion comes The Weaponographist, a game that begins with an arrogant hero receiving a well-deserved curse. Let’s go down into this dungeon and see where it takes us. 

Gameplay: The Weaponographist (How do you say that anyway?) is a nice blend of rogue-like, hack and slash, as well as dungeon crawlers, and for the most part does a nice job of taking the best parts of each of those genres and applying it to the gameplay. Keeping things straightforward and simple helps as well, as nothing is really too over-complicated with too many parts to juggle as you play through the game, keeps you focused on the tasks at hand, mainly staying alive because you will die…a lot. But don’t worry, practice makes perfect. There is a nice mechanic in the game that I thought would be more of an annoyance which turns out to be the main driving force in keeping the pace of the game going: weapon degradation. More on that later. Overall, the game is addicting and once you get used to the controls, it becomes an easy game to handle. Of course, I was using a keyboard instead of a gamepad as suggested, so that could be part of my issue. I would imagine using two thumbsticks would be far easier than a combo of the WASD to move and Arrow Keys to attack. 

Audio: The music is the highlight of the audio as the soundtrack isn’t the standard dungeon crawler music ala Diablo, but rather more industrial and electronic like Doom. Unlike the music, the sound effects aren’t exactly anything to cheer over. They’re not bad, just expected, even normal. The voice acting is solid as well, but again, nothing to call home and brag about. If the acting did have a highlight, it’s that what there is, is colorful. 

Visuals: Cartoony graphics is the calling card for most indie titles, for one, it is easy on the eyes and usually appealing to most audiences, and it has even seeped into larger publishers. Team Fortress 2 is notorious for this all the way to Blizzard’s titles, most notably Hearthstone. Now, The Weaponographist is more akin to Hearthstone in style and it’s not bad at all. Characters are designed nicely and there is a variety of enemies which range from the expected to the WTF and that’s all fine and dandy, but the downfall, for me, was the lack of other animation, especially during combat. I felt like the motions were too static and stiff, and would definitely have benefited from a few more frames of animation. Overall, not a bad thing to look at over long periods, despite the repetition of this kind of game. 

Content: From what I’ve played, there is a fair amount of content from upgrades, weapons, and spells, as well as enemies to face with different ways of approaching them, collecting the goop which they drop and using it to purchase your upgrades, helping you inch ever forward into redemption – wherever that may be.

Story: You start off exploring when a witch approaches you begging for your help, which you ignore because they have no gold to pay to. Witch casts a curse and basically blackmails you into helping the town. And then the witch is not to be heard from again. At least at the distance, I’ve traveled, maybe I haven’t gone far enough. Outside of the introductions and tutorials from the various vendors, there isn’t much else of a narrative.

Design: As I mentioned earlier, the weapon degradation mechanic is one of the main driving forces in the game instead of a hindrance. You see, your weapons, no matter what they are, only last for a period of time, and you are consistently being forced to replace them (because of your curse), thus you are constantly on the lookout for weapons, not just to defend yourself with, but to find an appropriate one for your enemies, your strategy is in a state of flux so there is never ever a “build” that always works. On top of this, your strength and experience is built upon your combo meter, which is always dropping at a constant rate (again, because of your curse), so in order to level up, you have to keep killing, doesn’t matter how big the combo, as long as something is dying. For this alone, the game is brilliant. 

Performance: Smooth like butter, what else can I say? It’s a low spec game that looks sharp and sounds sharp, despite the shortcomings in specific areas, and it doesn’t take up too much space, so there’s that. 

Verdict: The Weaponographist (man, that is still a mouthful to say) is a solid game all things considered and does enough to make it stand out from the crowd, but it doesn’t over-inflate itself either. It takes a calculated risk on things it knows it can do well and keeps things fun enough to merit a recommendation.