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[Mobile Gaming] How the Nyan Cat led to the death knell for a popular mobile game- the downfall of RWBY Amity Arena.
Note: Many of the links are to the Amity Arena Library, a website devoted to the game which includes tracking the history of it through patchnotes and a running history of what cards entered and left the meta. Their website was a valuable resource for this post.
Mobile gaming has taken off like a wildfire since the advent of the smartphone boosted the average processing power a phone could carry. Initially it took the form of crossing over older, more easily runnable games onto the mobile market to... mixed success, but in recent years we've seen both the West and East use mobile gaming to replace the old fashioned movie tie in game. It's easily accessable, has a much wider reach than consoles or PC, you can take it on the go and standards are inherently lower for mobile games than they are a full 60 dollar game. Since the 2010s, mobile gaming has shifted to what's called the "Freemium" module. The game itself is free to download and start playing, but is insideously designed with obnoxious paywalls or artificial limiters put in place to limit how much you can play each day. If the game is part of a pre-existing franchise, additional money can be made through a premium currency or a chance to obtain high-powered units by rolling a slot machine random chance mechanic. And thus, gacha gaming was born. This sub has had several threads in the past on high profile gacha games, such as the monolithic Fate Grand/Order, Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact. One of the more popular things to roll for in gachas as a consequence is wallpapers for your homescreen, especially for high-grade units as they're usually animated to move a little bit on the homescreen. Today we're looking a low to mid-tier gacha game that rose and fell with the advent of one catgirl. Let's talk RWBY. RWBY is an online web anime made by Rooster Teeth focusing on four prospective monster hunters who get embroiled in a world-spanning shadow war. It's of debatable quality in matters of animation, combat, voice acting, story, worldbuilding, romance, and it's kind of a little racist if I'm being honest, but one of the major positives of RWBY is that the series tends to have good character design. Series creator Monty Oum set in the guidelines for the show while making it that most if not every design should be made to be cosplay friendly, hence why most of the outfits have things most costume designers haven't heard of like... pockets. And Rooster Teeth, above all else, likes making money. So they know people like RWBY's character designs, enough so that in 2017 plans were made to release a gacha game themed around RWBY called Amity Arena, which would be developed by Korean company NHN Entertainment. Amity Arena is a PvP tower defense game. Each player controls two turrets and a tower and has three minutes to use units themed from the show to destroy the other player's structures. Whoever took out more wins, destroying a tower is an instant victory. When the game launched, it had three tiers for units- Common (generally held for mooks or low-tier characters in the show), Rare (roughly protagonist-level or elite mooks go here) and Epic (High tier characters usually with an active ability that did lots of damage or stopped enemies in their tracks). The game launched in October 2018 to generally positive reviews from both mobile game players and RWBY fans alike. Fans were happy to get a lot of new official art for the characters in the game and the base gameplay loop was fun. Criticism at the time was largely themed around the lack of content besides PVP matches and some issues with the meta but overall, the launch went well. Each month, the developers would add new units, including popular characters like Neopolitian, Cinder Fall, Zwei the dog, and more. But everything changed with February 20th 2019, which introduced Neon Katt, the titular catgirl (RWBY characters are themed around fairytales, except for Neon, who is themed around Nyan Cat, and her partner Flynt Coal, who is themed off a potentially racist joke made by Rooster Teeth). Neon is a character from RWBY Volume 3 who's part of a team that RWBY face during a tournament arc. Her partner, Flynt Coal, was part of the game at launch, and Neon would join him a few months later. Neon in the show is a cocky fighter who taunts the heroes and zips around on rollarskates, which in-game is represented by Neon skating towards the nearest enemy structure to her and hitting it, while all units within a radius of Neon are taunted and provoked into attacking her above all other targets unless they-selves are coded to hit structures. On its own, not a bad idea for a unit, but Neon came with four big caveats:
Neon was the fourth corner of the square that became known as the Artillery Arena meta, which saw Neon, Cinder (who had an AOE ability she could use which was wide enough to hit a turret and tower and single-handedly killed the entire launch meta of using fragile swarm units), Zwei (an on-summon high damage AOE on any part of the map) and Penny (another AOE ability that instead did chip damage and locked a location down) turn the game's meta into a chip game. Every player ran at least one of the above cards, if only to counter the others. Neon was the universal counter in being anti-swarm and the hardest to stop, especially at launch where her taunt range was so large, it could grab units from the other lane.
Neon launched with a unit weight of "Heavy", which meant that if she was behind a unit she could push it on her way to the turret. This launched a sub-meta where Neon was placed behind a larger unit such as the Ursa (which like Neon was a unit that focused on structures but was made slow to cover its tankiness), to push them towards the turret faster. This was called Disco Bear. They eventually patched this so Neon phased through units by making her a lightweight.
Neon couldn't die. She was invincible until she hit a structure, which combined with her taunt meant that Neon was very annoying to fight and could lock down an entire lane of the battlefield by being placed well and taunting enemies to let you prepare a counter.
Neon was a very cheap unit to summon. Amity Arena uses a mechanic called "Aura" where all units cost a certain amount and it recharges over the match- for instance, protagonist Ruby Rose has a Rare card that costs four Aura to summon, while Weiss Schnee has two rares that cost three and five. Neo only cost two Aura, which made her one of the cheapest units of the game and thus disproportionately powerful for her cost and easy to cycle through your deck so you could spam her.
From the word go, Neon is an unpopular unit; she's clearly overbalanced and elements such as the Disco Bear glitch have players thinking she'll have to get knocked down in a nerf- she'll either be made slower, more expensive, or able to die pre-hitting a structure, right? Neon doesn't show up in the next patch. Instead, before she's fixed, an entire new class of units called Legendaries are introduced, and this is where the game goes full gacha. Legendaries were meant to represent the highest tier characters in the game, the ones who were either the most popular characters or the highest-tier fighters in the show. Or in some cases, the popular ships such as combo cards for White Rose (Ruby/Weiss), Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) and Flower Power (Ren/Nora). Legendaries, representing their value, were impossibly rare and had an infinitely small chance of actually appearing (The most reliable method was to buy the premium chests and hope you'd roll a Legendary, which often cost tons of money), and if you did get one, there was no way to guess which Legendary you'd actually get. Some such as White Rose and Adam were high tier units, others like Hazel or Checkmate were... kinda broken at launch. The playerbase isn't happy at this, especially as free to play players are left out in the cold and reliant on the game giving them high tier units effectively out of pity. Neon would get a small nerf in the April patch which lessened her taunt range and killed the Disco Bear meta, but her invincibility would be left untouched, even as players submitted feedback regarding how to make it more efficient. The official Amity Arena discord has a weekly feedback section on Tuesdays where players could submit up to four suggestions on how to nerf/buff units and general requests for quality of life such as "Can this character get a new skin from this part of the show," or "Can we have an option to lower music volume that's not just muting all music?" (they never did add that second request) Neon would then remain in this state until the November patch, despite constant weekly requests for a Neon rework, and all it would do is make Neon functionally mortal, in that she had a flat shield bar of 20 that would be lowered by one for each attack before the next hit would kill her. Neon could now die... but your chances of actually doing enough damage to stop her were slim, and regardless, you were now at a serious Aura defecit. It took seven months for this one unit to get a substantial nerf, all while the game added new units every week and the number of units being affected by patches each month began to gradually sink. To round up some of the major issues people had with Amity that developed throughout 2019 alongside Neon's general existance making life hell:
Common units were meant to be chump fodder, but could level up the most amount of times with a level cap at 13. This meant longer-term units that had a long time to level such as the Xiong Family card, the AK-130s the Beowolf Pack, or the White Fang gunners, could become shockingly strong if players grinded the money up to reach max level.
A pre-existing divide between free players and players willing to burn money IRL to get access to premium currencies led to a huge disparity in play. Free players have long complained about how hard it is to scrounge money together to level up units at higher costs as even the basic currency of Lien is hard to get large quantities of (you get a certain amount every match win but otherwise you need to burn the Schnee Premium Dust currency for the highest payouts, but SPD is also needed for shop resets, buying crates or unlocking cosmetics). The developers used to do frequent double weekends where all gains were doubled for a weekend, but these became less and less frequent as time went on. Legendaries only added to the divide, as their rarity was bad enough for players willing to spend money (one player, known as one of the largest whales in the community, in trying to get Sienna Khan, reported burning nearly nine hundred dollars on her, while taking nearly six hundred to get the Ice Flower card).
One actual counter was born to fight Neon in the Argus Shield, a stationary unit that existed solely to stall units and take damage. At 2 Aura, it was the first structure to counter Neon, which allevated one of the primary problems with Neon in that no way to counter her was cost-efficient for an enemy player. They buffed the Wall to 3 Aura eventually which killed that hope, and all this happened before Neon's November nerf.
The Summer of 2019 saw a large number of defensive units released; alongside the Argus Shield, several different units were released themed around turrets for the technological kingdom of Atlas, such as the Beam Turret. The Atlesian Burrow Gun was the straw that broke the camel's back and made for a miserable meta as the Burrow Gun would only appear (and be available to take damage) when a unit entered its range. These three units together were all very overpowered on launch and led to a large exodus of players sick of defensive and chip-based metas, especially as what few offensive units that were good enough to counter these metas (such as Professor Port and Adam Taurus) were often nerfed into the ground within a month of release.
Also around this time it became apparent that the developers were unable to meet the quotas that Rooster Teeth was forcing on them. The social media team admitted that a certain number of units needed to be in the game in time for Winter 2019 when Volume 7 was set to start, and as the year went on more and more game-breaking bugs were being found in units, or they were at best horrifically undertuned or overpowered. The Apathy was perhaps the largest case of this, as an unfound bug pre-release meant that the Apathy (who have a passive ability that let them self-duplicate) had no cap on their power, meaning that they could immediately overwhelm defenses and in the case of some phones, be such a resource hog the phone would crash. Many Legendary units were especially guilty of being under-tuned due to low Legendary availability meaning they were simply weren't powerful enough to compare with high-levelled units. Checkmate's ability simply didn't work at launch, and Neon made several more such as Hazel Rainart a joke. May Marigold's invisibility bubble would have been an interesting game changer... were it not for a bug that made it that units placed in the bubble still played their sound lines, meaning players knew what to expect. Things were so bad that when Flower Power launched and wasn't broken or needed an emergency patch, the playerbase were shocked.
Unfortunately, the Novemember patch did little to stop the problems with Neon, and a new problem would rear its head for Christmas: Jinn. This unit embodied many of the problems players had: She was a Legendary so it would be hard for free players to get her, and only added to the sheer number of Legendaries that were out there. She was another structure card, and she was horrifically broken. Stopping time for seven seconds in an area around any friendly units, Jinn broke the game overnight, with players horrified at how little playtesting she'd clearly had. Most chip units now couldn't damage structures as Jinn simply could stop time and freeze the turret for the duration of the attack. And to make matters worse? She cost two Aura, meaning it was very easy to cycle a deck and start Jinn spamming. And yet at two aura she was still one of the only cost-efficient Neon counters... until they patched her to be worth three Aura instead. Talking of the feline menace, January saw Neon get a HP nerf that set her shield at 14. Finally, Neon could be realistically be taken out, still at an Aura defecit but at least it can be countered and now they just have to raise her Aura- why are you buffing her game? Less than a month later, Neon got, of all things, a buff. Her HP shield was set at 20, and her attacks now did double damage. This is around the point where a lot of players begin to suspect the developers aren't listening to feedback and more long-term players dip out or drop the game. Neon got touched one more time in April, which slowed her down (which itself was a problem as Neon's lessened speed on spawn simply made her better at generating aggro), she dealt 10% less damage and made it somewhat easier to hit her enough to kill her, but a new problem was on the horizon. Because Neon was now no longer the game's White Whale for patches. Meet the White Fang Gunner Barracks. Added in September 2019, the Barracks fell under many player's radar simply because they were horrifically undertuned. Their gimmick was that every few seconds, a White Fang Gunner would spawn, with three spawning on death. In April, as Neon got her last appearance in the patches, the Barracks got a huge buff and became the centerpiece of the meta; they now spawned two Gunners, which made them immensely valuable for just five Aura. You could overwhelm many anti-swarm units before they had a chance, and shred your way through turrets. The Barracks would then go six months before this overtuning was rectified, barring one nerf in August that lowered their health to try and stem the tide of units. To sum up every other thing that went wrong during the year meta-wise:
The playercount was getting so low that players were able to make lists of the AI bots the developers had in place so lower-level players had a challenge (Amity breaks up players by a trophy system where you gain trophies with every win, and by this point most of the active players were in the 2500 to 3500 range. This also meant new players steamrolled through the lower levels only to hit a brick wall in the 3000 range, with the only reliable solution being to willingly lose matches until you were in your optimal range and grind victories until you reached a certain level.
The patches became more and more threadbare, going from 8+ units getting changed each month in early 2019 to three units at most getting changed in 2020 patches outside of the anniversary patch going back to the golden days of eight. The only area where they didn't get more threadbare was in the cosmetics and emotes that the developers were cranking out, all of which were only available through hours of grinding or premium currencies. This was despite the fact that the units were being released slower, going from once a week to once a fortnite.
The majority of units added in 2020 were Epic or Legendary tier, which were the hardest to get for free players unless they got lucky and they were added to the store (and if they had the lien as a Legendary in the store costs a flat 40,000 Lien). One Common and four Epics were released compared to twelve Epics and seven Legendaries. The release of Moonslice Adam especially was annoying for this regard, as Adam already had a Legendary released (at least for Team RWBY, each of them headlined a Legendary when it came to the team attack cards), and this was clearly done to pander to Adam's fans again as his first unit saw a spike in interest in the game. The math was done and showed how artifically scarce Legendaries were made.
The undeovertuning was still in play. Colossus is seen as one of the worst cards in the entire game because of its gimmick. I have literally never seen anyone play it. Flynt became overtuned and now he's a staple thanks to his trumpet's AOE attack being able to hurt turrets and shred most units. Launcher Nora was an especially overtuned unit thanks to her high-damage constant AOE barrage and long range meaning she could annhilate most anything if given enough cover. Even after patches she's still dangerous. September saw the White Fang Dropship Formation added, which was widely seen as a terrible unit and done as an emergency addition because the planned unit for September in the Grimm Seer had to be cut last minute for technical reasons.
The game has barely had significant content added since launch, with the primary gameplay still just being PVP. Barring Battle of Beacon (a mode where you can play as Ruby and Weiss and fend off Grimm which most players just use to grind chests, and no, they still haven't added Blake or Yang) and Plaza (a lobby where you can dress up as a character and run around Beacon), the game has added no new features and quality of life content players have requested since launch (rerolling in the shop, Superior Crates having guaranteed Legendary spawn rates) have been released at a snail's pace (you still can't reroll Legendaries if you're looking for a specific unit). Academies where players can unite to trade units and chat still lacks features that have been requested for years such as the ability to delete messages. And Plaza immediately went to hell because players were doing erotic role play in the chats and after people came forward with proof that minors were being sexually harassed in the Plaza or being coerced into side-channels, the dev response was to... just turn off the chat entirely instead of banning the accounts or implementing moderation. This also removed the chatlog which deleted a lot of the evidence of said harassment.
