Game Review: The Wizard's Lair
The Wizard's Lair is an unambitious Rogue-like with simple graphics and few controls. It reminds me of the Castle of the Winds. You move in two dimensions, pick up items (armor, weapons, and useable items), and fight monsters through the classic method of moving into one's space. The game's simplicity is its weakness. There's very little to maintain interest over more than fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on one's penchant for Rogue-likes. After several hours of play, including several deaths, I reached the tenth of thirty levels. It was a maze of serpentine walls with a boss monster and a mini-boss named, for some reason, Daniel, a unique experience in the game so far. It was the first interesting encounter I'd had since starting at level one.
Simplicity makes the game easy to play, but also obstructs use. The few commands and the rudimentary inventory system get in the way of play. When you have to set down one of your items to pick up a new weapon, just to check if it's better than what you have, or to pick up and use an enchant weapon scroll, it gets in the way of fun play.
Strategy begins and ends with manipulating your position and waiting. If you use your turn moving into a square next to a monster, you'll take too much damage in the long run; if you move and time everything so that monsters move into a square next to you, you'll win. Beyond occasionally using scrolls that blast all monsters near you, that is the extent of tactics. At least Castle of the Winds had ranged spells.
The Wizard's Lair is available for pay-what-you-want at itch.io.