[GrimmSweeper]

This came out on Steam recently as a full release. You are one of like 10 different characters each with a different set of four abilities, hurtling down to an unknown planet in an escape pod. To survive, you must run-n-gun in a 2D landscape to a teleporter, survive through waves of hostile monsters (along with a boss!) while it charges, and hop, skip, jump your way to a working ship.

To help you on your journey, shipping crates that have had gotten lost on their journey to other parts of space are scattered across the landscape. If you can pay their shipping fee, you can open them for trinkets that boost your base stats like attack speed or adding effects like life-stealing on critical hits. There are also shrines that require some sacrifice to be made for a chance of the same thing. Not all trinkets are available from the beginning; they are unlocked through achievements

You start the game with only the Commando unlocked. He's pretty average but shows off what to expect in terms of abilities. With default keyboard controls Z is your dual pistols with no cooldown, X is a piercing shot that briefly stuns, C is your escape roll giving you invulnerability, and V is blazing guns akimbo shooting all enemies in range for a couple seconds.

As you explore each level, you will find traces of the other characters which will unlock them for use in subsequent attempts. There are things like a melee-oriented Acrid, GIANT ROBOT HAN-D, or the always on the move Huntress.

Also features CO-OP mode over LAN and online! Three difficulty modes! Loads of indices to read up on little tidbits of lore from each trinket or monster you've killed! And if you're feeling sassy, you can NG+(+++...) for as long as you can survive, increasing the number of elite normal monsters AND the number of bosses fought concurrently.

(My last NG++ death was from battling 5 Magma worms at once)

This game is good, grab it for you and for your friends.

[BotageL]

Crossposting from GYPT:

[cactusfriend]

I like co-op games and this does look interesting. Seems like it has the cumulative complexity type thing going for it.

[neva-01]

hey what happened to the other thread?
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

No mods have said anything about deleting it, so I'm assuming txtsword curated it back to nothingness after Booter derailed the thread in a weird way.

[Booter]

I blew it, I know that. And I'm sorry. But guys, I've played the demo of this game for like 2 hours, and I seriously hate it.
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[GrimmSweeper]

In the demo they supposedly ramp up the difficulty a lot more quickly than they do in the normal game.

Normally,
- Drizzle is rather flat, the items you pick up will more than mitigate the HP increase. It's a good place to start to get familiar with the concept but it gets rather boring pretty quickly with the lack of challenge. You will not be able to get monster logs in this difficulty but everything else seems to be unlocked/unlockable. NG+ cycles aren't a huge hike from normal.

- Rainstorm is where the continuous time pressure makes a difference. If you aren't efficient you are going to be swamped as you get to stages four, five and final. It's got a good difficulty curve once familiar but starts to pall as you become skilled at the game. NG+ cycles will add more than one boss at a time and occasionally spawns bosses while you're wandering around.

- Monsoon takes the gloves off immediately. 120 second wait for the teleporter to charge instead of the normal 90. 3 minutes to next difficulty breakpoint; about 30 to max it out. In Rainstorm it was a possibility to be mobbed near the end; here this is a certainty. A lot more elite versions of enemies spawning at all times. NG+ cycle will also not waste time in spawning in bosses as you frantically look for the teleporter (my last game I had about 7 in the first stage of NG+) and will start off with Elite versions and 1-2 normal bosses during warm-up period.

The final boss is sort of a flat note though. He's got loads of HP, 3 forms, and an ability to reduce all damage down to 1 that he uses at certain HP breakpoints. If you can do him in on Drizzle you can do the same with little change to how you play in Monsoon.

[Touran]

so I just went through the demo a few times, and I'm not keen on it

I felt constantly under-powered and instead of instilling a sense of challenge it really just felt like a slog, like I know I can kill this worm boss, but do I really want to sit there for twenty+ minutes whittling away at it's health while it jumps around the screen in a completely non-threatening manner? No, I really don't

Unless the demo is straight geared to be near impossible I don't see how the full game could be more entertaining, I mean insta-spawning enemies right on top of you, wow that's a crap solution. I can see that when you trigger the teleporter but otherwise it really just smacks of laziness

Multiplayer feels like it would just turn into a uncontrollable mess, and not the kind of fun mess you could get in Magicka

oh and the miner also seems to be completely useless
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Man, I'm sorry.

[Booter]

the game is basically "play my spreadsheet!" wrapped in 2012 indie vacuousness, bundled up in game maker.

gamers are absolutely STARVED for shuffled experiences, and I don't blame them. it's a reaction against pre-(mal?)formed content.

"okay guys, brainstorm, we need more items. damage shield? check. automatons? got 'em. procs? in there." ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

at the risk of being hyperbolic I would label Risk of Rain 2013's most cynical entertainment software.

