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Ciaphas posted:Trying to figure out Rift Wizard again, not least because a Metallic class of spells sounds rad as goddamn hell The spell (as already mentioned) is Cantrip Cascade, and it is a level 5 (5 cost) Arcane Sorcery spell. As for your edited question, that is a feature being added in the patch with Metallic spells, so it might be on the beta branch? I'm not sure if that's actually in the beta yet but it has been announced as coming next patch.
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Oct 23, 2021 22:06
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The biggest problem with Rift Wizard is having to dig through the giant lists of spells/skills. Speaking of, is there a way to look at a spell's possible upgrades before you buy it?
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Oct 23, 2021 23:11
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Ciaphas posted:(e) is there any way ingame to get info on a spell's upgrades iwthout buying it? Mithross posted:As for your edited question, that is a feature being added in the patch with Metallic spells, so it might be on the beta branch? I'm not sure if that's actually in the beta yet but it has been announced as coming next patch. megane posted:Speaking of, is there a way to look at a spell's possible upgrades before you buy it? Soon but not too soon.
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Oct 23, 2021 23:26
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 Reading is hard
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Oct 23, 2021 23:37
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on the topic of rift wizard, is there any way to see what the upgrades for a spell do before you buy it?
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Oct 23, 2021 23:53
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cock hero flux posted:on the topic of rift wizard, is there any way to see what the upgrades for a spell do before you buy it? yeah you just gotta buy it first
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Oct 24, 2021 00:00
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TitusGroen posted:Yeah pachinko boards feel lazy. Even the most basic encounters in Slay the Spire feel significant as they cost you something. this is one of the most annoyingly pretentious reviews ive ever read
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Oct 24, 2021 00:53
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cock hero flux posted:on the topic of rift wizard, is there any way to see what the upgrades for a spell do before you buy it? Yeah if you own the spell, you can see what the upgrades do. I think you can see the names of the upgrades when hovering over the spell in the spellbook on the lower right side. Im not sure if there is a good wiki or anything, information on the game is kinda sparse outside the discord channel. It's on the update road map to add some way to check out upgrades before you purchase. Also, it's a pretty quick roguelike, so just play around and cast spells and get sent back to the void.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:00
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juggalo baby coffin posted:this is one of the most annoyingly pretentious reviews ive ever read Oh wow I clicked through based entirely on your post and you are right. And then the author's blurb at the end really sells what a tool the guy is. He harps for two pages about how the game is bad because it doesn't have metaprogression, then his blurb is about how he likes all genres.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:02
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TitusGroen posted:Yeah pachinko boards feel lazy. Even the most basic encounters in Slay the Spire feel significant as they cost you something. reading their roadmap it sounds like they're definitely gonna do more with the boards; most of them aren't great right now but, eh, it's a demo and it seems like a pretty early one. i'm keeping an eye on this one as they add more to it.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:12
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Grevlek posted:Yeah if you own the spell, you can see what the upgrades do. I think you can see the names of the upgrades when hovering over the spell in the spellbook on the lower right side. Im not sure if there is a good wiki or anything, information on the game is kinda sparse outside the discord channel. It's on the update road map to add some way to check out upgrades before you purchase. the last bit is important to keep in mind, a run in rift wizard is pretty quick if you focus on it. literally just try things out. it may or may not get you a victory but at the least you'll get an idea of how it works to whatever degree.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:25
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Johnny Joestar posted:the last bit is important to keep in mind, a run in rift wizard is pretty quick if you focus on it. literally just try things out. it may or may not get you a victory but at the least you'll get an idea of how it works to whatever degree. Yeah Rift Wizard is one of these games where it's easy to spend like a hour thinking carefully through every single action, but actually you'll learn way way more by just picking a few things, leaning hard into it, and blasting until you drop dead.
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Oct 24, 2021 05:08
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SKULL.GIF posted:Yeah Rift Wizard is one of these games where it's easy to spend like a hour thinking carefully through every single action, but actually you'll learn way way more by just picking a few things, leaning hard into it, and blasting until you drop dead. Honestly moreso than the spell book, I get analysis paralysis from deciding where to spawn in each level as I learn how to play the game. Seems like a pretty impactful decision with a lot of variables at play.
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Oct 24, 2021 05:39
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I generally play conjurations/chain-sorcery builds so when I spawn into a new floor I'm generally going "what will put me as far away from every threat as possible?" and then just work outwards from there.
