Spelunky
At it’s core, Spelunky is a precise 2D platformer, with a very simple yet elegant scoring mechanic. Each level through which you descend is littered with treasure, and your objective is to get to the end of the game, beat the boss, and escape with as much gold as you can carry with you. This would get a bit boring if the levels were the same every time, so instead the layout of the platforms, items, and enemies changes every time you retry, although the four themed areas (plus one special, secret one) always appear in the same order. Interestingly, in this version, there is a daily challenge: a seed is generated and every one who attempts the daily challenge will play the same seed, and the scores are ranked at the end. Best I’ve achieved is twelfth in the world. Mind you, the disparity between my score and that of the person in pole position was enormous.
– Real player with 474.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Roguelike 2D Games.
Spelunky is an exquisitely designed hybrid roguelike/platformer that is simple to learn, but very difficult to master. Often a single mistake from certain death, you must depend on your own skills and knowledge to progress through the procedurally generated caves, uncovering the treasures and secrets that lie below. Death comes often, especially to newcomers, but every death is a learning experience that improves your chances of survival in subsequent attempts.
Spelunky is a game that is simultaneously merciless and fair. Even with multitude of threats you’ll face, almost every death you experience is preventable and the result of poor judgment or a lack of skill. All of Spelunky’s mechanics and enemies follow a persistent and predictable logic, each element a tiny cog in a massive interlocking machine. Learning about the inner workings of Spelunky’s world is necessary to venture into the deeper reaches of the caves.
– Real player with 448.0 hrs in game
The Binding of Isaac
49 Cent doing a sale?
Play this
enjoy it
then go straight to the remake
enjoy that too
Favorite Roguelike series
– Real player with 249.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Roguelike Replay Value Games.
where’s your god now huh
**Actual Review:
This game has (for a former flash game) really nice graphics, banger soundtracks (Basement 1 is op imo), smooth controls (uses arrow keys and wasd or wasd and mouse, don’t waste your time on shooting with mouse man.) and performance. I love that the story is much deeper than what you thought when you first started playing, I won’t say too much but Christianity is involved. TBOI has a big replay value because of the endless combination of various items found in the dungeons and multiple characters with different starting items and health variations that get unlocked by playing the game in specific manners like getting different endings (for example to not spoiler anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to experience this wonderful game) plus almost every play through is different from the last. TBOI is also really balanced in difficulty, getting harder the further you explore and it actually gets wanna be the boshy hard near the end, especially if you have a bad run and your found items are bullsh… . Biggest Pro though: who does not want to shoot tears (or something else ;3 ) at poop
! and your insane, murderous and obese mum? ?**
– Real player with 158.4 hrs in game
Void Vikings
An interesting game… Recommended for a fans of twin-stick shooters looking for something a little different.
The core concept of paying back a student loan by pillaging local star systems is both unique and provides some tactical options. Should you pursue an expensive yet effective degree and struggle to pay back both the principal and interest, or settle for a cheap but shoddy education and focus on upgrades? Ultimately, you need both the education and the upgrades, but the premise disguises what would otherwise be a transparent grind.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Roguelike Space Games.
Fun, polished little arcade wave space shooter with a couple of modes including a ‘diablo’ style randomised loot system, customisation, leader boards, and several distinct ships to fly.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Super House of Dead Ninjas
Few games epitomise the cultural style of 1980s American film and television as well as Super House of Dead Ninjas, the fast-paced, blood-soaked action platformer from Megadev. Based on the 2011 flash game House of Dead Ninjas , the game challenges players to enter a tower known as the Ziggurat of Infinium through the roof and descend down its hundreds of floors, battling the tower’s demonic occupants in a frenetic quest to discover what lurks on the ground floor.
– Real player with 72.2 hrs in game
A wonderful game to get, perfect for any fan of old SNES action games of frantic action and pace.
Rewards skill.
Challenging, but after time it becomes easy, luckily there is a harder mode for the true ending. Then an even harder mode to get out of DLC (on sale now). Finally a never ending mode to go for high score or just because you are having so much fun.
Small tasks to do in a game or through games that challenge you to do better (or just keep playing) to unlock items that can help you out. All optional for the most part.
– Real player with 34.3 hrs in game
Vile
Vile is not really unique in the genre of roguelikes but it has its own charm that sets it apart. The controls are solid and the mechanics are fleshed out. What stands out most is the art style and the characters. Each character is a classic horror trope (ranging from generic vampire hunter all the way up to werewolf and Death himself) but each one is done creatively with different enough mechanics to merit a playthrough of each one just to see what play style fits you best. Personally, I preferred the huntress character until I was finally able to unlock death’s emissary (which is the final character you encounter). The enemies and levels are challenging without being infuriating. The souls you collect during a run are used to buy upgrades that carry over to all subsequent runs and the tech tree means that you just need a few more souls to give you the edge you need to beat a level.
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Vile has an interesting mixture of different elements which has been a fresh breath of air for me personally since transitioning from Enter the Gungeon. I really enjoy the fact that objectives and talents are inclusive in the core features of progression which certainly makes for a different experience overall.
The classic horror theme and gothic-like style of Vile is enhanced greatly by its wonderfully detailed art style diverse set of characters which creates a unique dark top-down experience.
