DIG - Deep In Galaxies

6.5/10 surprisingly fun - weapon costs at the shop are kinda insane that will be 7000 gold ive got 17 and a rock

DIG - Deep In Galaxies is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. Although, this is kind of one of the better ones... a bit like being kind of tall as far as midgets go. There's some Terraria ripoff elements here like destructible terrain, action brawling, a bit of RPG-esque character stuff... a lot of work has been put into putting lipstick on a pig here. See, at the bottom of all this it's just another GameMaker Studio pixel platformer, in a vast, sweeping sea of amateur 2D pixel platformers on Steam. I don't recommend those to gamers, let's go into why I can't recommend you buy this particular one either. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The game features no proper level design or game/story flow/plot, as they opted to try to use samey repetitive procgen algorithms as a substitute for adding such content to the game, to avoid doing the important job of level/map design. As a result, the game doesn't actually have any content worth mentioning, just endless, boring, repetitive, soulless algorithmically generated sameyness. Developers must learn that procedural generation is not an acceptable substitute for content. Some of the defects in the game can be attributed to the choice of using the GameMaker Studio construction kit/toolset. This is a very poor quality toolset favoured by amateur developers as it's cheap and requires little in the way of development skill, but unfortunately has very limited capabilities. Just as you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear, you can't make a great video game if you use a terrible engine. GameMaker Studio is most commonly used to make retro pixel shovelware and cash grabs. A strong argument can be made that construction kits like GameMaker Studio should never be used to make games for profit, as the "developer", Molton Studio has done here. These construction kits are intended to teach people some of the basic principles of game development, and to make small demos to pass around with friends. They're not intended to replace to actual work of real, professional game developers. So it's inappropriate when amateurs try to use these for profit, without any actual, real game development effort taking place. This doesn't result in products that have any real meaningful value for gamers. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The game never really caught on with the millions of gamers on Steam, with a very low peak player count close to launch, and then just a handful of players launching this game every couple of days. This is undoubtedly caused by factors such as those raised in this review. It's always helpful with buying decisions to consider how popular and successful the product is, and unfortunately while this did accumulate a few participation trophy reviews, overall, people just aren't using it. So, should you buy this game? DIG - Deep In Galaxies has the gamer gouging price of $10 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. For comparison, the $10 asking price for this game could get you games like "Bioshock Infinite", "Dishonored 2" or "Frostpunk". Yeah... any of those games, or this GameMaker Studio pixeltrash. Decisions, decisions. Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. Buy one of those instead.

Really fun game.

Learned everything I needed on the first run - then one shot the final boss on run two. Had a blast doing it. Terraria meets bro force is a great combo

The game is buggy at start and has no end of annoying issues, like a completely randomized character that takes 5 actions and several loading screens if they look so ugly you can't stand playing a run with one. It nearly made me leave a negative review on it because of how much trouble it was giving me. I eventually got a tolerable looking dude and finished a regular planet with the worst of it gone and it turned out to be a pretty good game, and I would leave much more glowing, positive stuff about it, except... wow those opening problems were **rough**. A save reset, easy character customizing (or at least rerolling), and a reliable sales base in every sector would be enough to make this a recommend outright. As it stands... avoid this if you have a lot tolerance for purposely ugly characters and jank that can pull you out of your groove. Worth getting on a sale. --- Edit with more info: tl:dr Due to the huge gap in good items vs. bad ones, you'll tend to know if your run is dead within checking the shops and your first 2-3 planets. Its many bugs start to add up, but it was still a fun game worth grabbing on discount. Longer rambling about annoyances- I've realized what bugs me the most about this game, and it's the disturbing lack of care for making it well built. You get bombs with your opening guy but using any other class makes a lot of secret areas locked off to you unless you luck out into getting something like the grenade launcher- my last run I only got deep into zone 3, well after missing every early collectable. But there's a certain level of... inconsistency in the quality of the game build also. I had a 'the floor is lava' mission and ran into unbreakable wall- not just "need explosion" but the entirely unbreakable wall, that was blocking me from completing the mission entirely. Or the way it will give you completely useless upgrades. What good is a "you do 99 dig damage" when both of my runs that got past the first sector I ended up with 1000+ damage (my second run I ended up with 15,000+). I would've thought this is unreasonable and I just connected the wrong set of bonuses in a lucky run, but getting over 1k is an achievement the majority of players who pressed on to clear a run have managed. At first this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's enough to one-shot the final boss. Combined with the screen tearing, sometimes touchy and unreliable controls (rare, but happens), and other issues (screenshot key not working- only game I've tried to take screenshots in through steam and it's failed), It's not a bad game, but early play can be extremely annoying.

My roommates walked in and said "That looks satisyfing."

Addictive, repetitive gameplay. Starts off very easy, but the higher difficulties present a challenge. Variety of weapons and gear, some of which can break the game (in a good way). You don't level up, but you increase your base stats from loot that you find, and this winds up being an effective way of progressing, at least for this type of game. The grapple hook works like it should. I wish the classes were more distinctive from each other, they only have different special abilities and these abilities aren't that special. I had to put the game down because I was playing it too much, but I'll come back to it later.

