Playing Delver today is akin to playing Rogue, the forefather of the Roguelike and Roguelite genres, in 2024; what made these games conceptually or technologically advance back then does not hold up to today's modern gaming standards. If players back then were satisfied with using weapons that are functionally identical to one another, in a combat system that revolves around moving forwards and backwards ever so slightly, against the same type of AI in different hats and costumes - then today it is simply not enough.

This would have been unfair to say about a game from 2012, had the latest update to it not been made recently. Since it was made recently, and the FAQ claims Delver is complete, I find it unacceptable it is being left in this state after 10 years of active development. Again, my complaints mostly stem from the game's lacking combat; everything else could've been excused had the combat been even remotely engaging. However, the lack of enemy variety, and items to tackle them early on, certainly do not help Delver's case here.

Weapons in your possession can be swung as they are, or charged up for a Heavy attack, with both moves carried out excruciatingly slowly for no apparent reason. The off-hand slot fits an illumination item or a shield, with both not being interactable in any meaningful way whatsoever. Objects lying around the stage (aptly named "Trash" on the Wiki) can be picked up and thrown to deal damage, however doing so requires switching to a different hotbar slot, since items cannot be thrown from your off-hand for some inexplicable reason.

This requires you to constantly stop and interact with the inventory system to make space for said throwables; these items also need to be charged up before use, leaving you defenseless against most existing opponents. They deal minimal damage anyway, making picking up and throwing items a sub-optimal strategy to deal with the dungeon's inhabitants. This could have otherwise been a great way to mix-and-match melee / ranged moves to break Delver's monotonous combat, alas it was not meant to be.

There are no alternate mechanics to make interacting with the game world interesting. No stealth, skills, Passives or Actives, pets, crafting, selling or recycling gear; no rolling, blocking, parrying, dodging, strafing, crouching through crevices to avoid damage. Even jumping, the most basic of game mechanics, was only available through an external mod for the majority of the game's lifespan, and once shipped with base game it came unbound from a key by default.

I'd wager most players don't even realize you can jump in Delver to begin with, which does become crucial in the later parts of this game. Most Roguelites compensate for such simplistic design by providing a larger variety of items for players to use at their leisure, however Delver doesn't bother. There's a dagger, two maces, two polearms, and three sword variants. The Ranged category has 4 identical bows and about 7 wands on offer.

These are meant to be used in tandem with melee weapons, however they too require charging, and either wear down or have a limited amount of uses. If you thought you could utilize them from your off-hand slot like in, say, Dishonored, you'd be wrong. No distinction is made between piercing, slashing, blunt damage. The weapons animate differently, but only differ from one another through minor stat changes. Melee weapons also progressively wear down, requiring you to carry copies of the same weapon for when it inevitably breaks.

Each of the four areas features 2-3 "grunt" AI-types based solely on close-ranged combat. Since you outreach them even with the broken starter dagger, none of them ever pose a real threat to you. They usually fall prey to their own horrible pathfinding anyway, even without player intervention, getting stuck in canals, under platforms, ladders, etc. There's one ranged AI type, and one that lunges at you from a distance in order to attack, arguably the most interesting and challenging one. Multiple areas then reuse that AI and those enemies.

Considering this lack of variety in both enemies and weapons, there should then be no good reason each run takes nearly 2 hours to complete. Each area has two stages, and there is an additional intermission stage between those - so either one stage per area needs to go, or all intermission stages altogether. Once you reach the last stage and beat the boss, you are required to go through the entire game in reverse to make your escape, which feels like a chore at that point, as if the devs are padding for your playtime.

I find it ironic that completing the game increases its difficulty, as if there's any incentive to replay it. The only form of meta-progression in Delver is account balance, which allows you to purchase starting gear for new runs - gear you'd find in the first few rooms of a dungeon either way. Inventory size is deliberately limited on new saves, progressively getting bigger the more bag upgrades you purchase or find. No new items, perks, stages, characters, NPCs, or monsters are unlocked, which is highly disappointing to say the least.

There are other quirks and inconsistencies that make the game feel incomplete. Enemies get stuck inside walls, hitboxes don't match their sprite, weird lighting and geometry, stuttering and hitching despite the game running on a modern system, water extinguishing bombs and burning entities but not lit candles, movement made possible with the inventory screen open but not the map UI, spritework making it hard to gauge whether you can hit an enemy or not, seeing and going through map bounds, etc.

The only thing that helped me see Delver to its conclusion is its moddability. The speed at which your character swings their weapon is truly dreadful; I would have not been able to continue playing without the Faster Weapons mod. I have also installed Weapon Expansion Pack to alleviate the aforementioned lack in weapon variety. More Chunks helps with seeing the same room patterns across consequent runs, and there's a mod to address game length called Little Delver that might be worth looking into.

Delver is not a bad game, it is a foundation which a proper Roguelite can be built upon. Unfortunately, instead of being introduced more content, as well as mechanics like strafing or blocking projectiles / bashing with your off-hand, the devs elected to abandon it. It is amateurish; it used to cost $5 when it was still an Android game - now the $15 asking price for it is, quite frankly, ridiculous considering you get to see all content in a single 2-hour playthrough. I'd advise you spend your hard-earned money elsewhere.