– Real player with 12.6 hrs in game
West of Dead
I personally love this game, but it’s a difficult sell in some regards.
It’s the kind of game indie games have needed since FTL: something that takes the mechanics of a beloved game genre, encases them in a creative and appealing setting with a killer soundtrack, and provides a familiar but unique experience to players across generations. It’s got a great gameplay loop, satisfying kills, and plenty of challenge. However, it’s let down by some odd (but rare for me, anyway) bugs, too many useless “dead-end” weapon unlocks, and a bad difficulty curve caused mostly by overinflated health values.
– Real player with 35.6 hrs in game
A Flawed Gem
West Of Dead is a roguelite shooter. Players take on the role of a nameless flaming-skull cowboy, fighting through hordes of enemies in order to recover his memories, his true identity, and a way out of this grim Purgatory. This game is easily one of the unique entries in the genre in terms of combat. The flow of gameplay offers a different approach to the speedy, combat-heavy peers. However, outside of gameplay, the game feels flawed. Many inconveniences and technical issues can easily push the players away from it. The game as a whole is functional and playable, mind you. I just have a feeling that this game should be advertised as an almost-finished-early-access product because of the lack of polishing. Still, I would recommend West Of Dead since it provides ample enjoyment to play through.
– Real player with 22.8 hrs in game
Risk of Rain
it’s mid
– Real player with 649.6 hrs in game
A fun game with great pixel art and fantastic music. Short enough to play any time, with enough random factors to keep it interesting. I found the baseline enemies to be a bit too spongy for my liking, so I play exclusively with the Artifact of Glass enabled. IMHO this game did not translate particularly well into 3D for RoR2, and so I keep finding myself playing this one, the original.
– Real player with 259.1 hrs in game
Rogue Legacy
I first played Rogue Legacy at a friend’s place, trading off the controller at each death. It wasn’t much, but it got me instantly hooked on how fun it was. So hooked, that I downloaded Steam, bought the game for the full $15, and bought a $30 wired Xbox 360 controller… and I don’t even have any Xboxes. All this for this one game… and it was worth it.
Rogue Legacy plays like Castlevania and Super Ghouls N Ghosts. You move, jump, attack, and use a secondary weapon. The uniqueness comes into play when you die, which you will… a lot. Once you die, you will be brought to a selection of three heirs to play as next. Each one has a random character class, secondary weapon, and set of traits. Classes determine certain stats and abilities. Secondary weapons, or spells as they are called, use up MP. That’s all pretty basic stuff. But the traits are very interesting. Some traits are helpful, like a speed increase. Others are harmful, like giving your attacks no enemy knockback. And some are just… well… neutral things… like making everything black and white. Your heirs have a chance of having two, one, or none of the traits at random. With all the random factors, you have to really get lucky… or pick the lesser of three evils. Is getting your prefered class worth the traits? Are the spells to your liking? It also makes you think about the next area… skills.
– Real player with 318.3 hrs in game
For context I played exclusively with a keyboard: Space to jump, ESDF for movement, W for right dash, R for left dash, J to attack, K for spells and I for class abilities. imo this is the best setup for non-controller players.
Rogue Legacy is Really Hard
My first life, I played as Sir Lee in the year 730 AD, and got through about 2 rooms before dying to a spinning picture frame. But ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and another life for the castle, and another, and another…
Each time I learned a little more about how to deal with enemies:
– Real player with 64.9 hrs in game
Deadly Days
TL;DR: It feels like a beta version of what-could-be-a-flawless-gem-but-is-definitely-not-so-far: a fusion of Atom Zombie Smasher ’s commandos with mortality + more upgrades + field support, while fighting against Infested Planet -like enemies, and is mostly quite well done, so I kept trying to give it a go, but it has major experience-destroying issues outlined at the bottom, which were in my last daily run that just annihilated my motivation. Uninstalled.
– Real player with 30.7 hrs in game
There are games which you buy and enjoy every single minute. Then there are games which you get in a bundle but you would never buy it as a standalone. This one is the second option.
For a roguelite it has pretty brutal beginning. You can get disinterested pretty quickly. Once you force yourself to adapt to unintuitive controls and automatic attacks by your survivors - you will soon realize, that there is very little variety in enemies, objectives and (especially) locations.
The difficulty balance and balance overall is all over the place. You either feel powerful or utterly weak the next minute and your run is lost. The game gives too little time for area exploration and the constant zombie level and quantity increase - kind of ruins the fun for me completely.
– Real player with 7.5 hrs in game
Grand Brix Shooter
“A bullet hell game that’s familiar but never experienced before."
+ Point : Instant judgment, fine control, and your luck determine the whole play.
[1] Intro
Grand Brix Shooter. This is a hyper arcade shoot’em up game made by Intragames. The developer, Intragames has been primarily a game publisher so far, but they also have taken part in making the games. so this game is one of their in-house project games. One of the main developers said that his dev team stayed up countless days all night long to bring up the characteristics of original thrilling action arcade scrolling shooter. Developer effort and game fun aren’t necessarily proportional, but let’s take a look at what it is. ;)
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
I personally really enjoyed playing it. The game is very direct, simple to understand with a really reasonable price. I would definitely recommend the game to my friends. There is a leaderboard at the end, the scores from other countries can be viewed and that was one thing that made me play over and over again.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game