Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 515.2 (Adorn)

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/20/2023

This uniquely bright and poppy dungeon crawling shooter has been dominating my steam recommendations for weeks as I browsed survivors-likes, so I sought out an experienced player to help us compare it. Following are notes from Adorn from the Voidigo discord! Adorn's scorecard notes: "A top down twin stick shooter dungeon crawling action roguelike, it becomes more like a Bullet Hell as difficulty progresses"

Auto-Battler/Shooter: "There are powerups(pwus) that give turrets and companions but majority of the input is from players."
Arcade Style: "There is a bit of plot and a relatively lengthy tutorial, but after that's done runs are really easy to start up."
Bullet Heaven: "Follows the heaven format for enemies, which don't fire that much even on higher difficulties, but is closer to a Bullet Hell for the bosses who are relentless on really high difficulties."
No-Aiming: "There are pwus that give the effect of a no-aiming mode but they are not guaranteed on every run of course."
No On-Attack Movement: The game has a sprint and a walk, so firing will stop your sprint, but the walk speed is the same, hence the 0.5.
Endless Mode: "There's no dedicated mode, but the player can "loop" which will restart the run with all of there items and this is only limited by the power of your PC."

Impactful Items: "Some pwus don't change much but most of the pwus can drastically change how you play the game.
Invincible/Broken Builds: You still need to pay attention to progress in the game, but the builds can get really OP especially on high loops."
Temp Powerups on "Ground": "All of the pwus can be permanent if you want but can be traded hence the 0.5."
Many Player Characters: "All of the pwus and weapons are obtainable to you when you play the game so the Player Characters aren't that different in the endgame, but they are pretty unique at the start."
Bestiary/Lore: "There is a list of all of the enemies with descriptions in the tester build but you need tester commands to access this list. The game does have some decent lore but it's not focused on for majority of play."
Secrets: "There are a few easter eggs such as weird noises happening at certain points, and a literally game event called a "secret crack" but nothing too big."
Lo-Fi Charm: "The game has charm for sure, but that charm isn't really because it's a homely indie game. The game genuinely has a very polished and smooth feel to it."
Dodging: "The player will "jump" over attacks and can "stomp" on enemies if they are above them. Stomping will stun some enemies and can be comboed on multiple enemies to extend invincibility frames."

"The player can hold up to 2 a melee or ranged weapons. Melee are generally more risk/reward as they will do a lot of damage but will use a lot of "durability" and have very short ranges, while also being able to block some attacks. Ranged will be safer as they can attack from a distance with a bit less damage and more ammo efficiency, while also being able to "gunslap" enemies for small melee damage."

Difficulty/Fun Ramp: "The games difficulty is pretty reliant on learning and overcoming how certain enemies/mechanics/synergies work. The meta is essentially what works best for the player."
Low Price: "It's $20 which isn't that low, but relative to the content it provides it's a huge bargain. I have several hundred hours and all achievements and I still have pretty different experiences on different runs."
Technical Check: "The game can start to struggle with some frame stuttering when a lot is happening on the screen but this is pretty rare and you'd have to be pushing the game a lot to cause this."

Conclusion: "For VS players that enjoy the horde survival aspect, this game isn't too great since the game is more focused on small enemy groups and a domineering boss. But VS players that are fans of the roguelike aspects will find great enjoyment as this game will have plenty of options to scratch this itch."