As OctobeNovember comes in, the players are getting more and more furious. The weekly feedback includes a near constant demand for an acknowledgement from the developers given how often it feels like the feedback is being ignored. The social media team get caught several times hyping up how the coming patch would address player concerns, only for said patch to lack those units. The meta has been locked down to the Xiong Family, Flynt, Launcher Nora, Spider-Mines and the hell-cat herself in Neon. Everyone runs at least one of these, people run meta decks not because they want to, but because it's the only way to have a chance of victory. And then in December, things implode. The patch for the month was set to launch on December 10th with the monthly event missions. But when the clock rolls around, the event missions (which usually take about two weeks to do if you're doing as many as you can a day)... has a six day timer. And the update doesn't come out. The art team doesn't release new unit art. The shop has no special timed bundles. There's no patch notes. And then the Twitter team who've been hard carrying the game through... actually talking to the players and acknowledging the grievances they have... admitted that they don't know what's going on either. The best guess is that the devs have come down with Covid, but no statements to confirm or deny this leave it as guesswork. The timer eventually got reset and people could do the event, but then on Christmas itself, another issue. Ruby has appeared in the plaza on Halloween (her canonical birthday) and Christmas, and if you go talk to her you get free stuff. But on Christmas people, people discovered that Ruby was talking as if you'd already talked to her. Because they hadn't updated Ruby yet for 2020. She still thought it was 2019 so if you'd talked to her then for goodies, she had none now. They patched it eventually but a lot of people didn't see this fix before the timer ran out to get the free stuff. Some have resorted to memes to cope with the fact that the game just seems to have died out of the blue. Others have been trying to desperately rally the players and find a way to save it. Some resorted to friendly mockery of the whales who'd spent thousands on a game that seems to be dying (seriously though gacha games need to curb this shit but they won't because whales are godsends for their bank balances). If the game doesn't get an update in January then two months without new content will mark the end, and the already significant playercount drops will only increase. And it's hard to say if any one thing could have turned Amity Arena's fate around beyond just "Have a better balancing team who can respond better to feedback." Neon began the time of death, but by the time December rolled around the meta was in a horrifically toxic place where if you wanted to make any progession, you had to get down and dirty with the pigs. The team just constantly failed to balance problem units outside of their emergency hotfixes of Jinn, and more often then not they went after units and buffed or nerfed them at random going off playcounts to determine what needed fixing instead of the actual written feedback they were getting. It's clear from the references to the show and some of the attempts to reach out to the community that at least one person in the team genuinely wanted to make the good appealing to RWBY fans, but somewhere during the game's lifespan, they lost their way. Less focus needed to be put on how to milk the players, and instead focusing on making a game sustainable and enjoyable enough to warrant the cosmetics and emotes. The game's failure ultimately isn't on the playerbase. It's on the people who were actually making the game who chose to slack off because they thought it acceptable to do so. Thanks for reading. EDIT: HOT OFF THE PRESSES, I JUMPED THE GUN Had I waited one more day, my story would have had a far more sudden ending, as the game just announced its shutdown for January. RIP.
[Chronicles of Elyria] People paid $10k to be kings and queens in a failed crowdfunded game; lead dev still pretending he’s ‘working on the game’ after closing the studio and laying off all staff.
Remember, Remember, the 5th of NoRender...
I am surprised there aren’t any posts about Chronicles of Elyria on HobbyDrama yet! The community was so rife with drama from start to finish that I don’t even know where to begin. Throwaway because I will probably be doxxed if I post on my main.
What is Chronicles of Elyria?
Chronicles of Elyria was pitched as a Kickstarter in May 2016 as a dynamic MMORPG with procedurally-generated quests, a fully destructible environment, closed economy, finite resources, and survival elements. The goal was $900k, but they made about $1.3 million in the initial campaign, and through their subsequent crowdfunding efforts made close to $8 million total over the next few years.
What went wrong?
In terms of lofty ideas, Chronicles of Elyria was right up there with Star Citizen, but with a fraction of the funds. We’d be here all day if I went into detail about all of the game’s proposed features, because it’s like they were trying to be Crusader Kings meets medieval life simulator meets Harvest Moon meets survival game meets action RPG all at once. Browse through their Developer Journals; even without a background in game development, it’s clear that the scope of what they were trying to pull off would have been ambitious for a major studio, let alone a small crowdfunded team. The game’s initial release date was a laughably unrealistic Q4 2017, so it was no surprise that this would get pushed back again and again over the course of development. However, on March 24, 2020, lead developer Caspian made an announcement that rocked the community: State of Elyria: Into the Abyss (autoplay warning). In his typical long-winded fashion, Caspian spent the bulk of the post outlining the milestones the team reached over the past year, but only in the last few paragraphs did he mention that due to financial stressors from COVID-19, they ran out of money and had to lay off the entire team, shuttering development of Chronicles of Elyria. Because of several factors I’ll cover in the next few sections, the community did not take this well. In less than two weeks, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office reported they had received over 150 official complaints against Soulbound Studios, the most they had ever received for a company in that amount of time. Community whales formed a 'CoE Lawsuit' discord and discussed plans for a class-action lawsuit, demanding accountability and refunds. Some of them even pledged over $20k on the game, and they weren’t going to let Caspian cut and run. Amidst threats of legal action, on April 9 Caspian dropped another blog post, A Letter from Soulbound Studios to Our Community claiming that the March 24 post came from a “very emotional place.” He said that the community misinterpreted his intent, and that he was actually trying to communicate that he was still working on the game while looking for ways to secure additional funding. As you can expect, this was just as poorly-received as his last announcement.
Wait, why did people spend so much money on this game? And how did the drama get so spicy?
By its own design the game stirredupdrama even before release. With social stratification based on medieval feudalism literally built into the system, there was no way around it; the developers cheekily called it the “Dance of Dynasties.” There were multiple tiers of "pledges" and if I’m remembering correctly, the prices after the kickstarter were $500 for a Mayor title, $1000 for Count, and $3000 for Duke. The most coveted were of course the King/Queen titles, which had people shelling out a whopping $10000 for the chance to be royalty in an unreleased game. Even with the limited supply (6 kingdom slots per server iirc), these kingdom packages sold out all but one server. A few monarchs even purchased TWO kingdom slots to guarantee their supremacy on their chosen server. It’s very difficult to overstate the cult-like mentality of the community during the “peak” years of 2016-2018. There was an official CoE discord server where the developers frequently engaged with players, but most of the drama happened in what were called the Discords of Elyria. These were community-run discords for individual kingdoms, duchies, counties, towns, and baronies. Each had their own cliques of ‘advisors’ and elite roleplaying cabals. No, ‘elite roleplaying cabals’ is not an exaggeration; these people were spending thousands of dollars for a title to justify RPing as nobility to lord over the peasant rabble. This attracted a lot of entitled narcissists; the game’s structure practically encouraged it! I’ll give you an anecdotal example: I was really active within a kingdom discord and was eventually appointed as an advisor (the equivalent of what a guild officer would be in a normal MMO). This title was almost useless until release, so it was mainly just a glorified clique with a secret discord channel where we would theorycraft and talk shit about people we didn’t like in the kingdom. But I was the only one on the advisory council that did not possess a noble title, and a Countess kicked up a big fuss about this. Just like the real-life aristocracy, she was scandalized! Wording it in an RP-appropriate way with paragraphs of purple prose, she claimed that the $60 I pledged to the funding of the game wasn’t enough to prove I was fully committed. She and her cronies were so bothered that they tried to get me off the council. They went around DMing a bunch of people, accusing me of being a spy because I used to RP with some guy that left for a rival kingdom, and dredged up screenshots of year-old discord posts as proof my conduct was “unbecoming” of a representative of the kingdom. There’s a saga behind that story and many others; I can absolutely go into more detail in another post if enough people are interested in the byzantine “Dance of Dynasties” and the inter- and inner-kingdom drama that went down during the development of this beautiful disaster of a game… and developer involvement in said drama. If you want to waste several hours of your life, there is plentyofRPcringe archived on the read-only forums. For now, that’s just a small slice to help illustrate how detached from reality and cult-like this community was. Going back to the downfall...
Early Red Flags
As I alluded to, there were already red flags when the game was first pitched on Kickstarter. Despite hitting the initial $900k and going well into their stretch goals, the devs were still encouraging players to crowdfund long after the Kickstarter ended. There were several additional promotional events (somewhat outdated post that doesn't include everything) selling both cosmetic items and mechanically useful items, despite the developers going through hoops to justify over and over again why the game was not pay to win (it was). Eventually, the constant promotions and gamey tactics prompted community members to question why we were seeing more promotional events than development updates. The devs then admitted that the original Kickstarter campaign was meant to raise enough to be able to create a demo to attract investors and secure a stream of income that didn’t rely on crowdfunding. Unfortunately, no investors took a gamble on a risky debut from an inexperienced team, and despite Caspian making a few weird statements on Discord and implying they had “other sources” of funding that they did not have to divulge to the community, he too later admitted that they were relying solely on crowdfunding to make this game work. Well, this news was a departure from their previous claim that all they needed was 900k to develop the game for a Q4 2017 release, and that all funds would be used towards the development of Chronicles of Elyria. No one knew this was all just for a demo to attract investors, and people were justifiably upset.
The Community Begins to Turn
There was (and still is, last I checked!) a particularly loyal and obsessive subset of the community. At the slightest hint of criticism they’d quickly jump in to defend the game and devs. The community moderators were no better, and a lot of posts were censored or deleted from the forums. The developers had built up a sort of cult of personality with their over-involvement with the community. Despite a hilarious lack of transparency about the actual development of the game, they were… uncomfortably close to the playerbase. Caspian complained about specific players on the official discord and publicly accused two kingdoms of cheating during a cheap browser event meant to (surprise) raise more money. A player made a post on the forums saying the community outreach manager should be replaced (he was known for being snarky and condescending). Said community outreach manager actually private messaged people that upvoted the post, basically saying “if you think I should be replaced, please don’t contact me if you ever need anything in the future.” Yes, that came from the guy handling outreach. The "Map Selection" event was rife with its own kingdom vs kingdom drama, but the devs weren't able to redeem themselves here. After months and months of delays for a map event, Caspian failed to deliver the high-resolution maps as promised on November 5, 2018, claiming they were taking too long to render. "Remember, remember, the 5th of NoRender" became a meme and rallying cry across the community in reference to the constant delays and deception, to the point where people were banned just for saying it in the official discord. Then there was the issue of Prelyria. Prelyria was the low-poly pre-alpha client of the game they were developing. Meant to be like a graybox, it became a lot more involved than that and seemed to eclipse the development of the “real” game. People felt they had been bamboozled when they looked back: Pre-alpha video May 2016 Pre-alpha video September 2019 Some players with industry experience were pointing out that the amount of time the devs were spending on building the Prelyria assets and developing the low-poly client first (it was a lot more involved than a simple graybox) was actually going to be more cumbersome and definitely not save all the time the devs hoped it would. At this point, Caspian still looked like a well-intentioned idea guy with his head in the sky, and most people didn’t think he was intentionally scamming anyone. Personally, I believe Caspian definitely started out in earnest, but he spoiled his own vision with mismanagement and obfuscation. Funding was always a touchy subject. Despite first claiming they only needed $900k to finish the game, then saying no wait actually we need like $3 mil, Chronicles of Elyria raised almost $8 million in total and after 4 years in development had nothing close to a minimum viable product. We later learned that $500k of that initial $900k came from Caspian himself. This of course was not disclosed until after the Kickstarter. On March 20, 2020 (four days before the infamous Into the Abyss announcement), the devs released an exciting update claiming that Pre-Alpha Testing Has Officially Begun! Players that had pledged (iirc) $1000 or more now had access to test Alpha I! But excitement quickly faded as players realized this wasn’t really an alpha, but a 10-15 minute demo showing off movement and parkour mechanics and ONLY that. I didn’t have alpha access so I don’t know how bad the demo really was, and those who played it are still under NDA, but I heard it was terrible, and looked like something that could be slapped together in a couple weeks using Unity store assets. Let’s look again at the timeline Caspian pulled out at the end of 2017 when he admitted the Q4 2017 release date wasn’t going to happen:
V3 of the Website (Q3 2017)
ElyriaMUD (Q4 2017)
Alpha 1 (T1 2018)
Server Selection (T1 2018)
Settlement / Domain Selection (T2 2018)
KoE (T2 2018)
Design Experiences (T3 2018)
Alpha 2 (T3 2018)
Beta 1 (S1 2019)
Prologue & CoE Adventure Toolkit (S1 2019)
Exposition (S1 2019)
Beta 2 (S1/S2 2019)
Stress Test (Any paid account)(S2 2019)
Launch (S2 2019)
By March 2020, the only milestones they hit were V3 of the Website, Server Selection in November 2018, and Settlement/Domain Selection (after a series of delays that included a period of radio silence lasting over 100 days, it began somewhere around Summer 2019 and never officially concluded).
The Downfall
Now for the big question I’m sure all of you have: why was it such a big deal when he announced they ran out of funding? Indeed, projects are cancelled or become vaporware all of the time. While it's obvious Caspian and team were drowning in too many ideas and not enough tangible progress, why was this scummy enough to warrant hundreds of complaints to the AG and a class-action lawsuit? About a week before the March 24 announcement, Caspian launched the “Settlers of Elyria” event. It’s hard to explain out of context, but basically all the unclaimed duchies, counties, and baronies were going on sale, and players could purchase them at reduced prices. Yes, up to a day before he announced he laid off the entire team, he was allowing people to spend thousands of dollars on fake titles. Worse was the fact that this event was designed for new members of the community that didn’t have a chance to buy titles before or weren’t able to because of the prohibitive cost. Illegal? Maybe not. Fucked up? Absolutely. This, combined with Caspian taking a PPP loan right afterwards painted a damning portrait of a man squeezing every last penny out of this failed endeavor before he ran. Caspian kept the official discord open for a couple days after announcing the shuttering of the studio, but on March 29, he “fired” all of the community mods and deleted the discord, claiming that people were saying “horrible, unimaginable things” about him. There were rumors that he was cheating on his wife with a (much younger) community member. Apparently, a dev was corroborating these statements and providing receipts. Whether these awful rumors were true or not, Caspian’s reaction in the mod forum was nuclear.
The Future of CoE
After nearly six months of radio silence, a few days ago on December 17, 2020, Caspian gave interviews to MassivelyOP and MMORPG.com and released an “update” video that is a nothingburger rehash of old 'gameplay' footage and platitudes. He keeps saying that CoE is in development, but he has nothing to show. He keeps saying some of the staff have volunteered to work on it, yet based on their LinkedIn profiles it looks like most of the original team have found jobs elsewhere. He refuses to release the results of the studio’s audit. The new FAQ on the website is an obvious attempt to avoid lawsuits and in the two interviews he hilariously continues to extol his own transparency while being as transparent as a brick wall. People are still able to find justifications for Caspian's actions and to this day are in the community-run discords and subreddit trying to keep the hype train going. Maybe it's a combination of Stockholm Syndrome and Sunk Cost fallacy, but a lot of people still maintain absolute trust in his vision. I personally did not invest a significant amount of money (but I did waste my time, RIP), but it's still as saddening as it is maddening. Yes, those "Dance of Dynasty" posts on the forum might be cringey now, but people put SO MUCH creative energy and passion into coming up with lore for their kingdoms and duchies and towns and such, and despite being a skeptic for most of my time with the community, it was an incredibly unique experience to be part of this group. I just wish they would move on; put that energy into something productive and not waste it on a failed game. Caspian used them and he will continue to use them if people keep giving him a platform. EDIT: added more links EDIT2: Obligatory "wow I didn't expect this to blow up!" but I really didn't! Thanks for the gold x2!
Hey, folks, Steve here again. As my name implies, I'm a slot techician, which means I fix the machines and get asked if I can rig it to win so many times, it might as well be a Friday Evening, Pre-Recorded sketch. Like my other stories, any names, brands, amounts, and locations that may appear have been changed for anonymity. Procedures and timelines may be changed if altering them does not break the flow of the story. Industry-standard terms (e.g. "TITO") have been left as-is. This happened a few months ago, so some details are fuzzy. It was a somewhat peaceful night so far in the casino. Calls for doors and other stupid-easy miscellany were down - so far, all save one or two calls were legitimate issues. At about 7:30, I was replacing some of the heads on the thermal printers (and chatting with $sup about the price of tea in China) when the radio crackled to life in my earpiece.
$radio: "I need a slot tech to 2-Charlie-1501 for a patron dispute." $me: "2-Charlie-1501, be there in a minute."
I knew the voice on the radio as Jenny, one of the better attendants. She was one of the better ones out there; she'd troubleshoot and do everything she could before calling us, and if she called in a patron dispute, it almost always meant one of two things: either she herself did not understand (and in such a case she'd hang around while I dug through the game rules and explained it to the patron), or she had already explained it to the patron and the patron refused to believe her. I set the printer parts aside and hiked upstairs to 2-CC-1501, where the patron was rambling on at her about how she saw this and how it did this and why didn't it pay her? Jenny saw me coming and stepped me aside to brief me:
$jenny: "She says she won several times while playing this, but I can't find anything in the game history."
