It starts out being a blast as you rescue townsfolk, get newer and better items, and get further along into the game; but eventually devolves into repetitiveness. Although a roguelike in vein of TLoZ and BoI, it hardly gets very random. Due to this, as your skill level goes up, you get further in just to be hit by gobs of enemies. This is where the game's fault lies in as the enemies tend to take a lot of punishment before going down. As you get to the final area of the game, it gets worse in this regard as now said sponge enemies now hit like trucks and with every death you'll just be visiting the same rooms over and over and over. Now in an average roguelike, this wouldn't be a problem. In AWL, it's hardly random enough to give the player a reason to continue to do so.

Finding blueprints enables you to reduce the luck element by finding a good enough item that you can now use at the beginning of the game upon purchasing it. However, even that process could essentially be considered "grinding" as you're going through the same places yet again to get something to help you get through the game's 3 main areas.

Due to enemies spamming you in large amounts and them being able to take a heavy amount of punishment; rather than them changing up tactics, (or even getting new attacks or becoming faster for example) they essentially don't do anything creative with them. Everything else, such as the music, is passable at best. Overall, the game's faults will eventually wear you out on enjoying it.

As a HUGE fan of "The Binding Of Isaac" I had so much high hopes for A Wizard's Lizard...

And i was not disappointed at all.

A Roguelike with Rpg elements, that gave me the rush iv been looking for in a game with this style for sometime now.

You start as a simple lizard that belongs to a wizard (hence the title), and (Wont spoil) stuff happens and you gotta be the hero.
And it is not just a Roguelike that throws you in the middle of nowhere and you just keep killing sh*t.
no you start at a town and talk to towns people, and go to shops, and unlock stuff, its nice having that in a Roguelike (Lite).

Controls basically plays like Boi, except for shooting goes at 360* (Degrees) so it is easier to play with a keyboard + mouse for me, i like playing Shooters using a mouse :| it fully supports a controller too so dont worry

there is an option to Subscribe to beta mode of this game, to get the updates and current fixes and patches.
So its great to KNOW that this game's devs are still working on it and improving it.
From what i saw so far they are still adding new items and stuff continuously, thats diffidently a big plus considering the fact that most promising games gets abandoned, i am glad this game isn't.

With those ADORABLE graphics, this game pulls off the perfect style for an RPG-Shooter.
I just love the first soundtrack, makes me feel like playing a Ps1 Rpg game.
very nice level designs, and characters, and enemies,
with great animations, the artwork i dare to say is perfect 10/10 everything is very beautiful.

The game has a very large set of Items, and Weapons and spells (totems) that can be found or purchased.
With the feature of "Spelunky" of finding shopkeepers as you venture through, that you can kill them to get free item ( be careful they are one TOUGH sob's)
Unique weapon attacks and styles, different items and "Builds".

As for achievements, i can say this game's achievements are pretty tough, the players database of whom finished them is really low, because they are not easy to accomplish, and i am crossing my fingers for trading cards.

The game has "Inner" achievements or should i say unlockables ( Kill X monsters ) to unlock statues in a gallery you find at the first village.

Epic Boss battles,Tough Enemies, Treasures all around , Traps , Secrets, everything is there.


So lets go with this again

Pros -

- Wonderful graphics, animations , soundtracks.
- Huge set of weapons and items and unlockables.
- Tricky enemies and boss battles
- High Replay Value, and i think it takes a long time to finish the game.
- Addictive gameplay style.
- Challenging levels, and great level design.
- A mix of Zelda, Binding of isaac, And Spelunky... you cant go wrong with those 3
- Different characters, items , weapons (Blueprints) to unlock

Cons -
- I found some minor ones but as they assured me its already fixed in the Beta so its cool
- 1 minor one is some performance issues with large rooms + many enemies.

i'd Diffidently dare to say that if you dont buy this game you are missing out on so much fun.
Trust me on this one.
If you like binding of isaac, and Enjoy roguelikes, or Shooters like this.
then this game is your soul mate ^^
But don't take my word for it , there are many Youtube videos, thank you for reading ^^

Game: A Wizard's Lizard
Price: $8.49* (reg $16.99)
Genre: Action/RPG/Rogue-like
Time Played: 42 hours
Personal Enjoyment Rating: ☺☺☺☺☻

Links I Found Helpful**
A Youtube review by Northernlionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYPa6XHPxP4

You may think that I absolutely love this game if you've looked at my hours played, and although I am enjoying it and I do recommend it, take it with a grain of salt please. I've found this game to be somewhat difficult, but the completionist in me just can not accept defeat, and so I keep coming back again and again. At this point I have 50 deaths and 0 wins. Therefore, I'm not at all sure what the ratio is between the game being challenging and my skill level being awful.

