You been workin' on that backlog? I know I have! Also in retrospect, wow, that's a lot of roguelikes.
Hunchback's Dungeon
This humble pixel-minimalist game in Early Access by Patryk Borowski is, believe it or not, my first Vampire Survivors-like. And it clicked with me instantly. The simplicity, emphasized all the more because of this game's Early Access status, was the key to everything, and it turned a drowsy nighttime Steam Deck gaming session into my first hit of the addicting VS-style roguelite gameplay loop. Hunchback's Dungeon is structured a little bit differently and is split up into distinct rounds that allow you to use the shop and perform upgrades similar to the floors of a dungeon-crawling roguelike but the moment-to-moment gameplay is very clearly Survivors-style.
The way the items and upgrades interact with your stats is the main nuance of Hunchback's Dungeon that keeps me coming back to this particular entry, and the handy tooltips that explain what each stat actually does (both in theory and the practical effect of what a positive, zero, or even negative value will do) is immensely appreciated. There are plenty of distinct items that lend themselves to different play-styles, complemented by different characters to try out and enemies to fight against. Another draw of this game for me is the very fast pacing, with your starting move speed significantly more than the standard Survivors crawl and rounds bound to a timer (rather than a "kill all the monsters" requirement) that make for a snappy alternating rhythm between making gradual adjustments to your build and trying those changes out in the next round.
Some of the game's current features are more bare than others, but even at the time of writing Hunchback's Dungeon is a good time. With a non-sale asking price of $4 USD and a consistent history of being actively updated, this one gets a thumbs-up from me as I eagerly wait for updates.
HoloCure - Save the Fans!
My second Survivors game was... HoloCure. I don't actually follow HoloIive much at all, so pretty much all of the references and in-jokes in this very reference and in-joke heavy game are lost on me. That said, the gameplay and polish here are unparalleled. I'm actually a fan of the developer Kay Yu for their other work and have been vaguely aware of HoloCure since it was early in development, so seeing the game come so farand still be actively worked on and expanded is pretty awesome to see.
Compared to Hunchback's Dungeon above, HoloCure is the much bigger, more finished game. So much so that I was actually intimidated from starting it for the longest time, seeing the different systems and metas that I'd have to learn. Even now I'm still figuring out a good portion of what HoloCure has to offer but after a little more than three hours in and the first stage cleared a few times, I'm feeling more comfortable with the basic gameplay loop.
This is a big game. I've only just begun to unlock the massive roster of characters, and the farming-fishing-life-sim minigames are fun diversions that I've yet to spend more than a few minutes with. I can foresee myself spending a lot of time with this game in the future, but it sort of stings to see a constant stream of jokes and references that I don't get in the slightest.
Is it worth watching hundreds of hours of streams in order to get?
Maybe.
Flower
thatgamecompany's Flower is actually an old favorite of mine, and I originally played through it back around its original 2009 release on the Playstation 3, using the old Sixaxis controller (yep, not the DualShock 3!) and recall enjoying it quite a bit. Well, I'm back with a vengeance to not only complete the game again, but to 100% the achievements this time around.
The PC port of Flower comes with some technical issues like audio bugs (which I could fix) and framerate stutter and instability (which I couldn't). Most notably is the use of traditional joystick-and-button controls in lieu of the the original gyroscopic controls if played with something like an Xbox gamepad. I believe that this game does support use of the DS4's gyro (or it can be added back in) but for my experience it was no-gyro this time around.
Some reviews criticize the controls of this port but I'm honestly fine with them. The original gyro controls were intentionally just loose enough where you felt like you were steering petals in the wind as intended, rather than flying a spaceship. Overshooting your targets and having to wrestle a little bit to get the exact arc and angle you want to take your turns at feels like the intent, and that's an effect you'll get with both the original gyro controls and the PC port's joystick-based movement. Is it imprecise? Yes, just enough to make movement challenging. If anything, the added control you get in the PC port makes some of the "platforming" challenges significantly easier in this version, and is probably the reason why I felt that 100% achievements in this game was actually a worthwhile use of my time this time around.
Whoops, that was a lot about the controls. The actual game? Good. Not quite as good as I remember, but still a solid experience, with some slightly tricky secrets and platforming challenges if you decide to go for full completion. There was one time that the engine bugged out and I had to roam around for the invisible event trigger to collect the secret flowers, but besides that...
Okay, I promise you, this is still a good game. And the PC port is still fine. But if you have the opportunity to play this one on the PS3, maybe opt for that. There are ports to other Sony consoles that I can't speak for, but my gut instinct says that they might run better there than on PC. Flower is all about the experience, and I wouldn't want a kinda-spotty PC port to get in the way of what should be an uplifting and emotional time with a game that's special to me and, hopefully, will become special to you too.
