Rotwood

Tldr; It's alright. Played with the family, and if you're a fan of roguelikes you will probably get some sense of enjoyment out of it. I didn't get TOO far, but I have seen a bit of what was offered and unlocked some but not every feature probably What this does differently that went well: I like gear and gear progressing. Each piece has certain effects which kinda gives you a chance to pick your general playstyle. There's weight limits for light, medium, and heavy characters so you can pick to play to a certain speed you like. Gear can be upgraded, which can promote going back to certain zones to keep up your gear level and progression. .... Honestly I think that's all that I saw that felt UNIQUE to the game for this genre. There are other features that are present in similar games. I liked the character customization. It's funny that my whole family all picked almost similar looking cat people. You can get more character looks through challenges it seems. What could be better: -Weapon variety felt a little underwhelming. We couldn't find a weapon that we liked. Spear felt pretty basic, hammer was alright, bow and cannon I didn't use much since I don't like ranged weapons too much, and they had a unique weapon that was balls you throw and predict where they land, but I just felt the spear was the most consistent weapon despite the basicness of it. Game is still early access so perhaps there will be more types in the future. -Shift abilities compared to other title special moves feel underwhelming. First batch of weapons have all similar stuff pretty much, but after you start unlocking the next tier in frenzy you start to see more unique specials. I still just found myself doing the click click click dash attack combo instead of using specials. -You buy new gear and weapons mid run at the shop, so sometimes we would do a run just for the shop. The currency comes a little scarce. The main source is the building for your base on first buys, but for a new weapon you would need 8 core stones where I left off at, which if you aren't on top of your challenges, or building, is a pretty hefty price. The people in the base seem to not do anything besides give unlocks to progress, like upgrading older gear higher, or farming. -There don't seem to be too many differing power ups. I did see a few newer ones in my later runs in frenzy, but at the start we saw mainly the same small combination of power ups. I think a lot of the fun of roguelikes comes from leaning heavy into fun or unique builds, and this doesn't seem to offer much on build variety at the moment.