Nongünz

Nongunz is a game that I could easily see appealing to people, but just does not for me. The game bills itself as a purposefully obtuse, nihilistic roguelike. What might not be immediately obvious in the teasers and trailers is that the game is also an idle clicker game. (Yes, I know it says it in the description and am probably stupid for not realizing it. I know.) Much of the game revolves around managing your economy properly, and grinding for followers for a better idle economy, to get different boosts to start runs with, entailing leaving the game running for hours in the background. It's a neat idea in theory. The problem with this is that as soon as you activate any of the boosts, the game immediately ups the ante and spawns stronger monsters. Your upgraded guns have limited ammo, which means using them just spawns stronger monsters in exchange for a gun that will run out of ammo. All true roguelikes with no saved progress are inherently nihilistic in a way, because you always start again from scratch with a new run, but this one takes it a bit beyond: you spend hours idlnig for weapon or item boosts only to be repaid in stronger enemies right off the bat - so you don't even really benefit from the upgrades. There also appears to be crafting you can do with bone items to construct skeletons - but I never finished a skeleton, and everything goes away if you die, so I could never claim any rewards. There is little to zero text in the game, so you need to suss out what upgrades do on your own. The iconography is pretty intuiitive for the most part, which is a plus. My problem is that once collected, none of the item cards seemed to actually do anything. I didn't jump higher, run faster, or shoot faster (a worthless upgrade as all the weapons I ever found shot as fast as I could click, and much slower otherwise. I admittedly never found a machine gun. Probably relevant there.) Consuming your item cards gives you health back, but then you lose the boost (? - maybe an obtuse mechanic I missed here? Again, could not tell any differences.) You can also idle-grind to start with, and find skeletal heads that give unqiue active abilities, like dashes, teleports, slow-time, and gravity manipulation. Unfortunately - opening chests costs you HP. So you could spend life to get an item card that doesn't benefit you at all, but because it's a bad card, you won't even get much HP back by consuming it. Even the 'rewards' in the game feel like they're working against you. Nihilism may be the theme, but it wears thin quickly. The gameplay itself is pretty standard jump and shoot, and really isn't terrible. You can't free-aim, so shooting little enemies is either done by constantly jumping, or using the slide to shoot upwards. Most enemies are bullet sponges right off the bat, so the most dangerous enemies tend to just be a cloud of flies tat you have to awkwardly jump 'n gun at, and dodge roll from. Platforms can only be passed through upwards and not dropped back down through, and enemy projectiles play by different rules than yours, making some rooms feel inherently 'unfair'. I didn't find the game particularly difficult in and of itself once I grasped the ropes, just not very fun, and not very engaging. The presentation is super slick, the aesthetic and sound effects and music and graphic design are very cool and very thematic for what the game is doing. It's just that, what the game is doing isn't all that fun for me. Your mileage may vary pretty wildly. I'm going to give the game a positive recommendation out of an appreciation for what the game is doing and for the excellent presentation, but understand that the game outside of the 'nihilism' and 'figure this ♥♥♥♥ out yourself' theme, and the clicker game wrapping, it's a pretty standard roguelike jump and run and gun. I'd rather play Risk of Rain or 20XX. You need to decide for yourself if that's worth playing.

