Lootfest was developed by GameFarm Studios. It was release July 4, 2011 and retails for 80 MSP.

Lootfest is a stripped down indie version of 3D Dot Heroes. This is in no way a bad thing. The look both emulates its hero and has a unique tone. The gameplay is fun. The story is as simple as can be: the land has been taken over by three bosses and you must defeat them to set the land free. Your trusty sword and bow are the only weapons needed. Everything about this game is designed to be immediately accessible the first time you sit down on the couch.

Here’s what we liked:

Unique look – While the 3D dot look certainly wasn’t invented by Lootfest it’s not something that we’ve really seen anyone do on the Xbox 360. While the visuals are a bit sparse and the enemies fairly limited the whole effect is still a winner. The camera zooms in and out a little to give you a good perspective and it works well.

Simple yet fun gameplay – Most of your time in Lootfest is spent defeating small enemies to get enough gold to buy upgraded weapons. The combat boils down to maneuvering your character and slashing enemies with your sword. You could also opt to shoot them with your bow. That’s all there is to it. It’s plain and simple, and we like that. There are no special controls to learn. Almost everyone will feel in complete command of the game within a minute or two. The game is not overly challenging but you do have to pay attention. Simply put: the game is fun to play for a short period of time.

Fast movement – It’s a small thing but if the main character had moved too slowly this game would be unplayable. As it is, he moves very quickly but never out of control. This keeps combat moving along briskly and allows you to traverse the map in a short period of time.

Bite size fun – The whole game can easily be completed in about 45 minutes. The game throws you right into the action and doesn’t beat around the bush. Sometimes it’s very refreshing to play a game that doesn’t require a 40 hour commitment.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Literally no loot – You might expect that a game titled Lootfest would have some aspect of looting in it. For some reason, that’s not the case here. As it is there are a total of three sword upgrades, three shield upgrades, and three bow upgrades. It’s bare bones. All of them must be bought aside from the bow upgrades. There is no looting of enemies except for gold which is used to buy the upgrades. It’s extremely disappointing since we love looting and expected that given the game’s title there’d be a lot of it.

No save feature – Normally in a game this short saving isn’t really required. If you die you just lose some gold. Still it would have been nice to revert to a save; some folks want that challenge of getting every bit of gold they can. And what about the fact that sometimes we only have five minutes to devote to the game? Though the game is short it would have been nice to be able to save and come back to it later.

Lootfest utterly fails to live up to its name yet still manages to be a fun game. Ultimately it does what a 80 MSP game is supposed to do: entertain you for an hour or two. Loot notwithstanding, it has classic Zelda style gameplay that is a lot of fun. There will definitely be people who enjoy this game so give it a try.

Score: Try it

*UPDATE*

As noted below Lootfest was recently patched to include a save feature.