yea i know its an indie game and i shouldnt hold anything against it but i play TONS of indie games and... i cant believe im going to say this.. it just felt cheap. like rushed cheap. there are probably people who enjoyed it alot, i am not bothered by that and the fact that it was part of a bundle makes it a non issue. i just didnt feel it was a very good/fun game.

This is my favorite Rogue-like at the moment.

Nice retro 8-bit graphics, refreshingly addictive chiptune music, accessible and fun gameplay you can immediately get into,and a host of spells and items to keep your greedy hands busy and allow you to experiment with different approaches to overcoming your enemies.

I also liked the control scheme, which allows you to use keyboard and/or mouse (this should be a given in my opinion, but with other Rogue-likes, it actually isn't.)

The only drawback is that it's a bit short, but if you're into trying out different characters or tactics (or just fancy a short dungeon-crawl during your lunch break occasionally), there's good replay value.

(I agree with most of the other reviews that the Fighter, which is supposed to be the best choice for beginners, actually is the hardest character to play)

Cardinal is the perfect dungeon crawler for those who want a quick session of monster killing and treasure looting. Tapping on a combat system that is not only highly tactical but that also rewards creative approaches to problems, it offers random dungeon building for countless hours of exploration.

This is a very simple, yet fun game. It's not like Gauntlet other than you are inside a dungeon the whole time. The combat is very easy to learn yet takes time to get very good at I have played this 2 times and have gotten further each time. It has great retro graphics, and quite a few enemy types from what I have seen. I whole-heartedly recommend this game!

Cardinal Quest is a "rogue-lite", a simplified rogue-like. The dungeons are randomly generated, and the goal is to see how far you can get without dying. Unlike many other games in this genre, Cardinal Quest won't punish you harshly for every little mistake you do, in fact it will allow you to make quite a few mistakes without killing you.

At its heart, Cardinal Quest is a coffee break game, something that you play for 20-30min at a time. You can't save, but the game is really short, so you don't really need to save. The replay value comes in the form of randomly generated levels, and three different character classes to chose from.

The class balance does not seem to be all that good, the warrior will suffer quite badly later on, while the mage will be able to breeze through most of the game. Exactly how well you do will depend a lot on what spells & abilities you are able to find on your way through the game, some of which are considerably better than others. Loot is also an important part, although the loot system is quite simple.

The main issue with this game is a severe lack of content. There are only a handful of enemy types, and while there is a good amount of variety in the spell/ability types, some are objectively better than others. Generally speaking, ranged damage spells, and spells that can help you stay away from the enemies are good, most other are pointless. While the randomly generated dungeons should, in theory, allow for a near infinite replay value, the exact dungeon layout does not really matter.

This is a game that should have been made with replayability in mind, but it falls short in this regard, simply because it gets far too repetitive. No two games should look the same, but they do, and this is Cardinal Quest's biggest failing. With a good amount of extra content (more enemy variety, more skill/spell variety, more and better balanced heroes), this could have been a winner, but sadly it falls flat more than an arms reach from the finishing line.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I just can't see what drives people to play through this game more than once. I don't mind the retro graphics (I actually like that) or the simple mechanics, but where's the replayability supposed to come from?

I started a warrior, which is probably the weakest, crappiest, biggest pain in the *** character of the three, yet it's the one recommended for new players. I guess new players are too dim to realize they aren't supposed to go kung-fu-melee-fighting werewolves point-blank with a fragile old man (wizard), so they first need to be subjected to the slow, agonizing but certain death of a true melee hero in a world of limited health regen to finally understand they should avoid melee like the plague and try something else.

Anyway, after the pain that was the warrior, I gave the wizard a shot. Encountered the same monsters, found the same spells, looted pretty much the same items. Only this time around, it was a walk in the park with free icecream and a busty blonde by my side.

SPOILER ALERT

Oh, and the climactic battle with the end boss? At least that was a good, tou....oh wait... there was no end boss. Or was that the horned guy in the victory cutscene, appearing briefly to laugh in my face before stepping into a portal so I can win? Without a fight too!

"Choose your champion and begin your quest to slay the Evil Minotaur!" Hah yeah, good luck with that. Perhaps you might catch him when he runs out of portal stones, or micro fusion cells, or whatever.

END OF SPOILERS

So my question remains:

With each playthrough being pretty much the same simple thing, against the same monsters, with nearly the same few items, same spells and same tactics in dungeons that look and feel the same, where's the replayability supposed to come from? There isn't even a highscore list, long term goal or unlockable content to challenge me or make me feel like there's a purpose to any repeated adventures. The core mechanic alone just isn't fun enough to keep me coming back.

GAMEPLAY:

"Cardinal Quest" is a roguelike game: Your character walks through randomly generated dungeon levels, fights monsters, collects loot, learns spells, and becomes better at most of this when he rises a level.

The game is set in a generic fantasy environment and has no story to speak of (unless you count the one-paragraph introduction and epilogue as "story"). There are no friendly NPCs in the game and there is no way to interact with the enemies except fighting them.

