Review: Sproggiwood is a Light and Fun Roguelike RPG
A recent release developed by Freehold Games, Sproggiwood tells the story of a small creature called Sproggi who enlists the help of Clogs (you, basically) to help set up a civilization in Sproggiwood in order to help bring peace and order to the land. It features bright colors, simple schemes, and easy-to-learn controls, which help keep things on the lighter side. While there are certainly aspects of the game that are underwhelming, Sproggiwood makes no apologies, and doesn’t put on airs. It is, simply, what it is – am RPG rogue-like with elements of strategy.
He starts out pretending to be evil. Turns out he’s not.
The game begins with a farmer (your character) being guided by a sheep through the tutorial, introducing basic movement, combat skills, and special skills. The tutorial gets annoying after a bit, but that’s only because I’m accustomed to games like this one. The sheep instructs you to click on things in order to interact, but a few simple keys can get you where you need to go. Use the arrow keys to move, use the spacebar to advance text or wait one move to let enemies move closer without them dealing damage, and use the number keys assigned to different weapons/skills to use those. Controls are straightfoward and easy enough for children to use. This level of accessibility, along with the cute graphics, makes this game suitable for many ages. This is especially true since you can turn viewing the blood on or off in the menu, which is accessed by pressing the escape key.
As previously mentioned, the graphics are definitely bright, visually interesting, and concise enough that you know what’s going on without any guesswork. The different environments are denoted by both color and texture changes, the enemy animation is (dare I say it) cute, and combat animations are on-point. I honestly can’t find much fault in the game graphically, and while it’s not so different that it can be considered revolutionary, it’s definitely unique in some ways. There’s also a certain familiarity that will build interest among players of other RPG roguelikes such as Crypt of the Necrodancer. In fact, aside from the lack of rhythm-based combat, Sproggiwood immediately reminded me of Necrodancer.
The sound design is about what you’d expect from looking at the game. It’s amusing without being distracting, the combat and attack noises are familiar, as are special sounds such as using altars and spells. As with the controls and graphics, there isn’t much here that’s remarkable, either in a positive or negative way. Again, it’s cute – and if that was the point, then game, set, match.
My impression upon playing the game was that it’s definitely fun, and a great distraction. The story is easy to follow, and the quests are challenging enough to not be boring, but simple enough to complete quickly once you get the hang of enemy movement (it’s usually fairly simple – most enemies move toward you one space at a time, there are giants that get enraged after you hit them once and charge at you, etc.). I had no issues with the game especially once I became accustomed to using the hourglass function. As I said before, the hourglass allows you to skip a turn on y0ur end, but enemies still advance. This is very helpful when you have only one space between you and an enemy, as your advance would result in them attacking you. If they approach you, however, you get to attack first. It’s this kind of feature that’s extremely helpful in turn-based games, as your environment is not always optimal, and not being able to avoid attacks from enemies can drain your health very quickly.
You are also asked by Sproggi to build a village, which will be populated by enemies and fellow Clogs, alike. Certain buildings allow you access to new fighters, such as warriors and archers, and each class has its own perks, discovered during gameplay through power-ups when you gain a level. In this way, it’s definitely reminiscent of games like Farmville on Facebook (sorry), and games requiring resource management. I would recommend Sproggiwood for folks who, like me, enjoy games that don’t require a ton of time to complete levels, but are just complicated enough to remain interesting.
If you’d like to play Sproggiwood yourself, you can pick up a copy on Steam for $14.99. It’s also available in the Humble store. To find out more about Sproggiwood, visit the game’s website, “like” it on Facebook, or check out the Sproggiwood Tumblr.
