Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike

Rogue Shooter is a Doom-like procedurally generated FPS. It was created during the "roguelite" indie boom of 2012-2015 following on the heels of the original Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, Risk of Rain, and FTL: Faster Than Light. The game was created as an FPS spin-off take on this craze. Created and released by Hippomancer as the company's first and (presumably) only ever game, as the company no longer seems to be active in game development. The game has been more-or-less abandoned by its creator since shortly after its release in 2014. It was one of the first of its kind along with Tower of Guns and Paranautical Activity and influenced later FPS-Roguelites such as Ziggurat 1&2, Immortal Redneck, Gunfire Reborn, and STRAFE. As of me writing this review, the game has not been on discount sale since 2020 and might not go on sale ever again. Even without a sale the game is worth every penny of the $5 price tag. For anyone interested and for fans of the genre especially, I recommend this game. If you decide to purchase this game, MAKE SURE you check out the fan-made mod Rogue Shooter Redux. It fixes many bugs and adds a lot of content. DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME WITHOUT THE MOD: https://steamcommunity.com/app/295770/discussions/0/1643164558916129244/

Personally, I don't think this should've been a roguelike. The weapons have satisfying weight in their sounds and animations, the aesthetic charmingly reminds me of late 90's / early 2000's pc games, the enemies and npcs are all varied but feel cohesive... I could go on. There is so much going for this game that could've made it a small cult classic. Unfortunately, the core gameplay feels unfinished and shallow. Once you've completed the first 30 floors of any difficulty, you've seen the whole game. All the enemies you can face, the weapons/items you can get, the bland level layouts you'll trod through, everything. Then it loops two more times and does nothing new. (And slaps on an extra 9 floors for good measure.) Oh but at least there's something cool at the 100th floor right? No. You get one of four ""endings"" based on the difficulty you play which are all just "walk down ominous hallway then talk to guy who has a shallow reason for freeing the enemies you fight". (Except on easy where you have a cute rave with the enemies.) What makes each ending different in normal - hardest is just "a different guy was responsible for everything going to ♥♥♥♥." They all feel like extremely lazy and lame after slogging through 99 floors of the essentially same level. (347 floors for all endings btw.) I had the most fun playing the tutorial. (The level in the demo, which I played before buying the full game.) It wasn't spread thin content wise and didn't make you do the same thing over and over again ad-nauseam. Having fewer levels with scripted encounters and structuring the layouts more like a typical Build Engine game would've been way better. (This would've also prevented the several times I would spawn in a wall and be essentially softlocked.) I've tried the fan mod "Rogue Shooter Redux" and eh... It's balanced better sure, but (in some ways) it's done in a way that makes RS feel more generic and have less of an identity gameplay wise. There's also something about the combat that feels off but I can't quite put my finger on it. It's alright. 5.5/10 (I'd just barely recommend it if I wasn't stuck in a wall right now

[h1] Rogue Shooter: An Underrated FPS Roguelike/lite [/h1] [b] This Game is definitely not perfect, but does a lot right! [/b] I was looking for FPS Roguelites, so I wanted to like this game. I personally like the Graphics and Presentation, it goes for the old school vibe it's looking for. I liked shooting the different enemy types using pretty cool guns with different classes. Surprisingly, I enjoy managing my resources and inventory. I really liked the leveling up and getting perks in each run. It was a motivation to keep playing as well as upgrading yourself and unlocking classes. After I maxed out and got every class I stopped playing, but possible replayability in the future. Now this game isn't perfect, if you don't appreciate the game for what it is, you'll notice the issues more. Like not being able to look up and down, getting stuck on enemies and walls, some glitches/exploits, but nothing game breaking. Btw ignore the title, this game is more of a Roguelite than a Roguelike, you keep upgrades for future runs. [u] Overall [/u] Rogue Shooter is fun and worth your time. I appreciate this game for what it is, there wasn't too many FPS Roguelikes at the time, if any popular ones at all. I wish more knew about and respected this game. This game is cheap was more than worth the $1 I spent on it, at least try the demo. If your into Roguelikes/lites, FPS's, and don't mind the old school feel, get this game!

Delightful little romp. Entitled chuds bullied the creator into quitting game development altogether, so it remains very much a what-could-have-been. Sad!

I like the game concept, I like the mechanics, its all nice. What I dont like is that Ive had the floor not load on me making it impossible to move around. Ive also had the exit elevator not load as well. To complete the game on easy mode youll need to get through 50 floors. I think the most I ever did was about 15 floors and having that progress lost because of one of two bugs would suck.

In the past i played this game and had a lot of fun, sadly the progression is lost if you remove the game. Also configuring it to full screen is not working correctly on my pc.

as others have mentioned, this game is abandoned and the developer is impossible to reach as far as i can tell. still, it holds special significance for me. i think it's worth the price.

It's a really cool throwback to the days of Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM. I'm pretty sure the levels are even rendered in a similar way to Wolfenstein 3D, which is really neat. It can be really hard and as its name implies, it had roguelike elements of randomly generated levels and XP to level up some things like your starting base stats.