I have to admit that this game is waaaay more fun that I imagined and I got addicted to it.


The good things:

I really like the idea of being a king that rules over a little army of heroes that have to loot dungeons for me while I sit on my comfortable throne and plan my revenge on the evil guy, wich works actually pretty good, as far as I have played it now. (3 groups of heroes around lvl 12-14).

The dungeon crawling itself is done well enough. Most enemies have a weakness against certain attacks or elements and sometimes have special effects or buffs like vampirism or things like that. The loot from chests and monsters is motivating for more and the fact that every class has it's own skill tree offer different strategies to make the dungeon runs more interesting.

Auto save- a lot of early access games and betas that I have played until now suffered of bugs that made the games crash a lot...and they did not automatically save the progress, so I was often thrown back many hours, which is god damn frustrating. Not with this game, It may crash from time to time and it has its bugs...but I never lost much because of that.
I also really like the humor of the game.



The not so good/bad things:

The game in its current state is not really pretty, but the Ui does it job and the gameplay can make up for it.
The crafting system does not seem really that interesting, same with the vendors because I almost always find equipment in
the dungeons that are way better than the things that I can buy or craft.


Bugs:
At the moment the game still suffers from a lot of bugs, which is probably to be expected from an early access game.
For example, I once entered a dungeon and the navigation buttons on the Ui just disappeared, so I could not move through the dungeon, nor could I escape it - a restart fixed it and it only happend once and almost no progress was lost thanks to the autosave option.
Another bug that appears more frequently is that sometimes when a hero has had a level up, the game is not showing the stat points that I had already invested or the bonuses from the current equipment, which made it appear as if the character was completely broken and useless - which is luckely not the case, a computer restart always helped and sometimes it's just enough to enter a dungeon and teleport back to the city.

------------------
Aside from those points, I really like and appreciate the information that the developers are giving potential customers on the steam page before buying the game.
They make it absolutely clear, that the game itself is still very far from being complete and they also make clear which features are already working and what they still want to add. Also, the game seems to be updated frequently. That is sadly not as common as one might think it should be with Early Access games, so well done devs.


TL;DR
To be perfectly honest, when I bought this game I was not really expecting much of it, it was more like a "it's only 5 euro, it won't hurt me that much"- decision.
But, until now I have not regretted it. The game delivered everything the devs promised and I really want to dive into more dungeons, grab loot and level up my characters and I really want to see the game getting big, because it has a lot of potential and can already be quite entertaining.


5.5-6 out of 10 for the game for now, because it still needs work to make the dungeons less repetitive and for the grafics.


EDIT:
I forgot to mention some bugs that I have found.
For once, sometimes when I revived a hero from the graveyard, the message that pops up won't dissapear. If I hit escape the menu will pop up behind that message and I have to restart the game (the hero will still be alive after doing that)

You can actually put four heroes into a group and can save that group in one of 4 slots, so you don't have to make a new group before entering a dungeon over and over again. BUT the game allways overwrites all my save slots with the last group that I have saved, which is annoying because of if you have almost 30 heroes things get really confusing.

Which brings me to my last point, the Ui in the Adventurer menu really needs something to filter the hero list for level, classes or maybe equipment. My suggestion would, to let the player put their heroes in groups on the main/map screen. I think that would help a lot.

Adventurer Manager is a neat concept, but poor execution killed most of my joy. When you name a game "Adventurer Manager," my first thought is that my job would be to outfit the adventurers and let them go on their way.

I didn't do my due diligence before buying this game exactly for that reason.

Instead, most of your time in Adventurer Manager is spent locked in slow turn-based battles or an equipment management system that takes just a little too much effort.

I'd rather be handling diplomacy, town economics, or really anything other than having to do yet another dungeon crawl.

No one likes a micromanager, but Adventurer Manager forces you to be one.

Update following the developer's response:

Hi there,

I appreciate your response. First, I'd like to say that this review is a gut reaction. It's not a mechanical critique of the game.