Movement is turn-based and tile-based. Combat is simulated with old-school RPG mechanics: The character's stats determine its chances to hit the enemy and the amount of damage that can be caused. Character progression happens automatically and does not offer the player any choices. In general, the gameplay is very simplistic - the only decisions that the player may make are which spells and which weapon to equip; also, fighting the monsters requires a minimum of tactical thought (positioning of the player, usage of spells and/or melee).

GRAPHICS:

The game uses tile-based 8-bit "retro" graphics, which get their job done without looking particularly great or ugly. The game does not feature any animations at all (unless you count the movement of a static bitmap across a screen, like a fireball graphic originating at your character and moving towards the enemy, as such). The resolution of the graphics is very low, and especially on larger screens, the game looks extremely blocky and pixelated.

SOUND:

The game features plain, lo-fi sound effects reminiscent of other 8-bit games. The pitch of most sound effects is rather high. This, together with the background music, gives the game a playful atmosphere.

The background music is simple, there are only two pieces of music and most of the time you hear one of those looping endlessly. Despite its brevity it manages to not get annoying.

INTERFACE:

Contrary to the roguelike tradition, this game can be played entirely with the mouse (though keyboard shortcuts are available as well), and the interface is very intuitive and easy to understand. Movement and attacks work through simple mouseclicks, and equipment can be ordered and changed with "drag and drop" mechanics.

The map of the current dungeon level can be displayed as an overlay on the screen, and you can keep it displayed while your character moves. This is a useful feature when you've cleaned a level and just want to get to the stairs (to the next level) quickly.

The interface and the controls cannot be customized in any way.

EASE OF USE:

The game installs without any hassles, though it does require the Adobe AIR environment. This will be downloaded and installed automatically if it's not already present, but still I'd appreciate some information about such requirements in the product information.

The game is very easy to understand. The interface is so intuitive that it doesn't need any instructions, nevertheless an informative overlay (which explains the basic screen layout) is displayed in the beginning of the game. Information about all items and spells is available in the inventory screen, and character stats are explained in the character screen. There is no tutorial or manual, but the game is so simple that neither is needed.

One caveat: The games describes the fighter as the easiest character, but I found the mage far easier to play, since he isn't forced to enter melee, and can usually disengage and retreat more easily.

OTHER THINGS OF NOTE:

The game is extremely short and has very little content. The game features only 8 dungeon levels (that's an estimation; I haven't counted them while playing, so it might be one more or less), and it doesn't even have an end fight - simply clearing the last level wins the game. There is only about a dozen of different spells, about the same number of enemies, and only a handful of weapons or other equipment.

The game also doesn't have a score or achievements, so once you have experienced the three available character types and most of the spells, there is no replay value left. Theoretically, the randomly generated levels _could_ provide better replay value, but the game has so little content that it quickly gets repetitive even despite this feature.

The game has no save feature, but it is so short that none is really needed.

CONCLUSION:

The game is enjoyable for 2-3 hours, but once you've solved it, and played it perhaps a dozen of times, it has nothing left to surprise you. The biggest strength of this game is its accessibility, but with so little actual content, I cannot give it more than 2 stars.

Review Date: 13/Apr/2012 -- Program version: 1.2 -- Progress: completed the game once and started about a dozen characters

Cardinal Quest is a fun little roguelike that balances well between newcomers and fans of the genre. I'd say the only drawback is that it has the dated mechanic of not allowing you to save (the game is meant to be played in short bursts, where you die constantly). It makes the times you're doing well and maybe want to take a break a bit frustrating. I understand why they chose to go this way though.

This is a good game for someone looking for a fun casual arcade stlye rpg. I'd say that overall the gameplay is fun and simple, and for only $5 it's worth the money, but I would suggest buying it in the indiefort bundle, because you get 6 games for the price of this one.

Great little roguelike, challenging and simple.

I enjoyed the automatic equipment system, your character equips whatever is better to make the game go quicker.

I find it funny how every class can cast spells, but maybe that's just me, all in all a good game.

Cardinal Quest is a classic roguelike in an adorable 1980s style. Choose your class, battle monsters, find skills, potions, weapons and armor, gain experience and level up. It's addictive and feels mostly fair.

The game has one major fault, however: it does not seem to save your progress, meaning you have to start from scratch if you don't finish the game in one go. I'm not certain if this is intended or not.

Apart from that it's a rather enjoyable little game with a bit more depth than Hack, Slash, Loot, for example.

This roguelike is fun, with charming retro graphics and replayability through the choice of character class. As roguelikes go, it's quite easy, so if you're thinking of getting in to the genre it's a pretty good place to start.

Cardinal Quest is a fun little title. The kind of thing you fire up during your lunch break or whatnot, get a few levels and then close.

Retro visuals, music, but very easy-to-learn and often tactical gameplay which mixes spells, weapons and general sneakiness into a solid title.

Cardinal quest is one of my favorite rogue-like games. It has a really nice balance of depth / casual levels. Sometimes I will play for an hour or two, or maybe just a quick 10 minute game to get my rpg fix. Simple to learn, difficult to master. Enjoy!

Very, very old-school style. It's fairly cute, but the game depth is about what you'd expect from a free flash game.