I nod and Jenny goes back to deal with the patron while I check the credits on the game (zero), turn the audit key, and start doing my detective work. The game's history only goes back 20 games, so I start at the most recent and work my way back - there's some little wins here and there, but nothing on the scale that the patron was claiming - just ten credits here, fifteen there, so on and so forth - nothing out of the ordinary since they were playing 3 reels on a penny-denom 5-reel Royalty Mach 6 game. After thumbing through all twenty games, I turn my attention to the game's internal logs. Nothing out of the ordinary shows up, just the usual start-of-play, end-of-play, start-of-play, end-of-play, ticket print, and audit stuff. And then I notice the timestamps.
03 Sep 19:34:36 2020 - Entered game recall 03 Sep 19:33:07 2020 - Audit mode - ON 03 Sep 19:26:51 2020 - Service Request - OFF 03 Sep 19:21:37 2020 - Service Request - ON 03 Sep 17:55:49 2020 - Ticket removed 03 Sep 17:55:46 2020 - Ticket print XXXXXXXXXXXXXX0001 $3.57 03 Sep 17:55:46 2020 - System authorization successful ...
...Huh, that's over an h. I check the game recall screen's timestamps, and sure enough, the last play was a bit over an hour and a half ago. By now, the patron's finished their tirade, so I turn to them.
$me: "How long ago were you playing?" $patron: "A few minutes ago! Can't you see it?"
I turn back to Jenny, lean in, and softly advise her to call her manager. I hear her call for one and I go back to ticking boxes off the Standard Dispute Checklist - button test, video test, touchscreen test, the usual suspects. While I'm checking the logs one last time to make sure I didn't miss anything, Beth - the department manager on duty - arrives. Beth was a good manager. She took care of everyone in the department, and I'm actually disappointed she left at some point between this story and now.
$beth: "Whatcha got, Steve?" $me: "She says she was playing a few minutes ago and was winning - quite a lot - and it never paid her. Last game recall says the last game played was at 5:54 this evening." $beth: "Okay. I'll call Big Brother1 and get them to run back the tape." $me: "Alright. Buttons all tested good, touchscreen's dead-on."
Beth nodded and dismissed me, and I went back to fixing the printers in the tech shop while she did the needful. A couple of hours later, I see her back-of-house and talk shop with her.
$me: "So what's the story on that dispute at 2-Charlie-15?" $beth: "Oh, it was the demo. Surveillance saw her watching the demo for a few minutes before she called an attendant."
Reels turn on, electronic bells ring, and most likely, someone up in the surveillance room was laughing their butt off that day. 1 We use a discreet codename for Surveillance when we're radioing them. We don't actually call them "Big Brother", however - that's just the anonymized name I chose for them.
Greetings. My name is iti and I have recently become the first player to reach Defier on the ios server. After having done so I have received countless messages from players in chats I frequent and from strangers on Line and Discord about my successful run. This inspired me to make an attempt to create a guide on what I have learned about The Vortex from many other players in our community and personally gleaned from my own attempts and failures pushing further into the mode. ------------------- WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS GUIDE? This guides intention is to cover all facets of The Vortex game mode, from the super basic all the way to advanced strategies and tactics. If you are an advanced player you can skip "The Basics" part of the guide as you will probably already have a base understanding of how the mode works. I made a strong effort to not put any advanced tactics or more nuanced factoids in there, but who knows you may very well still learn something. If you've ever had any of the following questions this guide may be for you:
How does The Vortex work and what can I get out of it?
What heroes should I be using inside The Vortex and what are their roles in combat?
How should I configure my heroes inside The Vortex?
What enemy compositions should I be looking to battle against inside The Vortex?
When am I supposed to use my Protection Signets?
Obviously, while I would like this to be the most comprehensive guide, from a strategic perspective every player is different and has different tools to work with while going into battle. What heroes you have, what artifacts you have, how many Stellar Shards you have; all of these things factor into how far you can progress and it would be impossible for me to cater this guide to every specific user of it based on their resources available. No amount of knowledge about your heroes or the game mode itself can push you into Defier if you don't have the right tools, but it is my hope that the information in this guide could be applied to your own circumstances and help shape your insight into this game mode and help you not only use what you have to push further but also learn what to build and acquire as well. ------------------- OUTSIDE RESOURCES AND WHO TO THANK There seems to be quite a vacuum for cohesive information regarding The Vortex mode in my opinion. However, I would be remiss to not acknowledge and thank the content creators whose contributions are out there and have shaped my runs and I would encourage people to check out their content.
JesusIsHere - The first player ever to reach Defier (plays on android) and I don't think my run would have been possible without his videos - JesusIsHere's Youtube
JimmyBeh18 - Helped package and promote JesusIsHere's content into a digestible form with basic information about his compositions - JimmyBeh's Youtube
Amadeus100 - His videos helped originally push me in the right direction with void and he helped me on Discord push into Valiant - Amadeus's Youtube
Geedeepee91 - Gave me some valuable information here on Reddit on one of my posts and helped me push into Valiant, plus he has great content and game analysis in general - Geedeepee's Youtube
While many of these guides and channel's are extremely helpful and give a baseline of information while also showcasing battles and team compositions for how to start proceeding in The Vortex, my goal here is to really get into the nitty gritty and put the details down on the page for easy access. If you want to watch the principles I wrote here put into practice in video form I would highly suggest you check out the content above! This guide will more than likely be far from perfect in it's initial iteration so feel free to correct me on anything and I will research and make corrections as they become apparent. ------------------- THE BASICS The Void Vortex is a game mode inside The Void. It requires one E5 hero to enter The Void and participate in The Void Vortex. The Vortex is always open for 48 hours and opens every Tuesday and Saturday at 00:00 GMT. Tiers There are currently five Tiers in The Vortex. Tier progression is as follows:
Forerunner > Pioneer > Explorer > Valiant > Defier
Much like The Aspen Dungeon, when you move into a new tier the game will remember you have done so and start you at the beginning of that tier in any future Vortex runs. The game will also automatically smash all the previous Stages and give you rewards as if you had manually conquered each Planet within them. Stages Each Tier has six Stages. Stage progression is as follows:
(Stage) VI > (Stage) V > (Stage) IV > (Stage) III > (Stage) II > (Stage) I
Only until you have completed all the Stages of your current Tier can you progress to the next Tier. As you progress in the Stages within The Vortex the enemy's level will increase by five each Stage, which means so will the enemy's stats (HP, attack, defense, etc). Planets Each Stage has five Planets. Each Planet is comprised of a semi-random computer generated enemy team of six heroes that you must defeat in combat in order to conquer the Planet. You can attack the Planets of your current stage in any order. Only until you have conquered all the Planets of a Stage do you progress to the next Stage. The entire Vortex consists of 150 Planets total waiting to be conquered. Resources There are currently two resources used inside The Vortex.
Energy Burners: Allow you to battle an enemy team inside a Planet. Requires 1 per battle. When The Vortex opens you start with 20 and gain 1 per hour, for a total of 67 Energy Burners per Vortex run. You can purchase more Energy Burners with gems at a cost of 25 gems per Energy Burner. You can also use 5 Energy Burners to change the enemy team composition on a given Planet.
Protection Signets: Every Stage of The Vortex has uniform blanket radiation effects that negatively hamper your attack team within all the battles that take place inside each of the Planets inside the Stage. Protection Signets can be used before attacking a Planet to mitigate the negative effects caused by the radiation. Protection Signets are limited and you cannot purchase more. They are however sometimes randomly given after conquering planets. When The Vortex opens you start with 10 Protection Signets.
Radiation Radiation negatively affects your team in battle in different ways. There are always three radiation effect on any given stage. Depending on the Stage number you are on will determine the possible negative effects that can occur. Each individual Planet within a Stage will start with some amount of factions that are protected. You can use one Protection Signet within a Planet to randomly generate one additional remaining faction to be protected within that Planet. You can continue to do this as many times as you wish until all seven factions (shadow, forest, abyss, fortress, light, dark, and void) are protected within that Planet. Protections are permanent and will not be removed until The Vortex closes. Rewards When you conquer a planet you are given a reward. The type of reward is random and has a set probability of occurring. The amount you get for each specific item is within a set range, but is randomized. When a Planet is conquered a reward will randomly be given as follows:
Item Type
Chance to Acquire
Stellar Shards
30%
Gold
20%
Spirit
40%
Hero Promotion Stone
7.9%
Heroic Summon Scroll
.7%
Prophet Orb
.7%
Orange Artifact Fragment
.7%
When The Vortex closes you also receive rewards based on what Tier and Stage you progressed to. It is important that you conquer at least one Planet on any given Stage or Tier to be eligible to receive that Stage or Tier's reward. This means that every time The Vortex opens you need to conquer at least one planet otherwise you receive the previous Tier's reward. When The Vortex closes rewards will be given as follows:
Tier
Stage
Crystal of Transcendence
Stellar Shards
Forerunner
VI
4000
10000
Forerunner
V
4000
11000
Forerunner
IV
4000
12000
Forerunner
III
4000
13000
Forerunner
II
4000
14000
Forerunner
I
4000
15000
Pioneer
VI
8000
16000
Pioneer
V
8000
17000
Pioneer
IV
8000
18000
Pioneer
III
8000
19000
Pioneer
II
8000
20000
Pioneer
I
8000
21000
Explorer
VI
12000
22000
Explorer
V
12000
23000
Explorer
IV
12000
24000
Explorer
III
12000
25000
Explorer
II
12000
26000
Explorer
I
12000
27000
Valiant
VI
16000
28000
Valiant
V
16000
29000
Valiant
IV
16000
30000
Valiant
III
16000
31000
Valiant
II
16000
32000
Valiant
I
16000
33000
Defier
VI
20000
34000
Defier
V
20000
35000
Defier
IV
20000
36000
Defier
III
20000
37000
Defier
II
20000
38000
Defier
I
20000
39000
------------------- HEROES Please note that all of these heroes assessments are for battle situations where you are severely outgunned given the power of your current team. Obviously, if you're at a Stage in The Vortex where the teams aren't offering much challenge yet you can be very flexible with your choices. These hero write-ups are to help with pushing the envelope and understand what the role and configuration of each hero should ultimately be in order to do so. For example, I may say raising a certain heroes attack is not important, but that's only in the context of a battle against extremely formidable opponents. Tix
Role: Damage Dealer
Configuration:
Gear: 1/3 split - Mage Class Gear for weapon slot, 6* gear for the other three pieces
Stone: Crit Damage/Crit/Attack
Enables: 2/2/2/2/2
Artifact: Punisher of Immortal
Skin: No skin
Void Imprints:
V1: Raises HP a bit. Not critical.
V2: Raises damage and steals more attack on basic attack. Can have minor implications but generally if you're basic attacking you're going to lose. Not critical.
V3: Raises damage of Revenging Wrath. Must have.
V4: Raises damage of active. Must have.
Useful Abilities:
Nether Touch: End of round passive that targets an enemy hero with a higher attack value. Then swaps attack values with that enemy hero.
Revenging Wrath: When Tix is killed by an enemy hero, he inflicts the enemy hero that killed him with Revenging Wrath. When the round ends he deals damage to that enemy hero based on their max HP and when that enemy hero dies they deal a percentage of their max HP value as damage to all the other enemy heroes. This damage is capped based on Tix's attack value so the more attack he steals from the enemy the better this death passive becomes.
Coffin of Nothingness: Built in passive control immunity. Great for resisting radiation control effects.
Soul Explosion: Tix's active ability and main source of damage. You want this active going off as much as possible. Targets four enemies and steals a percentage of the targeted enemy hero's attack value.
Tactical Information:
Tix is configured strictly for attack. His primary role is to steal the enemy hero's attack and deal as much damage as possible. Tix is the only hero in the game whose damage scales with the enemy heroes as they level up, since the enemy hero's attack values go up, and Tix steals more from that attack value as a result. He is a monster and is absolutely critical for progressing.
Tix's secondary role is to also steal attack from the enemy to reduce damage intake.
Tix's active ideally should be going off round 1 and round 2. You can give him an energy artifact in earlier Stages but to really push he needs to have Punisher of Immortal. Other ways to feed him energy without an energy artifact is by partnering with Ignis, both on her active and on her death, or multiple upgraded Demon Bell artifacts on your other heroes.
Tix's only skin available in the game gives speed and generally speaking you want Tix to be the slowest hero on your team. You can check your other heroes speed and see where they lie and see if wearing the skin is acceptable. (See speed section below for more details). The skin also does not increase his damage output.
Two Tix is eventually the ideal set-up.
Ignis
Role: Energy Feed/Healer
Configuration:
Gear: Full Priest Class Gear
Stone: Speed/HP
Enables: 3/1/3/3/1
Artifact: Energy Artifact
Skin: Dragon Maiden
Void Imprints: Generally unimportant. Not worth going over as you shouldn't be upgrading these unless you have enough stellar for your entire team and even then it's debatable as increasing her HP makes her die less easier too which is somewhat counter-intuitive.
Useful Abilities:
Eternity of Dragon Soul: On death heals nearest ally to full and grants them energy and control immunity.
Blessing of Dragonflame: Ignis's active ability. Grants nearest ally energy and damage reduction.
Tactical Information:
Ignis's primary role is to feed Tix energy. She does this with her active and when she dies.
Ignis's secondary role is to heal, provide control immunity, and damage reduction.
You generally want Ignis to die during the enemy's first attack phase. This is why her fifth enable is not Unbending Will. This can be situational though as enemy Garudas do heal when your heroes die.
Configuration for Ignis is probably the least important and situational. Watch your battles! If she isn't dying enough switch her gear to make her less tanky. Energy artifact is critical though.
You want Ignis's speed to be faster than Tix. Tix should generally be the lowest hero on your team as you want him to receive buffs and have the enemy heroes receive debuffs before he attacks and deals damage.
Ignis is still useful even at 10*. Her abilities are the same as E5 and she dies faster. There are merits to having an E5 as well, such as when fighting Garudas, but a 10* version is still useful.
Positioning is important for Ignis. Make sure she is either in slot 1 or 6 on your team being blocked in by a Tix, or if you are using two Tix make sure they surround her.
Keep in mind that any extra energy over 100 that Tix receives will translate into extra Skill Damage on Tix's active ability.
Rogan
Role: Support
Configuration:
Gear: 2/2 split - Assassin Class Gear for armor and shoes slot, 6* gear for the other two pieces
Stone: Speed/HP
Enables: 3/1/3/3/2
Artifact: Energy Artifact
Skin: Legion Mech
Void Imprints:
V1: Gains HP and speed. Not critical.
V2: Heals more HP on basic attack. Not critical.
V3: Give's Tix more attack, crit damage, and crit rate. Must have.
V4: Bloodthirtsy grants more damage based on enemies lost HP and heals more. Must have.
Useful Abilities:
Warpath Roar: Increase Tix's crit damage at the start of battle and increases Tix's attack and crit rate at the end of each round.
Bloodthirsty Predator: Grants Bloodthirsty to random allies. When allies with Bloodthirsty attack they do additional damage based on their targets missing HP. Also heals them based on a percentage of the damage dealt.
Tactical Information:
Rogan's primary role is to support Tix by increasing his damage.
Rogan's secondary role is to heal through Bloodthirsty passive. Not as critical but can be useful still.
You want Rogan to live as long as possible. His personal damage dealt is negligible so just tank him up as much as possible.
Rogan getting off his active on round 1 is critical to give Tix Bloodthirsty right away. If you're running two Tix landing it on both of them is what you're really hoping for.
You want Rogan's speed to be faster than Tix.
You can play with Rogan's enables. If his speed is still faster than Tix you can move away from speed enables in favor of HP enables.
Void Queen
Role: Support
Configuration:
Gear: 2/2 split - Ranger Class Gear for armor and shoes slot, 6* gear for the other two pieces
Stone: Speed/HP
Enables: 3/1/3/3/2
Artifact: Energy Artifact
Skin: Christmas Queen
Void Imprints:
V1: Reduces enemy crit rate. Not critical.