I admitted that I didn't research the game to drive home the fact that my experience is based entirely around impulse buying your game. I'd read an article on either Rock Paper Shotgun or PC Gamer about Adventurer Manager, saw that it was on Steam, and picked it up without a second thought.

Many reviews come from members of a game's community that either love or hate it. I'm a guy who bought it, played it for a couple of hours, and didn't end up liking it very much.

I'm definitely not accusing you of false advertising. You explain exactly what the game is and what to expect on the store page. Most of my issues with the game stem from core mechanical problems that can't be expressed through screenshots or gameplay trailers. I'd have had to watch someone play the game to see the stuff that left a sour taste in my mouth.

Having bought the game, though, I've also bought my right to share my opinion about it. Steam only lets me give a game a thumbs up or a thumbs down, but in many cases I'd probably pick a middling option.

I decide by imagining if a friend — someone I know who likes this type of game — asked me what I thought. If I could imagine myself saying "You might like it" at some point, then it's a thumbs up. If I can't imagine myself suggesting it to anyone who I know, then I rate it negatively.

Here are some after-the-fact critiques:

I didn't feel like I was progressing very quickly. Most of why I play these lightweight, casual-ish games is to get the distilled seratonin that can only come with upgrading my dudes.

Tying class unlocks to reputation didn't feel fun. I'd rather just tell my rogue that he's going to be an assassin now.

I did some thinking during my commute this morning about what I actually meant by "slow" turn-based combat.

The auto-adventuring feature is a neat idea, but it's functionally identical to the vast majority of the dungeon crawling gameplay. I think my issue is that I'm only exerting agency over 4 of my 48 adventurers at any given moment.

Let's say that the game took a cue for FFVII's "active" turn-based battle system. The adventurers would handle the fights on their own, but the player's job would be to check in on them and reveal enemy weaknesses, give stat-boosting pep talks, and pull them out if the going gets too tough. The time-based turns combat would then give the player breathing room to swap between adventuring parties on the fly.

These automated parties could adventure simultaneously, and the total number of adventurers you could have in the world at one time would naturally be limited by your ability to multitask between however many parties were adventuring at any given moment.

Simple but addictive game.

I bought this during the summer sale, thinking it looked like a decent game to pick up every now and then for an hour or so. It's incredibly addictive if you enjoy manager games. The turn based manual combat is OK, with new features being implemented often it is getting better as time goes on, the combat is surprisingly in depth.

The classic RPG character classes, combined with different races give plenty of room for character customisation, whilst randomly generated loot will make a fun challenge for collecting and creating your ultimate party!

My halfling whirlwind barbarian named Chet, who only wanted to retire to be a duck watcher, died permanently in Ironman mode to a Crazed squatter. 10/10

This is a great little game that can be played in small chunks that quickly ramp up if you have a taste for roguelikes, old school jrpg dungeon fighting, and outrageous humor. This isn't a game that takes itself seriously, and yet endears itself in many ways. Every adventurer has his/her own bio that is completely randomized (and I do mean randomized. You may laugh at some of the combinations that crop up). The automatic questing system is a bit slow, but it's meant to be used alongside the manual dungeons where you can control toons actually fighting your foes, picking and choosing from dozens of abilities to win each fight.

There is much to do here besides dungeon fighting. You can meltdown gear you find, crafting the leftovers along with gems to tailor the optimum suit for your adventurers. You can build your castle up with a handful of improvements, send adventurers to University to earn dozens of powerups, and when they are ready to collapse, let them rest up for more forced dungeoneering.

