Probability 0

P0 is my vote for the best Spelunky-inspired platformer ever made (so far, as of late 2022); the constrained skill tree alone is amazingly fun to explore! Please play this, the original (and IMO superior to all others) arcade-style roguelike-like combat platformer. It maybe feels a tiny bit stiff now that we're in the age of forgiving inputs and "coyote time", but it's still solid and fair, and each jump or enemy encounter can be incredibly exciting/laden with tension. (note: I have dozens of hours on the itch version, just got the steam version)

I absolutely love this game. It's a great time-waster and no matter how good you get, you'll come to the realization that we all equally suck at it. But it's a fun kind of suck. 10/10 will play forever.

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

Maybe I'm just no fun, but I don't enjoy this at all. In mid-air you can only attack downwards? On the ground you have super-limited attack range? You actually do have to kill stuff to reach higher levels? I just don't see the point of this game, mostly, and for how cheap I got it I don't feel like dumping more time into it. Tried it a while back, didn't like it, tried it again today, didn't like it. So... oh well.

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.

Ahh... this game brings me back..

In Probability 0 you start out chased by spiders which hurt when they touch you. Later on, you realize that these spiders are your best friends.

Bad

The gameplay is straightforward, so I'm skipping to the nitty-gritty. You saw the trailer. Balance in single player games is something I've come to value more and more over time. I've seen too many games where one weapon or upgrade is simply the best, not even a matter of preference, and choosing anything else is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot. Using the best option feels awful, and using a worse option on purpose feels like I'm putting in more work for worse results. I was worried that this would be one of those because I immediately said "THIS skill is the obvious choice", but if an upgrade seems like an obvious choice do yourself a favor and try the other ones too. Every single upgrade rocks the foundation of the game in a good way. The best games make every option feel like a game-breaker, but keep everything balanced. The lower tier skills are often just as tempting as the higher ones. This sounds like a small thing, but it's so satisfying to pick a useless skill and see it's great, or skip a absolutely necessary skill and see it isn't. The platforming seems simple, but small details make it deep. The jump height, block size, and overall physics of the game are calibrated to give you as many choices as possible. This part is difficult to explain, but since the game is made of blocks in a grid pattern, block configurations can reoccur. The hang time on the jump is such that you can JUST clear a two-block gap with a ceiling overhead. The ceiling prevents you from getting the height you usually need to get across, making it difficult. But since it's a grid layout any time you see blocks arranged that way, it's the same exact jump, allowing practice to carry over. The punch hit-box is just enough that if you stand on the VERY edge of a block you can hit a block one block away. The grid size is just enough that you can jump off the edge of a block without bumping into the one directly overhead. Things like that. Little maneuvers that are tricky, practicable, and help you last a little longer if pulled off. If the physics were a tiny bit different, lots of maneuvers would go from "It's possible, but tricky" to "It's impossible", limiting your choices as a player. Aside from the skill descriptions, very little is explained. I didn't expect much, but there was and still is a ton to discover. Several times I thought I had seen every enemy type, only to find another. Every skill has some additional detail purposely not mentioned in the description. Curiosity is really a one time feeling, but even after all this time there are still things I want to know. Is there something hiding down the Expert pit? Is there an ending? Is THAT bug actually intentional? An unassuming, 12 MB, app-like game, but one of the most engaging I've seen.

Tags: Platformer Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Minimalistic platformer. No real fullscreen. No Xbox360 pad support. Procedural generation. Low asset count. Such massive sidebars you are basically left with the size of a phone in the middle of your screen. Keyboard controls are madness: directional arrows Z+X+C+V. Combat is handled with shooting stars that you must make unintuitive arrow key presses to shoot in unrelated directions and only after you purchase upgrades by surviving long enough to unlock a perk. Otherwise you have a useless short range punch in a game where you get hurt by entering contact with foes. Game is procedurally generated nonsense simplistic levels of drops and crates and platforms. Game constantly spams fake statistics about fake random events like your chances of falling in a waterfall. Its distracting, serves no purpose and should just not be there. Visual assets are minimalistic and dare I say underwhelming. The addition of text saying kill me next to foes is an idea of debatable merit.