Probability 0

It's almost a great game but just a handfull of petty miserly choices in its design just make me so bitter at it that I hate it even as I keep playing it. Why does fall damage need multiple upgrades to negate it when falling off the screen is always a threat anyway? Why is there an upgrade to unlock the next tier of upgrades? It is especially irksome that the author says this "a vast and unrestricted upgrade tree" " "The set of powers, on the other hand, were made to offer you a lot of choices. There are ~36 of them and contain nearly zero arbitrary prerequisites. ... There are also none that don't augment your choices in an interesting way. You're not choosing between +10% armour and +10% damage; who cares, when you could instead be choosing between immunity to every spike in the game and upgrading your punch to kill any enemy in one hit? Those aren't even top-tier powers." Okay so most of that is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, there's an upgrade that increases the distance you can fall by +20% dunno that sounds pretty-much like a+10% armour, there's a +1 to damge upgrade, the one-kill punch is like one away from top tier and has 2 prerequistes and of those 33 there's over half that have atleast one of pre-requiste (inlcuding empty "unlock the next tier" upgrades) and you only recieve another 4-5 options each level. So it's pretty restricted. I mean the very first upgrade is choice between only 3 upgrades; the ability to shoot a star lengthwise, the ability to shoot the star straight up , and +1 damage. From those 3 the up-star is pretty uselessly , shooting enemys from below is a good way of being unable to collect the power up. The damage +1 means very little at this stage of the game , there being only one enemy that requires 2 hits and it's a slow often stationary blimp. So the vertical star is the only real choice. The next upgrade tier opens things up a little, giving a wall destroying punch , resist fall damage, resist stun from hits, bigger star cache, partial magnetism . Only the wall destroy punch is offering much in the way of changing your play style. The resist stun from hits feels like a cheap point sink, as the default stun from taking any hit is about 2 seconds long. Yep that's a long time and your character bounces irratically in that time. It's a mechanic only put in to make you want to buy that upgrade. So that's not great. The fall damage also feels cheap as the layout of the screen starts making more long distances until it's basically not an option to get it. It's not an immunity to fall damage, just increases the distance that you can fall. If you want completely immunity you'll need to purchase it again The magnetic is an upgrade that requires getting it again at high level for it feel like it's even doing much. The upgrades after this start to finally opening the game up to trying different tactics (being able to be immune to damage when still, skullstomp, a leap attack, teleport) , but note that there's a whole bunch more that require spending a point to unlock the ability to spend points on them. Including the "so crazy" immune to all spikes one. The spikes occur so often by this stage , it feels like a forced choice. (the destroy any enemy in one punch is actually a top tier upgrade btw despite the quote) I get an intial limiting of your options and a few prerequites to some make sense, but as it is now you spend about 4-5 upgrades before you even feel like are at the standard platformer level of ability. But by that stage the number and type of enemys , appearence of bosses, screen layout have pushed the difficulty beyond your ability to cope. And you are even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you skimped on some of the most neccessary upgrades to try something unusual(ish) Which feels like a very delibrate choice by the developer, wanting to keep you feeling like you want to earn just one more upgrade and then you'll crack the game wide open. And dunno , I've clocked how many hours up on it now? So maybe there's something to that. But after every game I feel bitter, pissed off. I keep deleting it to stop myself from playing it. I still think that there is a much much stronger game potential here. The enemy design is great, their behaviours , easily identifible appearence, and the constantly changing emergent problems created by them. A blob is an easy point but a blob with ghost above it? what about that squid? is it going to swoop on me if I go for? Constant little risk/reward choices like this make the game addicitive despite the forced-feeling hampering of the upgrade system. I think the developer should of had more faith in the fun created by players pushing against their own skill ceiling and not just gone for the more (fake) difficulty= more fun route I mean there's other petty cruelnesses and a slight wonk to walk movements that mean you walk straight into an critter you are approachng to punch, far far far too often but the forementioned upgrade garbage is what is the tipping point for me. Everytime I play this game I catch myself thinking "Hey I nearly had fun then" and then play it again

