Rogue Worlds

The game grew on me even though i'm not great with this type of platform games. I wasn't able to read all of the instructions in time. I had random white flicker on my screen when playing the game. I found having different arsenal were great and the art style is fun.

Rogue Worlds. I have an uneasy relationship with Rogue-lites. I'm the kind of person that checks if games will be easy enough for them to get into. I refuse to buy DLC for Dead Cells for anything beyond the beginner easier content. My eyes don't track a lot of moving things all too well. I need that moment to take a breath and concentrate on what's going on with the screen. I suffer nervous system issues that make even some turn based games difficult to play depending on how the buttons are laid out. However as a long time follower of the development of Aura of Worlds I was intrigued by the idea of coming back to this novel new free version to see how I would go with a fresh start. And surprisingly after muddling my way through the tutorial [the game lets you instantly re-spawn there} and struggling through my first unsuccessful run, I found a game that was quite happy to let me mess around with the mechanics and have fun. The game instantly recognised my wireless xbox controller and automatically gave me the option to configure for a controller/gamepad. Lots of little things in the options and even things like the option to soften music when pausing the game made me feel like I was in good hands that had put care into people being able to enjoy the game their own way. Initial range of difficulty options felt easy to understand. I stayed at normal moderate difficulty, but it was good to know that an easier mode was there with only minor xp penalty if I wanted another crack at getting through a boss I was finding difficult or wanted to see more of the stages I was stuck at. The opportunity to mess around with new weapons and equipment at the hub was very much enjoyed, making me feel more comfortable about trying something new before tackling another run. The enemies and traps are diverse and easy to understand. The weapons, equipment and shield play feel good to use. Slowing down time while changing the equipment in hand is a neat trick you can do as often as you like. With a controller I still felt able to accurately and quickly target where I wanted to go to with a teleport or throw an item. Even if a mouse was probably slightly faster and easier, I gained comfort with the controller and didn't feel like I had to switch to have a good time. At the end of my first failed run having gotten an idea of the basics I felt the need to change it up and wanted to see how far I could get just bouncing on enemies in the early game and it was surprisingly fun and viable. I feel like that fun platformer aspect is forgotten by a lot of roguelikes and rogue-lites and Aura of Worlds always had fun options for zipping around with teleports and grappling hooks that have a way of bringing back great gaming memories and warming my heart. Rogue Worlds of course has that too. At the end of the second run I realised I was kinda getting hooked into this. New weapons and equipment were becoming available. I was getting to choose some fun modifiers for them that suited my style too. I got excited every time I saw a forge during a run to see how I could improve my equipment, making it more useful and more fun for my playstyle. Although sometimes it continued to be effective to throw something down a hole and see what it landed on and what traps it set off. Variety mid-run was provided by things like toxic gas seeping down from above, forcing you to enjoy jumping further down and prioritising what you wanted to do before the door to the next stage. The arena was surprisingly very fun the first time I encountered it and I would be keen to play that again in future stages. Sometimes it was also nice to find a door to an NPC that wanted rescuing with a key or lever and just taking that moment to reset and consider your goals before further exploration. While playing you quickly get experience with a sword, spear and dagger with different positives and effects you can add to them, as well as different kinds of shields for defending yourself. Bouncing away enemies and blocking projectiles can be done in a number of ways. You also get a boomerang, whip and crossbow to play with very quickly. Giving you a good variety of things to mess with at the start. Not to mention a frost spell, and blink teleport and emergency teleport options. With auto-use of health potions helpfully giving me one less thing to think about. I genuinely want to play more and mess around more just for the fun with the weapons even if it takes a while for me to encounter one of the bosses I can defeat with my skill level to progress further. Aura of World and now Rogue Worlds were always a very clear labour of love with very fun core mechanics. I really hope that Rogue Worlds helps bring this game play to a wider audience that deserves their chance to enjoy it. I enjoyed my dabbling back into this world very much.