The short version
Norman the Necromancer's actual combat loop — drag away from Norman to aim, release to lob a spell along an arcing trajectory — was confirmed working cleanly on a simulated phone, and it feels good: real pointer events, a satisfying trajectory, and villagers that fall and can be raised as loyal skeletons. The problem is what happens after that loop is used well enough to clear a wave. The between-level ritual screen, where the player must pick an upgrade or select Continue to keep playing, is wired entirely to arrow-key navigation and Enter to confirm — confirmed directly in the source, where the pointer handler that drives spellcasting has no branch for this screen at all, and desktop testing confirmed the keyboard path works exactly as written. There is no tap, no on-screen button, and no timeout fallback. A touch-only player can enjoy the opening minute of combat and then simply cannot go further.
Biggest strengths
- The core aim-and-cast interaction is built on real pointer events and was confirmed working correctly via touch: dragging away from Norman on a simulated phone and releasing produced a correctly-arced spell that traveled toward the drag direction and struck a villager
- A distinctive hook for the genre: killed villagers can be raised as allied skeletons via the Resurrect mechanic, turning the enemies you defeat into your own growing undead army — a genuinely different idea from a standard shooting gallery
- Clean, moody pixel art with a twinkling starfield background, particle trails on every spell, and satisfying hit-and-death animations, all inside a 13-kilobyte competition build
Biggest weaknesses
- The ritual/upgrade screen that appears after clearing a level's enemies — where the player must choose an upgrade or select Continue to proceed — responds only to arrow keys and Enter. Reading the source confirms the touch/pointer handler that drives spellcasting has no code path for this screen at all, and there is no visible button, tap target, or timeout to advance past it any other way. A touch-only player is confirmed stuck here, unable to progress past the very first level
- The Resurrect ability — reviving a fallen villager into an allied skeleton — is bound only to the spacebar and displayed on-screen as "(Space)" with no equivalent touch affordance, confirmed by tapping directly on the prompt and observing no response, while pressing Space on desktop correctly triggered it and started a cooldown timer
- The game canvas renders at a native 400x200 pixel resolution capped at 3x scale, which on a tall phone screen leaves the large majority of the display as unused black space above and below a comparatively small strip of actual gameplay
Who it's for: Desktop players with a keyboard; not currently recommended for phone-only visitors
Our recommendation: A genuinely well-made js13k standout that has not been adapted for touch-only play
3.8 / 10
Norman the Necromancer placed 2nd overall in js13k 2022, and it's easy to see why from the combat alone: villagers approach from both sides of a graveyard, and the player aims by dragging away from Norman and releasing to lob a glowing projectile along an arc, with fallen enemies available to raise as skeleton allies who then fight alongside their killer. That premise — a necromancer literally building his army out of the mob hunting him — is a genuinely distinctive idea for the genre, and the moment-to-moment feel of lobbing spells backs it up: real pointer events drive the aiming and casting, confirmed directly by dragging and releasing on a simulated phone and watching a correctly-arced projectile travel to a villager and strike it.
Combat works on touch. Progression doesn't.
That's the good news, and it matters, because it's the part of the game a touchscreen review has to check most carefully — and it holds up. The bad news sits one screen later. Clearing a level's enemies opens a ritual screen offering a small set of upgrades plus a Continue option, and every one of those choices is made with the arrow keys and confirmed with Enter. Reading the shipped source confirms this isn't a partial gap: the onpointerup handler that drives spellcasting has no conditional branch for this game state at all, meaning a tap or click during the ritual screen does nothing but attempt to fire a phantom spell. There's no on-screen button, no tap target on the menu items, and no fallback timer that eventually advances on its own. Desktop testing confirmed the keyboard side works exactly as written — pressing Enter to advance and, separately, pressing Space to trigger the "Resurrect (Space)" prompt that's displayed on-screen throughout play, which correctly raised a fallen skeleton and started a cooldown counter. Tapping that same on-screen prompt directly, by contrast, produced no response at all. Between those two gaps, a touch-only player can enjoy exactly one thing — the opening combat of level one — before hitting a wall with no way through.
A canvas built for a wider screen
Separately, and more minor, the game renders at a fixed native resolution capped at 3x scale regardless of viewport size. On a tall phone screen that leaves a thin strip of actual gameplay sitting in a sea of unused black space, which doesn't block anything but makes the game feel smaller than it should on the device this shelf is built around.
Verdict
Judged purely as a game, Norman the Necromancer earns its js13k placement — inventive premise, real polish, and a combat loop that was confirmed to work properly on touch. Judged as a phone game, which is what this shelf actually requires, it fails at a specific, confirmed, fixable point: the moment a player needs to pick an upgrade or press Continue, touch stops being an option entirely.
Pros and cons
Pros
- The core aim-and-cast interaction is built on real pointer events and was confirmed working correctly via touch: dragging away from Norman on a simulated phone and releasing produced a correctly-arced spell that traveled toward the drag direction and struck a villager
- A distinctive hook for the genre: killed villagers can be raised as allied skeletons via the Resurrect mechanic, turning the enemies you defeat into your own growing undead army — a genuinely different idea from a standard shooting gallery
- Clean, moody pixel art with a twinkling starfield background, particle trails on every spell, and satisfying hit-and-death animations, all inside a 13-kilobyte competition build
- A real js13k pedigree: placed 2nd Overall in the 2022 competition, and independently sitting at 200 GitHub stars and 40 forks, indicating real, lasting attention from other developers
- Unlicense (public domain), genuinely free, and no analytics anywhere in the shipped build
Cons
- The ritual/upgrade screen that appears after clearing a level's enemies — where the player must choose an upgrade or select Continue to proceed — responds only to arrow keys and Enter. Reading the source confirms the touch/pointer handler that drives spellcasting has no code path for this screen at all, and there is no visible button, tap target, or timeout to advance past it any other way. A touch-only player is confirmed stuck here, unable to progress past the very first level
- The Resurrect ability — reviving a fallen villager into an allied skeleton — is bound only to the spacebar and displayed on-screen as "(Space)" with no equivalent touch affordance, confirmed by tapping directly on the prompt and observing no response, while pressing Space on desktop correctly triggered it and started a cooldown timer
- The game canvas renders at a native 400x200 pixel resolution capped at 3x scale, which on a tall phone screen leaves the large majority of the display as unused black space above and below a comparatively small strip of actual gameplay