The Void Rains Upon Her Heart
BEST Shoot em' up/BulletHell/Roguelite I’ve ever played in my entire life. It has my HIGHEST recommendation! I don’t have enough thumbs to put up!
Goodbye Raiden! So long Space Invaders Extreme. Take care Crimzon Clover! Nice knowing you Ikaruga! Was fun R-Type! Move aside StarFox. Bye Bye Gradius! Nice try JamesTown! Will miss you Stellar Interface! Rest in piece to every bullet hell shooter before TVRUHH!
I believe in a little thing called LOVE..
The theme of the game and a very powerful sentiment! The premise is you play the story of a young woman who is tempted by monsters to let go and become on of them. These monsters are mean, spiteful and vile beings. She doesn’t want to become like them, become like those evil monsters.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Bullet Hell Games.
I picked up TVRUHH during the winter sale, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how well put together the game is. It is filled with great design decisions that let it avoid every single pitfall in the roguelite genre.
The Strengths section lists many of the major areas where you went above and beyond in making the game good and balanced.
I highly recommend it.
STRENGTHS:
The Beginning of the Game is Not Slow or Boring
The start of a run is probably the most important thing in a roguelite. You are going to do the first area, first fight, first whatever, many more times than you do anything else. Yet nearly every single game in the genre screws it up. Nobody likes the basement in the Binding of Isaac. The Mines in Noita are tedious. The Mines/Dwelling in Spelunky 1/2 make people stop playing the game. Roguelites, due to their fast and steep power curve, suffer from basic and boring beginnings.
– Real player with 46.3 hrs in game
Hades
The Story is quite simple. You are the Son of Hades and You wish to See your mother Persephone in order to discover your family history. Unfortunately, 4 levels of Underworld Separate You and your mother, and on top of that, Your father has made sure that each floor is loaded with traps, enemies and bosses, so that you never get to see your mother.
The game Essentially Plays as a rogue light with randomly generated levels. In Order to get stronger, You need to select rooms containing God boons which serve as the game’s upgrade system. The boons are random and of various kinds with different levels of rarity. The idea is to select the right rooms as to create a “build” for your character depending on which base weapon you started of with. In addition, there are various upgrades and bonuses ranging from health upgrades, stat multipliers, power ups to secondary attack hammers.
– Real player with 3636.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Roguelite Games.
Game Overall: 10/10
Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Music: 10/10
Absolutely fantastic game that is re-playable over and over.
I’ve been playing for well over 100+ hours and the story and dialogue has been continuous, with next to no repeated dialogue. The game and story progresses with you and your skill level, so whether you are taking it leisurely or whether you’re a speed runner, it has a massive amount of combinations of dialogue depending on what you’re doing, which weapon you’re wielding, which trinkets you’re holding, which God’s boons you’ve previously chosen, the relationship level between certain characters.
– Real player with 123.8 hrs in game
Nova Drift
The common description of Nova Drift as “Asteroids + Action RPG” is accurate but there’s a lot more to it than that. I’ve played a variety of “Asteroids with extras” over the years and Nova Drift is definitely my favorite.
Nova Drift is much livelier than most Asteroids-style games, though not as frantic as dual-analog “arena shooters” tend to get. Many Asteroids-style games are slow and ponderous with heavy inertia but the player ship in Nova Drift feels fairly agile unless you’ve sacrificed a lot of speed (and you can usually fix that with other upgrades).
– Real player with 615.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Space Games.
I’ve been playing this a little every day (sometimes a lot), and it has become a little part of my daily routine. My PC runs on my living room TV, and when my kids wake up at the outrageous hour of five-ish, I can relax and chat with them while playing. Most of the time.
This game is totally family-friendly, encourages learning and creative thinking, is visually impressive, exciting, and is just the right amount of challenging. My six and eight-year-olds are constantly asking for a turn, which I allowed early on since they never took long. Unfortunately, their turns are getting longer and longer as they come up with good builds of their own. They have even taken to suggesting upgrades while they watch me, often pointing toward a route to a super-mod that they think would work well. Outrageous. My three-year-old will start chiming in any day now…
– Real player with 218.7 hrs in game
Straimium Immortaly
If you like roguelikes that are done in a room-to-room format like Rogue Legacy or Pixel.Loot.Again, you should enjoy this.
