The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter and Rogue Legacy feel like two aging indie games that are at risk of being forgotten, despite them being well-liked in their own time. Well, here's a chance to revisit or revive that interest: both games are free to keep if you grab them from the Epic Games Store between now and April 14th.
]]>After 20 months in early access, Rogue Legacy 2 will leap to a full launch on the 28th of April. If you've missed out on the series of roguelikelike platformers where each run is another generation on your sprawling (and sometimes diseased) family tree, good news: this week Epic are giving the first game away free to keep.
]]>New generations of heroes will rise and fall when Rogue Legacy 2 launches into early access on July 23. The developers, Cellar Door say they expect a full launch in 2021 for the roguelite platformer, which is about conquering a randomly-generated castle across generations of lives by pumping upgrades into your family tree for your heirs. The original was good so yes, good. Come watch the new trailer.
]]>I'm not going to tell you how dreadful I am at Rogue Legacy. If I did you'd never invite me to play with your group in the playground again. But I am going to tell you how much I still enjoy playing Rogue Legacy, despite seemingly having failed to improve at it over seven years of playing.
With Rogue Legacy 2 possibly coming this summer, it seemed good timing to return to the 2013 original and explore what still makes it stand out from the crowd of rogues.
]]>Forget dodging spikes or slaying foes - Rogue Legacy was a game about family. Specifically, training up your kids to be better dungeon-divers than you so they'd be ready to take up your mantle after an unfortunate spelunking accident. Fitting, then, that Rogue Legacy would establish its own legacy. Seven years after Rogue Legacy first picked up a sword, Rogue Legacy 2 is preparing to take up that rusted mantle and live up to its family name with yet another trip down the dungeons.
]]>Progression is so often an illusion. Many games use the idea of permanent progression as a way of tickling our lizard brains with a growing pile of loot or numbers which constantly tick up, so that we feel like we’re achieving something while we sit in front of a computer and repeat the same set of tasks over and over again.
The beauty of permadeath is that it does away with all this. Characters grow and collect things, but then they become permadead, and it’s time for a new explorer to begin their adventure. The only thing that progresses is you, the player, slowly learning a set of systems with each failure. At least, that’s the theory. We spoke to the designers of Spelunky, Into the Breach, Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy to learn more about persistence within a permadeath mould.
]]>Full Metal Furies [official site] is a brawler from the people responsible for Rogue Legacy where "cooperation is the key to victory". This even extends to solo play where you're able to swap between characters as a kind of one-person team.
]]>The IGF finalists have been announced, and it's a fantastic list. Very deserving games. But there are others, ones that didn't make the grade, and I want to stand up and salute them in public. As a first round judge on the awards, I played a whole bunch of the 650 entries, and there are some real gems in there that are no longer in the running. (Obviously I didn't play all the entries, so there will be many more great games that still go unrecognised, and that's sad.) So, as we did last year, here are the Second Annual Horace Awards For Forgotten IGF Entrants.
]]>My Rogue Legacy ends in defeat. I’m close to discovering all of the castle’s secrets and I’ve slain fearsome bosses, each taking me one step closer to victory, but my much-pruned family tree has been reduced to kindling. As I peeled my eyes from the window in which so many generations had perished, I vowed to remember my last and most valiant relation – a giant lich queen with a vampiric sword and a fear of chickens.
]]>My goodness, I've had a good time playing Rogue Legacy. In one of the most enthusiastic previews I've written, I declared that were it not to be a hit there'd be no justice in the universe. I meant it. And now it has a release date so you can play too - and it's next week. 27th June, on Steam. There's a trailer to prove it.
]]>It's foolish to try to predict a hit.
I cannot imagine a world in which Rogue Legacy is not a hit.
There's no question that Rogue Legacy owes a massive amount to Spelunky. But crucially, it's an evolution of the type of game, not a mimic, a festival of completely original ideas on top of a familiar roguelike platformer mechanic. In each new game a castle (and later tower, forest and dungeon) is procedurally generated in gorgeous 2D pixel art, into which your brave hero must venture, gathering gold, blueprints and bonus items, seeing how far he or she can reach before inevitable death. But rather than starting again from scratch, here every death is met with progress.
]]>My arrival to Rogue-likes was a late and timid one. I'm a wimp, and fear the ASCII. But games like Spelunky and Dungeons Of Dredmor are my happy place, so the sight of Rogue Legacy has me biting at the screen to get to play. A 2D procedurally generated platformer, packed with dangers of death, but this time should you die, you pass on your knowledge to your children. Children who are... unique.
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