Magic and Metal Zero: Tower of Metal

Since the developer welcomes feedback, here is my shoddy review, ⁣:P:

I was one of those who was scared off by the map-less zone, but thanks to Gridmonger I worked through it, got past the library, and overcame the final boss. Navigating without any aid was how I managed to map the library shifted and rotated, despite the fact that the manual does give the hint required to get the right orientation.

Now, MM0 does various things that aren't my preference, but are perfectly cromulent design. Nevertheless, all things combined, I've found that combat and puzzles become less interesting as the game progresses. Damage spells are too powerful, and buff spells—once full-party spells become available—are streets ahead of debuffs. With rest-in-dungeon design and the low level cap, it soon becomes better to run from the vast majority of combat, use two all-enemy nukes—even if Greta doesn't have the staying power of Fizzy, and clean up with standard attacks. Rest and repeat; the random encounters with debuffs aren't enough for the awesome power the party has at high levels—the strong healing doesn't help either. Then, the last floor wasn't very challenging due to the auto-map, amusingly enough.

Overall, it's my impression that MM0 would be a good first blobber, but it is "skip-able" for the experienced player, even if I enjoyed my time with it. Its short length and quick start are its greatest attributes.

This is a pretty cool game, but I'm frustrated by the statue puzzle. I looked up the solution in the manual, but it still doesn't make sense. Where are the city, the castle, and the empty field? I think the city is in the north, since that's where the jester is facing. And I guess the castle is in the south, since that's where the gargoyle is. But then how does the soldier watch three travelers leave the city? Only the soldier and the merchant are in the north, but the merchant is heading north, toward the city, not away. And which three travelers are crossing the empty field? I'm guessing the empty field is in the middle, and so the dryad and the gargoyle would be crossing it, but that's only two. But then how does the gargoyle meet travelers arriving at the castle, if it's leaving the castle? And who is the crocodile chasing? It's literally the only statue facing west. Are the statues it's "chasing" not also heading west? So, it's not chasing them, then, is it? Maybe it's the jester and the gargoyle? If it's chasing them, and they're heading north, then shouldn't it be also heading north? Also, how is it implied that the sprite is heading south? I guess it could be one of the travelers the gargoyle meets, but that's only one, and the gargoyle meets three. So, who are the other two? I just don't understand.

...the overall design of the gameplay and the levels is where Magic and Metal Zero shines. The encounters are fair but never boring, and the riddles and obstacles the game throws at you are hard enough but never frustratingly hard. Progression is fluid, and doesn’t require any grinding to get through the game. The atmosphere and the enemies are exactly what you would expect when you kick this kind of game in – the queer character cast makes a nice counterpoint and adds a own flavor to the genre.

Magic and Metal Zero: Tower of Metal got reviewed by Arcane Cache, a very underground blog focusing on very underground games:

http://thunderperfectwitchcraft.org/arcane_cache/2022/11/07/magic-and-metal-zero...

Great Work!

You do a good job recreating the classic dungeon-crawler experience. I had some suggestions, but literally all of them you are already implementing in your new RPG (better text font, arrows to indicate which enemy is targeted, order of battle, etc). It's encouraging to see that a game like this can be done in 2 months!

I had a nostalgic summer of playing Might and Magic III-V (ok still wrapping up darkside) and it set me to wanting to make my own 8/16-bit crpg, which led me to here!
Lovely game, really enjoying how you are covering a gamut of design elements from 80s dungeon design to Etrian-style combat. I'm hung up on mapping thru the spinners/teleporters, lol, but that's a me thing- I only played Curse of the Azure Bonds in the 8-bit era, and mostly the less bastardy M&Ms in the 16-bit era, I was too little to have the patience for Wizardry's maps or Bard's encounters.
And oh! The characters! Got a big smile when I saw that it wasn't just elves and orcs and such.
This game is fun, and it's interesting to play a game that's running on parallel inspirations to what I've been thinking about for a few months. Thank you very much for sharing it with the world!

This was wonderful and I'm looking forward to more rpgs from you.

Really great classic RPG and easy to understand. Your effort  shows. Well done.

So I beat the last boss and get a lot of text.  Was there suppose to be more?  Also, there is a door on the first floor I still can not get through.  Is there any way past that door?  Is there another ending?

Wow, I'm in love with this game and its lovely pixelart! It feels very classic and at the same time is very original with its unique setting and atmosphere. I'm eager to see more from this fascinating universe! Fantastic work. :)

Amazing turn based rpg!
Excellent visuals-audio and fun turn based gameplay!
Still the controls could use a little improvement especially the keyboard shortcuts for each action (which you should also have an ingame visual on the relevant area since you can only access the help from the main menu).
Some examples of a little weird shortcuts (nothing major but I still needed to hunt down the manual for them):
TAB for ingame menu (instead of using ESCAPE since TAB is usually used for Map shortcut)
only using Q,E for switching characters on inventory, magic, etc (instead of also using Arrow Keys or even 1,2,3,4,...