Playing Delver today is akin to playing Rogue, the forefather of the Roguelike and Roguelite genres, in 2024; what made these games conceptually or technologically advance back then does not hold up to today's modern gaming standards. If players back then were satisfied with using weapons that are functionally identical to one another, in a combat system that revolves around moving forwards and backwards ever so slightly, against the same type of AI in different hats and costumes - then today it is simply not enough. This would have been unfair to say about a game from 2012, had the latest update to it not been made recently. Since it [i]was[/i] made recently, and the FAQ claims Delver is complete, I find it unacceptable it is being left in this state after 10 years of active development. Again, my complaints mostly stem from the game's lacking combat; everything else could've been excused had the combat been even remotely engaging. However, the lack of enemy variety, and items to tackle them early on, certainly do not help Delver's case here. Weapons in your possession can be swung as they are, or charged up for a Heavy attack, with both moves carried out excruciatingly slowly for no apparent reason. The off-hand slot fits an illumination item or a shield, with both not being interactable in any meaningful way whatsoever. Objects lying around the stage (aptly named "Trash" on the Wiki) can be picked up and thrown to deal damage, however doing so requires switching to a different hotbar slot, since items cannot be thrown from your off-hand for some inexplicable reason. This requires you to constantly stop and interact with the inventory system to make space for said throwables; these items also need to be charged up before use, leaving you defenseless against most existing opponents. They deal minimal damage anyway, making picking up and throwing items a sub-optimal strategy to deal with the dungeon's inhabitants. This could have otherwise been a great way to mix-and-match melee / ranged moves to break Delver's monotonous combat, alas it was not meant to be. There are no alternate mechanics to make interacting with the game world interesting. No stealth, skills, Passives or Actives, pets, crafting, selling or recycling gear; no rolling, blocking, parrying, dodging, strafing, crouching through crevices to avoid damage. Even jumping, the most basic of game mechanics, was only available through an external mod for the majority of the game's lifespan, and once shipped with base game it came unbound from a key by default. I'd wager most players don't even realize you can jump in Delver to begin with, which does become crucial in the later parts of this game. Most Roguelites compensate for such simplistic design by providing a larger variety of items for players to use at their leisure, however Delver doesn't bother. There's a dagger, two maces, two polearms, and three sword variants. The Ranged category has 4 identical bows and about 7 wands on offer. These are meant to be used in tandem with melee weapons, however they too require charging, and either wear down or have a limited amount of uses. If you thought you could utilize them from your off-hand slot like in, say, Dishonored, you'd be wrong. No distinction is made between piercing, slashing, blunt damage. The weapons animate differently, but only differ from one another through minor stat changes. Melee weapons also progressively wear down, requiring you to carry copies of the same weapon for when it inevitably breaks. Each of the four areas features 2-3 "grunt" AI-types based solely on close-ranged combat. Since you outreach them even with the broken starter dagger, none of them ever pose a real threat to you. They usually fall prey to their own horrible pathfinding anyway, even without player intervention, getting stuck in canals, under platforms, ladders, etc. There's one ranged AI type, and one that lunges at you from a distance in order to attack, arguably the most interesting and challenging one. Multiple areas then reuse that AI and those enemies. Considering this lack of variety in both enemies and weapons, there should then be no good reason each run takes nearly 2 [b]hours[/b] to complete. Each area has two stages, and there is an additional intermission stage between those - so either one stage per area needs to go, or all intermission stages altogether. Once you reach the last stage and beat the boss, you are required to go through the entire game in reverse to make your escape, which feels like a chore at that point, as if the devs are padding for your playtime. I find it ironic that completing the game increases its difficulty, as if there's any incentive to replay it. The only form of meta-progression in Delver is account balance, which allows you to purchase starting gear for new runs - gear you'd find in the first few rooms of a dungeon either way. Inventory size is deliberately limited on new saves, progressively getting bigger the more bag upgrades you purchase or find. No new items, perks, stages, characters, NPCs, or monsters are unlocked, which is highly disappointing to say the least. There are other quirks and inconsistencies that make the game feel incomplete. Enemies get stuck inside walls, hitboxes don't match their sprite, weird lighting and geometry, stuttering and hitching despite the game running on a modern system, water extinguishing bombs and burning entities but not lit candles, movement made possible with the inventory screen open but not the map UI, spritework making it hard to gauge whether you can hit an enemy or not, seeing and going through map bounds, etc. The only thing that helped me see Delver to its conclusion is its moddability. The speed at which your character swings their weapon is truly dreadful; I would have not been able to continue playing without the [u][url=https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1364258946]Faster Weapons[/url][/u] mod. I have also installed [u][url=https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=884334031]Weapon Expansion Pack[/url][/u] to alleviate the aforementioned lack in weapon variety. [u][url=https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2156712398]More Chunks[/url][/u] helps with seeing the same room patterns across consequent runs, and there's a mod to address game length called [u][url=https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1215699783]Little Delver[/url][/u] that might be worth looking into. Delver is not a bad game, it is a foundation which a proper Roguelite can be built upon. Unfortunately, instead of being introduced more content, as well as mechanics like strafing or blocking projectiles / bashing with your off-hand, the devs elected to abandon it. It is amateurish; it used to cost $5 when it was still an Android game - now the $15 asking price for it is, quite frankly, ridiculous considering you get to see all content in a single 2-hour playthrough. I'd advise you spend your hard-earned money elsewhere.