roguelikes Index played in the last month and a half
The deathgames sale on Steam has coincided with me re/playing a decent pile of roguelike / hybrids over the past month and a half. While Iām not much in the mood for explicit reviews and recommendations over reflections, Iāve had a long time and sampling space to partake of and meditate over the procgen permadeathās dynamics and possibility spaces, as defines my first and my latest gamedev endeavours. As such, thereās a given musingās approach borne out of the each of them here, from whatever mountaintop hermitās perspective I use.
(Games covered: Wizard of Legend, One Step From Eden, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cogmind, Orbital Bullet, Night of the Full Moon, Devil Slayer Raksasi, Caves of Qud. Some mild screenshot spoilersā¦)
Wizard of Legend (2018) has its own orthogonal design swimming against the current. Many action roguelikes centralize on a few shifting weapon movesets or a few core verbs paired with a few strategic options. Said wizards here lean on over two hundred options of spell actions to fill six buttons with cooldowns, and brandish explicit armor outlining for ranged target selection and closed-quarters comboing down- quite a ways cleaner than many unmentioned and untuned leaning on short pokes and i-frame abuse. (Really, thereās a lot more in vulnerable dashes than readily plumbed, c.f. Hollow Knight.) Given individual runs thus inherit a bit more distinction (if not flux) compared to many unfocused on breadth of direct player actions, and slide in nicely with a decent mixable and scaling enemy and boss sets well even with a visibly limited asset budget. Such mix-ups are more lacking on starting builds or the standard passive perk accumulation, beyond curses or the disappointing stretching out of metaprogression currency, but for some given number of wins thereās a strong variant on the format to be had.
Iāve come around on One Step From Eden (2020). It is one of a slim few games brandishing a certain micro-grid card-churn action grown from Mega Man Battle Networkās moss-coated skeleton, and pushes such with a certain ravenous yet curious nature. Many action roguelikes thrive in a rapid twitchy manner, reliant on dodges and low total permitted injuries. While Edenās pace is much faster than its origins and most games in the market, the discrete grids allow for shaped forewarnings that a lot of pattern recognition kick in and reshape instinct. It pairs curiously with one of the few explicit assist modes Iāve seen for a roguelike and the only one of them Iāve seen outright recommended for others, and a deckbuilding style where frequent choices start to boil down to āis this worth extra vulnerability of defense or stopping to aimā plus hybridizing up some duo of signposted supported keywords. (Unfortunately, a bunch of the most interesting build-arounds and synergies pop up a little ways into metaprogression, or half way up the ascension system, or only nine months after the initial release- the last of which made me take a long while between initial acquisitionās play and current Hell Pass 14 completion.) It took a long while for me to get back into it, and while difficulty is a nightmarish discourse itās unavoidable that this game is set to backbreaking levels. Still, thereās little like it around, and such fusions set in such ruthlessness feel like a breath of fresh air after a hundred-year storm.
The rhythm roguelike Crypt of the Necrodancer (2015) barely needs any introduction, with its unique notion of actions mapped to beats then forged around strictly-patterned encounters presenting pressing questions how to handle bundles of half a dozen different discrete behaviours at once. Thereās a certain clarity of focus borne out of said behaviours being predictable but timed in a game with short and fast runs- thereās more enemy varieties in the pre-dlc final zone than many games unmentioned here (and some mentioned here still) manage throughout their whole lengths. Plus, at a time where much of procgen level design has dissolved into canned room gauntlets without variety of terrain or spatial bleedthrough the digging system set in simple caves catacombs make for more memorable layouts than even the old titansā regularly manage. I do have duly note, however, that after pushing available content to my furthest capacities, the characters I play are restricted down to those who die the least easily (Melodyās easy armor access, Nocturnaās parrying access)- while thereās many meaningful options for quite a few equipment slots, the damage numbers also just let you die in one or two specific hits for most of a 10 to 20 minute run. Probably better than face-tanking being the norm, but painful nonetheless.
Cogmind (2017+)isā¦ noticeably, the only game I havenāt beaten on this list, and one of two classical format games on this list. Without community interacting or lurking itās quite hard to learn the depths of either without a hybridās other genre execution to help assess matters, in terms of warding off death or finding what actually distinguishes and qualifies the given game. Here, the simulationist options and modularity of provided strategies are dense in the extreme, to both its merit (over a dozen relevant things to risk at each terminal! shed your weighty armor and limbs for new ones as they rot or you flee!) and its detriment (death and generative life are both great teachers neglected in the hybrid sphere, but thereās a lot of wiki reading to even learn of most unspoken options). The alert level and part fragility both contribute well to not fighting everything compared to most of these games, which also helps provide a sense of re-pacing, but when given fights can slaughter those bleeding out itās exhausting Some day Iāll succeed in rhizome maneuvers, and learn to best walk through walls as a helicopter with a bazooka. (Also, the graphics are kind of always this small, as an unavoidable product of the gameās own terminal use. The monochromatics approach mostly hurts on sufficient part piles and which decor machines explode, though some definitely just canāt read the game at all- though, accessibility-wise, plenty canāt read the faster games on this very list, anyway. No need is an island.)
