Jupiter Hell

Great rouge game.

This is a fun game to play for a few minutes at a time. One quality of life improvement that could help would be having better config for the controller. The keyboard controls are great, but for a game like this using the controller is nice. It would be good to have an image of the controller showing which buttons map to each action.

yarp

**35 hours in, still haven't beaten the game on the easiest difficulty. 10/10, would die again.**

I'm a longtime fan of DoomRL/DRL, and this game is more than a worthy successor. It takes everything that made the original great and gives it a polish without sacrificing the depth.

The gameplay is surprisingly fluid for a turn-based roguelike. Much of the time, you can blast your way through enemies as if playing a conventional shooter. But when things get ugly (and they sure will!), you can slow down, consider every move, and carefully plan your tactics. Or panic, make a stupid decision, and die.

The real appeal lies in the sheer number of possible approaches. A huge variety of weapons (including some extremely rare and positively overpowered ones), plus weapon & armor modifications, plus character development (skill tree) allow for wildly different builds and strategies. But, the game never lets you become an unstoppable killing machine. Powerful ammo is scarce, armor deteriorates, and your painfully limited inventory forces you to make difficult choices. You simply cannot carry everything you will need. Combine this with procedurally generated levels (which somehow still manage to look intentionally designed), branching progression, it's infinitely replayable. Especially if you're also chasing different challenges & achievements (the game keeps tabs on all your playthroughs).

And yes, the game is difficult. I've died two maps in, I've died on Io, and I've died in just about every stupid way imaginable (and, being a roguelike, there is no quicksave). However, it was genuinely deserved, not simply death-by-RNG. I ran out of ammo or medpacks at the critical moment, or heedlessly ran into a room chock full of high-tier monsters instead of checking behind the corner. It's more often bad judgment than bad luck. Sometimes, the smartest tactical decision is simply to run for the exit, screaming like a little girl :)

The graphics strikes exactly the right balance. I loved DoomRL/DRL since its early ASCII days (more than the later graphic version), and Jupiter Hell achieved just the right atmosphere without excessive visual effects or cartoonish spectacle. The only thing I miss is the original DRL soundtrack.

After 35 hours, I still haven't finished a single run. But every death makes me want to try again and get a little further.

Fun game with heavy metal playing in the background