I was unaware that Downwell had any competition in the "low-res roguelike platform descent" genre until my friend put me onto Probability 0. I honestly don't think Downwell needs any competition, but it is always nice to see new spins on ideas. The presentation of Probability 0 makes most of the case for its existence, and the unique challenges of the descent and your powers round out this clever offering. It's not quite as gripping as its competitors, but it certainly has a place. There's less of a setup and more of a high-concept motif here, with your silhouetted pixel man descending into a never-ending pit of darkness and battling strange monsters along the way. You start out only punching and slinging stars downward, but defeating enemies levels you up and allows you to select from dozens of new abilities across several tiers. There's space for some actual builds here, such as ones heavy on punching, or stars, or defense, or contact damage, and so on. Despite the advancement options, there's not much variety of gameplay to use them on. You'll encounter more and stranger monsters the further down you go but the basic structure of the pit doesn't change from assortments of blocks and spikes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it just strays closer to an infinite runner than, well, Downwell. The fixed scrolling also means your pace is mostly dictated by the game, making Probability 0 feel the more measured and technical of the two. The title refers to the game's most unique aspect, the probabilities that constantly flash across the upper center of the screen. This is essentially your health, as the random probabilities decrease as you get hit, from six digits all the way down to singles. It's a clever touch that really supports the surreal, striking feel of the game you get from the stark graphics and steady, low-fi soundtrack. There's two difficulties to tackle plus a mode where you can get a head-start based on your previous records, but again, not a lot of variety between runs aside from your builds. As long as you're okay with that, though, there's a pretty good chance you'll enjoy this one. Did you enjoy this review? I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope you'll check out more of them at https://goldplatedgames.com/ or on my [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/audish#curation]curation page[/url]!

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It's certainly not anywhere near the worst game I've played. It's just that the combat, which is sort of essential to the gameplay, feels really bad. I realize the entire point of the game is to get further by upgrading, but you start off so terribly weak and frail that it's hard to really make any progress. I think some people will probably love this game, but I personally cannot recommend it.

Great idea. Seems like it could be really addictive. Unfortunately no controller support, and despite the fact that its a small flash game, it performs really horribly on a Mac. Its got to be software bug in their flash player. It has a low framerate, and is very sluggish, making it unplayable.

Probability 0 is an amazing, well executed piece of game design. But not only of game design, but also on life in general. I, for myself, found a philosophical depth and meaning in the game that I hardly found elsewhere. (The free-to-play game "The Plan" comes to my mind) Your mission in Probability 0 is to reach the bottom. The screen is automatically scrolling downwards and you are not allowed (neither on top, nor on bottom) to exit the screen. Your probability to ever reach the bottom of this pit is ZERO. On your way down you are confronted with obstacles, "enemies", experience and choices. It is up to you to: -decide how to approach these things -how to evolve yourself -how to find a strategy to go further and further down. The environment is procedually generated, but the choices, obstacles and enemies evolve in a linear fashion. It is in many aspects akin to the roguelike genre regarding permanent death. And pretty much the only thing you will carry on to your next playthrough will be your personal experiences from the past games and especially your "mistakes" from which you will hopefully learn, and by that, improve your strategy for the next playthrough. It is a game where you have to make constant risk/reward decisions. Will you be bold, or cautious? Maybe both? I can already tell you what the ending screen of your playthrough will look like, you will end up dead. But what matters is: HOW WAS YOUR JOURNEY?

This game is one of those Forerunners during the early 2010's indie game craze. I played this game a lot then. Just bought it on steam cuz i missed it. The few small complaints I have are easily overlooked next to the amount of fun and replayability the game offers. (incase you are completely helpless, get a gamepad mapper! this does not have gamepad support) Good platformer, cool music, skillz required

Terrific little game, great music, a very weird aesthetic, and just perfectly designed. I've played it for years, on and off.

My go-to roguelike, great game for when I wanna play something but don't have a lot of time. Very action based, playstyles (different upgrades) vary enough, I get better as I learn from playing. There are 3 modes, one scoring based on enemies killed, one scoring on how far down you get, and one which uses points earned long-term (karma) to get a slew of upgrades from the start. This is a finished game, it seems bug-free, and runs on minimal resources. It does not have controller support, but using a keymapper program like JoyToKey would be easy enough for this game.

Pros: Good soundtrack and challenge, pretty fun. Cons: HP-meter has crippling depression.