Tamarrion

If you’ve ever played an MMORPG such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest or RIFT, then you know just how incredible raids and instances can be, especially the difficult ones that feature huge bosses and require excellent teamwork. While single player RPGs usually include tough monsters as well, they don’t really come close to what online experiences are like, with a few exceptions like Diablo and Dark Souls.

Tamarrion is a very interesting project that’s basically a boss-only action RPG, featuring nothing but pure battles with the meanest and ugliest monsters. Instead of having to purge half of the orc population in order to reach their leader, in Tamarrion you are thrown straight in front of him, although only metaphorically speaking, because there are no orcs in the game as of right now.

In fact, there is only one boss available, but this is but a prototype anyway. You also have only one character to choose from, with four spells and a couple of special abilities that can be activated using your other spells. Not only that, but you also get to equip your character with a couple of items, such as amulets, rings and special tokens that grant stat bonuses and increased damage.

The first thing you’ll notice about the game’s combat system is that it keeps you busy. There are no dead times, otherwise dead is what you become after a few hits. You can dash a few meters to avoid hits, and you must keep doing it continuously, given the huge attack range of the enemy. He also has a few special attacks that come into play after you hurt him for a while, and they are even harder to block or dodge.

However, there are problems to deal with as well. Since this is a very early prototype, one can certainly expect an unrefined product. For starters, the camera movement is a bit stiff, which is not what you want when you have to move at all times and keep an eye on the enemy. Secondly, there are collision and hitbox issues that can cause glitches, since it can happen that the enemy gets stuck in some kind of loop that renders him unable to attack.

All things being equal, Tamarrion is not bad at all, but it’s far from complete yet. The basic idea is more than exciting, and more content is all that is needed to make this a huge success. Obviously, the mechanics need to be refined a bit as well, although they are off to a good start.