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A.D.M (Angels,Demons And Men)

When I wrote this review I'd spent approximately 4 to 5 hours playing the game, but due to the games difficulty level, I failed to even complete the first few objectives, i.e. collect a key and pull a lever. I eventually found the key, then spent the next four + hours repeatedly dying and still haven't found the lever. On replaying it almost two years later, I've still not been able to get as far as the lever despite now having spent over 13 hours playing the game (in bite sized bits). I do think there are some serious flaws and omissions; or at least, some serious updates that need to be released before I'll enjoy playing this game. It's just to difficult for my slow reaction times and fading vision. It's been released on Steam since Aug 15th 2018 yet there are only two community feedback comments, mine, which I only posted a few days ago, plus one other positive comment posted last November. RPG's are my favorite AAA genre (for example, over the last few years I've played the Elder Scrolls Online for over 8000 hours, at least the same amount on other Elder Scrolls games such as Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim and an equal amount of time on the later Fallout series (3, New Vegas, 4 and a little of the Fallout 76 online version). I've been playing RPG's in various formats for almost 30 years (my first one was called Darklands, which I bought on floppy discs back in 1992, then several years later got Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate on CD's) and cannot ever remember struggling so much at the beginning of a game like I have done with A.D.M (Angels,Demons And Men). This is not to say the game is rubbish; in fact it's a decent RPG using the unity engine (I say this despite my lack of progress becasue I'm sure it's my own lack of skill that is holding me back, plus i'm only playing it in short sessions in between other games

A.D.M (Angels,Demons And Men)

In Brief

A.D.M (Angels,Demons And Men) is a challenging single player dark fantasy RPG with perma' death and 2D graphics in the tradition of the old school cRPG’s of the 1990’s; for example Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum: Of Steamwork's and Magick Obscura, and even the early Fallout games. However, I personally think the graphics are not quite as good as those. That said, graphics are not what makes a game in my opinion, so just take that comment with a pinch of Salt. As with all RPG's you level up through experience and like most fantasy RPG's have access to a wide range of magical abilities and weapons, for example, Swift Blade, Bats Attack, Luminous Shield and Fireball to name just a few.

Introduction:

Angels,Demons And Men (A.D.M) is a story-driven, hack n slash RPG.A void earth draws near.Ancient demons awaken.Darkness creeps in from the shadows. Stand up your weapons and defend the earth in mankind in his final days. Become a royal knight, student mage or a lost angel. Explore various locations and slash enemies in tough combat. Experience the story. Gather XP points, magic items and rise in strength level.

In order to save her dying lover; Aya, a witch of the order of nine covens cracked a seal on the gates of hell. Accidentally she released cade and his demons from their prison.Now the earth must stand together to survive this new threat.

Reference accessed HERE 8th Sept 2018. Re-posted August 2020

The Game:

After the intro splash screens have (Smart Olive Games) completed, you can select from several language options that include English, German, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese and Spanish. Once you've selected your language the main menu opens. The main menu includes two game modes:

• Story Mode
• Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds is locked when you first start the game. I've not yet unlocked it, so cannot tell you what to expect. Selecting Story mode opens up a black screen with an introduction to the game (in really small type set), which is voiced by a female as follows:

In order to save her dying lover, Mya, a witch of the order of nine covens cracked a seal on the gate of hell to steal its power. Accidentally, Cade and his demons were freed from hell. Now the earth must stand together in order to survive and defeat this new threat.

There’s also an extra's, continue and quit buttons. Clicking on Story Mode will start a new game.

Once the intro story is finished a story board opens up with written dialogue between two characters Captain Vance and Alexander. (See the image ....). The start of the game involves you finding a key. If you walk westwards along the wall for about 20 seconds, then move diagonally in a NW direction you should hit the golden key head on. If you start by going NE you'll encounter the top of a cliff with what appears to be lava at the bottom; the game assumes you've fallen in and died, so you get a splash screen saying Game Over.

Control of your character is by using the WASD keys. I found movement frustratingly slow. Once you recover the key, you have to pull a lever. I’ve already spent over 3 hours trying to find the lever. And have only managed once to get to a fourth area, where I presume the lever can be found, but I've died constantly. I haven’t found a save progress button and although there is a continue button, I’ve not progressed far enough for an auto save to kick in yet, so when I close the game down i have to start from the beginning of the game.

