Recent reviews by Cobalt_Afterlife

I was a very early tester for this game and it had so much potential back then. Unfortunately it changed into something I'm not a fan of and ruined the entire flow of the game.

My entire issue with the game revolves around the level design.

In the beginning the levels were linear, focused, and very spacious. Primarily taking place across the top of high-rise buildings where there is a lot of verticality, few obstacles in the way of free movement, and (most importantly I think) a clear sense of direction.

The new levels are cluttered and not as vertical and not very good for swinging around. Its like the level designer forgot that the player even has a grappling hook. The old levels were streamlined and very easy to read and had a single hoop at the end which was the climax of the level. The new levels may have 5-10 hoops scattered all over the place. Sometimes the level feels like a maze trying to find them all and its very annoying from a speedrunning perspective because often the hoops are all positioned in ways that force you to waste time getting to an angle where you can aim the shot right.

So many levels are just a maze cluttered with enemies where everything is so low to the ground that grappling is often inconvenient or is at the very least unsatisfying. The grapple also doesn't contract much or give enough of a speed boost. This was perfectly fine for the original sky scraper levels where you had lots of verticality and room to swing for momentum but the new levels are too cramped to pull this off.

I think this game absolutely could be saved, replaying the original pre-release levels (which are still in the game) and its clear how much better they are and a bit saddening because those few levels (less than 10 I think) are more fun and more satisfying than the other 5-6 level packs that are in the game.

Maybe its just me but the original levels highlighted this games strong points and the unique hook that it has, the newer levels are just lackluster and feel like they were designed by someone who lacked all knowledge of the mechanics available to the player.

The level design is make or break for games like this and I think Grapple Hoops is mostly ruined by its levels.

I know the developer is just one guy and I think this was his first game but I think he spent too much time on stuff that didn't matter to the overall experience like the environment art and multiplayer?! I do commend him for adding a level editor though, its too bad that there isn't a community level browser as far as I can tell and there's no steam workshop integration either.

Do I recommend the game?

Honestly its a difficult question. I wish its development had gone differently and we got 15-20 more levels like the "OG Levels". I think that would have been fantastic. I still enjoy playing through the original demo levels because they really are amazing.

So maybe get the game on sale and play the demo levels first. Maybe you'll enjoy the rest of the game too or maybe you'll join me in begging the developer to make better levels.

Amazing game! One of the easiest roguelikes to get into that I've ever played and the mouse integration and SFX are very rare (but very welcomed to see) in this genre. The game revolves around being a robot with replaceable (and sometimes disposable) body parts and its a fun balance between combat, exploration, and inventory management.

Highly recommend for fans of classical roguelikes.

Surprisingly good party game, the concept is hilarious and the teams are well-balanced. Didn't expect to laugh as hard as I did but it was good.

Definitely recommend playing with people you know.

Very old and simplistic, like going back to play PacMan or DigDug. However, all of the fundamentals are here for the games like Angband which expanded on these early concepts that would influence many of the games releasing today. The procedural generation present here was a novel idea for the time and we're still seeing the effects it had on games like Dwarf Fortress.

All of that to say, I think its great and this port is nice (despite using a somewhat janky build of Dosbox) and luckily comes with an instruction manual.

However, I think the rogue-like genre has seen so much expansion and polish that it will be hard for most people to go back unless they are hardcore fans or are old enough to be nostalgic.

Its cool to see where the genre came from and its simple enough to be a "coffee-break game" but it probably wont keep your attention as much as Angband or other games which took these concepts and improved them in every way.

Game had a very troubled development and the end result was somewhat disappointing.

It had a lot of potential and was fairly enjoyable to play but ultimately the devs couldn't get a handle on things after numerous rounds of crowdfunding and by the time they finally released on steam (they had their own launcher before that) it wasn't enough of a game to find its audience. Especially not now that we have games like Enshrouded which are better in every conceivable fashion. I also seem to recall the devs putting out a hiring announcement for one or two other projects they were designing and overall I think they stretched themselves too thin. Which is a shame because I really liked the art and overall idea for this game. Probably wouldn't recommend it now, the combat was pretty clunky the last time I played (though I remember an update was on the roadmap but that was years ago and IDK if it was ever implemented).

RIP Frozen Flame, you deserved better

Fun game. Its simple enough to pick up and learn in just an hour or so and the campaign seems good so far. I'll update my review once I get through the campaign and test out the multiplayer some.

P.S.
Also Votaan are absent but Tau are included?! :(

I wanted to play a squad full of space dwarves!

Also I wish we could get a Battlesector-like game made for Age of Sigmar instead of 40K, that would be so cool!

Excellent follow up to the main Dwarf fortress soundtrack. I especially love the songs that remix portions of the original soundtrack. Very good stuff

One of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. I've listened to this album dozens of times outside of the game and even bought the vinyl record.

It's primarily calm acoustic background music but there's many moments that stand out and Its very peaceful and relaxing and I like to listen to it while I'm at my day job. I know I'm probably just obsessed with it but its rare that I find a soundtrack that makes me want to listen to it outside of the game.

It suits the game perfectly and I'm glad I'm able to get the files here to shove into my iPod.

10/10

Had some good fun with it on the steamdeck.

I can absolutely recommend this to the boomer shooter crowd. The graphics are amazing and the environments/set pieces are very pretty to look at and are well crafted. The combat is very very quake with all the weapons you’d expect and even some that feel closer to unreal tournament. The melee dagger is fun to use and I appreciate that it was given the dual use of dashing quickly through the air so you can use it as a tool for platforming.

I also liked the numerous hidden secret stashes and the cool artifact system were you can pick up artifacts and use them whenever you need a buff. It’s so much better than Quake where you instantly use the items you pick up instead of being able to save them for tight moments.

I also really liked the checkpoint system and the reference to the isle of the dead painting near the beginning of the game.

Cool stuff. I’m sure I’ll get around to finishing it someday but from what I’ve played so far, it’s an amazing game if you’re a fan of Quake, Dusk, etc.

Also it runs flawlessly on steamdeck and is pretty easy to play with a controller.

Awesome game, definitely best to get a group of friends to play since the most populated servers rarely have more than 5 people. Solid game though, sad to see its in decline. I have fond memories of playing day of defeat and this was kind of like an expansion building off of that game.

Also its still playable on windows 11 if you can get an updated version of the battleye anticheat and drop the files in. There's a few community guides on how to do this.