If you liked Straima, you should enjoy this.
If you look at the video above and are amused or curious about the art style, you should enjoy this. The sound style is totally my thing too.
If you are looking for a hardcore roguelike, maybe give this one a pass. Unless more is added, the game isn’t too difficult to complete, and while there are unlockables, there aren’t all that many, and even fewer that significantly change the gameplay.
– Real player with 391.7 hrs in game
This was what I was looking for for so long… It turns out I’ve found my niche. Crazy s*** that makes no sense.
You would know if you would like this game just by looking at it. If the visuals seem… offputting, but the gameplay/tags tell you you want it, you should still get it.
In this game you will find:
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A design choice that makes you swear you were high
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Aliens that talk… well, not neccessarily “cute”, but in their own way. Whatever this item description means to you: “Worky Banga: Useable to magically changely item levely.”
– Real player with 114.3 hrs in game
TowerClimb
This is a game that has filled that tough platforming itch I’ve been trying to scratch for years. I’ve played a lot of platformers. Super Mario games are great, but they’re always relatively easy to blow through with little difficulty, and a lot of other games just always mess up small details that makes it not quite that game I’m looking for. Then along comes TowerClimb, and everything is about as close to perfect as it can get.
Graphics:
I know there are a lot of games out there that have pixel art, but let’s be honest here, they don’t always do it well, and that’s why they don’t always look good. Davioware and Quazi really nailed the detail on their game in this category. The amount of detail put into everything is exquisite, and it really makes for some nice eye candy.
– Real player with 1591.4 hrs in game
So….28 hours in….. I’ve lost track of my death count….
Ever think platformers were too easy?? Think you are too hardcore for a platformer?? This game will open your eyes!
Towerclimb is a brutal platformer that will punish most small mistakes with death. That ever present threat of immenant death makes the game really epic and enjoyable. You can purchase revive potions from shopkeeps to help offset the ‘one slip and dead’ situation. The controls are very responsive - and 99% of your deaths will be YOUR fault. (whether from lack of skill, stupid decisions, not using/rationing items properly, etc.) The music is fantastic. Each run will tend to have a unique feel that requires different platforming skills. The game has VERY impressive level randomization - which adds to the replay value significantly. I’d say its definitely worth buying/playing 100%
– Real player with 506.3 hrs in game
Tallowmere
Ok, I played about 5 or 6 lives as soon as it installed then had a break to compose myself… after 30 mins or so I was like “I need to get past level 5” so I jumped back in for another frantic axe whacking rampage. Then my goal was to conquer the double digits which is when I started realising that approaching enemies with a little more tact goes a long way.
Positive thoughts so far (from a laymans perspective):
Replay value! The randomly generated levels and loot provide a different challenge each time
– Real player with 64.5 hrs in game
I’m always chasing roguelike dungeon games, even though most of them end up pretty bad. The reason I do this is because every so often, I find a game like Tallowmere!
I absolutely love this game. It’s equal parts fun and frustrating. You really learn and develop your tactics the more you play. You have to figure out the best way to use your weapons, and what weapon is the right weapon to use in any given situation, and even once you’ve learned that, you have to be careful not to get too cocky or careless, because mistakes can kill!
– Real player with 53.7 hrs in game
Just Get Through
Spelunky has long sat on the throne of roguelike platformers, partly because they aren’t very common. While in the same genre, Just Get Through is surprisingly different from Spelunky. They both have randomly generated levels, but with this one the levels feel more like playing a slower methodical version of Super Meat Boy. You die instantly to any damage, but don’t have infinite lives to use. As well as your lives you have dynamite to manage which can be used to clear obstacles or part of the level. And after every few levels you (just) get through (4Head) you’re offered a choice of three different upgrades/benefits to choose from to help you out a little. This all comes together really nicely in the hardcore and survival modes as good challenging fun.
– Real player with 27.3 hrs in game
Just Get Through is an addicting platformer with some dungeon crawling & roguelite elements. Armed only with sticks of dynamite, you must progress further and further into randomly generated dungeons with deadly traps that become harder and harder to evade. As you complete levels, you level up as well, gaining perks that help you be a better dungeon crawler. The entire game is literally a procedural death labyrinth.