There are a few characters to unlock, however that is far in your future if you're anything like me. First you need to learn the ropes of the game. One of the most enjoyable aspects of a Wizard's Lizard is the opportunity to explore for yourself and get to grips with how to accomplish the objective of the game. However, as you learn a little more each time you die, it has to be said that the biggest drawback to this game is the repetativeness.

Last of all, I must mention that I have not played The Binding of Isaac, and therefore I can not give you any comments comparing the two games to each other. I find the Binding of Isaac too gory.

You are a lizard. A very cute lizard that looks cross and sticks his tongue out every time you attack. Your objective is to battle Death and help your wizard. You do this by wandering through the dungeon until you get to the last area. There are three main areas and two side areas. Getting hit (losing health) is a very bad thing because healing items are relatively few and far between.

As you progress further and further into the dungeon, you'll be able to rescue villagers and buy blueprints which are the two persistent progression aspects to the game. They will give you more options in town before you start a run, making you more powerful, and thus more likely to get further.

That's about it. It's pretty simple. Kill stuff before it kills you. Don't get hit. Get to the end. Although, as I might have mentioned before, it isn't necessarily easy to do.

Controls are WASD to move and arrow keys to attack (you can also use the mouse to attack, but I found it rather cumbersome to use). There are few hotkeys to learn to make life easier, but the three most important ones are: Z is a spell attack, X puts down a totem, and shift makes you dash. It's important to learn to use your abilities to help you clear out rooms faster and with less death.

Very basic. It's really more of a theme than anything else. At the start there is a short cutscene setting you up to go rescue your wizard. Since I haven't managed to win a game yet I can't comment much more than that.

I really enjoy the music, it's quite fun if repetitive, but repetitive like Tetris or other beloved old games. You are warned if you hate repetitive music. The sound effects are rather basic and a little jarring on the ears. There are only a few which I deem practical sounds - giving you warning of an incoming attack.

Delightful graphics in my opinion. Cartoony, sure, but charming. I also appreciate that I can turn off the bloody globs of zombie exploding because I do not enjoy gore. The lighting effects are very neat, although after a while they became tiresome for me because they do make gameplay harder. There is an option to turn the lighting effects off.

+ explore the game for yourself to learn the ropes
+ charming graphics
+ hotkeys
+ a lot to do for completionists
+ achievements*** are more like challenges
+ super cute lizard
- repetitive
- repetitive
- repetitive

If you did not find this review helpful, I would really appreciate your constructive criticism - tell me why it wasn’t helpful for you. It’s my hope to make the reviews that I do take the time to write up, as helpful as they possibly can be.

Footnotes
*Any prices that I mention are in CDN because that is what I see. The primary price I list at the top is the price that I bought the game at.
**I will not be keeping an eye on whether the links are up to date, so if they are broken I apologise. Remember that these are external websites and I'm just trying to be helpful - I'm not responsible for the content on the other end.
***Don't even get me started on achievements. My rant follows: Suffice it to say that I think most achievements are complete waste of space. The only reason I'm going to mention them as a plus point on a game is if they're being used properly. I don't care if you managed to kill your first zombie in the first five minutes of the tutorial... that isn't an achievement. Achievements should be challenges for the player to complete which are somewhat difficult to accomplish, and/or make you think about the game in a different way, thereby getting you to explore different ways of doing things and thus expanding upon the gameplay.

Edit Log
27/11/2014 added "help me help you" section

Binding of Isaac with less junk to unlock, smoother and less arbitrarily punishing gameplay, and fewer juvenile memes. You'll see most of what's on offer in a few playthroughs but they'll at least be fun

A Wizard's Lizard is a game in the same style to Binding of Isaac as I'm sure many people have mentioned, though I would say there is a bit more focus on aiming for progression rather than rogue-like elements such as each run being different from the very first level and so on. So don't go in expecting exactly the same experience here as it won't be. It's also a pretty challenging game!