If paper-dolling is your thing, you may enjoy this game for that reason. In addition to a ruler/adventurer barbershop, there's a great variety of different items to dress up your adventurers, along with several races that become available who have their own distinctive appearance. The different graphics that each tier of equipment brings to the equation really sells the idea of progression, and you might feel proud of your little pixel people as they go from rags to weapons and armor of mass destruction. Of course, the graphical style is pixelized, but the art style is consistent as far as I can tell, and will hearken back to the golden age of console rpgs, and yet this is more than a good, old-fashioned rpg. The management aspect of the game is very present, with the ability to send your characters on random adventures which will see them slogging through some menial task on autopilot, while you either fast forward, fight off invasions, or go manually dungeon delving.

Since release, I've yet to delve into the game as much as I'd like to, but there is much depth promised as the level cap is set to fifty, and if you play on ironman mode like me, it might be a while before you actually complete all of the content. As of release, or shortly before, they added the feature of character aging, which sells the progression aspect of it even more. It's an interesting idea to have your mortal adventurers retire, although I've yet to play enough to reach the stage where I'm incilned to retire them. Just the idea that your beloved pixel people might die really bursts with intrinsic story, even while it tries to be as silly as possible, it can't help but create its own story as heroes rise, age as the seasons pass, and eventually fall.

You can visit your adventurers who've fallen in battle in the graveyard, resurrecting them if playing normal mode. I'm unfamiliar with this feature as of post release, but I'm hearing that there's some sort of debuff that's applied when you resurrect them. Otherwise, you can strip them of their gear if you wish to dishonor them, or leave the gear, and engrave a tear-soaked epitaph that's sure to induce a fit of sorrow.

Overall, if you like pixelized, old-fashioned rpgs or manager simulators, or just wacked out humor and are in need of a few hyucks, you'll probably find something to like about this game. There's a story filled with humor and over-the-top silliness, but more than that, there's some juicy gameplay.

Game promise Adventure Manager. Game delivers Adventure Manager.
Genre is unique and difficult to compare with other games. Pixel style is something you like or dislike.
This one is pixel heavy and I like because it's done clean, original and diverse.

For me it comes most close to the first and fine combination of RPG and rogue-like genre in one game.
Amount of loot is diverse and stats customization is deep.
Don't have too many hours in the game yet, but want to give my support already by rating the game positive.

For me personal I don't like playing on the same world map all the time.
Lot of things in the game are random, but the world map is the same every game.

Hopefully see the next game or DLC with an option to start on a random world map.
Where you have to conquer some cities before you can rent heroes from them or have more different caves, castles and other quest objects on different positions every time.

Very nice to see that the devs are very active on the forum and for almost every detail the players ask for improvement have intention to deliver. Tons of AAA games wich cost over 30 euro what are abandoned days after release.
Not this one.

While it may look casual it's not. I can imagine some people think of this game like the next tablet/mobile game on PC because of the graphic style used. It's not. It's a deep and diverse game with tons of customization and requieres some knowledge of classes and stats of other rpg's to take out the max from your characters.
But that's what it makes a management simulator. You need to take some time to learn, to read, to try and experiment the same way as your characters do.

This game really deserves more attention. I didn't play that far. Actually I only reached ~ lvl 15 or so but I already spent 20h ingame and that's way more time than in most other games I own (and I own many). I am sure that I will sink more in it later when it released

The graphics are simple but noneless nice to look at. A feature that I think should be in every game is here: The characters appearence change depending on which equipment you wear.

The battle system seems deep for a indie game. There are a lot classes and races to choose from and combine. The bosses are unique and challenging (depening on the gear you have I suppose)

There is also a auto adventure mode, where you can train up to 4 parties at the same time and earn money/items.
The crafting feature wasn't fully functional when I played it in EA, going to check it out later. The management system (where you can extend your castle with various different stuff) is a nice addition.


If I had to rate this game I would give it a 8/10.

P.S. hope you don't mind my poor english. I am not native.

(FULL RELEASE REVIEW)
Fun game that's easy to get into. Don't look at my playtime, as I've played many more hours offline.

