Ghoul Thrasher

𝔊𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱 𝔞𝔱𝔪𝔬𝔰𝔭𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔳𝔦𝔰𝔲𝔞𝔩 𝔰𝔱𝔶𝔩𝔢. 𝔖𝔦𝔪𝔭𝔩𝔢 𝔤𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶 𝔟𝔲𝔱 𝔤𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱 𝔞𝔯𝔱.

The design is actually pretty sick

Man, I love this game... but why is it so scary?!

Fun RNG heavy dungeon crawl, with nice graphics and music.

I backed this game during the backerkit and was excited to give it a go on here! It's a fun game and the play through is random every time. You may start with a sword and armor or a dagger and a potion. So a good start and smart decisions at the beginning can influence your outcome! I definitely recommend giving this game a try! Plus it has an awesome art style! Buy this game and go thrash some ghouls and other creatures!

Had a great time playing through this game. Met the developers about a year ago at the Playthrough 2025 convention in Raleigh, NC. They definitely are passionate about this game and I was excited to support their project. This game is really cool because it was actually developed with the original Game Boy in mind. They do offer physical cartridges able to be played on the original Nintendo hardware which I thought was really cool. When it comes to the game itself, the gameplay is fairly simple but addicting. It's a roguelike dungeon crawler with infinite replay ability. Each run is different and all rooms are random. It's a game definitely made to be picked up and quickly played through. There is a fair bit of strategy involved for having to decide whether to fight or flee a battle, though I found it more worth while to just fight if it wasn't too powerful of an enemy because there is a flee penalty to your health. Light strategy is also required when having to manage your silver (currency) and items to purchase / upgrade. All in all, it took me about 15 minutes to fully beat the game from beginning to end of run. I had a good time with it.

Solid fun, reminds me of playing swords and serpents on the NES back in the day too some extent.

It is with regret that I must say I was very disappointed with this game. From time to time, I look for retro games that can scratch my nostalgia itch, provide some pleasant entertainment, and add a bit of freshness to my gaming experience. Unfortunately, [i]Ghoul Thrasher[/i] offers absolutely nothing beyond a brief dose of nostalgia lasting literally a few minutes, which largely overlaps with what is already shown in the trailer and screenshots. This is because there is virtually [b]no gameplay here at all[/b]. As a result, you might as well just watch the trailer and be done with it. The entire gameplay essentially boils down to clicking the confirmation button to see “what happens next.” You have practically no real influence over the course of the game. The closest comparison would be playing [b]Monopoly[/b]. The key difference is that in Monopoly I at least interact with other players, and that interaction is basically where all the fun comes from. Here, that interaction is obviously absent. Some might say, [i]“but it’s a roguelike, it’s very difficult, and you need to learn its nuances and mechanics.”[/i] The problem is that there are [b]no nuances or mechanics to learn[/b]. The fact that I can buy a rope and use it when I fall into a pit, and still lose health points, changes nothing. The fact that I can either start with a sword or a flail and later on buy the other one from a merchant also changes nothing. The fact that I can fight an encountered enemy or flee changes nothing either. This is genuinely worse than playing Monopoly. Playing an RPG with ChatGPT (for free) is far more engaging. In case anyone has doubts: yes, I played various games on the Game Boy. None of them were this boring. And yes, I have played many roguelikes, and every single one of them was engaging to some degree - unlike this game. At first glance, the game looks like an interesting passion project that is not aimed at mainstream audiences. The issue is that due to the gameplay (or rather, the complete lack of it), [b]it feels more like a game jam entry[/b] or a [b]practice project[/b] made by someone who is just learning to program. For free - fine. But selling this for money is genuinely dishonest. I wish all the best to the author and that some day makes up some ideas that will introduce actual gameplay and make a proper update or simply publish a new project that offers both nostalgia and entertainment. It is a very good basis, but it needs a solid chunk of gameplay designing.