Golem Creation Kit didn't meet my expectations. Watching the trailer I figured the game was something along the lines of a strategic RPG where you'd be crafting golems to do battle with some cool animations or, hopefully some tactical action. I suppose that's my fault for not digging deeper into the description. Yet even after settling in on the aspect of it being a narrative driven experience leaving the golem creation portion a bit sidelined, I still found several problems that eliminated any chance I would have fun with this.

The first thing that should be addressed for anyone looking to purchase this is the acknowledgment that there are some pretty serious bugs. I encountered at least a few that flash the screen to a custom bug screen that I wasn't familiar with, but one that did have some more generic options like Reload, Ignore, etc. The interesting thing is that it seems like it's built in to the game to facilitate the user resolving the issue to some degree as it has explanations for what could potentially happen upon selecting each option. However, it seemed no matter what if I ignored a bug, things would stop working. Only reloading (which goes from the previous save) actually seemed to have any value. Yet, even with this, I came across a bug that prevented me from moving forward on an integral part of the game. I would hit it every time and eventually one of the options actually crashed the game to desktop and no matter what I did, I couldn't find the game in the task manager to close it completely allowing me to restart it. I understand that games, especially those newly released, can have issues... but the frequency and severity of what I experienced was more than I'm willing to deal with.

Aside from the bugs, there were also some issues in both the mechanics and how they're taught to the player. First of all, the tutorial is brief and one of the more original I've come across, but it doesn't show you that one of the most interactive parts of the game, gathering materials for your golem, has a requirement that you navigate around each of the screens by right clicking and having the camera move to and center on that area. I spent the first handful of golem crafting sessions picking clean the initial areas because I wasn't aware you could move the screen. Yet even eventually discovering that, the game devolves into one of my least favorite genres of all time - the point and click adventure. I've always hated clicking like crazy around a screen trying to find hidden stuff, and Golem Creation Kit will have you doing that very thing with the inclusion of a time limit. So you're not only tasked with finding the invisible, but you have to do so before a timer ticks down and you lose. Granted, losing essentially only makes you go back to the beginning of the day, but the most punishing part is having to sit through load screens and skip various dialogues each time you can't find the items you need or the golem doesn't come out right.

I think that I would have been more interested in the gameplay without the timer aspect. With the game focusing instead on how to best make use of finite resources of certain types to make the perfect golem for the situation. I found that most of the time, I'd just look at what sort of golem I'd have to create (avoiding what each round of villagers were immune to) and just haphazardly dumping things in the cauldron until it seemed like it might work. Some of the outcomes were pretty hilarious, but more often than not I'd just make the same thing I'd made a few times before without much focus and it would work.

The one aspect of Golem Creation Kit that did interest me was the story. There's enough mystery in it to make you want to keep progressing despite the bland gameplay. With only a few characters, each has to establish themselves pretty significantly and they do a decent job at that. If it wasn't for the addition of the game-breaking bugs, I might have been able to stick it out for a couple more hours to hopefully get everything resolved and end the story. I think that, down the line, I'll either attempt to continue the game after some bug fixes, or go on youtube and find a 'let's play' that I can skim through for the meat of the story.

Golem Creation Kit's premise had a lot of potential in my eyes and I really wanted it to be more than it was. Even though it got my attention with a quality narrative, everything else in the game felt like it couldn't stand up to a slight breeze. In my experience, there are games out there that have great stories and also keep you engaged with the gameplay. Go out and get those instead and let this one bake a little longer in the oven. Maybe when it's half price and bug free it would be more worth the time investment.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28346672-Endyo-Gaming/

The first thing you should know is that Golem Creation Kit is a light visual novel at heart, with the titular golem creation taking a back seat as a framing device and mini-game.

The second thing you should know is that it's a good visual novel. I'm speaking as someone who hates visual novels as a rule. Even the best examples of the genre are rife with clunky prose and atrocious pacing, and I simply don't have the patience for them. Golem Creation Kit, however, flows effortlessly, with smart prose and easy charm. It's a short, well-paced tale with some branches and genuine surprises, and shows that visual novels don't need to be densely-packed epics to be engaging.

The third thing that you should know is that while Golem Creation Kit has its share of glitches, the developer is extremely diligent about addressing them. During my playthrough I encountered a (game-stopping) bug, but I received a response within minutes of posting about it on the forums, and it was fixed within the hour.

