I really wish I could recommend this.

Pro's:
- Good music
- Good sound
- Great atmosphere
- Many different items, weapons etc.

Con's:
- The turns...take...so...long! If it wasn't for this, I'm sure I would get past the other cons, but it slows the game down to a crawl. It just really prevents me from having fun.
- The controls don't always work perfectly. Sometimes the mouse doesn't register as being on a certain tile until I move it to another tile
- The glyphs aren't actually clear at all about what they do. There's a point in trying out to see what they do, but this game is really obtuse. Want to know whether an enemy will move twice, once or not at all after your turn? Bad luck. I think the developer went to far in trying to stylize the game, that he forgot how to make it readable (and I'm a guy that likes Dwarf Fortress).


Too bad really, had high hopes for this one. Nothing that can't be fixed though, but there have been many complaints about the speed and nothing has happened, so I'm not too hopeful.

Choosy Mummy's Choose

Full disclosure: review copy provided by developer/publisher!

Roguelites, roguelikes, roguerogues, litelikes, and all manner of permadeath, RNG-y types are becoming more and more ubiquitous thanks to the indie game bubble we're currently experiencing (right before the deafening burst I anticipate before I type this up). But with a new roguelite coming out seemingly every month or so, some players are a little burnt out on the genre – myself included. So here's a new one, fresh off the presses: Hieroglyphika.

And, thanks to some striking art and a novel approach to game design, it distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack.

You play as a Howard Carter lookin' guy who has discovered a tomb. Things quickly deviate from the historical aspect as you battle armor-clad baboons, jackals – the whole Fightin' Egyptian lineup. You can move in any direction generally, and your initial weapon can strike diagonally (with a cool down) or in the square spaces directly around you. The enemies have varied attacks and movements so you'll have to be tactical: the jackals, for example, are more nimble than the baboons, and bird-witch dealies can knock you back with a gust attack – often into pottery filled with fire and poison like the ancient Egyptians were fond of keeping. Besides the many monsters lurking, the tomb is filled with enough traps to make Jigsaw blush. There's spike traps and poison darts and fire panels and all that good, murder-y stuff to remind you that you're desecrating a grave.

Fortunately, enemies drop health pretty often in the form of white scarab beetles; you have to be quick grabbing them, however, as one of their favorite pastimes is fleeing from you. There are also sarcophagus'... sarcophagi(?) in each level, filled with armor, weapons, and magic nonsense (and occasional corpses which makes sense, given their original purpose) to help even the odds in your favor a smidge. Before long your little character will cast off his safari-looking outfit and rock some priestly robes.

I'm pretty deep into this review and I haven't even mentioned the most refreshing aspect of Hieroglyphika: the hieroglyphics. In the menu, in the game, there is zero written word. Everything is told via pictographs, which adds a new layer of discovery. Using context clues (or taking my approach and just hoping for the best), you'll have to suss out what a new weapon does, or how armor restricts your movement, or what a magic ability will do. It's rewarding in much the same way as finding a new item in Isaac: reading the vague description, and hoping it doesn't suck a bag of rocks.

Which this doesn't! Hieroglyphika doesn't suck a bag of rocks (something tells me I won't be quoted on that). It's fun, simple, elegant, challenging, music is fittingly Egyptian-y – everything you're likely looking for in a roguelite experience. Because of the nature of RNG I find that sometimes you'll encounter a really nasty first floor, making it that much less likely you'll survive to the next round, which can be frustrating... but that's just the nature of this genre, isn't it?

So what are you waiting for? You're not gonna get cursed waiting outside the tomb – descend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epcGGniDn7w

This game suffers from a horribly slow enemy turn. You move one tile, then the enemy takes 3-5 seconds per enemy to move. With multiple enemies, it can take what seems like 20-30 seconds of waiting for moving one tile. It's a waste of your time. I'm a traditional roguelike player and have never seen such a poorly implemented AI animation/movement sequence.

