WazHack Review

If you’re looking for a game that’ll wow you with lots of bells and whistles, look elsewhere. However, if you’re looking for the kind of unpredictable fun only provided by a Roguelike RPG, Wazhack’s just the game for you.

Like any Roguelike game, Wazhack allows players to choose a character class, name your character (more on that later), and plumb the depths of a dungeon filled with monsters hungry for your blood. Your overall goal is to plunge down to the bottom of the dungeon, retrieve the Amulet of Zaw, and make your way back up and out alive. There are four character classes -- Knight, Wizard, Sorcerer and Huntsman with male and female versions of each one. You can purchase individual classes for a mere $0.99 each.

Nearly everything in Wazhack is randomized -- the creature’s you’ll face, the dungeon layout, what kind of equipment you’ll find (and what it all does). Wazhack will keep you on your toes, so go in expecting to die a lot. There’s a long tradition of Roguelike RPGs for people’s PCs, and Wazhack takes that same brutal fun and imports it to the iOS. Potions all have vague names like “cloudy potion,” and you won’t know what they do unless you drink/identify them first. While a Blue Potion might grant you strength one game, it could teleport you to a random part of the dungeon in the next, or melt your innards in the one after that. Equipment has the same level of unpredictability -- weapons might be cursed or enchanted, but you won’t know until it’s too late to take them off. This can lead to some hilarious misfortunes -- like when you’re already cursed and use a scroll that you think is a Scroll of Uncursing, but it turns out to be a Cursed Scroll of Uncursing, which promptly winks itself out of existence. There are over 300 different items and 130 monsters to find and fight so each game is truly a unique experience each time.

Be forewarned, however, that the game has plenty of bugs and glitches, ranging from merely annoying to game-halting. For example, the in-game keyboard is unresponsive when you try to get rid of it, leading to players having to exit the game after typing out the name of a character or pet. The controls are slippery and often imprecise, and the visuals are some of the worst collections of polygons you’ll find this side of Windows 95. A player has to buy the full dungeon experience before being able to play the multiplayer function which isn't a big deal since buying a character class for $0.99 gives you the full dungeon. The problem is that the multiplayer function doesn't work. The game developer, Warwick Allison, is well aware of these problems and even points them out on the iTunes page saying they will all be fixed eventually.

Still, Wazhack is clearly a project of passion from its indie developers, so glitches and low-quality visuals are a bit more forgivable. It still provides very basic but fun game play. If you’re a fan of Roguelikes or even if you’ve never tried one, and would like to have some Roguelike gaming on the go, you may want to consider Wazhack. The content you get for free is more than enough to figure out if you want to invest more money or not.

App Store Link: WazHack for iPhone & iPad | By Warwick Allison | Price: Free | Version: 1.1.4 | 35.1 MB | Rating 12+