[b]Guys, this roguelite is super fresh.[/b] I didn't expect much out of this for a mere five bucks, but this baby has layers. And new ideas. And polish. It is clear that every little detail was intentional... [b]And it works. [/b] [i]Where do I begin?[/i] Alright, so there is an overworld 'hub' where you have some interesting things to manage. You populate the hub with characters you find in the dungeon ([i]a la Crypt of the Necrodancer[/i]). The currency is points that you get from combos, and later, followers. Some of the characters you unlock are 'followers' that generate points just like an idle clicker game. [b]Yeah, it's really wild.[/b] Okay, so you have these points and you spend them in the overworld on loadout options. The core combat game has a heavy deck building theme going on. It's neat. You can keep any given card and reap the buff, OR you can burn it to get health. Really neat risk/reward thang. You find the cards in chests, but opening them will cost you some health (it shows you how much before hand). Some cards are 'bones', and you take them to the hub... And craft dudes. You can leave the dungeon by jumping out of a window. This takes you back to the hub world to save cards for future runs, spend points, get full health, and restart the dungeon (new random layout). So really, you can 'grind' your way to a more powerful state if you play it safe and leave a few times. Brilliant. [i]Look, look, look I'm getting ahead of myself[/i]. There is a metric ton of new ideas in here, and I can't go over them all BUT if you are interested, I highly recommend reading this guide here (the game is super obscure, so [url=http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928105567]this guide was built by the devs to get you started - and I think it's required reading before you even play)[/url]. [b]If you like roguelites, you really should give this a spin. The asking price is absolutely too low.[/b] [b]Pros:[/b] +Doesn't get any fresher than this +Artwork is beautiful +Tons of new mechanics and ideas that work really [i]really[/i] well +For the small asking price I expected something much less ambitious; turns out I was wrong +I love the idle clicker part and the deck building aspect +You will play a friggin' ukulele [b]Cons:[/b] -BIG 'con' here, with the starting pistol (which you will use an overwhelming majority of the time) requires you to spam the shots in a twitch-like manner; I actually fatigued during the first boss battle which was super frustrating -Music is great (very [i]Isaac[/i]-like IMO), but repetitive -I wish there was only dodge-roll, and not BOTH dodge-roll and slide; I still underuse these [b]This title is a great and welcome addition to the roguelite genre.[/b] It's so nice to see some innovation in a generally worn-out market.

(Checked as 'free' bc I received it in a Humble Monthly, in which it makes up so little of the total cost of a yearly sub it might as well be free) This game has some of the absolute worst feedback I've ever seen in a roguelike. There aren't any words in the game as far as I can tell other than names (maybe?) so not only are things shown to the player as vaguely as possible, even the menu options are wordless. Hope you like hieroglyphics because that's how you turn off fullscreen and the grain filter. The tutorial is also one of the worst in the genre. The tutorial room is comprised of 2 small hallways filled with button prompts and spike strips. After I ended up quitting I felt like I understood less than I had gone in with. It took me almost my entire first session to figure out dashing costs ammunition (what???) and that opening chests for items(??) takes away health (WHAT???) The progression system seems to be completely based on grinding clicks. You get points for unlocks by pressing the fire button? I think? Again, if that's not the case, I'm assuming it is because nothing's ever explained. This means if you have enough finger strength, you can just sit in the hub area for 5 minutes mashing the trigger and you get a new gun or skull, the later of which I'm assuming is ammunition for the dash or other special move the skull provides. After playing for 30 minutes though, even without doing this, my finger started hurting anyway, because the go-to strategy for killing enemies just seems to be to stand as far away from them as you can and mash fire. I got to my first boss battle, a skull that spawns adds in a ridiculously tiny arena, think Capra Demon but less visually interesting, and saw that the first gun I'd managed to unlock was taking off so little of the boss's health I might as well not have bothered to unlock it at all. I gave up and don't plan on going back. Almost the entire experience was needlessly confusing and what wasn't confusing was horrible. This continues the trend of Humble Monthlies not really being worth the asking price.

This is a weird game. It's a 2D action rogue-light in the style of Binding of Isaac, only it's a sidescroller and feels more depressing than darkly comedic. You are best off going in as blind, so I'm going to go into as little detail as possible regarding the actual gameplay. This game makes an extremely poor first impression. It leaves players to discover most of its core mechanics on their own, many of which are highly counter intuitive and left deliberately vague. For example, the options menu consists entirely of pictographs. It may take you a few moments to figure out how to simply quit the game without resorting to Alt+F4, assuming you do not delete your save data first. You will be greatly confused throughout your first few hours with this game due to all the deliberate obfuscation. Many situations will initially seem unreasonably difficult, grindy or outright broken, but after deciphering the games mechanics you will realise that the game is much more forgiving than it may initially seem. Despite having some mechanics also found in idle games, it's not an idle game, nor one that wastes your time. However, it does not hold your hand, as you will need to rely on patience and careful observation to progress at a reasonable pace. If you do become completely stuck, the major game mechanics are described in steam guides, but I recommend you avoid reading them for as long as your patience lasts. Like a good riddle, much of the fun is in the process of solving it. I initially found myself taking each level slowly, inching along each level in an effort to avoid damage, but once I knew more of how the games works, I found myself running and gunning quickly through the stages in a way that puts the trailer to shame. The more I play the game, the more I enjoy it. If you have the patience to read through this wall of text, you might enjoy it as well.