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Oct 24, 2021 05:40
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juggalo baby coffin posted:this is one of the most annoyingly pretentious reviews ive ever read Mithross posted:Oh wow I clicked through based entirely on your post and you are right. And then the author's blurb at the end really sells what a tool the guy is. He harps for two pages about how the game is bad because it doesn't have metaprogression, then his blurb is about how he likes all genres. It's like the "it's like a roguelike, you've got to build up your power over several games until you're strong enough to beat it" meme, but written with a straight face.
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Oct 24, 2021 06:39
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rockpapershotgun strikes again
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Oct 24, 2021 07:00
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Mithross posted:Oh wow I clicked through based entirely on your post and you are right. And then the author's blurb at the end really sells what a tool the guy is. He harps for two pages about how the game is bad because it doesn't have metaprogression, then his blurb is about how he likes all genres. Metaprogression is a plague on the genre. 
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Oct 24, 2021 07:23
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That review made me so upset I went back and fired up Necrodancer, just since that new game reminded me of it. Some things don't need to be changed, Necrodancer is such a classic, next up I'll probably lose a week to like old free Spelunky or something.
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Oct 24, 2021 08:18
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TitusGroen posted:
I tried it and bounced slightly, since the two core things it does don't really mesh for me. It's in the same general design space of a Brough-like or Hopalite, but has a combo meter that goes down in real time and only refills when you damage an enemy. The design seems like it might be interesting (although it feels less tightly designed than the games it's inspired by), but the timer really puts me in a bad headspace.
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Oct 24, 2021 08:37
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goferchan posted:Honestly moreso than the spell book, I get analysis paralysis from deciding where to spawn in each level as I learn how to play the game. Seems like a pretty impactful decision with a lot of variables at play. my solution is to hold the key that shows threatened areas, decide if there are any items that I would use immediately that would justify spawning in a threatened area, and then click randomly.
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Oct 24, 2021 08:40
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FishMcCool posted:Metaprogression is a plague on the genre. I think people are being a little unfair here. It's not "this roguelike doesn't have metaprogression therefore it's bad", it's "this roguelike doesn't have metaprogression and unfortunately lacks variety and depth and you'll get bored of repeating practically the same opening over and over", which is a valid criticism. quote:If the player must traverse the same starter floors over and over, they should feel noticeably different every time, whether that is encountering different monsters, overcoming fresh obstacles, or gaining unforeseen skills. Here, the floors feel too similar, each journey unidentifiable from the last. The skill pool is shallow, and none feel particularly powerful. The first five floors get especially repetitive, the first boss is a complete non-event once you understand you can dash through his clouds of toxin harmlessly. You will be sick of his skeleton face within ten deaths. Seems fair enough to me. And he recommends pawnbarian as an alternative.
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Oct 24, 2021 09:39
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The challenge runs on Rift Wizard can be good for decision paralysis at times. This week's is 'holy spells only' which is... interesting. I'm on the beta branch which gives Silver Spear thankfully, as having a high charge, high damage single target nuke for holy rounds it out.
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Oct 24, 2021 10:02
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ive been going through my vast steam backlog of underplayed roguelites/roguelikes recently, much to the mockery of all my friends who see me play 17 different games in a short period via steam popups, but heres some opinions: Hyperparasite - a twin stick shooter type roguelike, themed around possessing enemies. It's good fun, the characters you can possess are all 80s movie archetypes, and all have distinct powers. the main oddity is that you have to collect a brain from miniboss versions of mobs, take the brain to the shop, and then pay x amount of money to unlock the ability to possess that character. they stay unlocked and its the main metaprogression of the game. but when you get to a new biome all the characters are different, so the first time you get there you won't have the ability to possess any of the characters. which means if the host body you brought from the previous area dies, you are basically hosed because you're then stuck as the parasite who dies in 1 hit and only has a very weak attack, at least until you stumble upon a miniboss and unlock at least one body. it's kind of frustrating there is a mode that has all the host bodies unlocked, but it also removes the permadeath aspect and calls you a baby, which is weird. otherwise its a fun game. I, Dracula: Genesis - very weird isometric shooter with really awesome sprite work. very difficult with a shitload of moving parts. I am poo poo at it but it is fun. involves some non-mandatory isometric platforming if you want to collect some powerups, which is not super intuitive. the art is really wonderful and the game is full of unique and weird looking characters, a lot of whom are friendly npcs who can help you out. the plot involves trying to track down dracula has he sucks the life from multiple parallel universes, having left behind a bunch of shattered weird remnants of previous universes, which is where the game takes place. i havent gotten far enough in it to see much, but the first universe is a weird series of island chains and a creepy dungeon realm. it is cask strength weird in a way that i tend to find russian/eastern european games are, so im guessing its from there.  