Rogue Legacy, a 2D platformer "rogue-lite"

I came across this promising, recently greenlighted project yesterday. I suck at writing descriptions, but fortunately there are other sources for you to read if you're interested.

Rogue Legacy is a sort of a Metroidvania with roguelike elements, meaning death comes quickly and often, but as the game's own twist, you don't go back to square one when you die. Not quite. Death is permanent, but you can immediately start a new game as an heir and can use whatever gold your previous character managed to gain for improvements. So little by little, generation by generation your character improves. There are several classes that have somewhat different attributes and unlockable special abilities, and as you unlock new equipment and runes you will be able to customize each character quite a bit. Many characters also have special traits that may be good, bad or purely cosmetic. These are mainly for flavour. Gameplay is pretty difficult, especially at first with crappy stats, but it shouldn't be too much for anyone with any experience in 2D platform games.

There's a demo available at the homepage, and it's good for quite a few hours of fun. In the few hours I've played I've been able to map the entire (randomly generated) dungeon a couple of times, but I haven't been able to defeat the boss, and most of the time I die way before I've managed to explore more than a handful of rooms. I'm also very far from maxing out the demo's skill tree or available equipment. Actually, I can't remember when I've last seen this much content in a demo.

The home site also has a trailer that probably gives you some idea. You might also want to read what Rock, Paper, Shotgun has to say about it.

I wound up pre-ordering for 10$. I understand the game should be out in a couple of months, and as I wrote in the beginning, it's already been greenlighted, so it will be on Steam for sure. Distribution is done via the Humble Bundle site.

It's strategic phase has similarities with Massive Chalice kickstarter, this seems to work well in Rogue legacy, so that gives hopes to Massive Chalice too where kingdom and legacy building are probably even more detailed. Games tactical gameplay modes are greatly different tho.


I'm not usually all that enthusiastic about 2D retro action platformers, but

RPS said:

There’s no question that Rogue Legacy owes a massive amount to Spelunky.

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this sold me!

So far have put few hours in it, first characters literaly died in a few first rooms, but now I am scouting deeper in the castle and getting nice loots. Still haven't tried face boss(es?) since I am either too low health when finding boss room, or just too greedy to stop finding chests. Though might try it out in next time I pass boss room with full health character.

Still not sure can it hook me as long as Spelunky did, but added dungeon layouts might help with that, we'll see.

I think it could benefit if there were more risk and reward playability with single character, now it's just how much coin you manage to gather before dying, something adding higher in stakes would be nice. Like for example retiring back to castle after good loot, or trying to push your luck and getting even more higher loot with some multipliers, but also with risk to lose coin or possibly gear or something. Or something epic memorials or monuments of deceased heros to your castle, etc.

It's still fun like it is now regardless of bit shallow lineage.

This was released today. 13,99€ in Steam or 15$ from the developer's website.

Feels every bit as addictive as the demo had me believe. Will probably end up being a three-figure time sink for me.

A bit too much dying for my taste. It's like IWTBTG, except you're not put directly back into it when you die. And the controls are terrible somehow. I mix up jump/block/attack all the time, and changing key bindings doesn't work half the time.

You die a lot early on, part because you're still learning, part because you haven't had a chance to build up the character yet. After a while you manage to stay alive quite a bit longer on the average run. When it comes to controls, it took me a while to get used to them as well. And they changed one key from the demo controls and I've been too lazy to change it back, so now I'm constantly hitting the wrong key when I want to cast a spell. But I'll learn

I'm having difficulty adjusting to the control scheme as well. It's a little tricky remembering what buttons to press, considering the cluster**** of enemies and traps in most levels.

Still, the fun and replayibility factor is there, I suppose. Not much of a platformer fan myself, but this has been pretty entertaining so far.

Ye gods this is fun

Xpadder + any sort of a pad helps tons.

Add:

Yes! In the year of our lord, 2779 I finally managed to vanquish the first boss.

So were you a dwarf, flatulent or colour-blind when you killed him?

Stereo-Blind P.A.D. Lich I think.

This game looks really good in sepia. 

Picked this up today, and it's ****ing brutal. I've lost something like twenty generations of my family to this castle, and because I forgot to lock it I lost the first boss room I found -_-

Got two bosses down! It's a lot easier after I changed the controls to something that makes sense.

Scully said:

Shinobi+vampire gear = OP[/spoiler]

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Yes. It's pathetically easy to down bosses with that.

This is on my To-Buy list. Haven't got around to it yet. Glad to hear good things about it.

In the year 2349, the Legendary Assassin, Lisa II killed the first boss of my castle. Hooray!

Played the demo. I'm garbage at it, but I'm sure I'll get better. If someone could totally buy it for me, I would be forever in their debt (until I could buy them something back).

I'm at the last boss. I still need some upgrades and high-end equipment blueprints to kill it though.

Probably not, just the right class.

I'm not that far in but a Hokage with gigantism seems immensely powerful.

An interesting thing about the game balance is that through your first playthrough the Hokage is generally awesome with their huge damage boost, especially for killing bosses, but if you continue on with the new game+ (which increments repeatedly making the game harder each time you beat the last boss again) the Hokage progressively loses value due to their inability to get critical hits.
I'm reaching that point myself somewhat early into my first new game+.

By the way, if you haven't found it, there is a "hidden" Dragon class which can be unlocked by going to the top upgrade slot in your manor (forget which it is offhand) and pushing up again to pan up and reveal that upgrade. Interesting class which can't jump but instead can freely fly, lobs magic fireballs that consume mana instead of a regular sword attack, and have a rapidly regenerating mana pool. Their health is also a bit low. Great class for many of those fairy chest rooms where you need to avoid taking damage or get to the end without jumping, but otherwise a bit weak compared to other classes.