Scary World

Vampire Survivors-like, except you skid around like you're on an ice rink being mobbed by giant clouds of motorcycle riding demons and bats. So many bats! It is not a game that takes itself very seriously, but it sure is fun. There are many enjoyable weapons to blow stuff up with. Flaming rulers, bouncing shells that hurt you as often as the foe, pools of lava, deadly explosive Christmas ornaments that leave broken glass lying all around, a "Laser Champ" who comments sagaciously on your current situation ("Scary Skeleton Detected"), "Roly Poly" which sends you rotating and speeding all around the arena - usually crashing into a crowd of things and getting murdered - and many more. As usual for these games, the fun is trying to survive long enough to become a death machine, but Scary World is much shorter than Vampire Survivors and the danger ramps up fast. If you do get ahead of the curve, the game will catch up pretty quickly (particularly once you get past 10 minutes). The physics mostly behaves but occasionally goes nuts, which is funny; things fly around the screen (including yourself) like pinballs. Probably that will be patched at some point. Perhaps it shouldn't be. Sometimes, if I am lucky, I scale up enough to wipe out the entire screen as soon as it appears. And it. Is. Glorious. Most of the time, however, I am dead in about 3 minutes. Such is life in this scary world. (playtime does not include the many hours I spent playtesting earlier builds).

[h3]A captivating roguelike with diverse characters and challenging gameplay. While some heroes feel unbalanced, the overall experience offers strategic depth and replayability.[/h3] Scary World, released on January 22, 2025, by Keith Burgun Games, is a roguelike adventure that immerses players in a Pixel Dungeon type universe. The game boasts a roster of unique heroes, each with distinct abilities, encouraging varied playstyles. Performance: 9/10 Throughout my playthrough, Scary World ran seamlessly, with no noticeable frame rate drops or technical hitches. The game's optimization ensures a smooth experience, even while seemingly hundreds of enemies swarmed around me. Story: 4/10 The game offers no story beyond its initial intro, which briefly introduces players to its eerie universe. For those who prioritize narrative depth, this could be a downside. However, fans of roguelikes may appreciate the focus on gameplay. Gameplay: 8/10 The gameplay is where Scary World shines, with varied combat scenarios and a unique roster of characters. While the layouts of levels feel fixed, enemy spawns and challenges bring some variability. The character balance, however, could use some attention: Mazrael: This character feels underpowered. Her healing ability, which supposedly activates when large groups of enemies die nearby, didn’t seem to work consistently, making her difficult to sustain and level effectively. Derby: As the starting character, Derby is a well-rounded choice. His starting ability and weapon make him great for learning the game’s mechanics. Gelf: This character felt overpowered compared to other heroes, allowing me to clear enemies with ease. While this made runs enjoyable, it also reduced the challenge significantly. May: May was the most fun character for me. Her extra life mechanic adds a layer of strategy, providing a safety net for riskier gameplay especially during the harder difficulty modes and later stages. Graphics: 8/10 The classic rogue like/pixel art style complements the tone of the game. Environments are dark and atmospheric, and the character designs stand out with unique visual identities and music. The consistent aesthetic enhances immersion. Sound: 7/10 The audio design effectively sets the mood with haunting ambient sounds and impactful ability cues. While not groundbreaking, the soundscape adds to the game’s overall atmosphere. Replayability: 7/10 While the layouts don’t feel procedurally generated, the variety in character abilities and enemy spawns offers enough replayability for fans of the genre. Adjusting strategies and experimenting with different heroes keeps the experience fresh for several runs. Final Rating: 7.5/10 Scary World delivers a satisfying roguelike experience, emphasizing strategy and character variety. However, the lack of procedurally generated layouts, an underwhelming story, and character balance issues hold it back from reaching its full potential. With updates and adjustments, it could become a standout in the genre. For now, it’s an enjoyable title worth exploring, especially for those who enjoy experimenting with unique heroes.