these guys are your cool friends https://store.steampowered.com/app/1175360/I_Dracula_Genesis Spirits Abyss - this is a caiysware game, so if you've played stramium immortaly or skelly selest, you know what you're in for. fantastical graphics, a tone that is both whimsical and sinister without being cloying, and really tight difficult gameplay. you play as a little kid thrown into a deep mystery cavern. it's kind of like spelunky, but with a lot more depth of content and variety. metaprogression is isaac-like in that it consists of unlocking new biomes and characters and items, rather than adding incremental stat boosts to make you stronger. in a lot of ways the more you unlock the harder it's going to be.  there's a kind of hub world that lets you buy stuff and seed runs to a certain extent, but i haven't figured out how to unlock it yet. i like this game a lot, it is very charming, difficult, and fun. you will meet a lot of strange characters on runs and they are varying degrees of friendly to hostile. the game operates on its own internal logic, which applies to stuff like the menus and the mode names and everything. it doesn't irritatingly obscure the options menu or anything like some games do, but the game mode names are somewhat idiosyncratic. theres also a built in card battling game which i havent played much of yet. like all the other caiysware games ive played i think it suffers somewhat from being underpriced, so people assume its gonna be some kind of bullshit style over substance thing, when really it has a lot of content and is very well made. its on sale for 45% off right now, its $5, go get it https://store.steampowered.com/app/1078200/Spirits_Abyss/ Heart & Slash - 3D brawler about a cute robot trying to reverse the robot apocalypse. it's extremely fast paced to the point of being kind of loose, i find it harder to dodge enemy attacks in this than in a game like dark souls because everything goes so fast. That said, it is super fun. There's a shitload of weapons, body parts, and even a fair number of characters to unlock. Unusually for a roguelite, the rooms are all stitched together seamlessly, and with the exception of !!! WARNING !!! rooms you can run in and out during combat and enemies can follow you. Because you can run so fast, you can pick your battles to an extent. You heal by recycling parts you don't need, and you level up your parts by filling them with scrap you collect from the enemy robots. Levelled up parts restore more HP than fresh parts, so sometimes you might have to pick between a weapon you really like and having enough health to make it through. There's a huge variety of weapons, which like in dark souls each come with their own moveset and combos. My favourite weapon is probably the dumbells, which level themselves up while you use them bc your little robot is pumping iron! There are little storylines you can find that progress from run to run as Heart is put back together again and again, and they are very sweet. The longest one I've found is the one reconciling with his brother Slash, who is at first the classic evil rival robot, but softens as you are nice to him. The game is very fun, but the presentation is not always super polished. I've not run into any bugs, but in the city level it is pretty easy to jump to places where you can see outside the level geometry. It's that type of cosmetic polish I'm talking about. But that said, the charm of the game and the story are definitely enough to look past it. It's fun, frantic, and the runs are reasonably short so you're not locked in for hours at a time. https://store.steampowered.com/app/326840/HeartSlash/ PositronX - A roguelite FPS, again about the robot apocalypse. I bought this one way early on in its early access, and after revisiting I'm pleased to see how far it's come along. It's another room based roguelite where you're locked in till you beat the enemies, who are all evil robots of one type or another. Probably the first thing you're gonna notice about the game is the wiiiild amount of post processing effects. You can turn them down, but the game always looks to some extent like its a living form of graphics card box art. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you. https://i.imgur.com/xUesz5J.mp4 The biggest obstacle the game has is that like a lot of roguelites it starts you out with the most boring weapons, the most boring environments, and the most boring enemies. If you can get past that early stage and into unlocking the more fun guns and characters there is a good fun game here. Your character moves fast, can double jump and wall jump, there are a lot of enviromental hazards in stages that you can use to your advantage, you can run into wacky stuff like zero G rooms and such. You get a variety of secondary powers which you can upgrade down different paths, you can upgrade your weapons in a few different directions, there's a bunch of different characters with their own gimmicks. The music is very doom 2016 which definitely adds to the game. I'd say the main weakness of the game is that the guns are quite variable in how satisfying they feel, and there is not a huge amount of visual feedback from enemies when you shoot them. They flash and there's a hit sound for it, but they don't really visibly flinch. I guess they are unfeeling robots, but still. For some reason despite it being a game I like I'm finding it hard to convey exactly why I like it. The shooting feels good, there's a nice variety of levels, the weird art style is entertaining because it looks like how people in the 90s thought games would look in the future. https://store.steampowered.com/app/529970/PositronX/ Space Gladiators - this one is a hack&slashy platformer type game. Like castle crashers meets isaac I guess. the art is all hand animated cartoony and the sensibility is what i'd call newgroundsy if i was being cruel (think Alien Hominid). It's an endearing and pretty nostalgic look for me, but I could understand people preferring the classic pixel art that most roguelikes go with.  