At this point it’s pretty hard to make some of the most popular smartphone-adapted gameplays even more compact. So-called clickers are the height of impoverishment of gaming as a challenging activity, instead heading off in new directions of satisfaction that have nothing to do with performance. Luckily these days stuff like Tap ‘n’ Slash keeps appearing to remind us that a gameplay can be simple but still hard and fun.
The name Tap ‘n’ Slash tell you everything you need to know, really. In this dungeon explorer game in isometric perspective you go around defeating enemies, getting treasure, and leveling up your character. So far so good, nothing out of this world. But the approach changes completely when you realize that it’s controlled with just two buttons on the screen that make your character move diagonally and always in the same direction. And it works.
The twist is that you have a limited number of attacks, which you’ll only get back if you can pick up a sword in the level. Thus most of the time you’ll go around dodging enemies to reserve your attacks for situations where you have no other choice. As you can’t ever move backwards, you have to continuously decide your path based on what appears on the screen, and although it might seem like you’d want to stop before taking every step, the level crumbles behind you. In other words, you have to advance steadily without stopping.
As you beat levels you’ll win gems with which to upgrade your character and unlock other hero profiles with their own features. The appeal lies in getting as far as possible, discovering the most advanced levels (always randomly generated) and increase each hero’s aptitudes as much as possible. If Looty Dungeon seems deranged, this one’s way more so.
Tap ‘n’ Slash for Android is available to download as an APK file for free on Uptodown.
