I am not a fan of rogue type games. So I was unaware of this title until it was presented to me in the form of Indie Royale's The Starry Night Bundle. Actually this was the game that made that bundle for me. Now too thrilled about the other prospects of this bundle I was more than eager to try this one out. This is pretty much a keyboard / mouse game (was recently updated with controller support) but the tutorial was helpful in giving a quick rundown of the controls and it was easy to use after that.
So the main premise of this game is to get to the bottom of The Pit to find the cure for a disease that is ravaging the planet, which the intro made me think it was another zombie game. Thank god that wasn't the case. The Pit has many dangerous aliens, monsters, traps, crazed humans but no zombies. At least none that I could discover before I died. The furthest I've made it to was floor 21.
When you start the game you have 3 classes of characters to choose from. The Marine, who is very skilled in combat and with weapons. He's definitely a shoot first ask questions later type of character. What he lacks in brains he more than makes up for in fire power and strength. Begins the game with an assault rifle and an automatic pistol. Next you can choose is the Engineer. This character has got the most brains of the bunch and is skilled with electronics, mechanical and all the technical stuff needed to assist you in using all the fancy technology you'll no doubt discover as you descend into the pit. The third player available in our bunch is the Scout. This character is a little bit from column A and B in the guns and brains department.
Whichever you start with you'll eventually want to build up stats they're lacking as you level up. In this game doubling down on some stats while leaving others to whither away might mean the difference between life and death when you least expect it but you can adjust to your play style. Now this game has a pseudo user friendly inventory system meaning there's lots of room but it's not really intuitive. Some weapons take up three or four vertical spots in your inventory. Only thing is that your inventory sorts itself horizontally and doesn't automatically make space where you need it. This is a slight annoyance but means you will be manually rearranging your items whenever you get a large device or weapon.
Another nice aspect of this game is the crafting system. There's cooking and lab stations all throughout the Pit that will allow you to take random items you discover on your journey to create something useful, like weapons, accessories or food. The game does periodically teach you recipes but I've found in the 20 or so hours I've put into this game I have only ever gotten 2 recipes. I'm a big fan of the SotS Wikia which shows about all the discovered ingredients and what items they craft into.
If you like what you see you should consider the Mind Games expansion DLC. It features 2 new classes of ranger and psion and adds a host of new environments, monsters and weapons. Overall this is a great game whether you're into rogue types or not.
Gameplay: (^__^) - High replayability. The base game, featuring 3 character types and 4 difficulty levels and a randomly generated dungeon means you won't play the same game twice. Extensive craft system, enemies that are tough and will kill you if you don't come at them prepared you'll curse this game every time you die but you'll learn from your mistakes and make your way into the Pit again.
Sound: ^__^ - The music for the Pit is eerie and fits well with the game. What I really like are the various sound effects for the creatures that inhabit the location you're in. Because your field of view is often limted to what you can see in front of you it's nice that you can hear a couple of the monsters or machines that might be in the distance.
Controls: ^__^ - Pretty simple to navigate and you can also remap keys and gamepad buttons as you see fit. There's a button for intuitive targeting (shoot the closest thing) but nothing that is complicated or not covered in the quick tutorial.
Overall: (^__^) - This game consumed hours of my time to the point where I was playing for 3-5 straight and lost track of time just to go one more floor. Luckily there is a save feature as I'm not sure how many floors this thing goes. There's no game breaking bugs, the inventory layout can be overlooked but this game is awesome. What it might lack in ultra fancy high end graphics makes up for in solid gameplay. Tons of achievements and ways to play makes this game a good deal at any price.
Buy It On: Steam, Desura, DRM Free
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