I greenlit this game a while back, and kept track of its progress. I can say the devs are NOT a "scam" and actually do update the game (quite a bit for that matter). The combat can be tedious at times, as there aren't THAT many things that make each character different, besides the 12 classes, but it is still unique in it's auto adventures, and has a nice Diablo-esq loot system that keeps you playing. The game's "story" actually will take a while to complete, which makes this game even better. There is also a good randomization system with many bosses and monsters.

8/10: Fun, unique, cheap indie game, but will get repetitive after time. Worth the $10.

Edit 1: Thanks, Strikes, I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with!
(Devs say that new content will "remove any potential crazy-repetitive-frusterations.")

Adventurer Manager is an entertaining and promising mix of retro-style RPG and city manager. Yes, some elements feel redundant and grind-y after a while, but the game, even as it stands, contains plenty of other features to play with if boredom kicks in. The gear-forging system is fun, and the mad lib-style generation of auto-quests and character bios is a cute touch. I also enjoy the way skill points are distributed. Rather than gaining a tree of progressively awesome skills, you're allowed a certain number of skills to drop points into as you please. The number of skills allowed (as well as proficiency in those skills) progresses with level. It isn't without flaws; the gold-earning system is a little unbalanced, and as others have mentioned, the combat gets repetitive pretty quickly. However, considering the depth of the game in its current unfinished state, I'm excited to see how it develops.

Im stocked, this game is just fun. It plays a little like Final Fantasy, but you choice who your heros are, name them, arm them and send them out to fight for your kingdom. You can choose to control the battles or you can have your heros auto quest. You can try and make better armor and weapons or loot it. There are a good amount of classes to pick from.

Some you have to earn. Its a fun relaxing game and for $4.99 its a steal. Its in beta so I hope there are more to come.

This is a very great game, If you love the Diablo series item style then youll love this game. If you love turn based d&d style gameplay youll love it. You can manage several characters, share weapons, destroy stuff you do not need to create better items you can use or pass the weaker items to your low lvl characters, you also have the ability to have each character personally trained to better himself/herself on the battlefield or train the characters to have better gold/magic find, exp quicker etc,etc. Anyway Great overall game do not pass on this one.


This review has been brought to you by Grower the Bane of games.

Adventure manager is awesome if you love turn based battles and grinding because that's pretty much all you have to do to progress in this game. I read some of the other reviews on here complaining about the slow pace of the game but I really enjoy playing these kinds of games after a long day at work because it just lets me chill and unwind. You don't have to think too hard to play; the adventures they send you on don't even make sense so you don't even have to read the descriptions before you decide to send your adventurers into a random cave. It's just hours and hours of mindless fun haha.

The only reserve I have about recommending this game is that you need to realize that every time there's a big update there's a chance you'll lose all your progress since this game is still being developed. It might feel kind of discouraging to wake up and realize that you have to start over from scratch, but it is what it is.

Probably the closest you'll get to Disgaea on the PC. Make tons of characters, level them up, give them awesome equipment, boost their power in various ways, and do this ad infinitum. The game is very much a manager game. While there are dungeons, a lot of your success depends on fielding as many parties as possible, sending them on auto-missions (while you do your own thing) and reaping the rewards. Without this support system, the game can turn into a bit of grind.

So don't expect to get into this game, and skimp on that aspect, it's very much 50% dungeon 50% manager, which entails a lot of menu and item shuffling. I would say, as of right now, this is the game's biggest flaw. The menus are not sufficient for managing (maximum) 48 seperate characters. Otherwise, the game works, and satisfies that obsessive compulsive power building, party constructing itch.

So if you're into that sort of thing, (I am!) the game is satisfying, and you could do a lot worse for the price.

Ok, it's fun and I would recommend it to others. Getting your heros and raising them from nothing gives some satisfaction, and its not like you are left twiddling your thumbs while you wait for your heroes to return. But there is one thing that does get to me, and its the silliness. You see, there is silliness and then there is 'Oh god' silliness. Sometimes the encounters and the quests has the latter and it can get old real quickly.

