Steam Marines

v hard game

A super difficult and interesting roguelike! If this is your favorite genre and you want something really hard and really odd, this is a great one to try out. The whole aesthetic/the themeing is also pretty neat.

EDIT 12/28/2020: It works again! That's some serious commitment by the dev. I love it for what it is, but it is what it is. FLAWS: -The random map generator is truly random. Rooms often make no sense. It very well could be that your marines are allowed to melee through walls solely because doors are never guaranteed. -Not a lot is explained. What do the items do? How do I drop things? The tooltips only tell you so much. But that feels intentional, since this is a roguelike and you're supposed to learn as you play. This really belongs under 'Features', but it may be a turn-off for you. -The difficulty curve. You'll fail the first few levels countless times, but once you get past a certain point you can't really fail on accident. This is less because you're getting the hang of the game, and more because you're leveling up in multiple areas simultaneously, so power growth is exponential and the game becomes much more forgiving. You'll know the first deck's enemies by heart, but you may only see the last deck once. To an extent this affects all roguelikes, but randomizing the deck order for each playthrough would have ameliorated this to some extent by making the first few levels of a run less monotonous. FEATURES: -Great art style. Retraux pixel art has been "in" for a while now, but this game actually pulls it off without feeling gimmicky. -I still hum the soundtrack every time I think of this game. Overall, the game is very atmospheric. -Lots of deadpan snark. "Radiation storm. Sarge gains movement points, but is sterilized." -The gameplay itself can be surprisingly satisfying. If you can get past the first deck, there are a lot of interesting enemies and gear. If characters survive long enough to level up, you make either-or upgrade choices that really differentiate their roles. On the flip side, losing a character is crippling because even if you replace him, he starts out at level zero, which only makes him less likely to survive. So, do I recommend it? Yes. What I'd really like to throw money at is this exact thing, but with better balancing, fewer bugs, and a better map generator. Maybe even more variety in weapons, items, enemies, tilesets, etc. There's a sequel in the works, but it doesn't have the same art style, and TBH that's a big part of the game's charm. Retro has been fashionable in indie circles for a few years now, but most games don't really capture that retro feel like this one does.

It wasn't an entertaining game because I could only make a few moves and then always had to wait what felt like an eternity for my opponent to make all his moves.

This is below average indie game, nothing special about it, no great music, no good visuals, no enjoyable gameplay, nothing unique. It all comes at the pretty steep price all things considered.

Very bad game 3/10

bad controls