Boons & Burdens

As a lunatic with too much time and not enough sense to spend it wisely, I'm constantly on the lookout for Roguelikes and their kin of a high enough quality to justify the time spent. You can imagine my surprise when I actually found one that made the lie come true. That was Gunlocked, the game made by this developer shortly beforehand. A shockingly well-designed gem that is worth so much more than its comparatively infinitesimal asking price, I couldn't believe my luck when I found another was on the horizon. As such, I have been eagerly awaiting Boons & Burdens. Understand my shock when I tell you that it actually exceeded my expectations. Please play this game if you enjoy wonderful craftsmanship and compelling creativity in a genre that is so often sadly bereft of the two. Please; I need another one of these, and this developer is foolish enough to underestimate the worth of this absolute steal. I am loathe to spend time reviewing even games that I adore, but the request to do so by the creator when I reported a small issue was so earnest and well earned that I felt I had no choice but to acquiesce. Be a part of their of their inevitable rise towards well-deserved popularity.

The graphics are gorgeous, the gameplay sucks. It's boring. Waiting until the end of the match to spend gold on upgrades sucks. The burdens suck. The boons are terrible. Graphics and UI are top notch. Update: I still find this game pretty to look at, but incredibly boring. Playing is an absolute chore. The lack of upgrades while playing doesn't help. Its just moving around. Levels end with text to read, punishments to take on board. There's no flow. No feeling powerful. No game breaking builds. I think its time for a refund. I waited to see if the "fun would be patched in" but it hasn't happened. It's not you, its me.

[b]Boons & Burdens[/b] is an exquisite reverse bullet-hell, twin-stick roguelite hybrid born out of 2022's Vampire Survivor craze. [b]That being said, B&B is [u]no[/u] VS clone[/b]. Choose your class and equipment, charms and tomes, unlockable rings and wand and play in one of the two game modes the game has to offer, sharing a meta-progression tree. Those two in-depth game modes branch off into unique difficulty modifiers. [b]Players looking for a more [u]traditional roguelite adventure will be right at home Delving[/u]. Meanwhile, [u]fans of the Vampire Survivor genre might prefer the Arena.[/u][/b] As of typing, the early-access [b]feature 21 skill trees of 7 nodes each[/b], with support for wand blasting pewpew, beam seeking enemies, runes targeting them for retribution, totems both active and reactive, and more. Notably, a classic summoning archtype is missing. [b]3 current classes (with at least one more on the way, I think?) featuring classic elemental archtypes.[/b] Each class has their own distinct equipment to unlock and choose from, while each piece has its own unique mechanics as actives and passives, skills and ultimates. *In Delve-mode, go through 12 rounds (lasting very roughly 45 seconds to 2 minutes each) of monster-blasting and dodging to gather gold and crystals to buy Boons and Rings. Boons are skills picked from ~21 skill trees, including active and passive nodes, for the duration of one game. [b]Rings[/b] are meta-upgrades lasting through all game modes that can be equipped in limited fashion. [u]A small selection of random bosses with their own skill sets awaits.[/u] Each round, pick from a variety of [b]Burdens[/b] to set the objective, which includes its own accompanying randomized [b]Sacrifice[/b], as a modifier to spice up the match. Don't spend too long in any one round because difficulty ramps up ever more! *In Arena-mode, dispense from all those complexities for a pure 15-minute adventure. No Burdens and Sacrifice, no bosses, no managing threat levels. You just pick your your class and equipment and get ready to levelup and blast monsters, while avoiding them and their rare occasional projectiles. A few simple sub-objectives and events pop-up to spice up the Arena but so do the occasional unique Potion to powerup your character. [u][b]I suggest you try out the demo first[/b][/u], then perhaps consider joining the Discord to follow up on the game's development. All-in-all, a solid 7.5 out of 10 at the moment, very likely 8.0/10 or even 8.5/10 at release. For the price and with a free demo, it's hard to go wrong. On the "cons" side: the game may have lost a little bit of its potential from spreading itself through two game modes that don't interact a lot with each other, rather than focusing on one really good one. Balance between the classes and trees, and in the gameplay in general, is all over the place. There is also a certain blandness to a nameless elemental-based class system that completely focus on gameplay rather than attempting to set a unique tone of story or being, even if it is limited to what can be expected from this genre and this pricepoint. All of this might change during the remaining course of development, and so would this review if needed.

There's just not enough here. Good ideas, looks nice, but it ain't got it.

Gunlocked devs most recent endeavor. I will be honest - I do not like this as much as Gunlocked. It is a fun arena style twin stick shooter. There's some really fun synergies and combinations of upgrades that feel really awesome together, and overall the game graphically looks great. It's a fine game. It's not expensive and it works great on deck -- but this is nowhere near as groundbreakingly unique as Gunlocked is. I also feel like it drags at times, which I never felt with Gunlocked. This game has a lot of good ideas but it definitely doesn't feel as fleshed out as I'd like. I do however don't think it deserves a thumbs down. It's cheap, it's fun for a few hours, and its got a great art style and works perfectly as a deck game.

The game has a cool style, like a certain type of arcade game from the late 1980's or early 1990's and feels professionally made. Outside of that, the game has a lot of bad ideas. Pickups disappear over time. The "Arena" mode features an extremely small play area. Enemies are spongier than is healthy and the player cannot enforce their will, forcing them to kite around the room. Because pickups disappear, what you need may not be there when you come back, but you can't walk into a crowd to get anything because the enemies are densely packed. The "Delve" mode has more space but has large wait between power-ups. Players purchase between rounds, but the round do not come quickly. The "Burdens" drag the mode down further. The player does not power up often enough to take focus from the gameplay. Meta-upgrade system is weak and grindy. In either mode, gameplay is dry and lacking and there's not much here. The game isn't necessarily lacking in content, technically, it is just that the gameplay, systems, and tuning make it all add up to very little. In other words: it isn't fun.

As someone who loves roguelikes and survivorlikes I gotta say this game is great. Huge variety of builds, lots of skilled based combat, and it has components of some of my favorites in the genre such as Risk of Rain. If you are a fan of these types of games the depth and engaging game play is some of the best!

Not playable on Steam Deck as the framerate is stuck at 20fps - https://steamcommunity.com/app/2646120/discussions/0/4423184908203198625/

Game has appealing graphics. Concept is promising, but it's boring, slow, and confusing

This is a twin-stick shooter featuring short, fast-paced gameplay sessions. The different classes, selected before starting a run, provide different playstyles and can be further adjusted with different equipment. Most boons provided during a run offer more than just simple stat increases, with numerous combination possibilities. Generally, the game doesn't offer overpowered builds that let the player destroy everything easily. Instead, the player always needs to dodge and attack flexibly, sometimes adjusting behavior based on the build (and stage conditions in Delve mode). Overall, this game is a great choice when you're looking for some fast-paced gameplay in a short amount of time.