The final boss is sort of a flat note though.
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[BotageL]

if you think for a second this is more cynical than any aaa "gaming experience" you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself

nah really, man, i think this game has a lot of problems which have been accurately reflected in this thread, but you act like this game killed your dog or something, it's kind of embarrassing
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http://www.mdgeist.com/

[Glam Grimfire]

i think understanding risk of rain is also about understanding that other 2D rogue likes have had many of the same design problems, which is a result of an over-simplification of what makes the games fun in the first place.
whether it's risk of rain (which i really like, especially multiplayer. my steam is Hunk Punk) or any other, there's usually some lucky combination of items and stats you can get that negates all of the difficulty of the game
this isn't really possible in something like nethack or angband where you almost never know what an item does until you use it or have it identified, which helps curate a sort of mystery these games lack.
there's no penalty for hoarding every item you can in risk of rain, which i think there really should be, and more than that none of the items have really negative effects, and the ones that do (like tether) are usually acquired only when you're powerful enough to destroy everything easily

edit: i should clarify, none of the items have primarily negative effects.
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[BotageL]

It has a lot more in common with a "loot game" like Diablo rather than the popular definition of "roguelike." Especially since all the levels have fixed layouts, even if items/enemies/teleporters spawn in randomized locations.
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http://www.mdgeist.com/

[GrimmSweeper]

No item gives you negative effects. Everything is a benefit, slight (piggybank) or insane (one reduces cooldowns by 25%). So in single player at least there is no real choice to be made in opening chests; the result is always going to make you more powerful. The other chest options--see 3, pick 1 and blip through a list of randomised items quickly--do have optimal choices but aren't truly satisfying. One of them is always going to be the best no matter the circumstances and you're gambling with the last chest option.

What I would like to see are items that feature tradeoffs for powerful benefits. Maybe you can no longer regen HP normally but must stay on corpses to 'eat' them and regen at a higher rate. Maybe you'll turn to stone and take less damage from enemies but are slowed down. Maybe you find a weapon that replaces your normal Z action but chips away at your HP to fire it.

[cactusfriend]

Ew, fixed layouts?

Laterz...

[Glam Grimfire]

oh yeah absolutely. i think it's getting the roguelike label because of the respawning, randomized encounters and permadeath.
i think doing randomized layouts would have helped this game, but also hindered it at the same time because i don't think the enemy AI is up to snuff for it. you can cheat on lots of bosses by getting in the right space before they spawn
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[Booter]

[Glam Grimfire]

booter true question, do you consider dungeons of dredmor a roguelike
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##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim

[Booter]

[Touran]

wow I thought the demo just had fixed layouts (or the difficulty level) but that's the entire game?

That really is awful, I gave the enemy types and bosses the assumption that they were designed around random levels and pieces but it really was just lazy implementation



I actually thought it felt like a de-make of Borderlands while playing it so just run that through to the end and call it Diablo
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Man, I'm sorry.

[nothingxs]

well, i got this and it's pretty entertaining

anyone want to carry me through unlocking some shit because i am awful at doing it solo apparently
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select button
i've gotta let go. i've gotta get straight. why'd you have to make it so hard? let me get away.
3DSFC 1736-1476-0518

[neva-01]

I'm with Booter

[GrimmSweeper]

Do remember that they were Kickstarted into stretch goals, so development of more things (Arena and Game Mutators are known) to do is not yet complete. Whether it will maintain an audience until the next new facet is debatable; I've got all the classes unlocked at this point and finished a Monsoon run with the Huntress. I could see myself trying to win on all classes in at least Rainstorm difficulty but beyond that I got what I needed from the game.

[OffalAl]

[TXTSWORD]

[TXTSWORD]

The game is fun. I thought that was enough.

[nothingxs]

this game is very fun

i just wish the levels were actually randomized instead of one-or-the-other. :(
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select button
i've gotta let go. i've gotta get straight. why'd you have to make it so hard? let me get away.
3DSFC 1736-1476-0518

[meauxdal]

hey yeah this game went on sale and i think it's really great on local co-op

this game reminds me a lot of awesomenauts, what with the whole dota-flavored ability array w/ cooldowns interbred with sidescrolling shooty-bits. i don't really get a diablo vibe other than "kill things and level up" - inventory management and a (hub) town are central elements in a diablo-like for me.

biggest concern i've run into so far is the enemy health is sometimes a bit much... other than that, on local co-op the game really shines
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[meauxdal]

this game is fucking addictive

anyone want to try some online co-op at some point or is everyone over this game already
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[Sly Buccelli]

I do! Anyone who likes this game is welcome to join me for co-op. My Steam username is Sly Boots. I'm in the SB group.
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[nothingxs]

uh my user name

i mean you guys can figure it out by this point right?

if you bug me i'll play it sometime!
_________________
select button
i've gotta let go. i've gotta get straight. why'd you have to make it so hard? let me get away.
3DSFC 1736-1476-0518