Release Date: TBD
Systems: Windows, Linux
Publisher: Half Sword Games
Time Spent: +15 Minutes
Well, I downloaded the Half Sword demo on my laptop just to see how different it played with using the mouse and it did feel a lot more intuitive just using a mouse instead of the touchpad, and after playing three times, and dying three times, I can definitely see the appeal and the fun in this wacky and bloody wobbly fighting sim.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I first had to turn down the graphics as they defaulted to Epic settings and my laptop was maxing out at 8 fps. I then switched it to low settings and it jumped up to 79 fps, then 49 fps at medium, so I left it there. During the actual gameplay, the frame rate dropped to 20, but that was something I could handle for a few dozen additional pixels on my player's bald little pate.
I found it a little more difficult to actually grab the weapon that was on the table as I kind of had to aim above where I had the mouse cursor on the screen. I don't actually know what the mechanism behind that could be, but it was still something that I noticed. But I was able to grab an axe-like small pikeless halberd-like weapon, but I was swinging like an inebriated maniac and wasn't able to make contact with my like-dressed assailant; to note, the game auto-equipped it in both hands. But then I noticed that the 30-second timer to continue at the top of the screen was not 30, but was 60. This number wasn't a timer, but a score. This fueled me a bit more to continue even though I had never won a single combat encounter.
But then the game crashed.
I decided that I would lower the graphical quality to low because I have no qualms about playing a game that doesn't look great as long as I can play the game and I know what it is I'm doing. This time around, the first table I found had a blue Colovian Fur Helm (because that's what I'm going to call it from now on until I find something different or am corrected) and a bearded axe. This time around, I was successful in killing my opponent and maiming the second before I too was killed. During combat, I was prompted to double-click to make a thrust attack, and while I don't know if this was weapon-specific, this tactic never worked regardless of the weapons I ended up using. This time around, for those keeping score at home, I scored 250 points.
My third and final encounter was my most successful run. I found what I think was a bident (like a trident, but two) and had a great time with this weapon primarily because of its reach. I didn't need to have great combat skills because I could swing the bident around wildly (swerving the mouse around wildly) and with luck puncture some part of my enemy's body. In one encounter I just slashed the guy to death with repeated lacerations across the chest. In the next, I slashed the guy's pants open at the thigh, and then a bident up under the jaw is what did him in. In the third encounter, I punctured the guy in his chest then proceeded to shake him side to side to keep him off balance until he died. The fourth guy managed to somehow either disarm me or wounded one of my arms which made me drop the bident and so I ran away, ended up finding a small mace-like object, but couldn't get in close enough before he beat me to death with a pair of forge tongs. Plus I got a final score of 420.
Half Sword ended up being a fun demo even on the lower graphical settings and occasional hiccups, but I don't know if I would buy the game for my current laptop as playing on the Steam Deck was, well, you can read about it here. What I learned, at least in these early combat encounters, was that reach was vastly more important that the weapon itself. It will be interesting to see what the final game shapes up to be. Will it be an endless combat arena to achieve a higher score? Will it be like a puzzle where you go to pre-generated rooms with a set selection of weapons and armor to go up against a specific number and type of enemy? Will there be a progression system where you can buy/sell equipment to use in future combat and what would the penalties be for dying, because you very much die. Will you be able to create your character? Will there be a weapon/armory encyclopedia for equipment that you've found so that you can actually know the name of the weapons/armor you're using? Half Sword is still very much in early development so I look forward to eventually killing armed opponents in as many goofy and bloody ways as possible on either platform, but the Steam Deck will need further optimization.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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