The game has a great difficulty curve, starting with extremely easy levels and transitioning smoothly to more complex environments. It offers a good amount of challenge for players of all skill levels. The controls are tight and the procedural generation creates unique environments to traverse.There’s even a level creator where you can build your own dungeons for other players to try, and you can compare your rankings/scores daily.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Good Robot
I still haven’t finished the game but my opinion is likely not going to change. And yes, I will continue playing this on the foreseeable future.
Good Robot presents itself as a Rogue-like, and indeed it is. But it’s quite unique when compared to most self proclaimed rogue-likes. It’s extremely arcadey! You gain nothing with each session except experience, unlike other games that give you extra characters, different perks, unlock upgrades to be obtained in the game etc. This game doesn’t want you to keep playing under these pretexts, it wants you to keep playing because it’s a tempting challenge. I always died with the impression that I could beat that if I were more careful. You know, the kind of difficult people enjoy and take it as a challenge and makes you want to try again. This is the replay mechanism on good robot. You can see this mechanism in effect on strangely unrelated games like Dark Souls and Flappy Birds. I can’t believe I just put those two games in the same category.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
Alright, so as roguelites go, this one is a little bit short. A lot of stuff is done right, but the flaws really stand out in this game.
Starting with the positive, the production values and the feel of the game are quite well done. The weapons are satisfying to use and the simple art style works very well for the kind of game that is is. At its best, gameplay is frenetic and you are heavily punished even for slight slip ups (and heavily rewarded if you keep on top of positioning the enemies). Also, the game has hats in it.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Our Darker Purpose
This review will hopefully bust the myth that Our Darker Purpose is a cheap copy of Binding of Isaac:
This game deserves so much more attention! I can’t think of many reasons why anyone would dislike it, except maybe its difficulty. One thing that might be putting people off is the game’s seeming similarity to Binding of Isaac, which is understandable, but very superficial. I played the hell out of Binding of Isaac. I finished both the original and the remake with all their DLCs on 100%. It’s got a very special place in my heart. But I would never say Our Darker Purpose is a cheap copy of it. It’s very much a game of its own. Besides belonging in the same game category as Isaac, it’s not affected or derived from it in any way. There are indie games out there that downright copy Isaac and use the word ‘homage’ as an excuse for their lack of creativity.
– Real player with 139.1 hrs in game
An evil version of the wayside school looms in a vast depressing void where you the player will guide a seemingly innocent fire ball girl named Cordy, who recently had all her friends murdered when all the adults vanished, through a school filled with psychopathic orphanage/boarding school students up an irrational amount of floors to seek answers from the entity known as the administrators. Cordy is destined to die many times, but still mysteriously can restart her journey a bit differently every death afterwards. In the afterlife you can take classes which if equipped give different abilities to help you on your journey.
– Real player with 101.8 hrs in game
Gloom
TL:DR I’d give it a 5 out of 10. Didn’t enjoy didn’t particularly dislike enough to go out of my way to sing from the rooftops how terrible it is.. Try it if it looks fine to you but if you don’t like the genre go for Enter the Gungeon, if I remember correctly it’s roughly the same price.
I tried it out due to other positive reviews. And I regret it.
My points will be condensed.
The story is obvious after you get like 10 items.
The combat is poorly telegraphed and the bosses rely on doing ridiculous amounts of damage. The renegade in particular, while I’m fairly sure this is just a bug, shoot a fireball without any telegraph. I know he HAS a telegraph, as 8 times out of 10 it happens, but that 2 out of 10 chance that he won’t can be the difference between a good run and dying early.
– Real player with 23.3 hrs in game
Gloom is a 2D, Side-scrolling, Action Roguelike with a heavy emphasis on combat and learning enemy attack patterns. Where most roguelikes would randomize a room’s layout or set different traps to look out for, Gloom only changes up the enemy lineups that youll encounter, plus the items & weapons that you can pick up. Otherwise, its the exact same run from left to right through the same 10 or so rooms per floor (4 floors in total), with enemy encounters being the main thing you need to worry about per run.
– Real player with 21.0 hrs in game