Risk of Rain (PC)

[Benjaminos]

Anyone else playing this?

It's a pixel-art platformer with roguelike elements (one death and it's game over, randomised levels, etc.) - like a sci-fi Binding of Isaac, except with jumping and shooting. You start off as a weedy dude on an alien planet, you shoot lizard people and robots to earn cash and experience, and use the cash to unlock chests, make offerings at altars, and pick up a host of crazy powerups along the way. Oh, and it's co-op (or solo, whichever floats your boat).

The other mechanic is that every five minutes that you survive, the difficulty ratchets up another notch. It starts out quite slow paced, you build your arsenal and nuke the 2-3 things that spawn every so often, get into the groove of things - then by the twenty-minute mark ('insane'), you're leaping around tossing missiles and mortars at people, while your three laser drones rain down death from above, hordes of alien corpses piling up around your feet.

It's really polished for the price (£6.99) - my last run ended after 22 minutes.. I had mortars, some thing that spawned spirit bolts and set the ground on fire every time something died, health regeneration based on how much damage I dealt, and for some reason, a ukelele that electrocuted people. Then two massive magma worms spawned at once and stomped me into oblivion. It was good.

On Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/248820/ - has controller support, achievements, trading cards, all that shiz.

[madhair60]

Yeah, I'm on it here and there.  Can't get past level three.

[Benjaminos]

That's one further than me.

Mind you, I remember being quite shit at the Binding of Isaac to begin with, too. Once you start building up an internal database of which items to choose over others (get Dr. Fetus, avoid Lemon Mishap), then your survivability jumps up a bit. The disposable missile launcher in this is a good 'oh shit' button, but I haven't found much that's dramatically game-changing so far.

I just unlocked the big, slow robot dude with the riot shield, maybe that'll up my chances too.