Children of Morta

I first experienced this game playing together with a friend in local coop-mode on a Windows system and decided to buy it on my own for playing on my Linux system. I use Debian Linux 10 (Buster) on a Laptop with integrated and discrete graphics (2 GPUs) and an additional screen. The installer and the game work perfectly here right out of the box. My XBox360 compatible gamepad was detected automatically with correct button mapping as with the Windows version. Installer was easy and comfortable. Everything works like a charm (cutscenes, graphics, sound, controls), so it's the same experience as on Windows. I would give 5 out of 5 stars for the Linux port of the game, great work!!! A big thank you here to the GOG-Team and the game developers for their really good technical work on this. The only thing I did additionally is writing and using a small script which makes sure that my second screen is temporarily set to be the primary screen, as games and other 3D apps use the primary screen for fullscreen mode. And I explicitly enabled the usage of the discrete GPU for better performance in 3D rendering. This is not something game- or linuxspecific, just because of my specific hardwaresetup. The game is artistically, technically and in terms of game design a beautiful peace of work. You can really feel all the blood, sweat and tears which have gone into it. To sum it up: To all people who like games like Diablo or Roguelike in general, Children of Morta is really a must-have experience even for Linux gamers :) One of the rare jewels in gaming history.

If that title sounds appealing to you, then you will enjoy this game. I got it and beat it last year and I would say it was one of the best games to come out last year. As far as the gameplay loop, it's a hack-n-slash ARPG with a map generation and item pool similar to your Binding of Issacs and FTLs. Your skills and abilities depend on what character you pick and as you progress through the story and levels, you unlock new classes, skills, items, and upgrades at a reasonable pace. Comparing it to your other RougeLites it's the most approachable as it's honestly pretty forgiving as you can't really get screwed over by RNG in a run due to a bad map or lack of endgame items. I would say what makes or breaks a run is what skills you're character has unlocked and those are permenantly unlocked for the rest of the game. However, this doesn't mean you can faceroll the controls and win. Each character/class makes use of different playstyle and there are skills that they can unlock that benefits ALL of your classes. Skills like making you invincible to extra damage to elites. Thus the game is more akin to an RPG with a skill-based albiet gentle learning curve. The narrative is the main selling point as it revolves around a family of bad-ass adventures trying to hold the line against the wrath of a jelous entity. The music, narration and art direction give this game a nice sense of impending doom and escalation as the corruption slowly starts to spread around the home base every time you return. The only criticisms I have are replay value and the end-game grind. Before I finished the final boss, to leveling up all my classes to get their said ablities I wound up running the highest level possible over and over again to grind experience. Also I found the game quite easy in the end and had exhausted every single cutscene the game had to offer. And then once I beat the final boss... that was it. You're done. But those are just nitpicks to an overall solid core.

Wot I liked - Combat is fast paced, fluid and it's totally carrying the action; - Fun archetypical classes, their gameplay is really distinct and carries the game; - Simple and fun skills/abilities; - I really loved the way the writers managed to tell this story. The story in itself is nothing new or exciting, but the storytelling outlines dynamics of a hero family with outstanding vivacity, some moments were funny, some endearing, some touching and sad; - Quite a lot of side missions with nice cutscenes/stories; - Nice visuals; - Nice, responsive controls (better with a controller); - Monster variety; - Family values! Wot I disliked - I found the graphics a bit too pixelated (ikr); - I do enjoyed playing through NG+, but what I would really appreciate is some endgame mode, akin to diablo rifts so I woudn't have to skip through the cutscenes, which are really awesome; - It'd be cool if elite monsters had more abilities; - A couple of bones to pick with HUD: would it hurt to add health bar/some cooldown notifications together with stamina and dodge? - It's a pity you cannot bind abilities on wheel up and wheel down; - When you alttab the game opens the menu. One might say it's a run-of-the-mill game - I'd strongly disagree - where it shines is the execution - it just works, and does it pretty darn well!

A great game if you like ARPGs, co-op, rogue-lites and story.

A casual-core hack n slash with lots of heart. Fun with 2 players. A bit punishing to start, but fun once you get the hang of it.