You might remember the prison depths of Jordan Mechner's creation - the original Prince of Persia popular back in 90s. Full of traps and foes, timed hardcore levels required you to make a lot of attempts. Beating this game back then felt like an achievement, it gave you a good feeling of satisfaction. And this game was not repetitive. There was always a twist. Constantly you encountered something new and mysterious, something that looked very dangerous and unpredictable. Like your reflection in a mirror which suddenly becomes your foe. Or an undead skeleton, which you cannot kill. Suddenly that required you to think. How do I defeat my reflection which shares my health pool? How do I defeat an undead skeleton? There was always a clever and interesting solution, almost with a grain of romance. And that romance made you feel like a hero.
You might also remember a genius game called Prince of Persia Sand of Time. And I feel like Sands of Time is much closer to City of Brass. In Sands of Time we still have levels full of enemies and traps but in 3D. Exactly like City of Brass. In Sand of Time we also have much more romance. And that’s not exactly like City of Brass.
So what makes City of Brass so unique and fresh? Of course it is procedural levels. Of course it is complexity. While we had a procedural and hardcore games before we never had these in 3D. City of Brass is something in between Sands of Time and original 2D Prince of Persia, but with no romance at all. The plot is very general in fact.
This game is unique and interesting because this games tries. And those tries are good. But what we have right now in early access is simply not enough. And I really hope the devs know what they are doing and they will take a right direction. I really hope for this game to end up a good game.
Let’s talk about what this game tries but cannot achieve right now (hopefully later).
This game tries to make you feel like you are lost in the labyrinth built by twisted mad souls. The city is cursed. The city also wants you to feel the endless greed of its inhabitants. To experience their madness. To resist as long as you can, but surrender your soul in the end. The city tries. But city fails. There is not enough gold in the game about gold. Where are mountains of treasure? Where are piles of gold? Where are beautifully polished gems? You encounter a couple of chests per level and that’s it. You collect some golden jugs and other ???????t. And it’s your only source of gold. Feels ???????? man. Why can’t you let’s say have an option to break into some dude's house and rob him? You are a thief aren’t уou?
The game tries to make you feel like you are playing some kind of Binding of Isaac game. Where it’s all about your items. But not only there is no interesting items, they also don’t matter that much. You are fine with default weapons. Any sword must be better than a default sword, and it’s not true in this game. There is like a bat which does no damage. Really man? A sword which just pushes your enemies and does no damage? Don’t you feel like that’s a ???????? idea? Any weapon must do damage. That’s why it’s called “weapon”. Where is a flaming sword? Where is vampire sword? Where is your usual steel sword which is better than your default? Where is an axe or a spear? It feels like your whip must do damage too. But it doesn’t. You must be able to slap your enemies to death. Yes, the whip plays kind of supportive role, but let it deal like ? of a heart damage. By the way, the character screams when he swings his sword are too irritating and absolutely must be removed.
This game wants the whip to be interesting and useful. But right now there is not enough applications for the whip. You can stun enemies, trigger traps, you can draw and pick up distant items, you can hold to those rings hanging from the ceiling which I didn’t find any practical application for. And that’s about it. You gotta come up with more! And hang that ring above the deadly abyss!
This game wants to be pretty. Right now the only truly beautiful moment is the beginning of the game, when you stand in front of the gates. And while I’m sure the devs will improve graphics at least to the level shown in their gameplay trailer, the very design of the game would not let you to appreciate the beauty of Arabic city. And the reason for that is that there is so many enemies in each level that you never have a moment of relief. You must constantly run and gun to survive. The levels must be bigger with moments of relief. Give player time to appreciate your graphical efforts. Give player time to just explore something interesting without a fear of being hurt by some mob from the back. Give player time to feel the atmosphere. I’m not even sure if the time restriction was a good idea overall. Show them your city from above. Let’s say there is a level above the ground where you need to travel from tower to tower by the huge bridges and observe the labyrinth down beneath. Give player some elevation overall. Open access to roofs.
Talking about enemies and traps. There must be natural, intuitive, user-friendly way to kill every enemy and to completely disable every trap. I could not find a way to kill that stone midget with a dagger. Are they immortal? Even molten lava cannot stop them. And those genies throwing fireballs and raising skeletons. You must have a way to just stop them. I didn’t find one. Let’s say you have to pour sand or water into their lamp, maybe? Those vine traps are irritating by the way. You don’t want your player to get irritated. Maybe you can burn vines? Or burn some king of mother-tree, so all the vine traps are getting disabled. Whatever.
Let’s talk about hardcore in this game. You don’t have a lot of health. I understand that. But you don’t have a lot of ways to restore health. In Binding of Isaac there were moments when a room is just full of hearts and you cannot carry more with you. There must be some cheap but rare opportunity to restore your health completely. And obviously there must be a way to increase the max health pool. Right now the game values health restoring for too much. The only way I found to restore health is to pay to that random health merchant a ridiculous amount of money for a single heart. Besides you usually don’t have that much money to pay him. When you encounter a merchant you must feel good and satisfied. A merchant is an opportunity for you to get an upgrade. And they are not giving you that feel in this game. Merchants don’t have interesting items and you don’t have enough money to buy anything good from them. There must be more gold and more ways to spend gold. There must be more ways to obtain items than buying them. I know chests have a rare chance to give you an item, but it’s not enough.
Surprise a player with interesting interactions, bother them with something else but not only enemies. Let them feel the curse over your city. And let them become cursed themselves. Make city more interactive. The cursed souls want to be free right? Maybe some of them are sane enough to provide some help for the player? But who are the player? A thief or a hero? Let player build their identity somehow. Let cursed inhabitants to learn the player’s intentions so they can decide if they want to help him. Add puzzles and riddles. Add rules, by which city lives and evolves. Let player learn these rules. Add some kind of mysterious NPC’s other than merchants. Add a flying carpet in the end of a day.