The game looks beautiful, has some interesting language mechanics. It's a shame the slow AI turns make it not worth the wait.

It's good!

It is quite good actually. Unlike the other popular rougelikes, you cannot sit idle and farm like crazy in this game. You have an urgency to get to the end of the level before long or bad things happen to you, which I enjoy. I have not played too much at this point but from what I have seen, the weapon/armor sets are exactly the same in every playthrough. This is not a bad thing however, as the game presents you with a lot of items with drastically different effects. And the ability to change items/weapons/armors at will once you get them, creates an amazing utility that doesn't exist anywhere else.

While I believe the game can be further improved with the addition of randomness to the enemy spawn and other small fine tunings, the game at this point is fully fleshed out and complete.

As for the price, I think 9 dollars is more than fair for this game. It offers numerous replayability options and probably over 50 hours of gameplay before being any kind of bored. Which better than anything I can say for the most A+ titles.

Buy it, no brainer.

Hieroglyphika is a fun, new Egyptian themed, Turn Based, Roguelike with old school sensibilities. With no item descriptions to guide you and no text in the UI, your first couple of runs will just be figuring out what you can and can't do. Your next few runs will be trying to figure out the various pieces of clothing and equipment that you'll find strewn around the pyramid and why those nasty big critters start chasing you for taking to long. Then finally you'll be making the most of what you have learnt to try and push deeper into the underground to inevitably die at the hands of a newly encountered enemy type.
It's this learning process that will either keep you playing for the first 2 hours or put you off of the game. I personally loved it and am now slowly chasing the achievements for each new floor I manage to accomplish.

This is a quite clever and enjoyable game that I see as a slow-paced puzzle rogue-like (turn-based, procedural levels, random loot, permadeath).
The premise: you walk from left to right, killing things, avoiding traps and looting other things until you go down the stairs at the far right and the difficulty ramps up.
Everything happens in turns, order is determined by a speed stat that mainly depends on your equipped gear, and traps give a tell before they go off.

The puzzle aspects start to come in to play when you find loot and try to figure out 'what does it do actually?'
All aspects of your gear are visualized as pictograms and while you get all information about its effects, you have to figure out what these pictograms mean in the first place (which isn't that hard if you experiment a bit when you find something new to you).

Examples: a new dress may restrict your movement to the 4 cardinal directions instead of the usual 8, but boost your speed and defence and further increase your speed when you stand in sand tiles instead of reducing it. Headgear may reduce or nullify a certain damage type / effect while making you more vulnerable to another type. With the new weapon you may be unable to attack now and then due to cooldowns, but it extends your reach and hit chance while dealing a damage type this particular enemy is weak against... and so on.

While often things feel at first like flat upgrades to your ability to deal damage or get faster, you will come into situations where you'll have to skip some turns to swap items (each equipment change takes one turn, and spells and such start with cooldowns when freshly equipped) - and that along to changing your own movement or attack patterns give it a surprising amount of depth.
Enemies come with abilities as well and may push you around (beware of holes in the floor after the first few levels), freeze or poison you and generally keep you on your toes since new enemies are introduced every level so far (made it past lvl 5 of 9).

Just to extend on what kinds of things you have to keep in your mind:
- your general stats: life, speed, defence, attack strength and hitchance
- attack pattern of your normal and special attacks, damage type, additional effects when attacking, attack cooldowns
- spell effects, patterns, cooldowns
- your and your enemies resistances and vulnerabilities
- traps, their types and patterns, and with your current speed, will you make it past them in time - or can you even use them against your foes
- your own movement pattern (may need to change your suit to get out of a dead end)
- and also how you deal with +/- health ... uhm... flying things(?); your shield may reverse their effects for example

As for the graphics: Just look at the screenshots and form your own opinion. Npc/trap turns take a few seconds so it's a bit slow going but the important part is that you can always tell what is going on - it could lose its readability if sped up further.
Equipped gear is always represented on your character sprite which is nice, but there are no animations bar some 'swoosh' lines when attacks are dealt.