It's a very good feeling game though, all the hits have a huge amount of feedback, stuff bursts into showers of coins, the sound effects are all punchy. The controls are tight, which is good because the platforming can be quite challenging. There's a huge range of characters, items (both offensive and defensive), and little floating pet followers in this game, and a bunch of stuff to unlock. It sounds kind of basic but I think the good feel of the gameplay and the difficulty ramp up, and variety of meaningfully different characters, make it compelling to keep playing. Its hard to find a lot to say about a game that's just good fun. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1144910/Space_Gladiators/ I'll probably write up some more later, but i've been focusing on games that I dont think people will have heard of or given a chance. Multiple people I know have accused me of making up brand new roguelites out of the ether because I find a lot of stuff nobody has ever heard of. i feel bad saying isaac-like so much but I feel like that's the easiest way to convey the different schools of roguelike meta-progression: Isaac-like - unlocking new items, biomes, and characters across runs. the net effect is that the difficulty and complexity increase as the player gets more familiar with the game. IDK a good example- like - metaprogression involves spending a currency on upgrading the player character's strength over many runs. ultimately the player gets stronger and stronger, and the game may not even be winnable on the first run. there's varying combos of the two, and the isaac type is definitely harder to pull off well. juggalo baby coffin fucked around with this message at 11:52 on Oct 24, 2021 |
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Oct 24, 2021 11:43
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juggalo baby coffin posted:ive been going through my vast steam backlog of underplayed roguelites/roguelikes recently, much to the mockery of all my friends who see me play 17 different games in a short period via steam popups, but heres some opinions: I appreciate the write-up, although I warn that the I, Dracula game is stuck in EA phase, without no updates or dev comments for several months.
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Oct 24, 2021 11:59
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o dang i didn't realise that
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Oct 24, 2021 12:24
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juggalo baby coffin posted:Spirits Abyss - this is a caiysware game, so if you've played stramium immortaly or skelly selest, you know what you're in for. fantastical graphics, a tone that is both whimsical and sinister without being cloying, and really tight difficult gameplay. you play as a little kid thrown into a deep mystery cavern. it's kind of like spelunky, but with a lot more depth of content and variety. metaprogression is isaac-like in that it consists of unlocking new biomes and characters and items, rather than adding incremental stat boosts to make you stronger. in a lot of ways the more you unlock the harder it's going to be.
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Oct 24, 2021 12:33
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juggalo baby coffin posted:IDK a good example- like - metaprogression involves spending a currency on upgrading the player character's strength over many runs. ultimately the player gets stronger and stronger, and the game may not even be winnable on the first run. Hades-like 
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Oct 24, 2021 12:37
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Razakai posted:The challenge runs on Rift Wizard can be good for decision paralysis at times. This week's is 'holy spells only' which is... interesting. I'm on the beta branch which gives Silver Spear thankfully, as having a high charge, high damage single target nuke for holy rounds it out. yeah, despite the alternate modes being advertised as like harder challenges there's something nice about being able to just boot up a run where the good majority of the spellbook is outright disabled because it lets you focus specifically on a certain group of things and makes it so you have to figure out how best to put them to use
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Oct 24, 2021 13:22
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Burning Rain posted:Thanks for the write-up! I've played a bunch of Spirits Abyss and can confirm there's crazy depth to the basic Spelunky-like setup. However I'm terrible at it and there seem to be some bullshit traps/enemies there that you have to know in advance, so the game makes me too angry to actually play it for any prolonged period of time. Yeah, this game seems to have a lot of depth and can actually be played local coop which my wife and I have done a few times. I really love the aesthetic which commits whole hog to its weirdness. Sinister and whimsical are great descriptions of it.