I was asked by the developer to take a look at the game for my first impressions series and if you'd like to see the game in motion as well as hear some more thoughts on it I'd encourage you to check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5EeUOpagQc

A Wizards Lizard is an action packed RPG full of ever-changing dungeons, filled with valuable treasure and powerful items.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r854ngxZA0c
You must battling hordes of evil creatures whilst rescuing townsfolk to improve your town and aid your next adventure. Fans of The Legend of Zelda, Gauntlet, and The Binding of Isaac will love this retro-inspired twin-stick action. Death is only the beginning as you continue to unlock secrets in the realm of the dead. - Recommended!

Terrible Performance

For some reason, this game has terrible performance. In the late part of the game the performance is so bad it's literally impossible to play. Many people in the forums have stated similar issues. This game looks like an IOS port and should be able to run fine with a potato, but currently high end PCs are struggling with it.

I personally don't have much hope that it will be fixed due to several reasons:
-It hasn't been fixed yet.
-The reason there is no widescreen support is because that would mean 50%isch more pixels on screen and it wrecked the performance (as stated by one of the developers).
-The fact that they can't get such an untaxing game to run smoothly and that the had to resort to such drastic measures mentioned above just screams incompitence. I honestly don't think that they even CAN properly optimize this game.
-And most of all, they thought it was acceptable to release the game in this state to begin with.

The first 3isch floors are playable but the frames do drop below 30 if many enemies are on screen at once. But since it's literally unplayable (for some PC configurations) in the later half of the game, there is no way I can in any way recommend this game.

First impressions of the game, its simple and fun. Can make you pretty salty at times, especially when your low on health or sitting good, and you walk into a room that corners you. It makes the runs better the more you save villagers and collect blueprints ( your restarts add cash and weps/armor ) If your feeling prideful just do "no-buy" runs but the option is there to buy. It's in a way similar to binding of issac, but if your hardcore into BoI don't expect the exact same thing, it is a different game, thus expect it like that. Overall its a nice / aggravating game, I'd recommend it.

So would I recommend this game? Absolutly. Is this a game for everyone? Maybe, maybe not. Let me explain why.

First the premise of the game. You are a lizard-buddy from a wizard (hence the title) whose master gets taken away by some evil guys. Now it is up to you, to rescue him. And to do so you cross various dungeons and defeat a lot of baddies along the way. You get various equipment and skills and it's up to you to combine them and make the best of it.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Oh wait, but that isn't everything. We all have seen these type of games before. I mean Legend of Zelda or Binding of Isaac. But A Wizard's Lizard adds a little twist to it. In the dungeons you can save townspeople. Townspeople, you say? Yes, because you have access to a little townarea that serves as your main hub. Some townspeople just give hints (in the beginning that is) but the rescued ones actually give you a reward. They'll put in a small amount of cash in a treasure box in the town. With this cash you are able to buy weapons, upgrades, armor etc before entering a dungeon. A big plus since having for example a lance is beter then your starting sword.

But it doesn't stop there. Mostly when you die, that's it. Game over, start over. But not in this game. You resurrect as a sort of 'angel' lizard which gives you a second chance to finish the game. Combine this with the ability of certain rooms to turn you back to normal and you have a pretty much bag full of content to keep you entertained for a long time.

Are there any cons? Yeah, perhaps. The floors, although randomized, can get a bit repetitive. For example the 1st floor of the first dungeon has the exit on on side of the path and a little graveyard on the other side. What's inbetween them or where you spawn is random. But these two are a certain give. Good side about this is, you want to get to both sides for the cash and the exploration. Also sometimes the music can get a bit repetitive as well.

One last 'bad' thing is the enemies. Although most of the enemies are relativily fair some are a bit of a screwover. For example you have owl-enemies. But hitting one means all of the owls in that room starting flying around like a bunch of wild dogs and sometimes chase you. If you're stuck in a corner running for them, it can very easily screw you over.

So just to summarize the game with the pro's and con's:

Pro's:
+ Main hub-area is a nice new twist to the genre
+ Rescueing townsfolks adds a bit more exploration-iniviative for the players
+ Upgrade your character before going into the dungeons
+ Controls are smooth
+ 'Resurrect'-mode adds a lot more gameplay-time

Con's:
- Floor's & certain rooms can get a bit repetitive
- Same goes for the music
- Some enemies can really cheapshot you

As a huge fan of rogue-like / rogue-light / twin stick shooters, i had high hopes for this game. Unfortunately, going in with such high expectations left the game feeling a little light. That being said, the game isn't Isaac, it shouldnt be compared to that experience, and once i got that out of my mind - I was left with a really fun and challenging game. You'll die, you'll die a lot... but stick it out and "get good" and you'll have a great time.