V2: Restores more health end of round. Not critical.
V3: Increases Tix's all damage dealt. Must have.
V4: Increases Tix's crit damage and decreases entire teams damage intake. Must have.
Useful Abilities:
Royal Guard: Increases all allies all-damage dealt. Great for Tix.
Ultimate Queenship: Heals at end of round. Minor benefit.
Queen's Edict: Basic attack reduces enemy crit rate. Minor benefit if match goes to round three. Generally unimportant.
Crimson Abyss: Applies Abyssal Corruption to all enemies. All enemies deal less crit damage and take more crit damage. Great for Tix and increases team survivability.
Tactical Information:
Void Queen's primary role is to support Tix by increasing his damage and lowering the entire teams damage intake.
Void Queen's HP pool is quite high so she is a great damage sponge. Put her in slot one if you're not using Carrie.
You want Void Queen to live as long as possible. Her personal damage dealt is negligible in fights where the enemies are much stronger than your heroes so just tank her up as much as possible.
Void Queen getting off her active on round 1 is critical to give the enemy hero's Abyssal Corruption right away. The enemy hero's will do less damage to your team and more importantly Tix will do more damage to them.
You want Void Queen's speed to be faster than Tix.
You can play with Void Queen's enables. If her speed is still faster than Tix you can move away from speed enables in favor of HP enables.
Amen-Ra
Role: HealeDisruption
Configuration:
Gear: 2/2 split - Priest Class Gear for armor and shoes slot, 6* gear for the other two pieces
Stone: HP/HP or HP/Heal Effect
Enables: 1/1/3/1/2
Artifact: Energy Artifact
Skin: Dread Puppet
Void Imprints:
V1: More HP and damage reduction. Not critical.
V2: No impact whatsoever.
V3: Increases number of Healing Curse targets. Must have.
V4: Chance to add an extra layer of Guardian Shield. Amazing but not critical.
Useful Abilities:
Healing Charm: Gives enemy heroes Healing Curse which means they take damage instead of healing. This is your counter to healing compositions that include Ignis, Belrain, Amen-Ra, and specifically Garuda when you can't avoid her.
Shadow Defense: Grants allies Guardian Shadow which provides shields which absorb damage and convert it to healing them instead. One of the greatest survivability support skills in the game.
Tactical Information:
Amen-Ra's primary role is to counter Garuda. Generally you should be avoiding Garuda at all costs because she is the strongest hero in The Vortex to come across. There will be times where you can't refresh your way out of confronting her though. She is everywhere. She heals every time one of your heroes dies and Healing Curse prevents that and harms her instead. It's not extremely reliable but it's something.
Amen-Ra also counters other healing enemy teams well that include Amen-Ra, Belrain, and Ignis.
Amen-Ra's secondary role is to shield your team and heal them.
If you're attacking enemies way out of your league you generally want energy on Amen-Ra to get her active off round one. Her shields are a great round one buffer. It's tempting to want to get Healing Curse off with her basic attack round one but protecting your team through the first round of attacks is very powerful. Ideally nobody dies from the enemy hero's first round of attacks because of the shields and you keep pummeling the enemy and land your Healing Curse on Garuda round two. There's a definite awkwardness and counter-intuitiveness involving the interaction between Amen-Ra's Healing Curse timing, Ignis's desirable death, and the enemy Garuda's healing on said death but it's possible to push through it.
Amen-Ra's speed and attack are irrelevant. Make her as tanky as possible.
Carrie
Role: Disruption
Configuration:
Gear: Full Ranger Class Gear
Stone: HP/HP
Enables: 1/1/3/1/2
Artifact: Energy Artifact
Skin: Little Red Riding Hood or Princess Carrie
Void Imprints:
V1: No impact whatsoever.
V2: No impact whatsoever.
V3: Helps Carrie resurrect faster. Not critical.
V4: No impact whatsoever.
Useful Abilities:
Shadow Spirit: When Carrie dies she becomes a Shadow Spirit. While in this form the enemy hero with the lowest HP will take damage by a percentage of their lost HP.
Outburst of Magic: Basic attack that will drain the enemy of its energy*.*
Darkness Befall: Carrie can fall into the void to dodge attacks.
Energy Devouring: Applies a mark to random enemies that drains their energy when full.
Tactical Information:
Carrie's primary role is disruption. Removing energy from the enemy team is her primary objective to slow down the battle.
Carrie's end of round damage while in Shadow Spirit form is formidable too. It targets the lowest HP enemy and does damage based on a percentage of their HP lost. This is a scaling attack, so it can be strong, but it is hard to rely on. It can help close out battles.
Carrie is in an awkward place where you want her alive and you want her dead. Her energy disruption while she is alive is invaluable but she can do some decent damage while dead as well. This is why choosing her stone is awkward, because you could honestly go either way with more health or more attack.
Carrie getting her active off round 1 is critical to slow the enemy down.
Like Amen-Ra Carrie is also a good Garuda counter whose active deals a ton of damage. Keeping Garuda away from her active will go a long way to helping your teams survivability.
I am convinced there's no real right or wrong way to gear and configure Carrie. I lean towards survivability so she can soak up hits and keep removing energy from the enemy team.
Important Information Regarding Other Heroes A lot of powerful heroes that you might expect to do well in The Vortex tend to fall off the map due to The Vortex providing the enemy teams with extra crowd control immunity. This prevents heroes like Sherlock and Kroos from thriving in this mode where they otherwise would. There are other really powerful heroes out there that will still fair you well if you don't have all or many of the heroes I have listed. Heroes like Void Xia, Garuda, Russell, Aida, Belrain, Aspen, and Penny can still get a lot done if the stakes aren't too high. The problem with most of these heroes is that their damage does not scale with the higher HP pools the enemy teams obtain as you progress further. If the enemy teams aren't too tough for your teams power level you could probably win with a lot of combinations of heroes, but the heroes I have chosen here are for those battles where your heroes are out of their depth by a large margin but an addition of these specific heroes may be just what you need to squeak out that extra mile to get to the next Tier. ------------------- THE GOD TEAM / REACHING DEFIER As a complete hypothetical thought experiment right now the general consensus of the perfect team seems to be something like:
Void Queen > Rogan > Tix > Ignis > Tix > Ignis
Artifacts to max this team would include eight Punisher of Immortals to make two splendid for both Tix and sixteen Demon Bells for the other four heroes. Replacing an Ignis with another Tix and splendid Punisher of Immortal would be an interesting experiment as well. The biggest issue is multiple Tix starts hitting diminishing returns as each subsequent Tix has less attack to steal from than the ones before them. For anyone interested in reaching Defier, I would not recommend trying so until you have eight Punisher of Immortal and eight Demon Bells along with enough Stellar Shards to v4 four heroes. You will also need a lot of gems and spare time! ------------------- VOID IMPRINTS Stellar Shards right now are a luxury only whales can really afford in large amounts at the moment so it is important to keep that in mind. Free to Play or Low Spender If you are a free to play or low spender your goal will be to just put your shards as far as you can into your main attacker and hopefully that will be Tix. Get that attack power as high as possible. Dolphins or Whales If you are a whale with enough Stellar Shards to max multiple heroes I am assuming that you have have no issues building the perfect team. My recommendation for order of allocation would be:
After that you can focus on support heroes. Amen-Ra to v3 is a huge boost against countering Garuda, but I would not put it above maxing Tix, Void Queen, or Rogan. Void Queen's purple node choices in the void enable tree, in my opinion, should be:
Armor Break > Damage Reduction > Control Immunity
------------------- REFRESHING Every planet will start you off with a team to fight against. For five Energy Burners you can refresh the enemy team and change it to a different one. Each Planet has a set amount of teams it will infinitely rotate through no matter how many times you refresh. The team compositions also seem to be chosen from a specific list of teams, so the heroes are not just chosen completely randomly. Enemy heroes to look for:
Russell: Russell is the hero to look for. You want to be fighting Russell every chance you get. Consider a double Russell composition a treat because that should be an easy win. Russell is a great enemy to encounter as he has low HP and high attack. This means Tix can possibly steal from his high attack value and then easily dispose of him with his low HP. Russell also does nothing turn one generally as he leaps into the air giving your team time to breath. When the battles get tough and you're starting to reach the ceiling of how far you think your team can go, I would not fight against any team that does not have Russell.
Drake: Drake is also very fragile and easy to kill.
Sherlock: Sherlock is not very threatening in this mode. He doesn't deal a lot of damage giving your team room to breath. Shapeshifting your heroes into doves is very RNG heavy and he's not going to pull that off enough to cause too much issues. HP swapping is really not that threatening either.
Healing compositions: You can lean on Amen-Ra to counter heavy healing compositions that use multiples of the following: Aida, Belrain, Ignis, and Amen-Ra if you see them.
Enemy heroes to avoid:
Garuda: She will be the bane of your existence in this mode. Her tool kit is way too powerful in this mode. She has huge survivability while also gaining damage reduction with her feathers. Her active does immense damage. She heals herself as your heroes die off. There will be times where you absolutely can't avoid her, but take advantage of the times where you can.
Carrie: While not as threatening as Garuda, Carries are a huge pain. They cannot heal thankfully, but they do revive. They also have a very strong attack power and they are obnoxious because they drain your Tix energy that you worked so hard to cultivate.
Carries and Garudas are everywhere in this mode. Many times it will be hard to avoid even one of them much less both. Always opt to avoid Garuda over Carrie. Carrie is annoying, but Garuda is flat out unfair and frustrating. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROTECTION SIGNETS When The Vortex opens you start at the beginning with 10 Protection Signets. The game will then automatically smash you to the first Stage of the furthest Tier you have progressed to. It will smash every Planet on the way there and give you any Protection Signets you earned along the way. Thusly, the Protection Signets given to you is not a set amount each time The Vortex opens. The most important thing of note concerning the radiation that affects your team negatively in battle is that the radiation effects that impact your teams attack power only occurs on the first four Stages (VI, V, IV, and III). All of the other radiation effects either apply to weaken your HP or add a random crowd control effect to your team at the end of each round. Crowd control effects are all painful in their own way, but they can be overcome with a good random outcome through persistence. However, losing your attack power is insurmountable once the enemy team's HP pools get too large, and that radiation effect has to be addressed or you will never win. A good litmus test for determining if you can beat a specific Tier is by seeing if you can get through the first two Stages of the Tier without using any Protection Signets. Since you have a limited amount of Protection Signets, it is generally advisable to use your Protection Signets on Stages III and IV of the Tier you're trying to conquer since those two stages diminish your teams attack power and are also harder to conquer than stages VI and V. It is good to save some Protection Signets for the last two Stages (I and II) as well, just in case you run into a really tough team composition and you need to cut through the random outcomes and increase your odds of winning by diminishing the chance of the being affected by crowd control effects. What you are specifically looking for is radiation protection for the shadow faction. Tix's attack power is the most important factor in determining if your team can break through the enemy heroes high HP pools. If the Tier you are on is difficult, you need Tix to be at full attack power. Everything else is just attacking over and over until the desirable random outcomes finally align and your team finally overcomes the enemy team, but Tix's attack power needs to be in full swing. ------------------- SPEED The one advantage you have in The Vortex is that all of your heroes attack first before the enemy heroes during each round. Your heroes will go first in order of their speed from highest to lowest and then the enemy team will do the same after. This allows you to setup exactly how your first turn will play out every time you start a battle which is a major advantage, so use it! Managing your heroes speed is important. You want all of your buff, debuff, and energy feed heroes to go before your damage dealers go off. If you're using Tix, and you should be, then that means Tix should be as slow as possible. This is pretty easy to accomplish by using speed stones on all of your buff and debuff heroes such as: Rogan, Void Queen, and Ignis. Remember to remove Tix's skin to lower his speed if needed. An ideal attack pattern for turn 1 would be something like:
Void Queen active > Rogan active > Ignis active > (first) Tix active > (second) Tix active
With this setup Void Queen's active will make the enemy team take more crit damage, then Rogan's active can possibly give both Tix Bloodthirsty which will increase their damage against enemies with missing HP (second Tix will do more damage), then Ignis will feed one Tix energy, then both of your Tix will go off one at a time doing way more damage than if they were not buffed, fed energy, or if the enemy team was not debuffed. Look at what your heroes are doing with their toolkits and plan a turn order strategy. ------------------- ARTIFACTS
Punisher of Immortal: Tix needs this artifact and you need to upgrade it as far as you can in the Ormus Workshop. It's the most pivotal artifact in increasing your Tix damage output and progressing further.
Demon Bell: This is the second most important artifact for The Vortex. Not only does it let your heroes get off their active abilities turn one, if you upgrade them at The Ormus Worshop any hero can feed Tix energy. Not many players can do this, but eight demon bells split into two radiants and a glittery can feed your entire team to all active on round 1. This strategy is crucial for pushing into Defier. Extra energy beyond 100 also gives Tix's active more skill damage.
Kiss of Ghost: A mediocre but still effective second artifact choice for Tix if you don't have Punisher of Immortal or have a second Tix and no Punisher of Immortals for. Kiss of Ghost has attack and armor break.
Lucky Candy Bar: Not useful at all unless you have two and can make glittery. This artifact can block radiation crowd control. Can be a mediocre choice for Ignis in niche situations to save her from getting crowd controlled by radiation going into round two.
Snow Heart, Magic Source: Secondary choices to replace Demon Bells if you don't have them. Matches do not last many rounds in The Vortex so going off with active abilities round one is very crucial.
------------------- PETS Pets in The Vortex are strictly used for their passive stat bonuses. You generally will not get far enough into a battle for them to make much of an impact by being summoned.
Phoenix: My personal favorite and most optimal. Gives attack, crit damage, and holy damage.
Dragon: Gives attack, crit rate, and crit damage. Tix's crit rate is already pretty close to 100% with punisher so this will help shore that up. Rogan also increases Tix's crit rate going into round two as well, so the extra crit rate from dragon can feel somewhat redundant.
------------------- CONCLUSION Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. I'd like for this to be a breathing document that I can edit as more information becomes available or as I discover errors. It would be nice if someone did a datamine on The Vortex as well so we can dig for even more information.
[MEGA POST] Presenting the Second Brawler of the Month: Brock! [Part 1]
Introduction
Hello everyone! Welcome to the second Brawler of the Month: Brock! The last BotM was very well received, and we are happy to continue this addition to the sub. Like last time, we have allied ourselves with /BrockGang, and we will have another Clip Competition (Tick killing montages are especially appreciated), as well as more discussions and debates surrounding Brock. As always, the Mod Council is happy to answer any queries or to discuss and improve on critiques. Without any further ado, let us begin the Second Brawler of the Month: Brock!
Brock Basics
Brock has 3360 health at Level 9/10, which is the second-lowest health in the game. This makes him quite squishy, being able to be killed with two main attacks by 26 out of the 44 brawlers, which makes it difficult to win over lanes. He has 1456 damage, which is below average. He also has a very slow reload speed of 2.1 seconds and an increased unloading speed of 0.4 seconds. His slow projectile speed, clocking in at 3000, is 75% slower than Piper’s and Colette’s. You might wonder, how does Brock see any viability if it seems all his statistics are terrible. With a 10 tile range and a small but significant splash radius of ⅓ tile, this is his strongest advantage over many brawlers, being able to outrange and snipe them. His super is also very useful, as it can control the field, finish off enemies and break groups of walls very efficiently. As you can see from his base kit, Brock doesn’t seem to excel at any particular area, aside from range. He is a jack of all trades, master of none.
Main Attack
Brock’s main attack deals below-average damage, at 1456 (Power 9), with a slow projectile speed, a slow reload speed at 2.1 seconds but has a range of 10 and ⅓ tiles after splash. This allows you to outrange every brawler except: Tick (Main attack) Sprout (Main attack) Nani (Main attack, full range) 1 of Spike’s needles Rico (Main attack after bouncing off a wall) Gene (Main Attack) Mr P (Main Attack and Handle with Care SP) Surge at Power 4 (Main attack and To The Max SP) Piper’s Homemade Recipe gadget. Brock outranges all other brawlers excluding those listed above. Notable brawlers include Colt (Both SP), Byron, Piper and Bea, all of which are fairly common in the current meta. Brock’s splash radius can help to hit moving targets, snagging a double hit, which happens fairly often in chokes. Therefore, Brock’s best position on a map is around chokepoints. Unlike last time where a damage table for Colette was made for her unique mechanics, for this post, this table shows how many Brock shots it takes to kill every brawler. I will bold important matchups.
