Inkbound

Purchased it and discovered it was a live service MMO roguelike. Not what I was expecting based on the store page.

I played this both solo and co-op, I find the solo experience to be slightly more engaging. I bought this because I have a lot of faith in Shiny Shoe as a team and I was curious about their take on a multiplayer turn-based game, especially when I learned about the simultaneous turns. What I found was a gem to play, obviously crafted with love and thoughtfulness. My 4-person multiplayer crew enjoyed a few sessions, though we found the specialization allowed in multiplayer often meant the game was about trying to find a universally unbeatable win plan, and then repeating that for every battle. The single player experience is great and I found the game to be very enjoyable.

TLDR: Good game, solid loop, enjoyable characters. Game still has more content to give but for now a satisfactory conclusion to the story. So actual review time. Inkbound is a roguelike more than a roguelite, there are some upgrades in the lobby but those mostly just allow you to better push the game to give you things you want, rather than straight increases to damage or defense(For the most part). Game makes you work for the win and I appreciate that. It can be BRUTAL if you want it to be, rank system is well designed and makes progressing through the ranks an enjoyable process, rather than just a slog. Some friends may disagree with me on that point but that's how I feel. The heroes are interesting and do have VERY different playstyles, making you want different items for different characters through a run. Inkbound is also not afraid to let the player make a broken build. There are massive synergies that make the game a lot easier if you get and/or push for them. This is always an enjoyable time in my opinion but I understand some players don't enjoy that. Overall I recommend the game, the artstyle reminds me of those mid 2000s browser MMOs and gives me a huge amount of nostalgia.

Kinda good, but not fully finished, it gets pretty repetitive after a couple hours AND it's abandoned by the company, so there won't be any updates anymore

Great game. Basically slay the spire with slightly different mechanics, instead of being card based its ability based and has rings you fight in to position yourself and allies. This game has tons of replayability and variety with a lot of characters and unique upgrades so every run feels different. Its a true shame that the devs have all but abandoned around a year after release (now 2 years). Great game for 1-4 players.

Awesome Roguelike. I appreciate how unique and inspired the classes feel. It took me about an hour or so to get into the groove of things but once the gears start clicking the game play is a joy. Would recommend 10/10 Would Ink Dive again.

Another amazing game from Shiny Shoe. Great variety of builds, stellar voice acting, intense gameplay, beautiful music. Yes, further development has been abandoned. However, the story is complete, there's hundreds of hours of gameplay you can squeeze out of single player alone and the devs say they want to maintain the online servers as long as there's people playing. Don't be silly, get this freaking gem.