This game is both simplistic, and vary deep at the same time. As a turnbased dungeon craler you with random generation you can end up spending hours on it playing it over and over again, i love it, and if you like rpg stlye games you'll love it too

This is a great Roguelike with a friendly UI and great sense of humor.

It reminds me a lot of Sword of Fargoal (C64 / iOS) only a little more faster paced & complex.

Obviously this game is a clasic dungeon crawler with a graphic out of the stone age (yet still with charme). If you know you like the genre, that this one is very well made; 3 different characters that play differently, charming yet obviously neglectible graphics and sound, lots of different monsters types and items/spells.

The spell system is the most interesting mechanic of this game: you have can habe up tp 5 spells in use (ak: they will cooldown) and as well have 10 inventory spaces to store items or spells that might be handy is special situation. So far all the spells i've found have been typical ones (fireball, teleport, sleep, stoneskin, etc) but they all feel different enough. All in all the search fo more spells and the optimization of your current spell-book is the core gameplay element.

BUT: This game not only has no achievements/trophies, what so ever to earn - it even has no high-score feature, and come on, who want's to play a dungeon crawler without a high score.

Fazit: It would have been 4/5 for a really nice dungeon crawler (5 €, come on!), but the missing hihhscore just horts badly, so -1 star -> 3/5

While Cardinal Quest is a really fun game, what really kills it for me is the lack of a save/load feature. I do understand this game is made in the vain of arcade rpgs, which typically do not have a save/load feature. However, this is for PC and I honestly feel that to really enjoy this game I need at least a couple of hours free to fully play through with a character. Otherwise, I have to stop and start a completely new game later, which kills the feeling of progress within the game. So be warned, if you are a casual gamer and don't have hours on end to play at a time, the game might not have much lasting appeal for you.

Lovely Retro dungeoneer! I'm addicted to this game, although I can keep from dying and dying again. The gameplay is simple, fast and highly ADDICTIVE.

Cardinal Quest harkens back to the days of Rogue, Guantlet and Golden Axe where by you take your trusty adventurer and plumb the depths of a dungeon, battling monsters on all sides all in the hopes of completing your quest. More closely resembling a traditional Roguelike adventure, Cardinal Quest provides a fun and unique experience by combing many of the common core aspects of this genre and adding in fresher ideas of recent years.

The game provides many nice touches to make your gameplay experience more furfilling, items which will never be of use to you are instantly "sold" so as not to cripple you with inventory management which plagues many RPG style games. Whilst spells and special abilities exist they take on a more MMO approach with cooldown timers before you can use them again however if you have multiple copies of the powers you can use each one independantly! Finally the game interface is clean, crisp and provides a strong sense of style throughout reminisant of Dungeons of Dredmor to some degree.

This game will certainly keep fans of the genre occupied for some time and is worth the time and investment to check out the game further. I also have a video review over at http://youtu.be/fVv7sQlz6hM

A simple dungeon crawling game with an intuitive progression system and controls. Good for a quick hack and slash romp - but don't expect too much more than that. Trudge on through that dungeon!

This is a basic roguelike game. You run about and kill monsters, open chests for loot and pickup spells/abilities. Every level you go down it gets harder, the first few levels are very easy especially with the mage. It would have nice if there was more customization and a save feature. The biggest problem with this game is that the early floors are way too easy and it takes time to get to the more interesting enemies and with no save feature you have to ether just leave it running all the time or spend a bit too long grinding away at the game. This game would probably be 4 stars if it had a save so if you like playing this type of game for long periods you might like it but its not so great to burn 5 minuets.

Really cool and addicting game. Only real flaw that I see is a lack of items to find...

Well, it gets more later on, but in the early stage its very much the same.

Game is very good, but classes doesnt do much, except for starting skill theyre all the same (i havent tried wizard though)

This game is pretty much a rogue-like game and it works really well! For the price i would definitly recommend it!

Cardinal Quest is definitely meant as a time waster. While as a roguelike it is quite fun and capable, there are a few GUI issues that diminish the experience.

If you are looking for an introduction to the roguelike genre, Cardinal Quest will deliver that.

Very simple and easy Dungeon Crawler. Equipment managment is somewhat automated which might be pro and con at the same time (for me it's a con). Also not really a Roguelike (as i first thought, and hoped), as one seems to be having more than one life...

Very casual rogue-like RPG. The game starts when you select a class and you are thrown into the first dungeon level. Scouring the depths of the dungeon and surviving the lurking thieves and monsters, you find loot and new skills to help you survive. The goal of the game is to reach the final dungeon and beat the boss.

The game is worth a try for even the most casual gamers, since it has almost no learning curve at all and is fun for a good few hours every once-in-a-while.

If you've never tried roguelikes this might be a good game to start with, the graphics are simple and effective and the gameplay is very smooth. Only 5 euros to get into this fantastic genre with Cardinal Quest

Cardinal Quest is a fun, coffee break roguelike with a great 8 bit vibe that's competently out together. Though not a game for 6 hour, caffeine-fuelled gaming binges, it's great to dip into for a few tries in between other, more demanding titles.

Worth a fiver for the charm alone.

5*