I am a simple person. Give me an old-school first-person dungeon crawler and I’ll be happy. Make a story centered around rescuing a cat, and oh my god, now you’re really speaking my language. Add to that a truly unique touchscreen control scheme that I’ve never seen in a game of this type before, and we’ve got a winner’s winner – the chicken dinner you find in a bucket. That accurately describes Labyrinth: Wizard Cat from developer ZombiSoft, who appears to be just a guy named Anders Gustafsson. There are some rough edges here and a few negative things to note, but overall I just had a really good time Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat I’m excited to see where it takes me.
So as the story unfolds, you are an apprentice wizard tasked with finding the escaped cat of your mentor wizard, and your graduation into a full-fledged wizard depends on you completing this mission. Just when you think you’ve cornered this adorable kitty, you find yourself transported into a dungeon maze full of traps and enemies. You’ll also find kittens wandering around, so your mission is now even more difficult as you try to make it through this dungeon alive and save your boss’s pesky kittens.
Now, Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat This is not a highly complex game by any means. There are some light RPG elements, including leveling up and finding cool new weapons and gear, but there’s no party system or any extensive character progression. it reminds me a lot Explore Lords Mechanically, it’s a pretty simple affair, but the game’s story, visuals, and personality force you to keep going. Also, don’t assume that just because the game is brightly colored and has a fairly simple design that it’s easily accessible. The game actually gets pretty difficult pretty quickly, but luckily you can save anytime and anywhere, which is something you should practice regularly.
The really neat feature here is the control scheme. You can choose virtual arrows or swipe gestures for directional movement, which is fairly normal for the course. But if you place your second thumb on the screen, you’re free to look in any direction. It takes a little getting used to, but the swipe gesture motion combined with the free-viewing gestures makes for a very satisfying touchscreen control scheme. it almost Sometimes it feels like you’re playing a first-person shooter once you get comfortable and start moving back and forth, but you’re actually still playing a grid-based movement game.
My minor nitpicks are that I really wish the game had the option to play in portrait orientation, and the swipe detection for movement is a bit finicky. It recognizes short, quick swipes but not longer swipes, and before I discovered this I was extremely frustrated that the game wasn’t detecting my input. Maybe some content can be smoothed out through updates. Overall, although overall a bit basic and has some rough edges, Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat is a really fun retro dungeon crawler game that we don’t see much of these days. If that’s not worth a few bucks, then I don’t know what is.