Leaving glitches aside, Golem Creation Kit isn't without other issues. The mechanics are initially confusing, the interface can be unfriendly, and the golem-crafting is at best a diversion, and at worst an unwelcome distraction. The problem is that it has very little bearing on the plot - at least as far as I have seen, but I haven't seen all the branches - and seems to exist primarily to gate your progress. At several points I found myself thinking that I would gladly take the visual novel part without the accompanying gameplay. However, with perseverance, frustration gives way to understanding, and the challenge of building specific golems with runewords and ever-dwindling resources becomes an interesting affair in its own right.

As it stands, I recommend Golem Creation Kit on the strength of its charm and intelligent writing, albeit with caveats. With some quality of life upgrades my recommendation would be unequivocal, and thankfully, as at the time of writing, the developer seems dedicated to making the title the best it can be.

In the meantime, Golem Creation Kit is still well worth the price of admission. There are mysteries to solve, multiple endings and play modes to uncover, a creepy-ass mirror and a bird who is more charming than he has any right to be. What's not to enjoy?

So the game is a lot like Doodle God; you can see the influence gained from DG in Golem Creation Kit.

The story is whimsical, doesn't take itself too seriously; and warrants a few chuckles every now and then but nothing too outstanding as far as I've seen yet; though the writer of the game has a gorgeous grasp on creative writing; you can really picture the scenes read out to you; as they aren't drawn.

The art itself is very hit-and-miss, a lot of the sprites are gorgeous, but a few feel very out-of-place and a lot of the text and spells are just downright hard to read due to the font choice.

The gameplay itself goes something like this:
Start of day, invaded by 2 normal villagers, a lumberjack, a warrior, a fireman and a fisherman. You immediately realize that you're not going to be able to defeat the fireman with a fire golem, the fisherman with a water golem, the lumberjack with a lumber golem and a warrior with a stone golem; so what to do?

You brainstorm what you've seen against what you've already taken from the 3 scenes you have access to, with a bunch of hidden secrets layed out over them.
You start frantically grabbing random crap; throwing away scenery in hopes that you'll find something to spark your imagination and balance your elements to create some sort of hybrid monstrosity to defeat the villagers at your door.

You start dumping everything in the pot; stone, sand, animals, clouds; whatever you got your hands on.
A lot of the things you brought home aren't contributing enough, and you filled your cauldron with too much sand an wooden garbage.
You accept your fate as you wait for your golem to come to life and be destroyed by the hands of an angry mob.
A sillouette stomps down the staircase, the door explodes outward; and standing before the crowd of dilligent mobs...

A damned hourglass with legs...

"Wait...What in the hell?" you say to yourself as the hourglass marches towards the visceral army; and it proceeds to go all Time Wizard on their asses and they drop to the ground defeated.
You laugh your ass off at what in the hell just unfolded in front of you; and now you can go learn more about the mysterious woman in the mirror.

The gameplay itself is nothing fancy, resemblant of old flash games where you would drag and drop clothes onto ecchi women.
The rush against the clock really keeps you on your toes, and you make some real stupid mistakes because of it.
Losing a level has no punishment, you simply replay the level, with the now updated knowledge of weakness of the mob type that defeated you.

Overall the game is a fun little time sink. The curiosity of the story and Kirby 64-esque mix-matching element game makes you want to try new nonsence and see what pops up.

The dev is also extremely active with us, wanting to do everything he can to work out the kinks in his passion project.

And I mean cmon it's like 5 bucks, that's a coffee on your way to work; the dev isn't asking much.

I do have to mention a negative though, as of a few hours after release; the click and dragging of objects (All of the gameplay) does feel laggy and unresponsive; but not everyonehas this problem. It's not gamebreaking by any sense but it is rather annoying and demorilizing.

This game definately deserves to be given a chance; but it isn't for everyone. If you didn't like games like Doodle God or those flash box click order games, might want to give this one a miss.

This game is one of those good surprises you can sometimes find by playing Steam games that went under the radar. Although Golem Creation Kit can have some issues, the developers clearly put a lot of love and care in their game.

The story does not take itself too seriously, and is served with both a pleasant writing and nice art. The story also has replayability, as there are 6 different endings to get.

As for the core of the game, the concept of getting rid of annoying bloodthirsty villagers who want to put your head on a spike by sending golems out to attack them is quite funny. I spent the first in-game days just throwing random stuff in my cauldron, hoping every time to discover a new combination golem while wiping out the entire party of enemies (well, except for that time when what should have been a super cool fiery-soundy golem ended up being extinguished by some random firefighter in the crowd...).