5 Rockets = 7280 (Anything from here and beyond is unreasonable to expect 1 on 1, due to Brock’s slow reload speed)
Carl, Pam, Darryl, Bull, 8-BIT, Jacky
6 Rockets = 8736
Rosa, Primo
7 Rockets = 10192
Frank As you can see, Brock at least needs a full clip to kill any brawler in the game, and really struggles against Mr P due to his porters draining his ammo away. The damage nerf from 1540 to 1456 hurt him a lot, which u/mhsamadi24 explains, "Damage Nerf Not that many interactions were changed by this, only Tick, Carl and Mr P’s home base are able to take 1 more projectile before dying. Actually, with his damage nerf, he can no longer 3 shot brawlers with 4480 hp. He can still 3 shot a Lou, but not a Leon, Jessie, Penny, Tara, Gene, Max and Mrp. He also can no longer 5 shot Rosa. This huge damage nerf, in my opinion, is the biggest nerf out of the 4 changes." Moving on, here are some tips with his attack that may help out:
Due to Brock’s splash, you can corner peek from a massive range, allowing you to pressure brawlers behind walls, like throwers. If you use Incendiary, this effect stacks further. This ability sees a lot of use on open maps with chokes and some cover like Double Trouble.
You can use two ammo on one target in rapid succession to barrage them. Best case scenario, you hit two ammo for a total of 2912 damage. Worst case, you push them back a certain amount. Be careful, as overusing this will backfire when you have no ammo left for clutch situations.
Using an entire clip at close range against certain brawlers (Low DPS and low health) to function as a pseudo-shotgunner can be situationally effective. However, at higher levels, this can be punished easily, and due to the reduced damage and health, this move is a lot riskier than it previously used to.
Brock’s super is an Area of Effect barrage of rockets that are thrown over walls, which can break walls quite efficiently. 9 rockets are launched, and the most you can hit on a brawler is 3. Targets with bigger hitboxes can be hit with 5. The super charges with 4 main rockets, and it can recharge if you hit 5 super rockets. It has a range of 9.8 tiles, which allows it to be used as a finisher as well as field control, due to the super lasting for around 2 seconds, both from relative safety. This is the real beauty of Brock’s super, it does so much and so much so well. Walls are broken easily, which is useful in Heist and Siege. It can finish brawlers off, useful in Bounty and it covers the entire zone in Hot Zone, as well as almost ½ of the mid in Gem Grab. In Showdown, Brock’s super is nasty as with some prior chip damage, Brock can easily finish you off or at the very least, push you back. This is more effective in Duos, where his super can pick off an entire team as people tend to clump up, especially in the late game. Strafing is mandatory while using the super so that you can maximize the pressure and grab kills. Here are some tips with Brock’s super:
Aim to the right to get an extra rocket on stationary targets like the Heist safe and the IKE.
The pattern the rockets come out is the same for both sides. The pattern is Center, Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Right, Bottom Left, Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Right and Bottom Left. Use this knowledge to quickly grab a kill, and aim the super so that the brawler will be hit by the Top Left as it is the first non-Center rocket and it is the furthest from Brock (Tied with Top Right, but Top Right rocket comes later, which makes it less useful).
Use the super when you are about to fall back, giving you some distance from the enemy.
While using his super, prioritize the middle walls near the opponent's middle, then the opponent's walls at spawn. Try to never break your cover. Here are two examples of maps on what you should and shouldn’t break: [Playbox](https://imgur.com/a/Thg9cX0) and [G.G. Mortuary](https://imgur.com/a/o1jClgt). Green circles represent the walls you should break, with the number inside representing the ideal order, with 1 being the best wall to break. On the other hand, red circles represent walls you should avoid breaking at all costs. If you have to break them for some reason, the number inside tells the ideal order, with 6 being the last walls you’d want to break. If you’d like elaborations on a specific map and its walls, feel free to ask me (u/Obsidian297).
Brock’s super can be used to split up targets, by aiming it dead centre, which can help out if you have a Mortis or an Edgar on your team.
Using it near the side of somebody can group up targets.
Star Powers
Brock’s star powers help him out a lot, and if you want to push him competitively, it's highly recommended to get both of them.
Incendiary
Incendiary applies a flame on the splash radius of your attack, which lasts for 2 seconds, dealing 520 damage per second. This can be used to further pressure enemy brawlers, as well as scan grass and deal damage to stationary targets, which is what really helps out his viability in Heist. Incendiary boosts his total damage from 1456 to 2496. It’s common in most modes to not hit a single tick of damage. However, the potential control offered from each flame is too much to give up most of the time, even if it dealt 0 damage through the course of a match. It’s similar to Balls of Fire, where it’s not the damage you are after, but the control. With its defined lanes, Siege is a great game mode for Incendiary to shine. Heist is also a viable option, as the Incendiary damage can deal all 1040 tick damage to the safe, potentially clutching games. Optimal modes: Heist, Siege
Rocket No. 4
Rocket No. 4 (RN4 for short) increased Brock’s clip by a huge 33%. If Brock comes out of spawn. Rarely in a match does Brock fall back for at least 8 seconds to get all of his ammo back, which is too much for how fast-paced the game is. This hurts even more once you realise that Brock loses on the control offered by Incendiary. However, in more passive modes, where you can afford to not attack for some time, RN4 does offer an actual niche. Furthermore, if you as a player are very good at conserving ammo and seizing the best opportunities, RN4 may yield more value than Incendiary. Optimal modes: Bounty, Solo and Duo Showdown
Gadgets
Brock’s gadgets are like Brock, versatile at a lot of roles, but not standing out at a particular role.
Rocket Laces
Rocket Laces is a pseudo-Dyna Jump, allowing you to jump over walls and water, which costs no ammo and has a knockback. Dyna Jump could be one of the best abilities due to the fact that you have on-demand mobility, but it is quite hard to use and common to mess up your jumps. However, Rocket Laces is very easy to use and impossible to mess up because of its instantaneous deploy time. Here are the basic uses of Rocket Laces:
Jumping over walls.
Defending in Brawl Ball and cancelling certain supers, as Rocket Laces has a knockback of ⅔ tiles with a knockback radius of 2 and ⅔ tiles.
You knew that, but what are the cool things I can do with this? Well, here’s the list:
You can cancel his super animation, by aiming your super to the TOP RIGHT. This allows you to grab the kill by spamming your main attack after jumping.
You can also fire the super on enemies in melee range, use the jump then fall back, which can be useful against the hordes of Mortis and Edgar in the current meta. You could also apply this to the flames of Incendiary. However, the payoff is less.
The damage is dealt through walls, similar to Jacky’s attack, allowing you to possibly grab a kill.
You can dive into the IKE’s zone and attack with your main attack, before jumping back, reloading and attacking again. You can get in at most 6 attacks, which with Incendiary really adds up. You can also do this in Heist too
This gadget is even more important with more dangerous attacks like Byron’s, Piper’s Homemade Recipe and Bea’s Rattling Hive as you can dodge them. You also look cool while doing it.
Overall, Brock’s Rocket Laces gives him a lot more utility than he would otherwise. Optimal Modes: Siege, Brawl Ball
Rocket Fuel
Rocket Fuel was one of the most influential gadgets for a month and a half. Upon activating this gadget, Brock’s rocket gains a 50% damage boost, a faster projectile speed of 3500 and the ability to break walls with a radius of 2 tiles. Yes, you heard that right. A radius of 2 tiles, with a diameter of 4 tiles. This allows Brock to open up parts of the map up far earlier and thus, gain an advantage for his team. This is especially nasty when paired up with Bea and Piper, who both have nastier gadgets which love opened up maps. Throwers are also less effective and annoying without walls. The other use of this is using this as a finisher. In fact, here is the damage table if Brock opens with the Fat Rocket™ (Fat Rocket™ refers to Rocket Fuel, in case you didn’t know).
Mortis, Shelly, Bibi, Nita, Sandy, Poco, Nita’s Bruce, Carl
1 Fat Rocket™ and 4 regular rockets = 8008
Pam, Darryl, Bull, 8-BIT, Jacky, Rosa
1 Fat Rocket™ and 5 regular rockets = 9464
Primo
1 Fat Rocket™ and 6 regular rockets = 10920
Frank The brawlers in bold represent brawlers who die one rocket less, so against them, it’s worth it to use the Fat Rocket™. It is also useful as a finisher too. Optimal Modes: Any mode with a lot of walls
Kit Viability
There are 4 kits that can be made from these 4, each with different levels of viability and use. The worst is probably Rocket Jump and RN4, whose main niche is on open Bounty and Showdown maps, where there are sparse amounts of cover. The barrage tactic can be used here, which is shooting 2 or even 3 rockets in quick succession then jumping back. Fat Rocket™ and RN4 is the next best, allowing you to use a Fat Rocket™ and then burst down enemies with the remaining rockets. This is why this might be the best kit in Bounty, as you can use Fat Rocket™ as a finisher and RN4 as the burst, all the while reloading, as well as the fact that many of the common Bounty brawlers are killed in one rocket less with the Fat Rocket™. Rocket Laces and Incendiary is at a similar level of viability as the previous kit. as you can kill Edgars with this. It also helps him in both Siege and Heist, where he can dive as well as reposition easily, all the while having the control of Incendiary. It has the added advantage of being better against Edgar. Fat Rocket™ and Incendiary is probably the best kit right now, This kit is the best in maps with chokepoints, where the Fat Rocket™ dents progression and Incendiary can help in pushing the enemy back. Brock can also open the map, to allow Piper, Bea, 8-BIT and Nani to deal damage. These compositions were infamous in the World Finals. The easy way to find out what kit you should use by yourself is simple. For the gadgets, ask yourself whether you will face more tanks/assassins or more snipers/sharpshooters/throwers. If the answer is the former, use Rocket Laces, as it can let you escape clutch situations easily. If the answer is the latter, use Fat Rocket™, as it can help you to beat many snipers and sharpshooters easily. It also removes the walls that throwers like to hug. For the star powers, ask whether the mode needs active control or you can get away without constant offence. Incendiary will be your best choice if you’re in a game mode with active control, while RN4 is more suited for burst damage and close-range combat. There might be situations where the answer is hard to get from using these questions, but for those maps, just try different kits as well as apply your intuition and experience.
Skill Cap
Brock is quite easy to pick up for most people, due to his splash radius, as well as the ability to switch between a long-range playstyle and an up-close shotgunner. However, mastering him is a lot harder than the other snipers/sharpshooters as he has a lot more going on with his kit than Piper or Bea. A fairly hard roadblock to overcome with him landing hits on mobile targets, like Max or Mortis, which due to his slow projectile speed is almost impossible.
Playstyle
Groundwork
Brock is a versatile brawler whose main use in competitive play was filling in empty team slots, precisely due to his great kit. He fits on every team composition except Poco Double Tank but faces stiff competition. This is mainly due to Colt, 8-BIT, Bea and Piper all having superior qualities to him. His general playstyle is sniping enemies with his rockets to quickly charge his super. He then applies pressure and area denial with said super, while breaking essential walls. Other snipers and mid-range brawlers are his general target, with tanks being notably hard to deal with due to his low damage and reload speed with Fat Rocket™ and Incendiary. He is an effective counter to turrets as well as the Heist safe and IKE turret. In theory, Brock should be able to win almost any 1v1 due to his range and splash, abusing either of his gadgets to win crucial matchups. In practice, Brock is too frail to deal sufficient damage and is unable to fully use his kit. Even if your Brock game is on point, the meta brawlers right now: Mr P and Edgar, match up favourably against Brock. In the meta, he is definitely near the bottom. Some say that he is in the bottom 10, but the general consensus is that he’s bottom 15, alongside Jessie, Dynamike (Both of which have improved in the meta), Rosa, Gene and Penny.
Matchups
Good Matchups
Mid Range Brawlers:
Mid-range brawlers are at a significant disadvantage compared to other brawlers as they do not have any viable way to close the gap, which allows Brock to abuse his range and snipe them. However, Carl is an exception that you have to watch out for, as his Flying Hook does make Brock an easy target if he does not have Rocket Laces, though you can hurt them with the burst damage of RN4. Examples: Poco, Nita, Emz, Sandy, Shelly, Amber, Tara, Carl
Sharpshooters:
Brock has a range advantage against every sharpshooter, except Mr P. This combined with Incendiary and its splash radius, as well as the slow projectile speed, makes it very hard for many sharpshooters to do well against him. This is because Brock is able to control the lane for long periods. There are obvious ways for them to do better, which change from brawler to brawler, but general tips against Brock are:
Strafe diagonally.
Switch lanes.
Brawlers like Colt and 8-BIT have on-demand mobility that does quite well against Brock, as his rockets become far harder to hit. Plus, they can both take out Brock quickly with their attacks. Piper and Bea’s gadgets can handle Brock quite well. However, both are outranged by Brock. This is made worse if Brock is carrying Fat Rocket™, which kills both after 1 regular rocket. Byron has a 10 tile range and can 2 shot Brock, which does make him a fairly solid counter to Brock. However, he dies to the Fat Rocket™ and single rocket combination. For every sharpshooter (Aside from Mr P), Brock is quite hard to dodge. However, due to his nerfs, he is now slightly easier to handle for most sharpshooters. Examples: Colt, Piper, 8-BIT, Bea, Rico, Exceptions: Byron (Counter) and Mr P (Hard Counter)
Bad Matchups
Tanks:
Admittedly, tanks are very rare in the meta, but they can still be played and played well. As seen multiple times, Poco Double Tank has been commonly picked in competitive play. In such situations, Brock’s low DPS really shows. Even if you manage to weaken a tank to the point they can be killed with a combination, Poco can easily bring the brawler back to full easily. This makes Brock bad against tanks. As if that was not enough, tanks hit Brock quite hard, and most are capable of killing a full health Brock with 2 shots, with Rosa being the only one that takes more than two complete attacks and Darryl being able to kill Brock with one shot up-close. Generally speaking, Brock should not be played in maps where tanks are viable. However, if you see Jacky, the most common tank not relegated to only Poco Double Tank, you can snipe her out or use Rocket Laces to escape if she gets too close. However, do not jump behind walls as Jacky’s attack goes through walls. It may seem obvious but it happens quite often, as it keeps you safe from other brawlers you usually jump away from, like Mortis and Edgar. Darryl, Bull and El Primo have methods of closing the gap and all have knockback, which can stun you temporarily. Speaking of stuns, Frank is pretty much the best tank that Brock can face, mainly due to the fact that this is the only brawler which is guaranteed to take Incendiary damage. Whenever Frank wants to attack, he takes 520 damage per flame, which makes it a lot easier to wear down. If Frank uses his super, Brock can jump either off him to cancel it, or jump away, Both methods make him a lot easier to handle. Luckily, outside of Heist, tanks are admittedly rare due to Colette, so tanks and Brock rarely face-off. Unless a tank is on dedicated defence, Brock will rarely face them. Examples: Darryl, Bull, Primo, Rosa, Jacky Exception: Frank
Assassins:
Assassins have high mobility and high burst damage, both things Brock has few answers for. They rarely struggle against Brock, as his burst damage takes too long to unload against a speedy assassin. Mortis is a hard counter and can kill Brock with 3 shots, without worrying unless Brock runs RN4 and Fat Rocket™. Even then, Brock does not have the time to unload. This matchup is further tilted when you realise that if any one of Brock’s attacks misses, the interaction is immediately lost. This is why Rocket Laces is preferred when Mortis is prevalent in the map, as it gives you a guaranteed escape, especially if walls are nearby. However, Rocket Laces only has 3 uses. Once you have used them all up, Mortis is able to kill without you hopping away. Edgar is another hard counter. While he does get killed by Brock in 3 shots, Brock also gets killed with the same amount of Edgar’s attacks. Edgar’s super and speed boost make safe positioning around an Edgar quite hard. Brock really only has a chance against Edgar if there are walls to jump behind, which is possible to bait out. Not only does Darryl counter Brock as he is a tank, but he also beats you with his roll. Brock does not have much counterplay against this roll, due to the brief window where you are stunned, Darryl can start to fully unload his attack. The only assassin which you will not have issues winning lanes over is Crow. Let’s be perfectly honest though, Crow is not in a good place in the meta right now. Examples: Mortis, Edgar, Leon, Darryl Exception: Crow (Give the bird some slack)
Throwers:
Fat Rocket™ getting nerfed makes it so that aside from Tick and Barley, the other throwers will still have enough health to continue fighting. Sprout especially, due to the on-demand healing gadget and star power shield. All can harass Brock with the safety of walls. However, all have dropped in the current meta due to the prevalence of Edgar, who is a thrower counter due to his jump. You could pair these two up to counter each others' weaknesses, though you are better off with a different composition altogether. Once Edgar gets nerfed, I doubt Brock would be able to handle the increased amounts of throwers. Examples: Sprout, Barley, Dynamike and Tick
Mr P:
That’s right, he gets his own section. That’s how hard of a counter Mr P is. Mr P, or Mr Pickles as any Brock player would call him (No one calls him that, Obsidian - Kimchi) can beat Brock with any kit. Remember how Brock forces sharpshooters to back off due to his splash radius? Mr P has a larger splash radius, outranging Brock by ⅓ tile. Remember how Brock’s reload is arguably his biggest weakness? Mr P’s super abuses that, by having an infinite stream of porters chasing him. They also take at least 2 hits to die, unless you get lucky with an Incendiary flame hitting. Mr P can also buff his porters to drain up to 5 ammo whenever he desires, 3 times a match! To destroy that stream, you have to take out the home base, which dies in 3 hits, which makes Brock drain even more ammo. This is also assuming the turret is kept in a relatively open position. If not the case, you usually have to kill Mr P first, who can take 4 hits (as opposed to the 3 pre-nerf). However, Mr P can kill Brock in 4 shots, or 3 if Brock takes even 1 porter shot. If you are playing on a map with a lot of walls, Revolving Door might counter Brock harder than Handle With Care, as it spawns porters faster than Brock can reload. Even if Brock manages to take out one home base, charging one up on a presumably closed off map isn’t that hard for Mr P. Brock can counterplay by using Fat Rocket™, breaking walls to make the home base less concealed. It also makes Mr P an easier kill, as it reduces the number of rockets needed to kill by 1. However, Mr P can place his turret near spawn, which can mess up positioning for the Brock, unless it’s a clean shot. Brock can attempt to switch lanes, which can help out massively. This requires coordination though and good teammates with game sense. If it is any condolence, Mr P is not as prominent as he could be, due to Edgar and Colt countering him well. Once those two are nerfed, Brock will be in a worse spot than he already is.
