Rogue Rocks

https://youtu.be/0xmU6xZw2MU Conceptionally a strong idea but the limited number of mutators and upgrades are unable to make the rogue like elements standout in a meaningful way.

Well difficult high difficulty and edge of your seat action Rogue Rocks takes the Ateroids clone genera to new technical advances. Gameplay variations like weapons upgrades three ship styles and a wide variety of floating space debris to destroy makes the game edge of your seats exciting more than any previous game I've played in the genera. I probably wouldn't pay the full price for it unless you love this particular genera of games and absolutely must have what is probably the best game in it, I would certainly recommend anyone who loves classic arcade game action to snap it up on sale or as part of a bundle. It is well worth your time to play.

[table] [tr] [th]Goal[/th] [td]Collect enough currency from destroying rocks with your spaceship within the time limit to advance through the next sector to escape from the seeking enemy bomb mines and escape through the black hole to win[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Experience[/th] [td]My only and strongest twin-stick top down shooter video game experience is playing the original Geometry Wars on the Xbox 360 by Bizzare Creations, and the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii versions of Geometry Wars: Galaxies by Bizzare Creations and Kuju Entertainment[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Setup[/th] [td]Played it in default windowed mode, playing with a mouse and keyboard on default controls; this game is at version 1.2.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Content[/th] [td]6 spaceships with their own unique attack power, amount of health, and weight; 3 of which are harder versions of the original spaceships with a reduction of one health point; all spaceships giving a unique feel when playing them[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Endgame[/th] [td]Finishing the 3 hard mode difficulty spaceships, which instead of 6 sectors to go through, it's 8, and there's less time later on, the rocks move faster, and some sector types are only found exclusive in hard mode difficulty[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Bought[/th] [td]Got indirectly through donating through the 2019 Yogscast Jingle Jam bundle[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Playtime[/th] [td]About 11.5 hours (mine says "12.8 hrs on record" at the time of this review was published, but I time how much I played per spaceship in sequential order of playing as, which is more accurate): [list] [*]The Bolt spaceship for 74 minutes [*]The Beam spacehip for 53 minutes [*]The Gunner spaceship for 85 minutes [*]The Bolt-X spaceship for 105.5 minutes [*]The Beam-X spaceship for 208 minutes [*]And the Gunner-X spaceship for 169 minutes[/list][/td][/tr][/table] [b]My positives[/b] [list] [*] [b]The variety of rocks to deal with as obstacles and how to get currency from has been engaging to deal with mechanically and thematically to the name of the video game "Rogue Rocks", being more than just rocks that split into smaller rocks until they're destroyed completely through attacks;[/b] this is further enhanced by the sector types that can mix two or more rock types for more variety [*] [b]The spaceship having a smaller hitbox than what it appears makes it really tense when outlasting the incoming rocks towards the spaceship while trying to blast it away with attacks[/b][/list] [b]My negatives[/b] [list] [*] [b]Sound effect cues that happen offscreen (such as incoming enemy beeping bomb mines and wooshing rocks that thrust from their cracks) don't have visual cues, which is bad for people who want to play the game without any sound due to decreased reaction time when they occur[/b] [*] [b]Out of the three hard mode difficulty spaceships, Beam-X is more prone to have multiple tries and resets than any other spaceships due to relying more on luck than skill to get enough attack power to progress consistently;[/b] upon progressing further during the session, the rocks are more difficult to destroy, which out of all the three spaceship types, Beam (and their hard mode difficulty Beam-X) has the weakest overall attack power. The less attack power overall, the more time it takes to gather enough currency to advance to the next part of the run, which even if you played proficiently, your run will more likely be ended by the deadly chasing bomb mines than anything else. This difficulty on finishing Beam-X is further indicated indicated by the current data on Steam achievements as of the date of this review, of which the hardest achievement is "Beam Queen", which is "Beat the game with Beam-X (hard mode)", being at 2.6%, which is harder than the second and third hardest Steam achievements "Gunner Stunner" at 2.7% and "Bolt Master" at 3.0%. [*] [b]The results screen regardless of win or loss lack what spaceship was used during the session;[/b] this is more specific to me when uploading screenshots onto Steam, but it sucks because I can't really prove that I beat the game with a specific spaceship if the screen doesn't show it at all. [/list] [b]My eehs/neutral feelings[/b] [list] [*] [b]Too many currency temporarily on-screen and off-screen reduces the framerate or framepacing of the game;[/b] I feel like I can tolerate this issue because the action in-between the frames still remains fluid and doesn't eat up my inputs for me. [*] [b]Somes you can collect powerups twice seemingly out of random;[/b] this is indicated by the collect sound effect played twice. I felt that it's more of an unofficial double powerup which you can get by luck; I seriously don't know how I can reliably get a double powerup.[/list] I was initially skeptical when playing this game because of the differing control scheme I wasn't accustomed to despite experience with similar games and never played what's considered a roguelite, but retry after retry I felt like I improved and got further in the sessions, which felt empowering when finally finishing a successful session. Completing the game, I feel it's more appropriate to just see it as a more modern take on Asteroids by Atari, Inc., as I'm not fully sure if I can call it a rougelite since there isn't a lot of variety in the amount of action and choices during your session; regardless, nice game to play through, even if I got it from the 2019 Yogscast Jingle Jam bundle. I'm just sad that unfortunately there has't been Steam sales related to this game since around 2020 June, as this is the only game AUX-IN Games as made thus far.