DRL / DoomRL
Okay, I played less than an hour of this so far but I have to talk about it. You might know that I've recently become obsessed with everything DOOM, but my discovery of DRL (also known as DoomRL or Doom Roguelike) actually came from Jupiter Hell, a spiritual successor made by the same developer ChaosForge. Tracing back its lineage to discover DRL was a pleasant coincidence, and after finding DRL on the AUR I knew I had to give this one a spin. A quick install and some brief troubleshooting involving
sdl2 later we were off to the races.DRL is good, classic fun. I'm no stranger to more traditional roguelikes, having clocked some decent hours in the original 1980 Rogue, complete with minimal white-on-black ASCII-only "graphics", as well as plenty of its would-be successors. So a true-permadeath nothing-carries-over grid-based top-down roguelike based on DOOM is an easy sell to me, to say the least. And boy, is DRL gaming comfort food in a way that is characteristically 90s, despite the game not having been (publicly) released until 2002. Numpad movement with diagonals, check. Most actions accessible through an easy single keystroke or Shift+key? Check. I only wish that NUM_5 were bound to "wait" by default in addition to the more traditional . that's a carry-over from DRL's predecessors. Fun fact: until the 0.9.9.6 release in 2012 which added a graphical tileset, the game was ASCII-only.
ℹ️ Note to self: while the graphical tileset is now used by default, you can always run in the original ASCII mode by passing the -console flag on launch, i.e. drl -console. Settings and savegames carry over!
Suffice to say I am absolutely looking forward to spending some more time with DRL. Also, Zenimax, come on. Let the game be called DoomRL. Please?
Jupiter Hell
Well, you know I had to try out Jupiter Hell after such a fun first impression with DRL, and this title doesn't disappoint either. It's a by-design faster-paced, streamlined, and more casual roguelike experience than DRL, for sure, and it plays excellently on gamepad. That... is largely because the movement and action options you have are significantly stripped down. You no longer have diagonal movement, only cardinal directions, and your options for item and weapon management are far fewer. You have three dedicated weapon slots and four equipment slots, and those kinds of items can only go directly into one of those slots. Your basic inventory is reserved for things like ammo and medkits. No more classic roguelike gear juggling, which is both a relief and a shame in equal measure--if you're capped out at three weapons and find one on the ground, you'll have to swap, same with armor. This is all obviously in service of a faster game pace, and (/ but) you'll be finding yourself exiting floors with a mess of assorted items that you weren't able to take with you much more often than in DRL, at least in the early stages.
Okay, bitter pill swallowed. And it's not really that bad, since the developers are on record saying these simplifications were designs choices intended to make the game faster, snappier, and more accessible, especially on consoles or gamepad setups. Mission success, and I think it's a fair compromise for achieving those things. Now that's over with, Jupiter Hell is awesome. That fast pace is addicting, and the feeling of "just one more floor" definitely holds here. The visual presentation is to die for, a love letter to classic roguelike gaming sessions on a CRT with a decidedly modern sensibility mixed in, with QoL entity highlighting and satisfying screen-shake when encounters get loud. On that note, sound design is punchy with bullet impacts and the harsh clank of soldiers and mechs on the cold metal of space station floor. Jupiter Hell is a great-feeling game to play, and to keep playing.
Honestly, as of the current time of writing, Jupiter Hell is probably the game I'm most excited to come back to and play more.
Personal note, I'm glad I started with DRL and then tried out Jupiter Hell. The latter was, in objective measure, much faster to teach me the basics of the game thanks to its thorough and much-appreciated tutorial. Yet, I felt like I could "jive" with DRL in a shorter span of time compared to Jupiter Hell thanks to my comfort with the more orthodox roguelikes. I know "jive index" is far from a technical term, I'm just happy that I could see the evolution from DRL to Jupiter Hell and my experience with both has solidified to me that both are very much worthwhile, for neighboring but different reasons.
I'd be remiss to not mention Jupiter Hell Classic, the (as of writing) yet-to-be-released remake of DRL with all of its Doom removed (or rather, replaced with the legally-distinct Jupiter Hell trappings instead). It's essentially a reskin of DRL, which is fine by me because DRL remains good fun, and this Classic release will serve as one more way to financially support ChaosForge in their continued development of all things DRL and Jupiter Hell.
Lots of Jupiters and lots of Hells. Maybe a Mars or two. Phew, still with me?
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
This one is a certified Halloween special. Scary: yes. I'm honestly too chicken to to play this one unless I'm streaming, so the three-ish hours I have in this title so far is going to stay that way for a while.
This is a solid title. Puzzles are cool, and there were only a couple of puzzles where I got stuck for a few minutes before finding out the solution myself and groaning in mild annoyance. But generally the puzzles are just tricky enough to be fun to figure out, and make you feel great when you do. The atmosphere is great. Storytelling... can get a little dry and escaping from a blood-pumping chase might not be the best time for me to sit down and read text-only exposition. Yeah, this one's good. A bit simple, but I wouldn't want to handle anything overly complicated while being scared out of my wits.
I hate to bring this up because usually game age never bothers me, but the way Amnesia plays will sometimes remind me that it's from 2010, in a bad way. The atmosphere is perfect, with great use of lighting and sound, and then suddenly I'm very briefly taken out of the experience by the reminder that this title's 14 years old because of some weird quirk in player movement that feels slightly off, or a way the some of the objects in the map seem to have meshes that are, again, just slightly off. The low texture resolution and model detail don't bother me, but the things that interfere, if only slightly, with the game feel when I'm trying to get into a decidedly atmospheric game are a touch disappointing as a current-day player.
