Pillar of Salt

Pros: - Excellent relaxing soundtrack; - Atmospheric retro-style visuals and animations; - Relaxing; - Builds variety. What to improve: - Power progression between runs.

Great game! Easy to hop in and play, but with a lot of variance to support replayability. Pretty easy to lose a few hours working through the levels a few times.

Really fun game!! LOTS of re-playability - between gear and abilities and team composition, it's truly a fun experience each time you play. The first playthrough gets you used to the game's mechanics, and introduces you to how the abilities on gear interact. Then the subsequent playthroughs ramp up the difficulty, keeping pace with you as you master the game! RNG elements feel well-balanced; you get lucky with some things, unlucky with others, but you never feel screwed by the system. It's an extra pleasant surprise that there are options to make use of even the unlucky gear rolls The descriptions on gear, tavern names, and quips in the game from NPCs are pretty funny. There are SO MANY different pieces of gear (armor, weapons, relics, rings, etc) to mix and match for powerful builds and collect for achievements Map and gameplay feels a lot like Slay the Spire - but instead of collecting cards with abilities and building a deck, you collect gear with abilities and build the best team you can. Your knowledge of the game's mechanics (that you pick up as you play) is important, as is making smart and strategic decisions with your gear and being able to synergize abilities. All in all it makes for a really rewarding gaming experience!!

This game scratches an itch I didn't realize needed scratched! It's just the right combination of teambuilding, gear management, chance and skill for me. Just enough RPG, just enough rogue. I've had a great time in the hours I've spent, even when a run goes poorly and ends quickly, and I still have over half of the difficulty levels to get through. I go over specific points below. Please don't be fooled by the 'negative' side looking longer than the positives! I love this game, I just needed to explain some things for the negatives to make a little more sense and be more helpful to the dev should they read this. (If so, hi! You did a good job!) Pillar of Salt is well worth the price tag, even if you don't play through all the difficulties. Things are already a little brutal when my luck is bad, so I'm gonna see how high I can go! Things I loved: [list] [*] You can tell a lot of passion went into this game by the dev. The text is genuinely funny and I'm sure there are still jokes I haven't picked up on. [*] Player knowledge is valuable! Knowing what you need to survive and then face the boss of each act is important, especially as your difficulty levels go up. [*] Raising difficulty isn't just a numbers game. Each difficulty has an affix assigned to it that makes the game harder in ways that aren't just enemies having more HP or defenses (though some of them do that). [*] There are a surprising number of combinations of characters, abilities and equipment. Each run feels unique even when I go for the same build because of RNG and the number of abilities and the possibility of unique items. [*] The soundtrack and sound design are lovely. The game focuses on a cozy retro feel rather than intensity or action, which I appreciated in a world where this can be hard to come by. [*] I didn't run into any game-breaking bugs, only minor and occasional visual glitches or the odd typo. Pillar of Salt impressed me with its polish. [/list] Things I Didn't Love: [list] [*] I wish there was a little more enemy variety, but I understand this is a very small indie project so it's a really small concern. It also makes planning around the enemies you might face easier as difficulty increases. [*] There are certain abilities that feel [i]necessary[/i] to have, especially as difficulty climbs. Day 1 is the biggest place I can think of this being an issue, (kinda spoiler) since you either have to [spoiler] have one ability in particular (determined randomly on your gear) before the end boss or be absurdly lucky to have enough healing to get through it because of the number of Curse stacks the boss applies.[/spoiler] Maybe that's a skill issue on my part, or maybe that's just a natural thing to develop in a game like this - some builds will inevitably do better than others, especially as your choices stack up through the game. [*] The way targeting works in this game can be a little frustrating sometimes. It's a mechanic that was clearly intentional with the way combat autoplays out. Each character has a particular targeting style for their melee attacks and abilities that can be modified by gear and traits. The player is clearly supposed to plan around this and assign/queue up abilities accordingly. But when your healer consistently refuses to heal the person who needs it most based on the RNG ignoring them off of a double cast ability three times in a row, it can get really annoying. There are also times where I wonder if targeting based on HP percentage is working correctly, but I haven't kept good enough track to tell. [*] I can't put my finger on what exactly could be helpful, but it feels like we could use some more ways to increase our power between runs, especially with how difficulty affixes stack up. It still feels doable at Difficulty 8-9 where I currently am, but I can't imagine how soul-crushing 20 might feel at the current rate. [*] I swear if that squirrel tells me "You put just the right spin on it" one more time... (Okay, that one's a joke, the squirrel is both delightful and infuriating. If you play the game, you'll know what I mean!) [/list]

Great gameplay. Fun retro style. Highly replayable. Definitely worth the price! Easy to learn but hard to master. Love trying out new builds with different starting characters.

I was provided a copy of this game for beta testing and I fell in love with it. It feels like the love child of Slay the Spire and the early Final Fantasy's. I love the old SNES vibes and that it plays a little cozier than most roguelikes; it has RNG but it also feels like you have choices that matter / can make a difference and with some clever finagling, can pull out a win. It starts out a bit easier, giving you a chance to learn the system before the difficulty begins to ratchet up in the challenge levels. With 8 unlockable characters and over a dozen unlockable party traits, I got lost in unlocking the achievements and it took me closer to 100 hours to full complete the game (get all achievements). I always consider cost of a game per hour of play and this game gives incredible value for the price. If you're on the fence about buying it, I would encourage you to definitely give the game a try, or at least try the demo (just know the demo has less content/shops etc. There's much more to discover in the full game)

Chef's Kiss for balance between roguelike, OG Final Fantasy vibes and deck builder mechanics, the mini games are a fantastic touch reminding me of the Super Mario 3 chance games. The difficulty is easy enough to pick up and challenge can be increased once you've got the basics down. Also, it has a Duck that throws Nukes, everyone likes Nuke Ducks. Small change to the review, in higher difficulties, there's a real sense of being reliant on getting 100% perfect drops from RNGesus, it's still a great game, but it's really throwing spaghetti at the wall. Spells could use a real boost compared to melee in higher difficulties, since siphon life % does not work with spell damage and it really should.

decent game but gets boring quick since its way too easy and some items etc are overtuned and makes the game feel less rewarding and less of a reason to play since u can oneshot everything