This game really clicked with me [/rimshot]. If you like Downwell, games from Vlambeer, Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, and Cookie Clicker this is probably up your alley. It's a weird mish mash of seemingly disparate games that works really well. I would highly encourage anyone remotely interested in this to go in blind for at least the first hour. Part of the fun is figuring out what is going on. edit: I forgot to give props to the soundtrack. The music is so good!

This game really isn't that bad, but my recommendation is "pass". The best phrase to sum up this game would be "too clever for its own good". The core of its gameplay is fine (roguelike + sidescroller = fun), but everything from the interface to the graphics is too obtuse. Figuring out the environment and different pickups is hard--which is what you expect for a roguelike--but this then extends to the interface and things like rebinding the controls, changing the settings, and quitting the program (my first half hour of playtime was entirely trying to figure out how to rebind the controls without breaking everything). Nothing is explained, but not for any meaningful or gameplay-related reasons, but just because they made it intentionally difficult to do stuff. If your game is so dumb that users need a cheat guide to quit the program, then you better have graphics, gameplay, or something totally amazing to back it up, but Nongünz does not. Again, the core gameplay isn't that bad, just that everything else around it drags it down to such an extent that I really can't recommend it.

I have mixed feelings about this game. I hate giving negative reviews, but that's how it is for this one. First off people might complain about my review because I didn't play it enough, but what I have seen so far, I don't think there is anything new to see. I have seen many similar games before and this one definitely has potential, but there are some things that make this game underaverage. [h1]Cons[/h1] - There is no Tutorial, you are left off to either check Controls in options, which took me a while, because controls are bad or to just figure out yourself - Controls are terrible, but are still changeable - There is no option to change your sensitivity, when you move your mouse, you don't know where you are going - Everything feels the same, although that's the art style of the game, there really is nothing new. Everything that you see on the pictures and on trailer is pretty much the whole game - Opening random chests consumes your health? I personally don't understand this mechanic at all. - There are only a few different enemies that you can kill, which makes game pretty repetitive - There are power ups which I didn't know how to use, because the game doesn't explain that to you - I didn't get what is the point of the game other then fighting random mobs and bosses - Unnecessary thing when you try to exit the game, it shows you the room of a random guy that just leaves his computer and wanders around? I still didn't figure out how to exit the game, so I just ALT+F4-ed - Overpriced for what it has to offer [h1]Pros[/h1] + I really liked the soundtrack of this game, it kept me playing more than expected + Kinda interesting art style + Interesting super powers, when you figure out how to use them + Somewhat interesting concept + There is a clicker aspect of the game, when you fire your gun you will receive 1 point for each fired shot, even if you exit the game you will still receive points which you can use later to buy some stuff [h1]Conclusion[/h1] When I first saw the game trailer and pictures, I honestly thought that it would be great game to lose some time, but in the end it only left me frustrated. If some of the things I listed as cons are fixed I would gladly change my review and give it another shot. Overall rating is 4/10

Nongünz, is a fresh take on the overplayed roguelite genre, if you like roguelites and platfroming this game is a must have. The striking and masterfully done pixelart complements, tight control mechanics, so you can enjoy diying one hundred times to many different enemies and in 100 ways. As with many roguelites diying is part of the mechanics so you can gain more items and resources to defeat the bosses. Its a hard game but has enough variety in the items and guns to push through frustration so you an get that inmense satisfaction of defeating a boss. Also I can't leave out the greatl vocal soundtrack that acompanies your suffering. YOU ARE DEAD, GO PLAY.