Angelus the Necromancer and Adventure Solitaire

By: Guest Reviewer

On: March 31st, 2008

[Guest review by gnawingonfoot. Thanks!]

Jim DuBois, the guy behind Arcane Journeys, has released two upgraded Windows ports of his Palm games. While he’s just now getting around to releasing Windows versions, I’ve been a huge fan of his Palm stuff for several years now, and I’d love to see him get some more exposure. His are among the few games for Palm that don’t play like casual shlock. They’re very original and interesting, though I think some better pixel art wouldn’t hurt them.

Angelus the Necromancer feels and plays like a slimmed down roguelike, but I’ve never actually seen it discussed within the roguelike community, so I don’t know whether or not that term actually fits. The game certainly shares the difficulty of most major roguelike games, but this is a lot shorter.

Adventure Solitaire sounds bland, but it is easily the best game I’ve ever played on my Palm. It’s a mish-mash of strategy and puzzle in the sense that it has the depth and diversity of a typical strategy game and the presentation and gameplay of a puzzle game. I bought the Windows version as soon as it was released because it is just that amazing!

Demos are available for both games, but unfortunately they feel really limited, especially the Adventure Solitaire one. I’m tempted to write the guy and tell him that he needs to open the games up a bit more if he wants people to like them enough to buy them. But that aside, both are worth checking out, especially Adventure Solitaire.