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Oct 24, 2021 13:37
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A Strange Aeon posted:Yeah, this game seems to have a lot of depth and can actually be played local coop which my wife and I have done a few times. stramium immortaly and skelly selest are also worth checking out, by the same guy. stramium is a sci-fi type thing where you're a little jetpack guy invading a rival kingdom's massive spaceship thingy. it's shmup type gameplay in little arena rooms, it's also extremely fuckin hard and even more trippy to look at. there are a lot of unlockable characters but i've never successfully unlocked any of them. you configure the size of the spaceship you're invading at the start of a run so you can pick how long you want it to be. skelly selest is a nuclear throne type hack and slash thing with a bunch of modes, mostly dungeons and score attack arenas. it's set in hell and you're an angelic skeleton battling demons. you have a gun in one hand and a melee weapon in the other, which varies from character to character. theres also a triple triad type card game built in. probably the shallowest of the 3 but also the most accessible. they share the same tone as spirits abyss and the same type of language
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Oct 24, 2021 14:29
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Worth mentioning that Spirits Abyss just got a decently chunky update a couple of weeks ago as well. I haven't checked it out yet myself but more of the same is always welcome. A couple of new characters and zones iirc, plus miscellaneous other stuff. And caiysware's next game, a more traditional turn-based roguelike, already has a Steam page as well: Deadzoned
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Oct 24, 2021 14:41
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Sway Grunt posted:Worth mentioning that Spirits Abyss just got a decently chunky update a couple of weeks ago as well. I haven't checked it out yet myself but more of the same is always welcome. A couple of new characters and zones iirc, plus miscellaneous other stuff. oh poo poo i hadnt seen that, i will wishlist it
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Oct 24, 2021 15:22
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juggalo baby coffin posted:
Rogue Legacy like. Definitely is a big early prominent example of that. Hades (when it comes to progression only), Undermine, Ziggurat 2, Immortal Redneck Speaing of which I picked up Rogue Legacy 2 this weekend and it feels like it is in a good state. It has the same sort of extra much number-go-up cycle as 1 but I like that and don't mind. This seems to be more polished and more varied already but I don't have a ton of time in yet. Still I'm happy I've picked it up.
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Oct 24, 2021 19:39
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juggalo baby coffin posted:Spirits Abyss I just wanted to say holy poo poo thanks for the huge post. I dig Stramium Immortally, but this looks way more up my alley than anything else they’ve done and yet somehow I totally missed its existence. Instant purchase. Also thought your end point about talking different types of meta progression was interesting. I’m not bothered by games with the BoI style “this game is a big box of toys and the more you play it the more toys you unlock to mess around with.” It does loving suck you’re required to kill bosses multiple times to unlock proper endgame routes though, Isaac. You lose points for that. …But the Rogue Legacy style of “sure you can go to the later zones of the game but they’re going to be a zero fun slog until you get some permanent stat upgrades” is one of the fastest deal breakers a roguelike can possibly offer me.
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Oct 24, 2021 20:23
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We shouldn’t forget the best and most important form of metaprogression either, the one type that makes every game better regardless of its design: Fashion Metaprogression, where playing more unlocks fun outfits, accessories and art changes. Monster Train is probably the best in the genre for this, because gold cards are neat.
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Oct 24, 2021 20:30
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brainSnakes posted:…But the Rogue Legacy style of “sure you can go to the later zones of the game but they’re going to be a zero fun slog until you get some permanent stat upgrades” is one of the fastest deal breakers a roguelike can possibly offer me.  Also when the meta currency is also an in-game currency, or costs in-game resources (e.g. you have to put yourself in danger for it), meaning you have to hamstring your current run in order to save currency to spend on metaprogression poo poo. Dead Cells' speed doors are an example, or buyable darkness in Hades.
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Oct 24, 2021 20:47
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megane posted:
I was just playing spirits abyss and had to sacrifice 6 hearts in my current run to unlock a new zone forever :/
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Oct 24, 2021 20:51
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megane posted:
I feel like In Celebration of Violence does this, but very well instead of badly. You can hoard currency for after the run, but you almost always get more in total by spending it to get stuff to take your run further. It's there as an option that is very rarely the correct one, instead of feeling like it's almost mandatory if you actually want to progress. edit: I typed this out and now I'm off to install ICoV again. I forget how good that game is.
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Oct 24, 2021 20:55
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Chin Strap posted:Speaing of which I picked up Rogue Legacy 2 this weekend and it feels like it is in a good state. It has the same sort of extra much number-go-up cycle as 1 but I like that and don't mind. This seems to be more polished and more varied already but I don't have a ton of time in yet. Still I'm happy I've picked it up. I've been waiting for Rogue Legacy 2 for what feels like forever. Been worried about picking it up in Early Access though because I usually burn out a game and then never go back for the actual 1.0 release version. Are they about finished?
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Oct 24, 2021 20:58
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Mithross posted:I feel like In Celebration of Violence does this, but very well instead of badly. You can hoard currency for after the run, but you almost always get more in total by spending it to get stuff to take your run further. It's there as an option that is very rarely the correct one, instead of feeling like it's almost mandatory if you actually want to progress. I've been dipping my toes into ICoV, wouldn't mind a bit of discussion and strategy. I'd love to be able to pick what weapon I start with, for example, but have never found how to make that happen and end up pitchforking until I get lucky and find another weapon.
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Oct 24, 2021 21:48
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