But don't let me rain on the parade--I'm only a little over three hours into the game so my opinion is anything but critically definitive. And, again, these rough patches only last a moment before I'm back, fully immersed and scared shitless.
Shooting Game KARI
This one's not much of a looker, but don't worry. It has the gameplay to back it up. Shooting Game KARI, or more specifically the 2022 Steam re-release of the 1997 title, is a traditional vertical shmup that'll feel like a familiar treat to genre fans. The simplicity is welcome here, with no feature bloat or convoluted scoring system to learn before you can jump right into the action. No bombs or power-ups, just a narrow- and spread-shot option you can switch between at any time, a single life with ship shields, and a scoring system based on proximity and clean runs.
For the price of free, Shooting Game KARI is worth your time, especially if you're a fan of shmups looking for an accessible no-frills way to get your shmup fix in between more complex, involved titles.
Sumire
This game is excellent and deserves its own dedicated post. Everything about this game lines up to make a perfect, complete package. For now I'll say that Sumire is an absolute treat of a story-focused game, its emotional moments a delight, and its writing a refreshing departure from the coercive "you should feel this way" approach of "THIS GAME MADE ME CRY 😭" bait. No, Sumire is on another level, a distinctly different class. And it'll be a struggle to write about it in a way that will do it justice without spoiling what makes it so magical. Experience this one for yourself. It regularly goes on sale for less than a dollar (right now it's going for $0.89). It plays well on Linux and the Steam Deck. Just get your hands on it and play it. Put on headphones, give it your full attention, and use my recommendation as assurance that you're in for a treat indeed.
Portal
Yep, it's the Portal. I got decently far in this game over a decade ago and then took a break... a very long break, it turns out. So upon my return, I started a fresh save and played through the game in a single sitting over the course of a little less than 3 hours. Yeah, Portal's good. Some of the timing-based puzzles were not really to my liking, personally, but this game's pretty much universally praised for a reason. I'm just mad that I was one camera short of the Camera Shy achievement and now I have to go back to redo the test chambers again.
Round-up
- I'm still coming to grips with the actual Vampire Survivors, honestly. I'm still very much in the slow-crawl early game so any thoughts at this point are going to be half-baked. I just hope things pick up soon.
- Speaking of coming to grips, I've put enough hours into Lethal Company where I'm finally starting to feel somewhat capable and not entirely lost when I play this game. Granted, I still get physically lost in that game all the time, but I have fewer instances where I'm wrestling with the controls or am clueless as to how certain interactables work. I'm adventuring off on my own more often, and I can come back to the ship safely and not horribly mangled or drowned a good 30% of the time, to boot.
- I'm continuing to make steady progress in WRC 4 FIA World Rally Championship. The occasional stuttering has gotten worse lately, and it means I'll have to burn a rewind whenever the game decides to act up in the middle of a particularly technical turn. Not a fan of that, and it keeps me limited to at most 1-hour sessions. On the positive side, I'm growing more comfortable with the game's handling model and my driving's gotten more confident, which makes the intense Special Stages even more fun.
- Blue Reflection Second Light has gotten good, really good. There was a lull in the pacing before some pretty major story moment, and after putting in another 8-12 hours we're back at another calm spot. I believe I'm transitioning into the final chapters of the game, so this'll be the final sprint of my first playthrough. I've hit over 50 hours played on this title so far, and I'm pretty certain I'll come out of the experience with a positive opinion.
- DOOM + DOOM II is Nightdive's 2024 re-release of the classic FPS titles with a suite of old and new expansions put together into a single convenient and accessible package. I've written more in-depth about it in my recommendation here but the gist is that this is a really good release, especially for newcomers like me. I'm steadily making progress through each of the included games/expansions, having just finished the four episodes comprising The Ultimate DOOM over the weekend and now knee-deep in DOOM II's campaign. Afterwards? Maybe Master Levels. I might need some more preparation before I hit the Final DOOM expansions. Of course this is in the context of Civvie 11's videos on TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. Who do you think I am?
- Virtual Cottage by DU&I is a cute if limited lifestyle-companion type game that's intended for you to leave running in the background as you work or are otherwise productive. As someone who has over 100 hours in Spirit City: Lofi Sessions I'd say that Virtual Cottage is a bit lacking. Idled for 100% achievements, but it's not going to be in my long-term repertory of relaxing idlers.
As always, this is just the most notable selection of what I've been playing lately. Yep, I'm really hunkering down to tackle the backlog (although, little secret, a lot of these games are new acquisitions, so the backlog continues to grow...!) and it's both fun and chaotic to juggle a slew of new games, most of which I'm eager to spend more time with.
Speaking of chaos, how about life lately, huh? Wait, that shouldn't go here. What is this, my personal blog? Jeez. See you on the next one.