Falco Axe

In Brief
Falco Axe is a side scrolling hack and slash game with cartoony retro graphics. You can see a video of game play HERE and mainly positive reviews of the game HERE via the Steam community following its release on Steam last month (23rd March 21)

Introduction
An ancient evil has awakened and subjugated everyone in this world, except for the main character. Only in your hands is the chance of peace from evil. An easy-to-learn combat system will not let you get bored. You have at your disposal not only melee attacks, but also a bow that will help you attack at your safe distance. You also have at your disposal a unique weapon called the Falco. This ax comes to the rescue in difficult times and overwhelms your methods. he will help you get all the way to the end. Playing as the main hero, clear the locations one by one, meeting new opponents and bosses on your way. The game is on sale via Steam for only £0.39/$0.50 offer ends 3rd May.

Reference accessed from the Steam store HERE, on the 29th April 2021

The Game
Falco Axe is a side scrolling isometric hack and slash game where you, the knight has to survive unsurmountable odds to get to the end of the level. As you progress you get an invisible helper in the form of an axe called the Falco Axe. Movement is achieved using the left right up and down arrow keys which enables you to move around the isometric world. To fight use the following keys

W = Bow - this recharges via the arrow bar that is located below the blue reinforced impact charge bar. When fully recharged you get two or three arrows before it requires recharging. Very effective weapon.

A = Reinforced impact - This recharges over a few seconds indicated by the lower blue bar in the top left hand corner - useful as it causes more damage to opponents.
S = Jump

D = Hit using the knights sword.

When an enemy knight is knocked down, they may recover and require up to several hits to kill. At the end of each level you have to fight a boss. Each level has a different boss to cope with.

Other free games worth adding to your game library
The latest Epic freebie is Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms with add-ons. All players who log into Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms through the Epic Games Store between Thursday 29/4/2021 at 11AM Eastern and Thursday 6/5/2021 at 11AM Eastern will receive the Epic Champions of Renown add-on worth over $100.

Please see Delenn's threads for other Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. There won't be new freebies added every week from these sections apart from the Epic games, but it is worth checking them regularly for details of any games going for free. Delenn usually posts details when a game is being offered free for a temporary period. These include games from Good Old Games (all DRM free), Ubisoft's uPlay client, Valves Steam client, EA Games Origin client and other indie developers.

You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+). These included over 60 decent AAA games and indie arcade games ; for example some of the better AAA games included , lucky Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; Dreadlands, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained and Conan Exiles.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a few more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favorites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)

Notes on Security

I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found zero hits from 61 antimalware engines. The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to Falcowares home page after the game has installed, but does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to Falcowares home page it earns them some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/5692ddebe77ee6db3efd7275c534cba3462ed37c05551f50c6cab0cb8d3a5eb4/detection