But if you can overlooked that, I give it a thumbs up.

I love this game. I've put up with restarting with each new build because the new features are worth it. It's low stress and interesting enough to keep bringing me back -- I feel that even if I only have a short amount of time ready, I can do something meaningul, whether it is character / gear management, party assignments for auto-questing, or taking charge of a group and running through a dungeon myself.

A surprisingly deep turn-based combat system with interesting abilities and a push-your-luck element to dungeon exploration as you try to best manage your group's health and energy. Good variety of different classes and it's fun organizing parties to auto-quest, seeing which combinations work well together, or if you can tackle a high risk dungeon run with lower level characters to try and level them up quickly. Good variety of choices both in and out of the dungeon mode keeps the management aspect from getting too repetitive.

It's less a game to focus on intently and more of something to have on in the background. It's the perfect complement to a lazy weekend afternoon spent watching baseball, or having the auto-quests progress while working on another project, or toggling back and forth to the game while playing something else. But even with that, it's still worth it -- especially for the price.

That said, I would have liked a bit more variety among the classes / race combos, so that once you unlock a new race (like elves) there was a greater incentive to create new PCs using those races. If you play for a long stretch at once, the gameplay and your decisions can feel like you might as well be on auto-pilot.

Ultimately, I think the game delivers what it says it will. The publisher has shown a commitment to improving the game and has done a great job providing value in a pre-launch title. I cannot wait to see what the final game has in store.

Fun for those who dont mind old style turn based games. This allows me to use all Dream Warriors in it, so i am having a blast.

If you like adventuring funny stories lots and LOTS of loot. You'll absolutely love this game. There's a lot going on and there is even a semi persistant battle between the towns. Which is kinda interesting. I like the customization too.

A modern hack 'n loot with a retro twist. A lot of features have been implemented so far and for an Early Access title it's definitely got some punch, but a few things still need some attention. The user interface, while reasonably complete, still feels a bit kludgy:

-When dealing with sixteen or more characters at the same time some ease of use functionality like a 'Next' and 'Previous' button for sliding between them would make life much nicer instead of having to repeatedly back in and out of menus to deal with them.

-On the subject of characters, two words: Party Management. The ability to group them out and sort them manually instead of the game's auto sort process which is a constant hindrance to things like University training and gearing them out. Some fashion of control over the list at the very least would go a long ways.

-A way to speed the crafting process (read:salvaging, which is super speedy with greens and greys but takes aeons with yellows and purples) would be dandy. Perhaps a 'Salvage All' option with a confirmation box to make sure you don't accidentally torch something you wanted?

-On the subject of confirmation boxes one would certainly be welcome with castle upgrades, I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally torched a section because the game's mouse settings don't align with my system's setting.

Again, I realize we're still in Early Access but these are definitely things that need addressing.


That said I've gotten a lot of entertainment out of this one and consider it well worth the five or six bucks spent, and with 1.0 in the not too distant future I've hope that what is all ready entertaining will become even more so. Definitely recommended.

This is a friggan addictive little game. The dungeons get a little tiresome and advancing to the next teir of enemies can hold you up if you don't pay attention to what gear you give to your adventurers. But that challnge is also what makes it addictive, trying to hire more adventurers and getting more loot makes you want to play a few more hours and make some more money.

Don't let the name fool you! Altough a decent Turn-based RPG, the "Manager" part is not as prominent as you'd think! It is a fun, silly and cute RPG but the management part is just a sticker slapped on above the RPG-part.

Old school graphics and the feel of being a dungeon master for your adventurers, all while completing a quest to save the world from an invading lunatic, as usual. The devs are super responsive on the forums, and in recent patches to the game. this one is a definite must play! Micromanage your adventurers, equip them, send them on automatic adventures, all with humorous requests. Tons of items in loot to sort through and use on all of your styles of adventurers. Several races, classes with special bonuses or penalties for using certain gear. Very nicely done!