Overall
Brock has a fairly split matchup against all of the brawlers. He is lucky that Mr P, Mortis, Jacky and Edgar are the only relevant counters that he has right now, as tanks are not viable and throwers lose to Edgar and Colt. Why is he not better then, since he has methods to deal with them? This is because against high competition, his statistics put him in an uncomfortable situation. I will elaborate on this later. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due to the titanic size of this post, this post will be split in half. The link of part 2 will be posted soon. Hope you enjoyed it so far!
Ended my gambling career (for now) on a high note - jackpot handpay to end 2020. My thoughts and ramblings as a now-retired gambler.
Warning: long rambling stories ahead. I am bored and waiting to get through my first day back at work since before Christmas. You've been warned! I've been going to the casino pretty regularly for the past few years. Before that, I played occasionally. I exclusively play slots. I view it as a night out - first with friends back when I brought $50 and played penny denom minimum bet spins and prayed to win $20, and then eventually shifting my mindset to playing higher bets and denominations. I hit my first jackpot handpay a couple of years ago. I hit $3700 on a $27 bet on a Geisha machine. I've hit a few other jackpots here and there, culminating with my biggest jackpot ever this past summer. I hit $12K on a $50 bet on a Pompeii slot machine. Well, the long story short is that I have fallen out of love with gambling. I have somehow managed to have a positive ROI on gambling. I track my withdrawls and win on a spreadsheet. To put it bluntly: I have been extremely lucky over the past few years. I know that slots are not a viable way to win money in the long run, so I made a decision a few months ago to "retire" from gambling at the end of 2020. I went to my local casino last Wednesday. It just so happens when I hit a jackpot that I usually do it within the first half hour or so I'm at the casino. Well, it happened again. After going up $600 or so on another slot machine (I don't remember the name), I went to one of my most hated/favorite old school slots - Zeus dollar denomination. One of my worst moments in all of gambling was a few years ago. I got a bonus round on the Zeus dollar denomination on max bet of $45 a spin. I was BEYOND excited. I've seen Youtube videos where people have won tens of thousands of dollars in that exact scenario. Much to my shock, I won nothing. In that game, you don't win anything for triggering the bonus. So I actually *lost* $45 on getting the bonus. I cashed out and left immediately. Anyway, last week I hit a modest $4500. It was exciting...but not as exciting as I thought it should be. I was cool, calm, and...detached. The wins didn't mean much to me, and the losses mean absolutely nothing. My wife and I are in the EXTREMELY fortunate position that losing $500 or so every week or two at the casino is affordable. I'm not ignorant to how lucky we are to be in this position. After getting paid out, I played a bit longer. But that hand pay drove home the realization that I had a few months ago: it was time to stop gambling. If I can't get pumped about a big win like that, and if I'm not even phased a little bit by losing, it's just not worth gambling any more. I used to go for entertainment, but even now gambling doesn't provide that much. As I sit now, I am up roughly $18K over three years of slots. Not bad, but not life changing. Enough that I bought my wife a Burberry and Louis Vuitton handbag on separate occasions. The rest if stashed in savings or in an investment account somewhere. But I am 100% committed to being done. At least for 2021, and probably longer. If anyone is interested in hearing my thoughts on how to win...I don't have any insight to share. It's luck. I got lucky. I know I got lucky. The usual tropes about setting win and loss thresholds is good advice. Sometimes I chased payouts and hit them. Sometimes I chased and lost. But I managed to hit more than miss, and for that I'm lucky. And thankful. Anyway. I don't have a major takeaway or anything. I don't have many people I can talk about this with in my personal life, so I figured I'd share a bit of my story here. If you do gamble, please do so responsibly. Good luck, and try to have fun. If you're not having fun, it's probably not the right way to spend your time or money. EDIT: I just wanted to say to anyone who reads this in the future that I appreciate the nice responses and PMs from people. It's nice to share a positive experience with others! I sincerely hope that if any of you choose to play in the future, you choose to do so responsibly. Gambling can be a hugely problematic lifestyle for some people. Stay safe. (end of preaching here). I also want to take a second to address some comments from some people about slots being skill based. This is 100% false. The concept of slots being skill based in any way is demonstrably untrue with three seconds of reasonable thinking. If we accept that there is a hypothetical slot game which is based on skill and not pure luck, what are the consequences of that? First of all, this information would leak out. There would be no way to contain it. If one person can solve the system, another an as well. Subsequently, someone would write a book on the subject. Think about all the poker and blackjack strategy books out there. These are games where skillful play can increase your odds of winning. Last I checked, there aren't any books or Supersytem-level analyses from prominent individuals willing to stake their names and reputations on publishing a "slot technique" book. There's a reason for this. And also - think about this: casinos still carry blackjack tables for a reason: they still have an edge to win. If there is a surefire way for individuals to win when playing slots, casinos would 100% for sure take these games out of circulation. Casinos are not in the business of giving away money. Any claim there is a foolproof way to win money playing slots does not make sense when critical thinking is applied to the circumstances. Slots are not like card games. Finding and playing only games where there is a "must win by" progressive is not the same thing as skillful play. That's more akin to something like card counting in blackjack. Many people who design slot machines and engineer the software behind the scenes have posted on Reddit and elsewhere that wins are based on random number generators running behind every spin. There is literally no skill involved - you win or lose each spin based on pure random luck. I am saying this because there are a number of people who come to this subreddit to look for ways to cheat the system and get easy money. I see posts like this fairly often, and I'm only browsing this subreddit occasionally. Gambling is not, and should not, be a way for anyone looking to make a quick buck. If you're looking to get an edge playing slots because you need to pay bills or make a quick buck, you are already in serious trouble. Do not buy into the delusion that you can get an edge or guarantee a win. People saying this are snake oil salesmen who do not care for you or your well-being. Anyway. I'm going to stop monitoring this post. I'm still open to receiving PMs or messages, but I've had my fun with this so far. I could do with fewer trolls, but this is the internet. I knew what to expect. Bon chance, everyone!
Hypothetical: Trevor Bauer 2021 Top 5 Cy Young finalist
Curious to hear what the rest of ya'll think will happen or want to happen. Lets say Bauer's crazy deal works out for everyone. Trevor Bauer pretty much delivered as advertised. Healthy, made 33 starts, 220 IPs, 2.80 ERA, excellent peripherals as his stuff held up even in a tougher division. Playoffs he pitched 2 elite games (8 IP 1 ER, 7 IP 2 ER) with one ok game (6 IP 3 ER). Whether he helped us win the WS or not, will be irrelevant in this conversation, as Bauer cant control the other pitchers and our offense (also dont want to bias your answers from having him instrumental in winning another WS). Trevor Bauer basically made all the haters STFU, eat shit/crow (myself included as i'm a skeptic), and was worth every last penny of 40 million. We'll get the obvious out of the way. Bauer opts out of his 2021/22 seasons to enter FA. He's gonna be gunning for a Cole/Strasberg level deal of 36+mil AAV. Years will be hotly contested as he's gonna push for 8 and teams will only want to offer 5-6 tops. Bauer will be age 31yr 340ish days in his next FA negotiation. Question #1 Do the Dodgers attempt to re-sign Bauer to a long term deal? Something like 5-6yrs 185-222mil, at a 37m AAV (to beat Cole's). This will be a tough one, we just got a prime year out of him, do we want to risk it further, maybe we'll get 3 more prime seasons but the back end is gonna be dicey as all hell, as it is with all long term deals. I can sorta see why Friedman went with 45mil in year two, to entice a Cy Young level Bauer to stay another year so we can reap another prime year, and then not re-sign him to a long term deal. Bauer and his agent has to know the score since theyre not dummies. Question #2 If Bauer is retained, whether he opted into his 2nd year or is re-signed to a long term deal, what happens with Kershaw and Seager? I think if the Dodgers keep Bauer, then Kershaw is gone, as i dont see Friedman wanting to pay 2 pitchers big mega bucks, with Buehler and Urias extensions on the horizon. If Kershaw just pitches another 25 start season again, it's hard to justify giving him 25mil+ a season. The Dodgers are one of the few teams that can coddle him to preserve his body for the playoffs. Other teams who pays someone paid that much needs to be someone who's their opening day starter and provide34 starts. If Kershaw is willing to take a smaller home town discount (20-25mil), then i can see Friedman relenting and keeping him cuz you cant let a legend go if you can help it. I've a feeling that Seager is gonna be let go if Boras is demanding a Mookie level deal, and that the team would rather just slot in Lux at SS and find other 2b options on the open market. I have an incredibly hard time seeing Friedman willing to carry multiple 30+ mil a year players, while Bellinger and Buehler will be getting similar mega deals when theyre FAs. Unless Friedman can pull some magic where he trades one of Mookie/BaueSeager in 2023, without having to pay that much of their contracts to get rid of them. IE reap another prime year at a pretty cheap cost, while not having to pay the butcher's bill in the latter half of their post prime years. Question #3 If a hypothetical Cy Young Bauer is kept long term with both Kershaw and Seager gone. How is the team's future outlook. More or less positive? Can Cy Young Bauer maintain his level for at least 3 more years? Will Gavin Lux seize his destiny and capably fill in Seager's shoes? Do you trust Friedman to use all the freed up money to get just as good if not better replacements in aggregate to what we lost in Kershaw and Seager? 2022 Payroll is surprising pretty light, we have alot of deals falling off after 2021 (cap hits, not actual cash paid) Clayton Kershaw - 31mil Kenley Jansen - 16 mil Corey Seager - 13.75 mil AJ Polluck -12 mil player option (unlikely to opt out unless he has a monster season) Joe Kelly - 8.33 mil with a 12 mil team option that wont be picked up Corey Knebel - 5.25 mil Of this list, obviously we want to keep Kershaw and Seager the most. Seager is due for a massive raise and Kershaw is due for a paycut if he wants more years. I dont see Price sticking around at all, as the team definitely wants to clear his 15mil cap hit from this and next year. Also to open up an opening slot for one of Gonsalin/May, with the other and Grey/White waiting in the wings. Team is currently carrying 9 active relivers, listed in likelihood of making 25 day roster, something has gotta give as May/Gonsalin/Gray are all banging on the doors needing an open starting spot. Kenley Jansen Blake Treinen Brusdar Graterol Corey Knebel Joe Kelly Victor Gonzalez Adam Kolerek Scott Alexander Dylan Floro Jansen, Kelly, Knebel are all overpaid and untradeable, Graterol is a keeper, Treinen just got re-signed, the rest of the list are cheap but have no trade value. Moves have to be made. Dodgers still have a potential hole at 3b, need a 4th/5th OF (Taylor will likely get most of his reps in the infield). Rios and Lux will be given every chance to hopefully nail down starting spots and McKinistry will be given the Kike play everywhere role.
Here’s a link to the first post with 10 other overlooked indie games. Introduction We're all familiar with the Hotline Miami's, Hollow Knight's, and Celeste's of the world. These are some of the indie games that hit the big time. Of course, for every one of these games, there's 100 other indie games that have been glossed over, relegated to a spot in a digital store few people will ever find themselves in. I wanted to bring attention to some of these lesser known indie games. I'm going to order them according to Metacritic Critic Ratings. Some of the games at the bottom have pretty low critic ratings. I personally disagree with the low scores of these games, but it's only fair that you hear from more than just me. Price will include a link to the U.S. store page of the game. Price is in U.S. dollars. 1. Inertial Drift
Description: Inertial Drift's distinguishing characteristic is its employment of the right analog stick for drifting. This takes a little getting used to, but it feels great once you get the hang of it, creating some exhilarating moments when perfecting corner turns. The game has 10 unique tracks + 10 reversed tracks, 16 vehicles, and four separate story arcs. Each story arc is only a couple of hours long and features a different protagonist with a different vehicle. Since you’ll be racing on the same track a few times, there are a few gameplay variations that differ from just reaching the finish line at the end, such as racking up a certain number of points that are acquired through longer drift times and other means. There's quite a bit of dialogue between races, and in the races themselves characters will frequently dish out positive commentary on your performance in the form of text in the top left hand corner of the screen. The game's aesthetics are a fusion of anime and synthwave. I've heard many fans liken the game to the manga Initial D, though I'm unfamiliar with that series myself.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours (for 1/4 Story Arcs)
Extra Content: There are a number of different modes including a Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Grand Prix Mode, Arcade Mode, two player Split-Screen, and Online, as well as a Tutorial. Completion of challenges in Challenge Mode allows you to unlock new vehicles for the other non-Story Modes. Grand Prix Mode allows you to race using different characters/vehicles through a connected set of challenges, while Arcade Mode is for one-off races. I wouldn't recommend this game for online play as the user-base is pretty small (hence it being overlooked) and you're unlikely to find a match. Getting all the achievements is fairly difficult.