Night of the Full Moon (2019) feels like something that fell out from a parallel timeline. The Dream Quest style of deckbuilder roguelike was highly muted in Slay the Spireās wake, though a few still march forward on it- centered on the core notion of enemies having their own deck and unseen hands pushing on severe build-countering gimmicks rather than direct action intent patterns. In abstract, this would allow more bluffing, more distinction, and more memorability for being blown out one way or another- in practice, without a stack, a board state, or explicit incoming threat to react to (and no, pre-emptive hand attack doesnāt count), the opposing opacity feels 80% like that inaccurate reputation of card games boiling down to opposing instant games of solitaire grazing against one another. (Thanks, Master Duel.) Itās sad, as thereās a fair bit of undeserved dismissal in most of this particular genre intersectionās other outputs, and thereās a fair bit of build and map decision-making plus complicated sequencing available in much of what Full Moon is willing to do. Itās also got quite the clean look and actual flavor direction many in this lack for, when the eight billion myriad talents required to make games exist need for shortcuts and genre flavour is one of the first for most to shortcut. (In particular, originator Dream Quest itself is quite scribbly.) The translationās awkwardness is almost impressively amusing on the regular for e.g. stilted translations clashing against surprisingly clean voice acting, or the absurd number of annoyingly-anchorless profile stories for countless encounters. Go beat up those townsfolk for no reason, Red.
Orbital Bullet (2022) has a certain fresh style and strength while also speaking rather openly to some obvious core issues on the standard fitting of builds and the hyper-proliferation of metaprogression climbs. The nested-rings run-and-gun play is quite unique for 2.5d arrangements and shifts the parsing flow of enemy input and player output, and the ambushes for every room with such addresses a core issue many other 2d gunplay games possess of safe strats devolving into maintaining max distance with glacial increments forward. (Looking at you, 20XX.) This is tempered twice over, alas. I tend to despise a certain degree of metaprogression locking away core gameplay system- if random new sights are supposed to cover for death, then fully parsing systems is the same whether innate or gradually unlocked. Here, that includes fundamentals for pacing and run distinction between perk upgrading, healing access, challenge rooms, and combo streak rewards. This wouldnāt be completely damning if not for per-run strength gain also struggling- randomized skill tree offerings mostly concentrate on a quickly singular damage goal over the mild perks of others. Itās easier to say than it is to design ājust make player plans adapt mid-runā, and swapping guns covers for a bunch of this, but it overall feelsā¦ weak on the overall roguelike front, where a briefer arcade spirit could have replaced extended cross-run grind for the better. Still solid on such shorter lengths, nonetheless.
Devil Slayer Raksasi (2021) is centered on small amounts of action stamina, and thus counts closest as, gasp, a (top-down camera) soulslike. In such a welltrod and visible other half it unavoidably falters in still interesting fashions- for most followers in that fashion struggle hardest with what manages to be most cherished. Many roguelikes jarringly lack focus on encounter breadth for so many given runs, and despite hundreds of such foes drawn up they each lack for distinguishing factors beyond different frames and counts for swings. (While many players evidently dive in rather than out and around like as substantially eases dks1 and 2, any such kiting caution flattens most assaults- not an unreasonable lesson to learn for any stamina-centric game, but one more than established already.) Fromsoft is also more than glad to abuse poor lighting, thin paths, blind corners, rafter snipers, pressure plates, and all other sorts of viciousness lost to the clean floors and comfort food of hack & slash spectacle fighters, which this also lacks for. What it does manage to succeed at is baked into the title- with twelve+ zones and twenty+ bosses, there are in fact a fair number of unique devils to slay who do in fact have poise and art and gimmicks afforded to the each of them, and I have to wonder how well this also would have felt without the permadeath churn exposing the endless need of broad possibility space beyond exchanging swings.
Iām still deeply mixed on Caves of Qud (????), and it feels quite the shame and disconnect for the second-most recognizable game on this list still holding up a torch for the classical roguelike format. Even at the end of all of these musings I could probably write up an essayās worth alone for this on how itās a massive mismatch for a former dcss dev like myself- a maximalist sprawling open world akin to Elder Scrolls or ADOM that hyper-concentrates difficulty and interest into select spaces and otherwise frequently gets one literally mechanically lost in a dull wilderness or metaphorically lost in various fixed grinds. Back there we never agreed with the notion that systems-abusing grind like pudding farming is its own punishment, and that players have to be saved from themselves- contrariwise, many runs feel crushed down and slowed by the fixed offerings and strategies of mechanical wings, hologram / force bracelets, monetary exploits, and the start-independent option of crafting to reroll offerings for endlessly. It especially doesnāt help that emergency options beyond recoilers feel slim, and many things are more than glad to stone you dead quick. The actual interest targets have plenty of solid strength thatād carry things if not stuck in such a morass- the sheer hostility of unique terrain and fight gimmicks afforded to plot dungeons is quite strong in its own It also still has an unmatched style of prose, tangible acronym representatives, and a rarefied flavour of locale, all in a genre that struggles to. Probably this, alongside the deckbuilders Iāve sought out, is why Iāve spent the past two and a half years putting my money where my mouth is working on the writing and assets for my own roguelike of gay creatures in warped worlds.
If I went a ways further back, thereād be plenty more I could ramble and muse upon, with lingering generosity for the each of them. Nowhere Prophetās rich post-post-apoc desertpunk setting for one of the very few other polished creature-based deckbuilder rogues, Going Underās invigoratingly bitter anti-work ethic blended with brutal destructible weapons action, and Shiren 5 still holding up an unmatched style and gimmick depths for the formatās old guard. Thereās also most likely plenty to speak of further ahead- properly beating some CRYPTARK and Invisible Inc. campaigns; getting into Voidigo and Chrono Ark like my partner heavily recommends; acquiring and assessing Arboria, Brutal Orchestra, Rhythm Fighter, and Malice & Greed. Thereās always so much to investigate in this combinatoric space, and such dynamics interplays demand a lot- but partial success is still interesting and supportive in and of itself, even if I could endlessly, vexingly, lovingly pick at the seams of each reality.