A roguelike dungeon-crawler with randomly generated room layouts, A Wizard's Lizard has you playing as Raga, a lizard whose wizard got kidnapped by Death for trying to cheat death with a potion of life. Having had some of the potion of life spill on him before the wizard got spirited away, Raga gains the ability to die twice before it's game over. Upon dying, you may find yourself having to kill the ghosts of the enemies you just killed, and in some areas, you can step into a magic circle to come back to life! Hanging between life and death, can Raga traverse the dungeon, defeat Death, and save the wizard?

No two gameplay sessions are alike. You only get stronger by finding better equipment or learning not to get hit. Normal gameplay has dark dungeons with little visibility which can work against you, Dying once lights the entire dungeon up, but forces you to take on unique ghost versions of some enemies. If you play enough, rescue trapped villagers in the dungeons, and buy item blueprints in dungeon shops, you can start out with more gold and unlock more items to buy at the shop before you enter the dungeon, making it easier to start the game out. It's a very neat sense of progression and makes dying less disappointing when you can actually gain something from your attempts at a crypt run.

With a charming art style, a cute lizard, a tough-as-nails dungeon labyrinth, the ability to cheat death, and a system where you can gain progress from dying each playthrough, A Wizard's Lizard is a challenging but enjoyable roguelike game.

Maybe not a masterpiece, but nobody expected one. I recommend this game to any roguelite fan who enjoys collecting Steam achievements.

Fun, challenging roguelike 2d twinstick shooter.

This game is hard. Like, seriously hard. It makes Megaman look like a stroll in the park. It makes Binding of Isaac look like a simple mugging instead of waking up chained to a drainpipe with a hacksaw and a cellphone next to you. In short, it's HARD.

If you persevere though, there are plenty of hidden secrets to uncover - secret levels, unlockable characters. The pace starts off slower than Binding of Isaac - you have to be tactical *and* strategic, but as the levels progress, can become quite frenetic. Masterpiece class in game mechanics design. Plus, Raga is so CUTE. 10/10.

An incredibly fun and addictive game which sports what has to be the worst performance of any game I've ever purchased. How such a simplistic game can chop so heavily on an i5-3470 with 16GB RAM and a GTX 660Ti is beyond me. The game's programmers truly need to work on their skills. Additionally, its difficulty level is way too high. It's nice that the enemies I kill drop so much money but is it really necessary for it to absolutely never be health?

I've spent roughly 8 hours of this game and while I don't think it's bad per say there is a lot lacking when stacked up to existing Roguelikes and ones coming out on Steam in the near future through Early Access and Kickstarter. Not going to criticize the art or the music, those things are subjective and you can like them or dislike them as you see fit. There are also bigger and more frustrating issues with A Wizard's Lizard to address. For starters, the Gold for saving Villagers. While in theory it is rewarding to give the player an extra mission on top of "Beat the Game" but in execution all it does is makes the game grind-y. Progression in a Roguelike is nothing new, nor is giving players abilities but none of it seems to matter in A Wizard's Lizard and that combined with the Grinding makes the entire experience feel like a slough. The progression is also staggered, items are locked behind their "location" not just cash which means you'll have to spend hours dumping time into each location to unlock everything if you so desire. To make matters worse, weapons do miserable damage but we'll touch on that later. This is helped along by unlocking "Short Cuts" however in a Roguelike intentionally cutting your playing time so you can grind is not a good thing. And that's the biggest issue with A Wizard's Lizard. It's grindy. It's grindy to the extreme. Which makes the second issue all the more problematic.

The Grind isn't fun. The gameplay is uninteresting. Unlike The Binding of Isaac which gives you a unique run each time you boot up the game both in level layout and item generation or even Magicite which varies both the level layout and the tools you can use while throwing interesting traps and obstacles at you, A Wizard's Lizard does not. The rooms are plain square or rectangle in shape, filled with enemies and the standard sliding spike traps along with stationary floor spikes that deal quite a bit of damage to you. There are secret levels but they are not extra levels however they're a single level long and instead of being "extra" to your run they instead overlaps with the stage you'd otherwise go to. This makes the additional threat of these levels is thus not adequately paid for as you are just as strong for doing them than not. The only reason to go to them is to unlock special or unique items to their location thus making them simply another spot to grind.