Although you may start the game by just using random combinations, you will soon realize that some of the villagers have immunities to some of the golems you may throw at them. This can range from one or two kind of obvious immunities to up to 4 of them. Oh, and did I mention that you can play with time limit? No? Well, you can. And if this is still not enough challenge for you, why not try the endless mode (and its careful planning of resources all while racing against the clock) or the ironman mode (and its randomized immunities and perma-death)?

There is also more to this game than meets the eye. This seems to be a fairly recent trend on Steam, but GCK definitely joins the family of games that are here to bring you a slightly different experience. And I mean that in a Doki Doki Litterature Club fashion. It is also filled with secrets artifacts and scrolls that you can find while grabbing every cloud you see. Most of the time, these are buried in hidden caches in the environment.

If all of this sounds like the kind of stuff you could be interested in, then you may want to give Golem Creation Kit a try.



There are however a few issues you should be aware of before buying this game.

First of all, it can sometimes be a bit laggy. I cannot exactly say I'm playing this with a top-notch computer, but I sometimes feel like moving elements around is a bit slower than it should be, especially since the "normal" mode is time-limited. I guess the high number of movable assets on screen is not that simple to handle for not-so-young computers. From what I understand, the developers came with a work-around (that is also fine for people who prefer taking their time): you can simply remove the time-limit while starting a new game, and still get all the fun of destroying villagers with overpowered golems. This also has the added advantage of allowing you to take notes on what golem you made by mixing which ingredients... Gotta catch'em all!

Some layering issues can also happen, sometimes preventing you from seeing some of the assets. I had this particular issue with at least one of the secret artifacts that I had to find with its audio cues. I'm still missing one, so their might be another artifact affected. There is also a dragon that tends to hide behind the background (and yet still ends up boiling with other ingredients in my faithful cauldron). Most of the assets however are not affected, so the game is completely playable as is.




To sum up everything, GCK is a nice game with both a solid writing and lovely art serving its story. It has several small issues, but overall, it's clear that the developers put a lot of time, love, and care in their game. After playing it, I really believe it deserves to be a bit more well-known to players on Steam.

Golem Creation Kit is a game where you have to make "golems" to scare away villagers trying to bring down your place. The basics are that you need to craft, using multiple elements, different golems. You get these elements by scavenging a predetermined map for elements. Each villager that needs to be scared has multiple resistances (e.g. Knight resists castle), so you need to make sure that your golem's element is not resisted by any villagers. There is a short story going on in the side, but it was rather unmemorable.

The game is relatively fun at first, but very soon it becomes more of a grind to figure out the different resistances, and there is barely any variability in the levels. The game is actually really short to beat and the replay value is close to none, even though there are slight differences in the story.

Overall, not a particularly memorable game which may provide a couple hours of entertainment at most. I wish I could give a neutral review for this as the price is adequate for the gameplay, but there is no neutral option on steam so I will have to reluctantly give this a not recommend.

Rating: 6.5/10
Recommend Price: $4.99 is fine

Pro: Fun concept, Fun story, Funny dialogue
Con: Laggy, frustrating controls, way to many loading screens making it frustrating when you fail.

I want to like this game so much. I love concept of making a golem by grabing random things around you. Sadly i still suffer from laggy gameplay and frustrating time limit a long with when ever you fail a round you have to start the day over by going threw bed (load screen) waking up and skiping the dialogue (another load screen) seeing villagers attack (load screen) and then finally TRY to make the golem again, if you fail you have to do it all over again. If it wasn't for the very constricting timelimit or if you could skip all the loadscreens and go directly back to making the golem it would be so much less frustrating. You do get to increse the timelimit as you play threw the story but i still find it personally frustrating. Lag makes it hard to drag and drop items in to your invatory on top of items are already weird and hard to pick up due to some objects being oddly shaped or very small.

I want to love this game so much but i still can not recommend it. I look forward to coming back to this game in the future after the game has been updated.

A wonderful game with a high amount of charm. Some aspects can be clunky, though, like the right mouse to look around during gathering time. Otherwise, the game and devs have good potential, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Undertale, but for people who like Oingo Boingo.

It's a neat little game but ultimately it comes down to what your looking for, it is by no means a bad game, and for the $5 asking price it can probably give you a decent amount of enjoyment, but for me it comes down to, I don't care about the story, I don't care about whats going on, I just want to create golems, But creating golems is basically just a grab, drag, put simulator and it doesn't amount to much if im honest.