Enter the Gungeon (bullet hell dungeon crawler roguelike)

[blackjack]

Enter the Gungeon
http://dodgeroll.com/gungeon/

Enter the Gungeon is a gunfight dungeon crawler following a band of misfits seeking to shoot, loot, dodge roll and table-flip their way to personal absolution by reaching the legendary Gungeon’s ultimate treasure: the gun that can kill the past. Select a hero and battle your way to the bot­tom of the Gungeon by surviving a challenging and evolving series of floors filled with the dangerously adorable Gundead and fearsome Gungeon bosses armed to the teeth. Gather precious loot, discover hidden secrets, and chat with opportunistic merchants and shopkeepers to purchase powerful items to gain an edge.

This "bullet-hell, dungeon-crawler, rogue-like" sort of seemed to come out of nowhere yesterday. I picked it up last night. While it's great fun, it's still a roguelike and I'm getting kind of tired of "die and start all over" twin-stick shooters. I've been unable to defeat the first boss with any character, to this point. But I love the pixelicious look and the different weapons and environs and animations. Really wish it would have online co-op but I suspect like many a small dev game, it's not in the cards (i.e., local co-op only). I regret I have no local gaming buddies these days.

I've stayed with mouse/kb controls for now, and they work fine. I re-bound the "blank projectile" key to my middle mouse button.

I believe the default keys are:
-LMB: Fire weapon
-RMB: Dive (to get across chasms etc.)
-Spacebar: Special active weapon (bomb, etc.; characters have different ones)
-Q key: Fire a blank projectile; this is a large radius kablooie that eliminates projectiles within its radius. Good if a huge wave of projectiles is about to hit you.

While the game draws comparisons to Nuclear Throne and Binding of Isaac (among others), it has its own style. I have Nuclear Throne but never got very good at it and I found the screen shaking ultimately obnoxious. This has what I'd call "moderate" screenshaking and I haven't found it bothersome, fwiw. I think I prefer this to those games but obviously if I can't get past the first boss, maybe I'm no better at it.

I believe it's $14.99 with a modest launch sale ($13.49). Believe this is on or planned for Linux, Mac and PS4 as well.

Just curious if anyone else here is playing it. Or if anyone has questions on the PC Steam version (available on GOG and Humble Bundle too), I'll answer what I can.

[GreenGoo]

I took a look when I saw it on Steam. Probably not my cup of tea. I like the name though.

[blackjack]

What I like about this vs. some "ammo rationing' twin-stick roguelikes, is your base weapon has infinite ammo. So even if it's not awesome, it's always available.

Better weapons you get later have ammo limits but I find most extremely generous so it's generally encouraging of frequent shooting.

Teleportation pads let you quickly move amongst areas you've already cleared.

While it is a roguelike, I think the game won't make you start over if you simply stepped off inadvertently into a chasm, or something more environmentally oriented.

I haven't solved that 1st boss yet, it seemed like I came closest on my 1st attempt, with the Marine character.

[tiny ogre]

I'll give it a shot when I've got my gaming rig set up again. Binding of Isaac is one of my very favorite games. I haven't ever gotten into Nuclear Throne, but I suppose I should try it some more now that it's out of early access. It seems like I'd like it, but it never grabbed me quite the way Isaac did.

I don't really know any other good games in the genre. I've tried a few. They're mostly not good. Unless you count Crypt of the Necrodancer, which is sort of this genre, just set to music, and which I really do love. And has the same composer as the original Isaac.

[blackjack]

Somehow I never played Binding of Isaac at all. I bought Nuclear Throne but the exaggerated screen shaking bothers me (can't be adjusted/disabled afik), and I never got very good at it.

Utopia 9 was something I had high hopes for -- and I do enjoy its basic gameplay -- but it really is an "ammo rationing" game (basically, you're discouraged from shooting often because ammo is so sparse), and I and some others just felt frustrated by the lack of any sense of progression between failed playthroughs. I was told I was "just playing it wrong." I was like, "well, if you're gonna bill this as a 'top down shooter' but essentially discourage people from shooting, what's the point?" Alas, I'd sunk too many hours into it to request a refund.

Rogue Continuum had a lot of potential and promised online co-op but seems to have gotten stuck in place.

I'm just a sucker for twin-stick shooters of all kinds. Mostly with these smaller dev games, I'm invariably disappointed by lack of online co-op, but I get that most of these smaller devs simply can't afford to do an online game. At least that's their usual response when asked.

[coopasonic]

It's free (from Epic this week) and co-op so I am playing it. Disappointed that the co-op is local... that means one of us has to use a controller (not it!). I think it's pretty thin and won't last long. I've only cleared one floor, but the actual progression is pretty minimal. I am not sure I am going to stay interested for long.