I'll start with the good. This game has some nice pixel art graphics. There are a variety of enemies, and because every area (except for the town) is generated randomly with code, it's never quite the same game twice. The game appears to be largely bug-free, and while it lacks music, it comes with a serviceable set of sound effects. It's rather nice to listen to your own music while playing, although one could certainly fault the creator for not putting something into the game for those who want an in-game soundtrack.
Unfortunately, Kingdom of Machines suffers from some substantial problems. First, there is no save game or load game feature. This is obviously a huge problem for an RPG of any kind. The controls are also a bit wonky--your character has a bit too much inertia, which can make him feel slippery and difficult to control. Your character's sword is also positively tiny (although it seems to hit things well outside of its apparent range).
Although there are a variety of enemies, it isn't a very large variety. Worse, none of them exhibits any sort of AI behaviors other than "walk back and forth, over and over, without regard to what is happening on the screen." The bosses are all actually the same (not terribly impressive) boss over and over, but each time the boss shoots more plasma shots at you than the one before did. This just screams "lazy creator."
One of the game's most attractive features, the randomly generated levels, also leaves a lot to be desired. There are no traps, there are no puzzles, and the dungeons all feel very "same-y." It's just a fairly small, not very difficult maze populated with the same enemies and the same boss every time. Worse, the game sometimes generates dead ends that prevent any further progression and force you to start the entire thing over from the very beginning.
I feel bad saying this, because I feel like the game has a lot of potential, but the creator just didn't see this game through to the state it should have been in when it was released. I can recommend this to people absolutely desperate for a free overhead action-RPG in the stripe of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but I'm afraid most others will tire of it within 15 minutes.
