Making badges on steam can be worth it sometimes. In this case, I got a 50% coupon for Tauronos. It’s appealing to give such a game a try when it costs me €2,50 and it seems to have its priorities straight. I can say with confidence that the game has been worth it after spending 6.7 hours on it.

The game is mostly a mix of exploration, survival, health/stamina management and being chased by a monster in some stages. You have a light around you that lets you see your direct surroundings but the rest of the stage is dark. You have to be careful of traps or you need to avoid getting lost in a maze. Clearing rubbles takes time and running costs stamina. You can become stronger when you find upgrades for your stats (armour, stamina, interaction time, strength of light and movement speed). There are 6 chapters with each one having between 5 and 8 stages. The game also has secrets where you can find extra lives, health regen, unlocks for a map editor etc. There are different difficulty modes with easy allowing you to continue after losing your lives. But you will have to start from the beginning of a chapter. Game auto saves when you clear a stage.

The most important aspect the game got right is the gameplay. It kept my attention because the levels are well designed, the stats and the upgrades work well with noticeable improvements every time, the game is challenging in the right way and it’s engaging exploring or managing your health/stamina. I played on easy and it feels like it’s just right in terms of challenge. Having to retry an entire chapter is a good motivator to do your best without the game being too punishing. The game seems like it could get frustrating if played on higher difficulties (I didn’t test this) and I normally hate being chased in games. This shouldn’t be a game for me on paper but it really works on easy at least. The chase sequences feel like puzzles and offer a bit of variety to the whole package. What’s surprising is a game like this having quite a bit of voice acting for the main character. I like it, it gives it a bit of personality. The achievements are also fun and will require playing the game twice. It’s great that you can get all the achievements on easy. There are luckily no difficulty related achievements.

With all that said, the game has a few minor flaws. I’ve experienced one bug where the playable character got stuck on a wall with one specific stage. I had to exit the stage and retry a few times until it worked. This can be more of a problem on higher difficulties as you lose a life every time you exit the game if you don’t select ‘continue later’ after finishing a stage. It’s not possible to select stages or retry the ones you’ve completed. If you missed secrets, though luck. You can retry with new game. The game also only shows you what you missed after finishing a stage, it doesn’t show you in advance. This coupled with not being allowed to select or retry stages forced me to write down the stages with the secrets I’ve missed for my second run. It sounds pretty bad but the game is not long and there are some alternative choices where you’re going to replay the game anyways. And lastly, the game lacks variety in terms of graphical assets and color palette. The stages look a bit similar even though they’re different in terms of gameplay design.

I’m impressed with Tauronos, I had a great time despite some of the flaws mentioned. The developer knows how to create a fun game and they made sure everything around it is of a decent enough quality. It’s one of those good examples where a budget is effectively spent while you can see it’s small. This game is worth a try if you like smaller experimental indie games and are on the patient side.