Dwarf Complete by Eyezmaze is a puzzle-adventure game where you play as an adorable pink-haired dwarf collecting loot. The game is nominally a tie-in to the MMORPG Lineage II, but you don’t need to have played that to enjoy it.
The gameplay is reminiscent of the puzzles in Zelda (or perhaps Chip’s Challenge), but there are no enemies to fight. Instead, the armor and weapons you acquire act as keys which automatically open new passages upon collection. There are forty pieces of loot to collect in order to complete the game. You’ll also need to collect materials and make tools in order to complete some puzzles, as well as find ten crescent moons to achieve the true ending.
There is a good variety of puzzles throughout the game and most of them are well constructed. However, a couple of the puzzles could be more intuitive and one blatantly violates the world of the game. There is some degree of backtracking, but once you find the map all the items you’ve missed are displayed, so there’s no need to wander around aimlessly.
The same short song loops for the whole game and gets annoying fast, so this is another one to play muted. (When you need to climb the house shaped like a big head, you might want to briefly turn the sound back on.)
The controls on the Flash version are simple: arrow keys to move and mouse to use tools and interact with certain objects. It would be nice if there were hotkeys assigned to the tools as well, but that’s a minor complaint. I haven’t played the iOS version, but I can’t imagine there’s much difference.
The game can be completed in half an hour if you know what you’re doing, but if you get stuck on some puzzles it might take you considerably longer. I can’t say I was never frustrated with Dwarf Complete, but it’s well done for what it is and I enjoyed playing it. Both the Flash and iOS versions are free, so there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
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