Description: This is a 3D platformer that reportedly takes inspiration from both MediEvil and Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. There’s about equal amounts of platforming and combat in this game. While the combat is relatively simple, you’re given a variety of weapons that all feel unique. The levels have a good amount of variety within them – you’ll jump between ships on a ferry ride, ride an undead horse through the sky, play a few mini games as a headless Jack, and fight a boss at the end of each of the six levels. Both the combat and platforming are relatively easy – platforms are typically large and Jack has an edge grab that helps tremendously, and smashing the many destructible objects around the levels increases your health. This game takes the linear adventure approach, with a number of collectibles sprinkled throughout the levels: crow skulls, presents, and gramophones. Some areas are more open and allow you to choose the order in which you do certain tasks. The game has a decent amount of dialogue in it, which does an effective job of giving some character to Jack, his two animal companions, and the rest of the cast. The visuals and soundtrack are particularly great, especially if you’re into Halloween themed media.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There’s collectibles to back for – I got about 2/3 of the collectibles on my first playthrough – skins to unlock – which are purchased with the collectibles you find in the levels – and you get to start a second playthrough with all the weapons already unlocked at the beginning.
Description: Pato Box follows an anthropomorphic duck boxer on an adventure through a stylistic noir comic book world. “Pato” is a Spanish word that translates to “Duck” in English (the game was developed by a Mexican studio). The boss fights are heavily inspired by Punch-Out’s gameplay, but there are levels outside of these fights to help differentiate it. Most of the levels can be selected in any order you choose and typically serve as a leadup to the boss fight. Bosses are usually introduced by a cutscene followed by some dialogue taunting Pato Box. The levels play entirely differently from the fights, but the themes of the level match those of the bosses. The levels will employ various elements of evasion, stealth, exploration, and a few time-based mini-games. The casino level, for example, will have you walk around the casino looking for chips and punching the slot machines to earn enough to pay entrance to the fight, while the food factory has you evading stompers, sawblades, and butcher knives as you work your way through the level. There are variety of things to find throughout the levels: tokens for decorations in Pato Box’s room, backstory on the boss of the level and the world, and tips on how to win the upcoming fight. The fights themselves lock Pato Box in the middle of the screen, allowing you to block, juke left or right, and perform a low or high jab to the left or right. The game foregoes a HUD in favor of a visual representation of your health via scars on your body, which I thought was a nice touch. While the levels and bosses play pretty differently from each other, they’re weaved together by a dark and intriguing story that follows Pato Box’s quest for retribution against an evil corporation.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: There’s an Arcade Mode that lets you replay boss fights and some collectibles to find in the main campaign. The achievements are very difficult, and many ask you to beat a boss without taking a single hit.
Description: Ultra Hat Dimension follows Bea through a series of rooms in a palace on a quest to undo the magical spell that has made the mythical Spluff creatures want to attack one another. There is a little bit of backstory via one sentence thoughts from Bea in between levels, but nothing major here. The gameplay revolves equipping four different types of hats and using them to evade or push Spluffs around to retrieve the key and reach the door. Each Spluff dons one of four different hats which effects their behavior towards other Spluffs and you. You will be punched one tile back by every Spluff unless you’re wearing the same hat as the Spluff. Spluffs interact with one another differently depending on what hat they’re wearing in a rock, paper, scissors kind of way – they may punch a Spluff back one space, get into a scuffle that allows you to get close to them without wearing a hat, or they may temporarily disable them in a way that allows you to access the space the Spluff consumes within eight moves. There are undo and reset buttons included that allow you to quickly rewind mistakes. There are some clever puzzles accompanied by catchy tunes and a charming pixel art aesthetic. The difficulty is about average.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours
Extra Content: Since this is published by Ratalaika Games, getting all the achievements can be obtained after only clearing 2/3 of the levels. There are a few custom maps on the PC version of the game but no additional content on consoles.
Description: This is a quirky carnival-themed 2D platformer. The premise of the game is of a young boy overcoming obstacles and traps for the amusement of a sadistic circus crowd. The whole game operates on a single screen and utilizes only a double jump and movement. Jump to the edge of one side and you pop out on the other. You're tasked with dodging hazards and overcoming obstacles while smashing barrels around the stage or executing some other task, like staying in a spotlight that moves around and shines in different spots. There are three cut-scenes in the game that total less than two minutes and about 10 minutes of dialogue. Even though the story is very brief, I still felt the ending was a satisfying conclusion and offered more than I expected.
Completion Time: ~2.5 Hours
Extra Content: There is an arcade mode where you can see how many barrels you can smash in a set amount of time. The achievements are pretty difficult but offer some fun challenges. There is also a competitive/versus local multiplayer mode for two players, but it's nothing special and probably won't entertain long.
Description: SINNER: Sacrifice for Redemption is a Soulslike boss rush - there are no levels and only small area before each boss to practice your moves. There are eight bosses, the first seven allowing you to fight in any order, each representing the seven deadly sins. You are equipped with everything the game has to offer from the beginning (except for the New Game+ weapon they give you), and instead of becoming more powerful, you gradually lose things with each boss you defeat, hence the “sacrifice” in the title. It’s like a reverse RPG. Each boss has a different sacrifice associated to it – one may deplete your throwing items’ usage, while another will deplete your health and stamina. Picking the best order to fight them in adds a little strategic thinking to the game, as you may be more dependent on your large health and stamina bar more than your throwing items’ usage, for example. The game is fairly difficult, so your victories over each boss feel very gratifying when they do come.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: There is New Game+ that offers you an additional weapon. The achievements task you with a few things you have to pull off in battles, and getting all the achievements is pretty easy to obtain.
Description: Reportedly inspired by obscure Japanese games from the late 1980s and 1990s, Tamashii blends puzzle platforming together with an oppressive atmosphere. The introduction starts with the character being willed into existence by a godlike character that tasks him with destroying the macabre forces that have taken control of and corrupted his chambers. Your character is able to spawn three inanimate clones of himself which is the primary source for most of the platforming and some of the boss fights – you’ll use them to trigger switches and open up new paths. There’s about an even mix of puzzle solving and platforming, and there’s a whole eight bosses in this short adventure (though one is a secret) that are probably the most visually interesting moments in the game. The creatures and backgrounds are effective in selling the dark presentation of the game. The difficulty is about average – maybe slightly easier than most indie puzzle platformers. There is a sequel currently in the works.
Completion Time: ~2.5 Hours
Extra Content: There are a few obscure secrets to discover. You can also play through the chambers again with a score meter, and there are certain achievements associated with getting a good score. Getting all the achievements isn’t too difficult, but you’ll probably need a guide for some of the secrets.
Description: Daggerhood's main hook is the use of its sword teleportation mechanic. You throw your sword with a button, and you press the same button again to teleport to where the sword is. While this is a mechanic that has been seen in some Metroidvanias, I haven't seen a tight, linear 2D platformer make use of this mechanic before. Each level has a number of collectibles and some small side sections as well, but for the most part the path to the finish is clear - it's just the execution that's the tricky part. Add in teleportation portals to make things even trickier.
Completion Time: ~2.5 Hours
Extra Content: As this is a Ratalaika Games published game, getting all the achievements only takes about 1-1.5 hours to achieve. You can get it well before you even finish the game, which is a shame because the game had all the makings for a fun 100% achievement goal. There are tons of collectibles in each level, and each level records your time. So there is a lot here to extend to the playtime.
Description: The Bunker is an FMV point & click adventure, meaning it features real actors and environments just like a live action movie. Many of the actors involved have been in high profile movies/TV shows as well, including The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Penny Dreadful. The game takes place in a fallout shelter and follows the last survivor as he tries to find a way outside following the death of his mother, after living 30+ years in the bunker. The gameplay has you solving puzzles and finding ways to proceed to the next area. The story is the focal point of the game though, and it frequently switches between the past and the present to tell its story. There’s a good juxtaposition between the lively past and the lonely present that makes you question how the protagonist ended up as the last survivor. There’s only one narrative choice to make in the game, and it comes at the very end. The game also works in handheld mode with touchscreen functionality if you'd prefer to play it that way.
Completion Time: ~2. Hour Completion Time*
Extra Content: You can replay the game and try to find all the collectibles. Most of them give more background on the story. You can trigger the ending you did not choose the first time around by simply reloading the last checkpoint, so there is no need to play through the whole game again to unlock it. Getting all the achievements is fairly easy.
Description: Cybarian has an interesting yet simple combat system that distinguishes itself from most action platformers. Instead of mashing the attack button, you have to press it once, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, press it again, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, and then press it again to complete a full combo. It sounds like something that's easy to get down quickly, but I found myself still occasionally going too quickly in the intensity of a boss fight. The game punishes you by not fulfilling the attack if you button mash. After each boss fight, you unlock a new move that will be required to fell some foes in the next stage. Conversely, you can play Hard Mode which unlocks all moves right from the get-go, but you'll have to beat all four stages without dying. "Hardcore Mode" would've been a more apt description of this difficulty setting, I feel.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hours
Extra Content: Just like with Ultra Hat Dimension and Daggerhood, this is a Ratalaika Games published game, so getting all the achievements can be achieved in under an hour. It would've been nice if they pushed you to beat Hard Mode, but you'll just have to settle for internal gratification instead.
Have you played any of these games? What are some other overlooked single player indie games? If you’re looking for more indie games to play, see my post here:
Introduction We're all familiar with the Hotline Miami's, Hollow Knight's, and Celeste's of the world. These are some of the indie games that hit the big time. Of course, for every one of these games, there's 100 other indie games that have been glossed over, relegated to a spot in a digital store few people will ever find themselves in. I wanted to bring attention to some of these lesser known indie games. I'm going to order them according to Metacritic Critic Ratings. Some of the games towards the bottom have a pretty low rating that I personally disagree with, but it's only fair that you hear from more than just me. While the reviews are low for some games, this is partly due to how few reviews there are for some games. #19 on the list has a 49% for the Xbox One version of the game due to it only having two reviews, while the PlayStation 4 version has a 90% rating due to it only having one review, despite both versions being functionally the same. This high level of variance usually occurs when a game only has a few reviews. Price will include a link to the U.S. store page of the game. Price is in U.S. dollars. 1. Inertial Drift
Includes a Separate 2 Player Local Competitive/Versus Multiplayer Mode
Description: Inertial Drift's distinguishing characteristic is its employment of the right analog stick for drifting. This takes a little getting used to, but it feels great once you get the hang of it, creating some exhilarating moments when perfecting corner turns. The game has 10 unique tracks + 10 reversed tracks, 16 vehicles, and four separate story arcs. Each story arc is only a couple of hours long and features a different protagonist with a different vehicle. Since you’ll be racing on the same track a few times, there are a few gameplay variations that differ from just reaching the finish line at the end, such as racking up a certain number of points that are acquired through longer drift times and other means. There's quite a bit of dialogue between races, and in the races themselves characters will frequently dish out positive commentary on your performance in the form of text in the top left hand corner of the screen. The game's aesthetics are a fusion of anime and synthwave. I've heard many fans liken the game to the manga Initial D, though I'm unfamiliar with that series myself.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours (for 1/4 Story Arcs)
Extra Content: There are a number of different modes including a Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Grand Prix Mode, Arcade Mode, two player Split-Screen, and Online, as well as a Tutorial. Completion of challenges in Challenge Mode allows you to unlock new vehicles for the other non-Story Modes. Grand Prix Mode allows you to race using different characters/vehicles through a connected set of challenges, while Arcade Mode is for one-off races. I wouldn't recommend this game for online play as the user-base is pretty small (hence it being overlooked) and you're unlikely to find a match. Getting all the achievements is fairly difficult.
Description: This is an action platformer that emulates arcade games from the latter half of the 1980s, but it is probably most reminiscent of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The creator, Locomalito, states that the soundtrack uses the true arcade sound of the YM2203 chip. The game is hard, but the checkpoints are never more than a minute or two apart, and the lives' system/continue system has no penalties outside of locking you out of achievements. This is a very boss dense game - in the ~4 hour run-time it takes to complete the game, you fight 19 bosses. The handful of weapons and items you pick up helps lend variety to the combat, and no two boss fights feel the same.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: The game has two endings. Most players will get the bad ending the first time around and be locked out of the final stage (which is the longest stage in the game). You do have to play through the game again to get the good ending, but you'll likely do it in half the time. If you want to see all the major content on your first go around, I recommend looking up how to get the good ending before you play the game. If you do achieve the good ending on your first playthrough, the completion time is probably closer to six hours. As far as achievements are concerned, 100% completion is very difficult to obtain. If you like an extreme challenge, this one's for you.
Description: Valfaris acts as a continuation of Slain - the developer's previous work - but it’s not necessary to play Slain first to understand the story of Valfaris. While Slain was mostly just a slightly above average action platformer, Valfaris is one of the best run & gun games I've ever played. You play as Prince Therion who returns to his home planet of Valfaris on a quest to kill his father. It's themed around a fictional planet and has a gross alien vibe coupled with heavy metal music. The music doesn't override the other audio in the game, and it does a nice job of upping the ante when you're fighting a boss – of which there are many. You're equipped with a primary gun, a more powerful mana-based gun, a sword, and a shield that can block with mana or parry.
Description Continued: There are a number of weapons to acquire throughout the game, and the guns in particular do a great job of feeling different. You’re able to upgrade your weapons with Blood Metals. Some Blood Metals are found in plain sight, others are rewarded for defeating a tough enemy, and some are given for going off the beaten path. These upgrades typically just up the firepower but will sometimes introduce a secondary move to your weapon. There are checkpoints every two minutes or so, and most bosses will have a checkpoint just before them (only the weaker bosses come after a gauntlet of enemies). The game is a little hard at points, but overall it strikes a nice balance of feeling accomplished for overcoming the challenges without getting overly frustrating.
Completion Time: ~8 Hours
Extra Content: There are a few secrets to find throughout the game that are off the beaten path, though I was able to find 2/3 of them on my first playthrough. I found all but one weapon as well. The replayability comes from New Game+, which allows you to take all your upgraded weapons into a harder version of the game. Since the weapons all function a bit differently, this can be lots of fun. There are also some achievements that test your skills further, like finishing the game in two hours or beating the game with 10 or less deaths.
Description: This is a 3D platformer that reportedly takes inspiration from both MediEvil and Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. There’s about equal amounts of platforming and combat in this game. While the combat is relatively simple, you’re given a variety of weapons that all feel unique. The levels have a good amount of variety within them – you’ll jump between ships on a ferry ride, ride an undead horse through the sky, play a few mini games as a headless Jack, and fight a boss at the end of each of the six levels. Both the combat and platforming are relatively easy – platforms are typically large and Jack has an edge grab that helps tremendously, and smashing the many destructible objects around the levels increases your health. This game takes the linear adventure approach, with a number of collectibles sprinkled throughout the levels: crow skulls, presents, and gramophones. Some areas are more open and allow you to choose the order in which you do certain tasks. The game has a decent amount of dialogue in it, which does an effective job of giving some character to Jack, his two animal companions, and the rest of the cast. The visuals and soundtrack are particularly great, especially if you’re into Halloween themed media.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There’s collectibles to back for – I got about 2/3 of the collectibles on my first playthrough – skins to unlock – which are purchased with the collectibles you find in the levels – and you get to start a second playthrough with all the weapons already unlocked at the beginning
Description: Pato Box follows an anthropomorphic duck boxer on an adventure through a stylistic noir comic book world. “Pato” is a Spanish word that translates to “Duck” in English (the game was developed by a Mexican studio). The boss fights are heavily inspired by Punch-Out’s gameplay, but there are levels outside of these fights to help differentiate it. Most of the levels can be selected in any order you choose and typically serve as a leadup to the boss fight. Bosses are usually introduced by a cutscene followed by some dialogue taunting Pato Box. The levels play entirely differently from the fights, but the themes of the level match those of the bosses. The levels will employ various elements of evasion, stealth, exploration, and a few time-based mini-games. The casino level, for example, will have you walk around the casino looking for chips and punching the slot machines to earn enough to pay entrance to the fight, while the food factory has you evading stompers, sawblades, and butcher knives as you work your way through the level.
Description Continued: There are variety of things to find throughout the levels: tokens for decorations in Pato Box’s room, backstory on the boss of the level and the world, and tips on how to win the upcoming fight. The fights themselves lock Pato Box in the middle of the screen, allowing you to block, juke left or right, and perform a low or high jab to the left or right. Bosses are dynamic and have a number of different phases to fight through. The game foregoes a HUD in favor of a visual representation of your health via scars on your body, which I thought was a nice touch. While the levels and bosses play pretty differently from each other, they’re weaved together by a dark and intriguing story that follows Pato Box’s quest for retribution against an evil corporation.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: There’s an Arcade Mode that lets you replay boss fights and some collectibles to find in the main campaign. The achievements are very difficult, and many ask you to beat a boss without taking a single hit.
