I will play Shadowmancer and review my thoughts from the perspective of a new player. I will review this my own way. Where I play it for a while and give my thoughts as they come
Please take in mind that I might, perhaps, be a bit harsh from my naturally blunt way of reviewing things. I mean everything in honest love. I actually love it when people are blunt and honest when they review my own things.
1. The name 'Shadowmancer' sparks interest. It doesn't reveal the plot, it doesnt reveal anything more than the idea that there is some kind of shadow mage involved. I feel the person is the anti-hero or the villain, and that intrigues me because at the same time it doesnt reveal any of the story before its due time.
2. definitely do not like the image. I don't see how some ghoulish face and an "m" relates to the story, to the map, or to anything. It looks like a random piece of art depicting evil slapped in. It is high quality but I don't like how random it feels.
3. The description has poor grammar and usage of words.
4. the usage of music in the campaign screen was actually very interesting. Never seen that before, and it is nice and upbeat.
5. the eyes in the campaign screen could big bigger and have more emphasis. they are difficult to see, so it looks like I'm just looking at a black screen... which is not a good thing. I realize what you are trying to do with the 'shadow' theme, but you want to reach a balance between too much darkness and not enough. Right now it is too far in the extreme of too much darkness, making it look like a black screen, and that just screams bad quality. Consider looking into art like The Darkness, where the 'Darkness' is black as well, but uses other colors to give shape and emphasis to the darkness of it. Or at the very least better eye quality so it is much easier to see the eyes.
6. long loading screen is long. Not a bad thing with the art being refreshing.
7. "Time to listen some narration."? Thats a big putoff. not that I mind narration, but to go and say that in the loading screen is just... really not going to help you. Just leave it as "somewhere near Grahland Bay." It is always expected in the beginning to have narration.
8. Not sure how I feel about starting with a button. On one hand it lets me have control of when it starts. On the other hand, I had just hit a button 2 seconds ealier to end the loading screen. I don't see why I need to say "yes, I want to start. YES I want to start! YES I DO WANT TO START STOP ASKING ME!"
Thats not even that bad, the worst part is that the mouse cursor disappears in the midst of the 'narration mode' so I have to struggle to hit the button at all. I found you can actually hit enter, which is great. Emphasis that more so I don't spend 5 minutes like I just did looking for the button.
9. For having to sit through an unusually long loading screen, and being forced to acknowledge multiple times that I am ready, for an intro that is about stating "i dont like intros and btw this intro wont give u any plot or story at all, and lets just break the fourth wall because yolo." I dont know whether to facepalm or laugh and find it amusing or delete the campaign. Its... just a complete waste of time.
10. WHY NOT USE THE DESCRIPTION OF CHAPTER 1 AS YOUR INTRO!? that would have been okay!
11. How in the world is it odd for a house you just bought to have been recently lived in? Uh... I'm confused.
12. I like the modified UI
13. why in the hell would you tell the PLAYER to fix the camera FOR you??? I'm sorry, but that is your problem. Not theirs.
14. the house really doesnt look like much of a house... more like the porch or patio from the house out to a river where you sit outside. I think I get that feeling more from the walls.
15. dude, the cinematics are tripping me so hard. Its like you give me the first half of a sentence... and you wait... 5 seconds... for the last... half of... the sentence... then the next sentence (first half) appears... and you wait... another... six seconds... for the second half... of the second sentence... thats not... smooth... thats tripping... me... so hard. Almost like that sentence I just gave you. It is like a show where these bad actors have to give emphasis to every single word. Like "What... was she... doing... in... the kitchen?.. *LE GASP*" That just makes my skin crawl.
16. Why is he saying what he feels at the same time as his actions and his words and in the same way?? You also keep changing his title from "damehion" to other things that I don't catch because changing his name every few seconds is not really a good way of emphasising how he feels. His name is his name. He isn't known as Damehian the Heavy Breather or something... is he? o.0
17. Random coin is random?
I would continue, but the way the cinematic speech is handled is literally making my skin crawl.
I explored the hero controls and the spells it gave me. The spells are well designed, easy to understand, and arent hard to reach on the keyboard. The hero control area is a bit much to take in, but its not hard.
I also like the fact that you start with a kinda tutorial on how to use his main abilities. Definietely a plus.
Overall I want to say the map has potential, but I feel people will be put off before exploring it solely because of the way these cinematics and intro is handled. May I suggest looking at other maps, where you know they have cinametics, and see how the speech is handled? It is usually with segments that can be read in about 4-6 seconds, and it is moved on withtout just sitting there adding more words to the same text. It is a different segment entirely.
Terrain - 6/10 (What I saw made it feel lively, but also cluttered and incredibly disorganized. Fine for a home, but still not pretty. The UI was quite nice too, and I consider that part of the terrain in a sense just because of the 'feel' it gives to the enviroment you operate in.)
Controls - 8/10 (Very well made. The finer hero controls are a bit difficult to grasp at first glance, but have information readily available while emphasising the specific keys you want for the primary spells. you also have easy access to other features through the F1-12 keys. I didn't like how close I was to the ground, and rotating the camera wheel did nothing to fix that.)
Spells - 8/10 (What I saw was very nice. Easy to understand. Some of them were pretty while others were a bit... had too much going on to know what was happening in the spell. Like too much flashing.)
gameplay - 5/10 (didn't get that far to get a proper feel. so I'll leave it neutral)
Cinematic and story telling - 1/10 (The one thing that put me off so bad I couldn't take it. the fact that I was being given half a sentence at a time every few seconds, as fast as I read, made me feel like a man dieing of thirst just wanting to move on to the next cinametic segment, or scene, or to reach the gameplay. Also just throwing away a perfectly good intro, and wasting my time, was a big disappointment.)
end result: 28/50 - the biggest weakness is the cinematics. Fix that it and it will improve greatly.