Entry: 20XX

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5 words first -- Better than Mighty No.9 (as a Mega Man inspired game) Although I feel like the game resembles Risk of Rain more.

Nonetheless I've played 2 dozens of IndieCade submissions this year and this is the first game I find myself unable to put the controller down after 4 hours of play straight.

Although I feel the archetype of the levels can use a bit more variety, but the level/pattern design and the generation feels very organic and natural.

2 characters have very distinctive play style, overall control is very sleek and responsive to cope with the ever more difficult level patterns and enemies, powers and passive abilities are well designed and I find most of them are equally useful in their own way (so better than Risk of Rain in this regard).

My only 2 complaints are:

1) At times, I feel some of the platform tiles are too indistinguishable to background tiles. Especially the frost level.

2) Automatically shooting away from the wall when you are sticked to a wall is good, but it seems like whenever you touched a wall your direction will also automatically be turned away from the wall (I was not holding the stick down to push against the wall)

Otherwise it's a very well made game, and very entertaining and challenging to play. Kudos.
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The innovation here stems from the combination of several pre-existing designs polished to a pure sheen. I was hesitant when I saw the words procedural generation and roguelike in the submission description, as Mega Man games are known for their tremendously tight level design and procedural generation games, not so much. However, I was amazed at how perfect everything felt while playing, which I consider a huge success.
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I think you have a great, fun game on your hands here. Challenge scales appropriately, adding new item drops to the pool is intuitive and keeps refreshing how the game plays. Controls are smooth, and it effortlessly mingles Mega Man X-style gameplay to roguelike elements. Your visuals have come a long way since the early builds, too.

You have put in many efforts to accommodate experienced players, but not as many for inexperienced ones. Specifically, the soul nut system. It makes it hard to get a foothold in the game when your soul nuts are reset on each run, making it difficult for new players to build up a stockpile to buy certain items. This does force players to become skillful, I admit, and I understand why the design was laid out in this way. Still, it does make entry a little steeper for newcomers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it may be something to consider for new players.

Otherwise, you have a very solid game. Not earth-shattering, as scoring indicates, but just a fun, strong game.


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I'm still not sure of the final direction this game is taking. There seems to be a story there that isn't being fleshed out at the moment, and I'm hoping to see that factor realized in some manner. It's still classic old school fun meets new school challenges, and it's a blast to play.