The Extra's button gives you access to the settings button which allows you to change the in-game volume, play in full screen or a windowed mode (this can also be achieved by using the space button)

You can also select from several options to either run the game fast, which is great for older low-end computers or with the best graphics. The choices you get are Fastest, Fast, Simple, Good, Beautiful and Fantastic. There are no screen resolution options, but when in windowed mode you can change the size of the window by dragging the top left corner of the window to make it larger or smaller and you can return to full screen mode by the usual windowed method, i.e. pressing the button in between minimized and close window. The default window size is around 1920 x 1080.

The help button gives you access to the key bindings for three different characters, i.e. Angels, Demons and Men. Both the Angel and Man have four different magical abilities which are accessed via the keyboard, I = Shield level 3, O = Swift Blade (level 4), K = Sword Rains (level 6) & L = Blade Traps (level 1) for man, with an attack button ], the angel uses O= Holy Sword (level 5), J = Nature’s Orb (level 1), K = Call of Nature (level 8) and L = Luminous Shield (level 1) with attack button I. Finally, the demon has five abilities using the keys I = Iceball (level 1), O = Fireball (level 1), J = Call of the Dead (level 6), K = Bats Attack (level3) & L = Lightning Strike (level 8). You can see all the spells, the amount of Mana they require and the levels they are unlocked in the image below. None of the key bindings appear to have an option to change. All the abilities require Mana to use; the higher the level the ability is, the more Mana (usually) is required to use it.

Your characters health and Mana are indicated in the top left of the screen next to your avatar. The top green bar is your health bar and the blue lower bar represents the amount of Mana you have.

Posted by Whiterabbit-uk 8th Sept 2018; reposted August 4th 2020.

Videos of A.D.M (Angels,Demons And Men):

You can see a couple of videos of game play HERE and HERE

Conclusion:

The following is only my initial thoughts on the game. I’ve not progressed far enough to discover much (just over 13 hours). I found the settings were always resetting to default when I died and would have to reset the graphics to Fantastic. At the start of the game, you only appear to have access to one character, i.e. the man and movement feels excruciatingly slow (like walking through treacle). The absence of a mini map also makes it difficult to see what you’ve already discovered. Mini maps were common in some of the RPG’s I played 20 years ago. I would suggest to the developer that they consider adding a speed up potion or increasing the default walking speed and adding a run option, that could be stamina led. (these may be included, but I've not discovered them yet) In most RPG’s of this style, you can usually see much more of the environment. The short distances you can see make it very difficult to choose the correct direction to move in without seemingly wasting a lot of time. After 13 hours of game play I still hadn’t discovered the whereabouts of the level I was supposed to pull after finding the key. I must have died about 150 or more times and have became very frustrated with the game. Still, if you can get past the initial stages without dying I think this could be a decent game. I’ve still not encountered any significant enemies to fight, but considering my slow progress this isn't unexpected. I will persevere with this game becasue despite the retro looking graphics I still like it and am determined to progress well into the game eventually. The only things I had the opportunity to kill were what appeared to be miniature floating eyes.

I'd like to to see a mode included that does not include perma' death. This would be ideal for those like me who struggle with such games

Review originally posted HERE 6th Sept 2018, edited and updated to include more recent game play August 4th 2020

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway

Don't forget to check out the giveaway forums. Delenn has usually posted the latest freebies. The latest Epic Games are now live and include: 20XX (A rogue-like action platformer), Barony (A first-person rogue-like with co-op) and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (A point & click story rich pixel fantasy with a female protagonist). The total cost to buy these would be over £27/$37/€33. Next week we get Wilmot's Warehouse - ( a puzzle game about keeping a warehouse running in tip-top shape. Just remember where you put everything, because when the service hatch opens, you'll need to find the things people want quickly, to earn the coveted Performance Stars).

Just pop over to the game discussion threads HERE and HERE for links to most of the free games.

The Indie Gala developers freebies are available HERE (latest additions) and HERE (81 games in the Showcase, most full versions). Recent additions include Snow White Solitaire Charmed Kingdom, Adam Wolfe (Complete Edition), Spirit of Xanadu and three games from !C's catalogue of RTS (real time strategy) games: Real Warfare 1242 - (the Mongol Horde attack the huge sate of Russia during the XIII century, the game is based on authentic historical events), Cuban Missile Crisis: Ice Crusade - (what if the Cuban missile crisis had resulted in a World War III) and Theatre of War - (a real-time tactical strategy title depicting the most significant battles of World War II during 1939-1945.), plus a couple I've previously missed in the showcase section called Temper Tantrum and Last Man Standing).

Please Stay Safe everyone