Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game. 5D perspectives to display characters and the game world. Like older Paper Mario games and Super Mario RPG, the outcome of both player and enemy moves during combat depends on timed button presses. The playing field is composed of a grid, upon which both the player and enemies can move, with their position affecting what moves can be performed and how efficient they are.

As the game advances, the attack patterns and timing become more complex, providing greater difficulty. For accessibility, there are options to both partially and completely disable combat timing.

Players initially control Maritte Hildegaard, a teenager who travels to the magical school of Ikenfell to find her sister Safina, who has gone missing since summer break. Although she is initially non-magical, she soon mysteriously develops pyromancy while trying to enter Ikenfell, after which she learns bizarre and unprecedented magical events began occurring across the school grounds not long after the students left for the break, and thus the school is currently on lockdown. She encounters non-binary alchemist Petronella, a close friend of Safina, who has had an emotional breakdown due to the latter's disappearance, and tells Maritte of a secret passage of Safina's they use to get into the school.

Once inside, they discover Safina's dorm room blocked by a magic seal. After fighting lightning magician Gilda, who is attracted to Maritte, they join up with fellow student Rook. With Rook and Safina's rival Pertisia, they successfully enter it by disguising Maritte as her sister. Inside, they retrieve the Prism Heart, a creation of Safina that allows the user to see through deception, which she had used for research with older student Ima.

Before developing Ikenfell, Chevy Ray Johnston, the game's lead developer, had worked as a contract programmer for Bandai Namco, as well as on a variety of indie games. He had developed a custom engine, but failed to complete any of his game ideas. After reading Rainbow Rowell's young adult novel Carry On, he was inspired to make a video game about a magic school using his tools. Originally, the game's premise was based around a witch completing a final quest before dying of illness. It was also an action RPG, but Johnston decided the space required for combat limited level design.

Johnston's custom C# engine, based on top of SDL2 and OpenGL, allowed him to port it to a wide variety of platforms. The engine also included Lua scripting for control puzzles, events, and scenes; and a GUI frontend, including a custom map and scene editor, which were used to accelerate the development process.

According to gaming review aggregator Metacritic, Ikenfell's reception was mixed. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 57% of critics. Both GameSpot and Siliconera described it as having potential, but being let down by flaws in the story and combat. Other sites were more positive, like Hardcore Gamer, which said it was "a trip well worth taking", and GameRant, which described it as having the potential to be a "cultural touchstone".

Although reviewers generally liked the game's combat system, they felt it could be frustrating at times. Hardcore Gamer reviewer Kyle LeClair described it as "challenging and fun", and Jason Rochlin of GameRant commended the game's tactical variety and complexity. PJ O'Reilly of Nintendo Life pointed out the "impressive range of enemy types" among other elements as contributing to the game's strategical depth. However, LeClair, Slant magazine, and GameSpot reviewer Hope Corrigan all criticised the excessive variability of the timing-based attack system, although multiple reviewers pointed out that the game provides an optional setting that allows players to enable easier combat. Slant also complained about the combat design, stating that it involved "selecting an attack, and then cancelling that move to place them in a different space once you see that they're not properly positioned".