Description: Ultra Hat Dimension follows Bea through a series of rooms in a palace on a quest to undo the magical spell that has made the mythical Spluff creatures want to attack one another. There is a little bit of backstory via one sentence thoughts from Bea in between levels, but nothing major here. The gameplay revolves equipping four different types of hats and using them to evade or push Spluffs around to retrieve the key and reach the door. Each Spluff dons one of four different hats which effects their behavior towards other Spluffs and you. You will be punched one tile back by every Spluff unless you’re wearing the same hat as the Spluff. Spluffs interact with one another differently depending on what hat they’re wearing in a rock, paper, scissors kind of way – they may punch a Spluff back one space, get into a scuffle that allows you to get close to them without wearing a hat, or they may temporarily disable them in a way that allows you to access the space the Spluff consumes within eight moves. There are undo and reset buttons included that allow you to quickly rewind mistakes. There are some clever puzzles accompanied by catchy tunes and a charming pixel art aesthetic. The difficulty is about average.
Completion Time: ~3 Hours
Extra Content: Since this is published by Ratalaika Games, getting all the achievements can be obtained after only clearing 2/3 of the levels. There are a few custom maps on the PC version of the game but no additional content on consoles.
Description: Usually with Metroidvanias, I expect a long, difficult game that's difficult to navigate. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is a counter to those ideas while still maintaining the exploratory nature of the sub-genre. The plot is pretty simple and doesn't feature a ton of story, but there are a few NPCs you talk to throughout your quest. The combat is also fairly simple, but the boss fights you engage in are all great. Without much weapon customization, it's stripped to the basics of dodging enemy attacks while trying to get a hit in. It makes for a game that's easy to get into and instantly start enjoying. All of the areas are visually appealing, some more than others, and each of them lasts shorter than you'd expect. The game is only around 3-5 hours, but it feels like you've played so much more in that time. Some games only really start to take off by the time this game finishes.
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: Getting 100% map completion should only take an hour or two of cleanup. I did miss an optional boss on my first playthrough. There are also items to discover, and the achievements give fun challenges to extend the life of the game. One cool thing I liked was that beating a boss without getting hit at all gives you a useful item. It also features New Game+, allowing you to carry over most of your items, making the game more difficult, and changing up enemy placement.
Description: The Count Lucanor’s story is very fairy tale-esque – more like a classic fairy tale as it can be pretty dark and grotesque at times. On his 10th birthday, Hans chooses to leave his mother in a quest for wealth. After some walking and conversation with NPCs you find along the way, you stumble upon a large mansion and find that the count of this mansion is looking to pass his wealth onto an heir who can prove himself worthy – “worthy” in this case being the one who can figure out the count’s name. From here, you are tasked with adventuring through the mansion and solving environmental puzzles in a nonlinear way to acquire the letters that spell the count’s name. There is a survival horror element to the game, as you are unable to attack the enemies in the mansion and instead must crawl under tables and find other ways around them. You can place candles around the mansion to light it up to help you better evade enemies, but your usage is limited (though you can find more).
Completion Time: ~4 Hours
Extra Content: There are five different endings and some puzzles/rooms you don’t even have to do. This could double your playtime – maybe even more if you don’t use a guide. You have to get all five endings and do some other miscellaneous stuff to get all achievements, but it has a relatively high completion rate.
Description: If you liked Detroit: Become Human or Until Dawn, Late Shift will be right up your alley. This game is a bit different from both those titles in that it's an FMV, with the gameplay solely consisting of the choices you make. You receive prompts at key moments in the story on what you want your character to do next, and this effects the outcome of the game. It plays more like Black Mirror's Bandersnatch, though this game came before it. The story follows an everyman who gets tangled up in London's criminal underground just as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hour Completion Time*
Extra Content: There are 180 choice points and 7 different endings. I only got 4 out of 21 of the achievements on my first playthrough. There are a number of different routes to take with the game.
10. Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure
Includes a Separate 4 Player Local Competitive/Versus Multiplayer Mode
Description: Unbox takes heavy inspiration from Banjo Kazooie and other collectathons of the fifth generation but has levels far larger than any Nintendo 64 platformer. Fortunately your customizable character can cover huge amounts of ground very quickly via the unbox mechanic, which is basically a super jump you can use up to six times before you need replenishment via item pickups or checkpoints. Both the jump and unbox mechanic are tied to the shoulder buttons, which takes some getting used to but is ultimately one I’m in favor of, as it allows for camera control without removing your thumb from the jump or unbox buttons. The high speeds you can travel make for some great exploration, but the game is still able to disable your ability to unbox by giving you a “fragile” item, allowing for more carefully considered platforming sections.
Description Continued: Each of the three major worlds have four major collectibles: 200 gold tape, 10 caged zippies, 18 stamps, and 1 super stamp rewarded upon defeating the boss of the world. There is also a hub world that has just 200 gold tape to collect. The 18 stamps are the jiggies or stars of the game, and they’re primarily what you’re after to advance the game. 9 of them are hidden across the world, while the other 9 are given by NPCs upon the completion of a task: Digi will ask you to take an item from point A to point B with some platforming in between, Dash will ask you to complete three races around different areas of the map, Superbox will ask you to destroy 20 enemies in X amount of time, etc. The other collectibles simply unlock more cosmetic options for your character.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: The game only requires you collect 2/3 of the stamps to beat the game. If you want to collect all the stamps, zippies, and gold tape, this could more than double your playtime, as the worlds are massive and finding all the gold tape is a daunting task, though they do make a distinct noise when you are near them once you’ve collected half of them in a level. Your friendly companion Bounce will also give you visual clues on where to find whatever collectible you might be stuck on. I was able to find all the collectibles in the first world but three gold tape with next to no issues, though Bounce helped me with the remaining three. I really have to commend the developers for their inclusion of both audio cues and visual guides built within the game to guide you to collectibles – it makes collecting every last thing a lot less tedious. The high speeds of your character allow you great traversal of the world, which also helps with collecting everything. The achievements require you to collect everything. In addition to the single player campaign, there are quite a few local multiplayer modes for up to four players – these include Boxing, Collect, Thief, Oddbox, and Delivery. The developers go into more detail on each mode here.
Description: This is the sequel to the original 2D PC exclusive from 2017, with another 3D sequel currently in production. If you care at all for the story, it’s recommended you play or at least read about what happened in the first game. Spark 2 actually follows Fark, another jester. Spark 2 emulates many of the high speed moments found in 3D Sonic games, but brings a few ideas of its own. In particular, action is a bigger focus in this game, though platforming is still the priority. Enemies are easy enough to run past with a few exceptions for mini bosses at the end of some levels and the nine main bosses. In addition, enemies can also add to your score.
Description Continued: In addition to Fark’s expanded move-set in combat, he also has the ability to double jump, dash, and wall jump. The jumps give you a lot of air time, lending more leniency to the platforming, and the dash is great for building momentum. There’s quite a bit to explore in each level too – jumping off ramps in the middle of loopdeloops will sometimes result in you finding the game’s main collectible, floppy disks. Fark can also acquire four additional costumes found within the levels that offer some variation in abilities. The game offers five difficulties at the start, with it recommending the second easiest option, Normal, as the default way to play your first time through. Bosses on this difficulty are fairly easy provided you’re competent with timing when to use your shield, though I did lose once or two against a few of them.
Description: Remothered: Tormented Fathers feels very old school in its design philosophy - no weapons outside a few self defense items and distraction items. You go back and forth in the mansion and have to learn the layout and where things are to proceed. You have to manually select the key item from your inventory to use on triggers (but a key icon is still shown to guide you a little). The sounds in this game do a great job of evoking tension, and I appreciate that the stalkers don’t seem to teleport, so if you can get away from them, you’ve earned your freedom for awhile. This is the first game in a loosely connected trilogy. The second one - Remothered: Broken Porcelain just released last month, but I've heard it's pretty buggy at the moment and not recommended in its current state.
Completion Time: ~6 Hours
Extra Content: There are some collectibles you can go back for, but not a whole beyond that. You’ll probably get most of the achievements – if not all, except the collectibles one - on your first playthrough.
Description: The premise of the game is a fusion of side scrollers and oldschool fixed screens that teleport you to the opposite side of the screen when you pass through one side - think Pac-Man, arcade Mario Bros., or Balloon Fight. You will find obstacles in your path that are impenetrable in a typical side scroller, but can be overcome by holding a button to turn the screen into a fixed screen that allows you to pass through one side and out through the other end. This is a totally unique take on a puzzle platformer I haven't seen before, and all five worlds bring something new to the table. For example, World 2 will flip you upside down when you pass through a screen, allowing new types of challenges as a result. There's more emphasis on the puzzle elements than the platforming.
Completion Time: ~2 Hours
Extra Content: There is a New Game+, but from what I could tell from the beginning it wasn't a whole lot different. Still, there's an achievement for completing New Game+ and some other fun achievements.
Description: SINNER is a Soulslike boss rush - there are no levels and only small area before each boss to practice your moves. There are eight bosses, the first seven allowing you to fight in any order, each representing the seven deadly sins. You are equipped with everything the game has to offer from the beginning (except for the New Game+ weapon they give you), and instead of becoming more powerful, you gradually lose things with each boss you defeat, hence the “sacrifice” in the title. It’s like a reverse RPG. Each boss has a different sacrifice associated to it – one may deplete your throwing items’ usage, while another will deplete your health and stamina. Picking the best order to fight them in adds a little strategic thinking to the game, as you may be more dependent on your large health and stamina bar more than your throwing items’ usage, for example. The game is fairly difficult, so your victories over each boss feel very gratifying when they do come.
Completion Time: ~5 Hours
Extra Content: There is New Game+ that offers you an additional weapon. The achievements task you with a few things you have to pull off in battles, and getting all the achievements is pretty easy to obtain.
Description: Reportedly inspired by obscure Japanese games from the late 1980s and 1990s, Tamashii blends puzzle platforming together with an oppressive atmosphere. The introduction starts with the character being willed into existence by a godlike character that tasks him with destroying the macabre forces that have taken control of and corrupted his chambers. Your character is able to spawn three inanimate clones of himself which is the primary source for most of the platforming and some of the boss fights – you’ll use them to trigger switches and open up new paths. There’s about an even mix of puzzle solving and platforming, and there’s a whole eight bosses in this short adventure (though one is a secret) that are probably the most visually interesting moments in the game. The creatures and backgrounds are effective in selling the dark presentation of the game. The difficulty is about average – maybe slightly easier than most indie puzzle platformers. There is a sequel currently in the works.
Completion Time: ~2.5 Hours
Extra Content: There are a few obscure secrets to discover. You can also play through the chambers again with a score meter, and there are certain achievements associated with getting a good score. Getting all the achievements isn’t too difficult, but you’ll probably need a guide for some of the secrets.
Description: Verlet Swing’s aesthetic is as intriguing as its gameplay: you are tasked with grappling and swinging yourself across these vaporwave styled levels without hitting anything. The levels are all very short, but you’re likely to play many levels dozens of times before even finishing it… just to get a 1/4 rank. The ranking system is actually very cool, in that it encourages you to find alternative paths or sometimes just building up more momentum to get to the end faster. Most levels do seem to have a set path, but at the same time, with the proper grappling of the mechanics, you can forge your own, which is a game in itself.
Completion Time: ~7 Hours
Extra Content: There’s an in game challenge menu that mostly recycles a lot of the base game content – though there’s a particularly funny one that switches the perspective to third person to play as a knockoff Spiderman. You can also go back and try to get the best possible time for each level. Getting all achievement is extremely difficult.
Description: Warlock’s Tower’s puzzles are built around the movement of the player. There are numbers on the ground for the player to pick up – either 3 or 5 – and this gives the player a set number of steps before they die. Your goal in every level is to make it to an exit, and you’ll have to acquire the numbers in an order that gets you there. It is a bit easy in the beginning but eventually works up to be a challenge in the later levels as more elements are introduced: enemies, teleporters, conveyors, and even controlling two characters at once that share movement usage. The game has a very believable GameBoy aesthetic and sound effects to accompany it, and it works for this slower paced tile-based game.
Completion Time: ~6 Hours
Extra Content: This is published by Ratalaika Games, but surprisingly enough, you actually have to beat the game and find a few NPCs hidden in certain levels to get all achievements. There are optional levels in each world that don’t have any achievements attached to them, and this should add a few hours to the game.
Description: The Bunker is an FMV point & click adventure, meaning it features real actors and environments just like a live action movie. Many of the actors involved have been in high profile movies/TV shows as well, including The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Penny Dreadful. The game takes place in a fallout shelter and follows the last survivor as he tries to find a way outside following the death of his mother, after living 30+ years in the bunker. The gameplay has you solving puzzles and finding ways to proceed to the next area. The story is the focal point of the game though, and it frequently switches between the past and the present to tell its story. There’s a good juxtaposition between the lively past and the lonely present that makes you question how the protagonist ended up as the last survivor. There’s only one narrative choice to make in the game, and it comes at the very end. The game also works in handheld mode with touchscreen functionality if you'd prefer to play it that way.
Completion Time: ~2. Hour Completion Time*
Extra Content: You can replay the game and try to find all the collectibles. Most of them give more background on the story. You can trigger the ending you did not choose the first time around by simply reloading the last checkpoint, so there is no need to play through the whole game again to unlock it. Getting all the achievements is fairly easy.
Description: Hayfever is a precision platformer that revolves around a mailman propelling himself using a number of different allergens that act as power-ups. A lot of the platforming is aerial and typically has you catching allergens mid-air to perform maneuvers in quick succession. It's not an easy game by any means, but it has oddly relaxing music to accompany the rather intense platforming. There are also letters to collect in each level to steepen the challenge and some secrets to discover too. It takes an hour or so to get used to the aerial platforming, and this is one of the few 2D platformers played better with the analog stick rather than the D-Pad. But letters that seemed unattainable to me at the beginning of the game became much simpler by the end, as I had mastered the controls and physics of the game. I’ve played a ton of 2D platformers, and this is one of my favorites.
Completion Time: ~8 Hours
Extra Content: It'll take another 8 hours or so to collect all the letters and probably about 6 hours or so to beat the Hard World, which features an additional 28 remixed levels. There are also secrets to uncover, but they don't net any in game progress and only work towards your achievement completion. Finding these secrets will probably vary more in time because they are hidden, but expect them to take a few hours to find. Just to clarify, letters are an expanded test of your platforming skills and are all in clear view of the screen, while secrets are a test of your observational skills and take a little more digging to finish. Attaining all achievements is a fair and rewarding challenge that took me about 25-30 hours to get.
Description: Cybarian has an interesting yet simple combat system that distinguishes itself from most action platformers. Instead of mashing the attack button, you have to press it once, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, press it again, wait two seconds for the animation to complete, and then press it again to complete a full combo. It sounds like something that's easy to get down quickly, but I found myself still occasionally going too quickly in the intensity of a boss fight. The game punishes you by not fulfilling the attack if you button mash. After each boss fight, you unlock a new move that will be required to fell some foes in the next stage. Conversely, you can play Hard Mode which unlocks all moves right from the get-go, but you'll have to beat all four stages without dying. "Hardcore Mode" would've been a more apt description of this difficulty setting, I feel.
Completion Time: ~1.5 Hours
Extra Content: Just like with Ultra Hat Dimension and Warlock’s Tower, this is a Ratalaika Games published game, so getting all the achievements can be achieved in under an hour. It would've been nice if they pushed you to beat Hard Mode, but you'll just have to settle for internal gratification instead.
Conclusion My top 5 on the list in order would be the following: (1.) Hayfever, (2.) Valfaris, (3.) Cursed Castilla: (Maldita Castilla EX), (4.) Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, and (5.) Pumpkin Jack. Have you played any of these games? What are some other overlooked single player indie games? See my post below for some upcoming indie games to look out for.
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