Also, a codex of some sort would be nice where you could unlock a view (with the same pictograms) of what you are up against, so far it's all about observing and memorizing and quite some guesswork - which isn't bad per se, but e.g. after I've killed the same bugger 20 times it would be nice to take a closer look into his actual stats.

Can't comment on technical stuff, I've experienced no problems like crashes at all. *edit: about half an hour minutes after writing this it crashed for the first time. Well... *edit2: and an update that specifically targets that crash came within one hour. On a sunday.
It's good.

Gorgeous Minimalism. Impatient souls beware Slow turn ticks.

Hierogliphika is a really challenging and well polished roguelike. I really love it. My only real big criticism was the pacing which had been fixed by the time my review was cut; my only other gripe would be the enemies can amp up in difficulty maybe just a notch to fast between floors. I really like that the game makes you learn via symbols and practice! It's the opposite of hand holding. All the action across each level every turn is mesmerizing.

I was provided a copy of this game for review purposes; my opinions are my own.

Definitely worth the money if you like strategic puzzle-games.
The decision to have no text on the screen is both infuriating and interesting at the same time.
The first room is hell when you don't know what the various traps do, but once you start understanding the internal logic, the game makes complete sense.
It's still hard as all hell though.

Key from Developer obtained for the purposes of review

First Impressions Video: https://youtu.be/cZz-vxA7KIo

Target Audience: Detailed-Oriented Tactical Players, who are slow and methodical, and don't need things spelled out for them.

Summary:
Players who like paying attention to every single detail and having to figure out things on the fly in a tactical fashion will like this trip into an Ancient Egyptian tomb. The game is straight up when telling you that it teaches you nothing: and it's part of the game's fun. Attempting to figure out via the hieroglyphics exactly what a weapon does and how it can benefit you is the game's main draw, and using that information well is what's going to keep you alive. There's some good variety here, as items in particular stand out as they aren't just stat boosts, but as you learn all the game has to show, the simple combat will get less and less exciting: mostly due to the fact that there's always an optimal solution. The game does have some weak points: there's a lack of resolution options, and the Combat UI can ask for WAY too much precision at times. And the game can be slow going as well. But for those looking to test there head and observation skills: Hieroglyphika does the job at the 10 dollar price tag, even if you curse Anubis's name as you miss the fire trap about to kick your ♥♥♥.

Lists:
My Positives:

• The game shines when you are trying to figure out what all the images and symbols mean, and attempting to piece together what each trap and weapon does.
  
• Combat is simple but effective: relying on basic mechanics being used in different ways, such as knocking back an enemy in to a wall, or running an enemy into a trap. Tactical players will find themselves challenged.
  
• Good use of color choices to signify abilities, and small touches of the weapons unique style helps to the Egyptian theme.
  
• Difficulty seems on par for what's going on here. Difficult, but it's always feeling like your fault in terms of skill base. The game punishes you for not paying attention, and while yes, you won't know what's going on at first, you'll soon realize every choice you made got you to your death.
  
• Like the fact that the items actually made more then a stat difference: actually affecting your range and movement speed, and special effects. Every item and spell actually felt rather unique to use.
  
• Game hits the tombs of Egypt aesthetic well, even if one may not consider it “realistic”.

My Negatives:

• Over time, replayability may be limited due to a lack of enemy variety and the main feature being mute at that point (aka the learning mechanic).
  
• Needs resolution options. Fullscreen/windowed (with no resolution choice) isn't enough in my opinion. Game also doesn't like ALT + TAB while in full screen mode.
  
• Combat UI requires too much precision when you have a lot of interactables in a small area. Keyboard shortcuts would have helped here.
  
• With the presentation in question, don't expect story. While show don't tell is encouraged, there's definitely some lacking elements here.
  
• Needs additional music tracks. The repetitive nature of the music gets old: quickly. Sound quality isn't the greatest either.