I like DIG - Deep In Galaxies. I recorded some of my progress. [b]Please take a look if you value a more Audio / Visual experience, as I discuss the game as I hack, slash and blast my way through it; in some semblance of style perhaps![/b] https://youtu.be/LpaPUhwRGuk DIG - Deep In Galaxies is an Indie, Action Roguelike RPG that reminds me of a much faster, better animated, combat focused Terraria, with far more interesting abilities! Interested? [h1]A Combat Focused Take on Terraria?[/h1] Like Terraria, there is procedural generation of the biomes, helping to keep the combats fresh with new areas to explore and fight through, along with the very fun digging and terrain destruction. DIG Deep In Galaxies also has pixel graphics, though I would say they look much better in motion due to the much better animations (no whirl-winding arms here). You do not build in DIG Deep In Galaxies: you loot and destroy! [h1]Combat Like Cave Blazers![/h1] The combat in DIG Deep In Galaxies is fast, think melee blitzing through hordes of enemies as you run and jump slash through them, cutting them all down and taking their gold, and yummy, hp restoring, yummy food! Also like Cave Blazers, you have a ranged weapon here, a gun here instead of a bow, letting you smash and blast your way through the xeno foes. You also have a double jump, and a swinging grapple hook, right off the bat, giving you incredible mobility to quickly blast, swing, and loot your way through a world. [h1]It’s an RPG Too:[/h1] DIG Deep In Galaxies has some RPG to it too. In missions you can find yellow power orbs to increase your stats: HP, Melee, Ranged, and Super ability. Also, in between lvls; you pick 1 of 3 random upgrades; Vampire Survivors style; think faster movement speed, more ammo you can carry, a higher jump, powerful and impactful stuff like that really helps to further define a playthrough. You can also find gear upgrades in chests that might make you resistant to bomb damage, melee damage, let you jump even higher, change your special item to something granting poison damage, or unlimited ammo, or give you bombs; good stuff. [h1]Meta Progression:[/h1] There is some meta progression in DIG Deep In Galaxies, though it seems limited to additional weapons and gear types that can drop as you play, as well as additional characters you can find within the missions; unlocking them for future runs. I would say that is not enough to firmly designate this a roguelite though, as the starting character is very strong, with the other unlocked characters more side grades then upgrades. Controller Support is present and good, as is good old mouse and keyboard, though for some reason the mouse does not work on the menus; confusing. Split screen Local Co-op is present as well, in case that is something that interests you. While I do like DIG Deep In Galaxies, I did come across many areas where it could be better. Please let me know if anyone thinks any of this is out of line or off-base; I’ll try and keep this organized, separating it into tech issues / bugs, and gameplay suggestions. [h1]Tech Issues / Bugs: [/h1] [b]1: No Mouse support on the Title screen, on a PC game…[/b] Very oddly, the mouse does work in game, but not on the menus! This is bad, as it gives the false impression you can’t use a mouse + Keyboard to control the game; yet you can! [b]2: More Audio Sliders Needed![/b] At least a separation between SFX and Music would feel better here. [b]3: No ability to Turn Off UI Sounds?[/b] A puzzling omission… [b]4: Bug? Keyboard Controls Don’t Work when you Start with a Gamepad.[/b] Nor do gamepad controls work if you start with keyboard; very odd… [h1]]Game Play Suggestions:[/h1] [b]5: Where Does the Dirt Go?[/b] You can knife through the dirt and soft rock like it is made of nothing, literally nothing, as it just fades away when dug away… It is flat out ridiculous; even Minecraft does something with the dirt, here; it might as well not exist. This reduces the digging to popping magical balloons that can still somehow support weight; (an interesting game idea, perhaps for certain world types, but one more suited to actual balloons or bubbles, and with the inclusion of gas simulation). Anyway, more physical depth (ironically with dirt) here would add gameplay options for the player: think Minecraft like block building on the planets, only in a 2d world. Think letting the player craft a literal (or even littoral) base if they wish, or setting up blocks to absorb enemy fire, aid climbing / vertical traversal, or block movement for a time. Perhaps allow a limited amount of build time between enemy waves or prior to being noticed, as magically instantly placing blocks in combat might not feel great. You can already destroy very impressively: consider allowing impressive building as well, perhaps in a new game mode; just some ideas you can use. [b]6: BOO![/b] There is no collusion on enemies here. Worse, there is ZERO speed reduction when literally running though enemies; am I a ghost? Perhaps to add a bit of weight to the combat and movement system, your speed is reduced by 50% when to attempt to literally walk through enemies, perhaps representing your characters evading and dodging through their position? [b]7: Can’t Choose My Lvl Ups?[/b] It doesn’t feel great that the yellow power orbs that increase your stats: HP, Melee, Ranged, and Super don’t give you the choice. Why Not? Some more Player agency would feel much better here! [b]8: Blow Em Up![/b] Can’t bomb up arrow traps with bombs? [i]It hurts my body![/i] Even Spelunky let you do that! [b]9: Reroll Abilities Please![/b] A reroll option for the lvl reward would be great, or even a standing gold reward in case you don’t like the first 3. More player ability choice in this RPG would feel great here. Anyway, my numerous suggestions aside, I do like DIG Deep In Galaxies, otherwise, I wouldn’t have shown it, and put some time into trying to make it even better. DIG - Deep In Galaxies is a fun Indie, Action Roguelike RPG that reminds me of a much faster, better animated, combat focused Terraria, with far more interesting abilities! Watch?

Epic

Good game!!