The enemies also seem to suffer from a bit of Rogue Legacy's palate-swapped enemies. While I grant that creating enemies is both time consuming and cost prohibitive especially of Indie Companies, the variety gets stale after four or five runs. A Wizard's Lizard also suffers from a failing many Roguelikes have started to make and that is swamping players with enemies in an attempt to make the game more difficult. More enemies does not a hard game make, and cramming them in only causes the game to feel even more grindy and unfair to beginners who lack the skill to crowd control. On top of their numbers, enemies have a great deal of health and deal a good deal of health when they hit. As mentioned above with the player's damage, enemies take forever to take down even with the "best of weapons". I won't even bring up the Mimics and other "Hiding" enemies, who you know are there but have to bait out and risk damage or just adds to the time needed to progress through the game. All of these complaints are amplified for the bosses, requiring you to grind for the best of items to even hope to deal significant damage against them. This of course means you have to grind past them time and time again to get the gear needed to smooth the process out. The boss fights other than them being damage sponges that are boring just as the rest of the game. The bosses are your stock standard Zelda-esque fights that, if they were more balanced, would be just plain standard. Instead they're boring fights we've seen a dozen times in more interesting games and in more interesting formats with the health meter cranked to 11. And that's my over all take of A Wizard's Lizard. Is it terrible? No. Would I recommend it? Not really. There are better, cheaper, and more interesting Roguelikes on the market or coming to market. Look into those.

A very fun quick game that's easy to understand and not that hard to play. It gets slightly easier as more money is given as more villagers are found.

Very similar to Binding of Isaac, gets that twin-stick shooter + roguelike thing going. Very good, recommend it.

Meh find games like Isaac and darker purpose more fun.
The game play is pretty repetive/slow in this game plus theres less in way of randomness.
(For example in isaac the varous pickups interact in weird ways but in this you just replace the weapon...and tere really doesnt seem to be much differece)

Good for a game or 2 but find Binding of Isaac and A Darker Purpose have more in the way of replay value (plus isaac is cheaper!)

Monsters need a lot of tweaking and rebalancing. Items are dull and samey. Health is too rare/too expensive, even for being able to avoid hits. Many mechanics of the game are inadequately explained. Not as fun as many other roguelikes. Just buy Binding of Isaac. :/

While the game has a cute asthetic and interesting gameplay aspects (like diagonal shooting and a ghost system that gives you an extra life in exchange for facing more enemies) it ultimately fails at what it is trying to do. A wizard's lizard is ostensibly a rogue-like with randomly generated floors and rooms, but unlike a game like the Binding of Isaac, the rooms are not prefab. In other words, any combination of enemies and traps can be in almost any room. This seems like a cool feature, until you realize that it often leads to unavoidable damage. I've even had spike traps spawn right on top of a door, making it literally impossible to enter the room without taking damage. This wouldn't be a big deal if health was reasonably easy to come by, but it isn't. Health is either randomly dropped by enemies (with a very low chance of doing so) or purchased in stores for a huge amount of money. Money that you need to buy weapons and upgrades that will stop you from taking damage. I'm sure you can see the problem here. Your success in the game is nearly completely predicated on your ability to not take damage, and often times damage is unavoidable. Your hitbox is unclear, so even in the rooms where it is possible to avoid damage you'll still take damage that is not your fault.

There is a sort of Rogue Legacy-esque permenant progression in the game, allowing you to gain more starting money and purchase items before entering the game's dungeons. Which brings me to my greatest complaint. The items are almost all worthless in any situation where you would want an advantage. Say you have an enemy that annoys you, owls for instance. And you want to kill them faster. Surely an attack upgrade is what you need? Actually, all the items that i've seen upgrade stats by 1 which is utterly insignificant. Owls (the brown ones at least) have twenty health and your normal attacks deal 10 damage. the most damage upgrades I've been able to stack (filling every single item slot available to me with attack upgrading items) was 6. So no matter how much attack you stack up you will never be able to kill the owl with one attack from a normal weapon.

You can get better weapons, but they all have silly drawbacks and often their gimicks will get you killed. While it is fun to find all these different items and see what they do, and this game actually does a better job than Isaac and similar rogue-likes explaining what effects items have, it ultimately falls flat because the only items that make any difference at all are weapons. Almost all your abilities put you too much in harms way and healing is a pain in the ♥♥♥, the permanent progression turns the early levels into a grind, and the game's difficulty stems far too much from a lack of HP being available and rooms having nearly or completely unavoidable damage on them. I honestly can't recommend this game at all.