Disclaimer: I did play a playtest version of the game for free before release At a base level Scary world ist just a well done game similar to Vampire Survivors. But it has a couple really neat things going for it. 1. The match length is really short. You win the game after 10 minutes. There is no staring at blinking lights on the screen for 20 minutes while your build automatically clear everything on screen in this game. The maximum game length is 10 minutes and if don't play well early a match can be over very quickly. This leads to a great gameloop where you are constantly trying stuff out, seeing what works and what doesn't and improve at the game. 2. The difficulty system works well. After playing this game for quite a while it did seem pretty easy so I upped the difficulty settings (called Scary Levels in the setings) by a few levels and the game was immediatley noticably harder, I was dying a lot, had a lot of runs that where just 2 minutes long. But when runs are just 2 minutes long you can get a lot of runs in a short time and improve at the game and soon I was getting further and further into the game. I got the the first boss, then on the next run to the second boss and a couple runs later I had beaten then game at that higher difficulty mode. So I cranked the difficulty up again. As of writing this the highest difficulty mode I've beaten is level 6 and there are a total of 10 and as this game is still in early access I'm sure that should level 10 get beaten by a lot of players a new one will be added. There are also 7 characters in the game with different strength some of which work as an interesting handicap mode. Just keep in mind that while you may be able to beat the game on difficulty 6 with mazrael and derby you may still have to turn back the difficulty level to maybe 2 or 3 for some of the harder characters. 3. The Lava means you always gotta be on the move and know where to go. There is a constantly advancing lavaflow that comes from the left of the screen and is eventually gonna envellop the whole stage so you constantly gotta move to the right. You can and for a lot of builds should temporarily set up in a place and farm mobs there but you always gotta pack up quicky and move to a different place. And you gotta use the time you have to get strong enough so you can beat the final boss of the stage to unlock a portal to the next stage because otherwise the lava is gonna get to you. 4. The music is really good. Every character has their own track and they are all bangers. Also I am playing this game on Fedora Linux through Proton on a potato right now so In case you to are playing on a Potato running Linux or a SteamDeck the game should run just fine.

Balance and scaling is terrible, when I'm 20 level in I should not be having difficulty with the first enemy type. Several visual bugs, including invisible mobs and bullets. Abilities are boring, and don't improve in meaningful ways. You MUST memorize the level layout and shops to have a chance at winning. No meta progression, and no characters have unique weapons or skills. It's only 3$ but this should be labeled early access imo.

Dev is very open to discussion and actively trying to make the game better with each patch. The latest one made the movement a bit less sluggish, making it feel a lot better to move around!

Scary World has some cool ideas but it’s got a few control issues. The movement feels slow and sticky, which makes dodging bullets harder than it needs to be. Also the lance weapon that Gelf uses doesn’t always shoot where you’re facing, even though it’s supposed to be a "directional attack". That’s pretty annoying. Another thing I think Dev should add is an “attack follow cursor” option. It’d make a big difference in the gameplay and letting players choose if they want it would be a nice touch. The game has potential with its characters, powers and secrets to unlock but the controls need some work. If they fix those, it could be a lot more fun. Feel free to join my group if you want help deciding on any games before you buy: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/CoolorNah

This is a great VS-like with short runs, exciting gameplay and lighthearted, wacky aesthetics. The quick round times make it easy to play a few quick rounds, and just as easy to go "one more try" over and over again for hours. It only takes a minute or two before things get challenging, and your build decisions start to play out. The character abilities and build options feel distinct, and create different movement and attacking strategies. The fluid movement, while a divergence from typical VS-like controls, is incorporated throughout the gameplay, with movement and momentum influencing some of the weapons, boost pads, and some additional tension with collecting xp, as it circles around you gradually. You have to keep on the move to avoid the more mobile enemies, rather than parking it and collecting xp. I find myself preferring it more and more to the staid, linear movement in VS. The music is excellent, and the art style, while simple, is quite readable, which is the most important thing for this type of game. Overall a fun, highly replayable, and unique entry in the bullet heaven / VS-like genre.

Movement is a chore in this game - it's like you are on mud; slow to start and slow to stop. In a game where movement is almost all there is, this single choice ruins the entire game for me. Interestingly, this feedback has been given repeatedly on the discussion board by multiple people, but he quickly deletes it. Way to thank people for making the effort to give constructive feedback, when they could have just left a negative review and moved on. Talk about rude. Meanwhile, he claims to have fixed it, but all he's done is toned down the momentum a tiny bit, it's still an anti-feature.

"I hope I don't have a bad dream, of a scary world" I have bad news for you. Scary World is here! And it's intense! Run around with poison trail, blow up your enemies, or find the secret Wizard. The choice is yours. It's a lot of fun to knock all the little guys around on screen. And when you kill the big eyeball, it explodes with eyeball juice everywhere, which is really gross. The "diamond abilities" you can get by mixing and matching the different colored ability gems is a really cool mechanic, and adds a lot of strategy to which abilities you go for. It's hard to put down, I keep wanting to try just one more time! The dev also only made this game in about a month, which is really impressive. Support indies or die!

This game is really hooky and dynamic. It has that addictive appeal of VS style games, but I really like the movement in this. It's got some acceleration and inertia, so there is this satisfying "oomf" to it all. The game is also really funny. Great sense of humor. For a game of this kind, there is a surprising amount of depth in the mechanics. I beta tested this during development, and I continue to find surprises with each and every run. Designed to be about 10 minutes of fun, but very high replay value. I highly recommend you enter this SCARY WORLD.