HellEscape

Full playthrough here (once it processes): https://youtu.be/Ow5rq_v_TCg First off my most major complaint is not being able to aim certain weapons while running away I honestly wish* the shooting was on the arrow keys and the movement was on wasd or vice/versa or at least an option to toggle it because shooting in front of you is just tragic as a bunch of bombers are trying to climb into you like Ace Ventura was in that rhino. I thought this game was quite a blast I will say it definitely has room for improvement in my opinion, but it's a pretty solid CHALLENGING bullet hell I love that the creator gives you multiple types of missions to spice things up, BUT the Obelisk level is just a crappy level 100% you can't even see what's directly north of the obelisk it's in the middle of the stage and if you don't have a certain build you are SoL the enemies sit inside the obelisk and go to town luckily that's only one stage. The music is nice and the characters have very different skills and there's a lot of them I do wish you could unlock the characters that are elemental based with any spell being taken to expert instead of a specific one, because honestly that just wasn't worth the butt hurt to me since certain characters can only get certain spells I can't even begin to think what the sacrifice thing is. The cauldron literally black screened my game when I was playing the random character and when I fought the inevitables for 40 minutes on the anubis stage it black screened me as well luckily I kept progress thankfully. I wish the achievements were steam achievements as well as in game achievements. Overall though definitely worth the price and I honestly think it would have been worth the 5 bucks in it's current state as well imo.

I'm a huge fan of the new VS autofire genre and will play any that come out. There is some decent potential here with the missions, level design and classes. However, there are some very simple misses here that I cannot understand. The dash function has been popping up in some of these games and I think it's a great addition, however why can we not change the key binding in Hellescape? Both double tap and X are awkward and make no sense. Why can we not use the mouse to select any of the menu items? Positive review so far based on the bones of the game, but with how critical the dash key is that may change if there are not customizable keybinding options in the future.

I can't recommend this. There's a problem with new games where developers look at things like Music volume and say to themselves, why don't we do it in 25% increments? Why don't we set the base volume to very loud? Well, mate, because I am the owner of my headphones, not you. I want to be able to fully control the volume, and turn it down to barely audible over the default volume of my PC. I don't want to be deafened. So no, you can't set 10% as in this game, as the minimum volume for sound effects before it's muted. Because that was too loud. I'm not turning down my general PC volume, because that throws everything else on the PC out of whack. As for the game, it doesn't have auto-aim and that's a non-starter for me. It's not the point of the genre.

I was initially gonna hit yes on recommend, then I read what I typed and hit no. It takes a certain type or person to enjoy this. I recommend this to those type of people but in general ehhhhh. Offers little complexity, and little endorphins. Mainly Grind. Lots of Grind. Lots of Suffer, unless you cheat. Even if you cheat, suffer. I'm a fan of suffering so that's why I'm 8 hours deep. Despite being said Fan, I still cheated gold in because good lord this metapowerup system is t'awful short for Totally Awful. Gold costs are out of control for minimal benefits that you DO NEED, especially for certain classes. Or to even unlock classes. Unlocked Mounts (requires a gold purchased class and multiple Mounts of a single enemy type) cost gold and gems when unlocked and persist for one run (unless you hit exit run, so basically once you complete the stage mission bail so no farming up to your upper limits. Wait what? That's silly and maddening.) MPU's (meta power ups) have to be read all the way through because some are infinitely more useful than others. This is important because since gold gain is so low, you're gonna wanna waste as little time as possible. Ranger is a good start, Bow augments with split and explosive arrows covers issues with Monster Armor (unless fire resistant ofc). Comes with a good base damage too. Rage is infinitely useful, do not sleep on that ability. Far as I've gotten it's the only source of 'exponential' growth. Obviously not actually exponential, but the huge leaps in damage sure feels like it. I'll be honest, I got past 2 hours without noticing it because I'm bad, and ehhhhh might've refunded this if I'd known. But I hadn't quite grasped just how bad this MPU system is so y'know, I'm in for the long haul. Hard limit's around 16 minutes or so per mission stage. Then the Inevitable comes out and kills you. Remember to bail before then or you lose your mount and have to rebuy it (WHYYYYYY).

HellEscape is a very solid bullet hell rogue-like game that can be enjoyed in short sessions, a perfect game when you have 10-15 minutes. It has a lot of player agency considering it is a bullet hell; the player has control over both movement and their attack direction as well as their upgrade path, there's really a lot to like and anytime I died it really felt like it was my own mistake. My favorite thing about this game is the progression system, you have a lot of control over where you want to progress whether you like playing specific play styles or attacks etc. Additionally there are a variety of question/missions/goals in each of the levels. These provide great incentive to try the same level multiple times will striving for different strategies to accomplish them. I really, really dig this part of the game, I'd love to see tons more goals in each level if I'm being greedy. I have to also mention another favorite, the get swole option. This is pretty unique to any game I've ever played, but you are challenged to do some physical activity and if you do and confirm you actually did it (or lie... but, your cheating yourself you know ;) you'll earn some decent additional gold. I have always loved the idea of progressing in a game by doing something outside of the game. Granted this is on the honor system but so what, I've done and intend to continue doing all the physical challenges just because it's healthy and rewarding. Absolutely love this feature. The game is just plain fun, it's colorful, responsive, has good music and good sprites and animation. Lastly I can genuinely say this is a solid developer who is a very talented developer and software programmer. He is very responsive and takes critique to heart and delivers solid software all around. Thank you! I can't wait to see how this game shapes up when it leaves early access!!

HellEscape is a pretty good game. Similar in style to Vampire Survivors, but with a lot of key differences that make it very unique while still maintaining that same rush when playing. -All characters have a dash, which adds nice mobility options (it doesn't give I-frames, so watch out). -The way a run works is you have a specific mission to do, which will reward you for completing it. Most missions let you continue playing until your character dies, too. -Most maps are limited in size, which adds to the difficulty a bit (no more endlessly running in one direction for safety). -Every character has their own stats and unique ability, on top of having a different roster of skill choices upon levelup. -There's a huge amount of replayability, of course. -Daily challenge runs are very fun. Random map, random mission, and an extra modifier on the mission (player is giant, player always dashes, suicide bombers spawn at regular intervals, and many more). -Music is good. -Art is a nice and simplistic style, and very clean. -The game runs smoothly. -Full controller support. -The dev is very responsive and open to feedback. -DRM-Free, and very small filesize, so you're free to say; put it on a flashdrive to play at work. -There's some secrets in the game, with interesting ways they can impact your gameplay.

This game has a lot of fun interesting mechanics. It is really hard at first but gets flowing pretty good once you get used to it.

Probably going into one of my all time favorite games. I have completely beat the game 3 times and working on my 4th and still enjoying it. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!