To add complexity to play, there are a number of ways to use the environment to your advantage, for example traps effect both you and the monsters, meaning you can kite monsters to their deaths, and fire pits can be tipped over to set adversaries on fire. When mobbed there's even less incentive to block. Blocking seems kind of useless as successfully landing a hit creates a knock back that gives you enough time to launch the next attack.
The dev has suggested that timing hits is worthwhile, but I've not had any trouble just whacking away. Playing the game as a speed-run, however, creates a nice flow and manageable craziness that does effectively get the adrenalin flowing.Ĭombat is simple - attack with sword or block with the shield. The game plays best when you sprint around the levels as it can feel quite slow if you're just wandering. It is not possible to save your game – if you need to turn off your computer half way through you'll be starting again from scratch next time.
The sword and shield are not in your starting room and the game can be a bit confusing here as you can't damage the guards until you get the sword, and it turns out that you need to do a crazy sprint to find these while dodging the guards, setting the tone for the rest of the game, although this is not explained. There is no inventory system and no loot, other than picking up a sword and shield on the first level. As you might expect, some boosts are more powerful than others, meaning that the luck of the draw can play a part in the success of your run. There's no direct character leveling or stats, however there are altars scattered around which give you random, permanent boosts which accumulate, and therefore have the effect of making your character more powerful over time. The rest of the game is fully scripted, including the sequence of levels (including dungeon graphics and type of monster), event triggers and (very light) mini-puzzles. Room layouts within a level are procedurally generated. Ultimately, the dialog is simply an excuse to provide some light direction to point the player towards what they need to do next. The fact that this plays better as a speed-running game rather than a more traditional roguelike is obscured by the campaign scripting, which is written in a way that implies more story than is actually the case.
Hardcore Steam achievements presumably add some additional, longer term play value. After completing the game you unlock an enhanced difficulty mode. The aim of the game is to complete all levels in the shortest possible time. TinyKeep is a (very) casual roguelike based, in part, around speed-running a scripted sequence of dungeon levels.
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