asteroids with rogue like elements. would have been a recommend if not for a few irritating issues: 1) You need a minimap or indicator for ♥♥♥♥ that is about to enter the screen, the viewing area is just a bit too small, and I don't want to have to keep the map up the entire time I'm playing just to see things coming. 2) have a minimap or something to allow me to get my bearings without the map open. 3) have some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I-FRAMES. I put this game down after I lost my 3rd run in a row to getting bounced between asteroids. Can cut your health to nothing and ruin a run in no time. 4) more minor, but still irritating, when you shoot something up close the smaller ones often spawn on top of you, damaging you. Not sure of a fix for it, but it happened often enough to be worth mentioning.

a fantastic throwback to asteroids type games with a map, power ups, and ship options, while still keeping it simple!

This is basically the classic arcade game Asteroids with some pretty smooth gameplay. If that is your thing, then I recommend this game. I've sunk 30 hours into it, 20 minutes at a time.

I feel like this is probably Johnny's first foray into game design and development. It's essentially a clone of boomer game Asteroids but with some "ideas" added to it like roguelike elements, except I don't know if I'd really call it a true roguelike experience. Yeah, you die in the game and have to start over from the first zone but that's about all there is to the roguelike theme. It's not at all like other great video games that have perpetually pushed this genre and kept it interesting such as The Binding of Isaac, Spelunky 2, Dead Cells, Hades . . . I could go on. Sadly, roguelikes are sort of an overdone video game genre long since before 2019 when this game released, much like how FromSoftware innovated the Soulslike concept and so it caused the creation of dozens of other titles inspired by their design. While the roguelike genre has officially existed since the '80s, we suddenly started seeing a lot of roguelike titles after the success of Binding of Isaac, but Rogue Rocks (Rogue for roguelike and Rocks for Asteroids?) is mostly uninspired and has already been done before back in 1979. The lack of depth to the game stays true to the original and even the design of the asteroids is kept simplistic. Where in Asteroids, the rocks looked like crumpled up pieces of paper, Rogue Rocks keeps the random shape while not bothering to add any actual detailing. I truly think a game of this style could have been pretty good when you, for example, consider how successful Vampire Survivors was. A game like that but in space? Where you perhaps destroy more than just asteroids, such as alien ships or something? Despite it just being Asteroids but with a more modernized twist, I think there was a good formula here for something more decent if more effort was put into it. More ships, for example. You only have three starter ships and you unlock a "hard mode" variant of them after beating the first five maps, to which the next ship just has one less HP point and you now have to escape 8 maps before the timer runs out. The maps are more or less the same, with a naming convention that is also similar. You have "Swampy Sector" and then "Muggy Sector." Because swamps do tend to be muggy. There's "Disguised Sector" and "Unseen Sector" and "Concealed Sector." Because you're concealed in a disguise, basically. Asteroids have different behaviors, like some will explode into tiny fragments that can damage you. There's asteroids that have like hidden booster jets that make them behave a bit more unpredictably because they'll suddenly boost in one direction. There's "chunky" asteroids that are pretty chunky and take some extra shots to destroy, etc., but you quickly realize that the map can be utilized to see where asteroids are coming and so you stop being taken by surprise as you are camping the exit to the map and just farming extra gold coins. Speaking of gold coins, you need these to progress through the game as well as purchasing upgrades to your ship. You get currency through destroying asteroids, and you have a certain amount of time to collect enough money to proceed 'else you'll be bombarded by space mines that will attach to your ship and deal 1-point of damage. You can destroy these mines but it's best to try and leave before you become overwhelmed. The ship upgrades that drop randomly, can be found in golden asteroids, or purchased from a sort of shop somewhere in the map are to increase your attack power and I believe fire rate, give your ship faster speed, or more HP. Different weapon types or something would have been cool, or a pickup to absorb all of the gold on the map that you may have missed, etc. That is basically the game's loop. Choose your ship, fly around and shoot asteroids, collect gold, hope for RNG to drop some extra upgrades, and eventually escape through a blackhole at the end. It's repetitive but fortunately, easy to beat. I will give credit to the developer here as they did add achievements at the request of some of the players. This is great, as I actually only finally installed this game to get 100% completion, and that is what I did. That can be achieved in four hours or less, however; and that sort of proves that there isn't nearly as much to do in this game as what there could be otherwise. But even still, I can't really recommend this game.

Nah... too basic