Ring of Pain

I found about this game by accident but since I do enjoy card games and roguelike/like I decided to give it a change. I have to admit that at first I was mad at how hard it starts to the point of even uninstalling it but some days later I kept thinking about it and went back to it. In short, everyday I tried a few runs and while it is still hard, you start to get the hang of its mechanics and the game becomes so much fun! In the end I managed to beat it at about 13hours of playtime, just to see the ending credits for the first time but there's still much more content here. Overall, I liked this game a lot, easily one of my favorites of the year so far and I highly recommend it to people that enjoy roguelikes and want to play something on short burts.

TLDR - Strategy-wise like Slay the Spire but requires more meta-knowledge of the game and strategies. Like a lot of roguelikes, a lot of the early part is discovering new things. Then pain. And this game tends to revel in it. For example, it has a lot of sublevels that are literally labeled as ? when you first see them. And may very well kill you if you aren't ready. This isn't just being careful; you'll need to know what you need to do almost immediately. This is actively triggering traps to learn what they are, and in later lives, using them to get easy arrows and spikes. Though you can progress mostly just stumbling through and learning, to actually win without absurd luck, you'll need to have some strats in mind and depending on what RNG items you get, focus on them from pretty early. This is less intuitive and involves more meta-knowledge than Slay the Spire, as rather than just RNG and synergies, two of the base gameplay concepts are re-rolling items and sacrificing some stats to increase another. You can't exactly do either very well without knowing what items you can get, or what your stats should be for the strategy you want. This is not including the fact like a third of the items need to be unlocked through achievements. The bosses especially are not something you are likely to be ready for your first time reaching there, either needing specific strategies or much higher stats than everything else. To illustrate To beat the basic mode I took about 6 hours with ~20 runs. From a glance at howlongtobeat, this is on the short end. To beat the next highest difficulty, I took 2 hours with 3 runs. Note I choose a slow (but more reliable) strat.

Like a heady blend of Microsoft Solitaire, Steve Jackson's Munchkin and crack cocaine. The gameplay is simple and thoroughly addictive, the narrative aesthetic is bravely unusual for its genre, and the balance and learning curve are as perfect as they need to be for a game that constantly has you treading a fine line between mindlessly steamrolling everything in your path and getting insta-killed by one poorly-considered mouse-click. There are loads of items and thought-provoking synergies, with a whole menu of unlockables and fun achievements, and the presentation is superb. I very rarely give a game 5/5, but this is one of those occasions when I really can't think of anything I can fault. If you're even slightly into card-based games, this is a must-play. Absolutely excellent.

I really love ring of pain. It'is essentially a rogulike boiled down into card form. The unique mechanic is that enemies and items are displayed on a ring. You can either attack or interact with what is in front of you, or attempt to bypass the card by moving left or right along the ring. What I think I like most about the game is it's unique twist on the genre. You essentially build an "engine" around collecting gear and abilities that synergize with each other while developing your stats to harmonize with your build. Runs are fairly short (1.5-0.5 hours) and the gear, abilities, and enemies are all varied and interesting. Another major plus is that the game can be played incredibly quickly. This allows you to easily speed through the early levels while your build comes together and then slow down and take your time on later levels when the difficulty spikes. Starting over never feels boring or tedious. I disagree with the current top review saying the game is too hard/unfair. Like any rogulike a lot of the challenge is learning the enemies and difficulty curve and then figuring out how to use/abuse the mechanics to solve those problems, essentially making the whole thing a giant puzzle. Do you go for a high evade build to easily avoid enemies? High defense so you can shrug off most sources of damage? A freeze and shatter build so you can mow down everything in your path? High health so you can tank quite a few hits? Can your build come on line fast enough to handle the difficulty curve? ect. The game feels very punishing initially but once you understand how to avoid certain threats and how gear, abilities, and stats synergize with each other, it starts to feel fair and balanced. Also, like any true rogulike, you basically need to break the game to win. (and there are many ways of doing so)

I was addicted to this game for about two weeks straight, and I plan to go back to it after a break. In short, it's a well-designed, clever deck-builder game that has a quite satisfying gameplay loop that, well, you know, is "easy to learn but hard to master." And the game truly earns its name. Here's the deal. You play the game in circles--many smaller ones (or dungeons) inside of one large one. Each of the smaller circles has a random mix of enemies, loot, traps, and other things that you navigate in turns. Once you complete a circle or find its exit, you go on to the next circle or dungeon. There are 16 main dungeons or circles that you must complete to get to a series of boss fights (at the end of the larger circle). And even when you get there, you will have the option of two paths: light or dark. Kill the final bosses and you win the game. However, winning the game is not nearly that easy. Expect to die early and often. I would guess 99.5% of my runs ended in failure, even though I got really close to the end on several occasions. The thing that makes the game so brilliant and addictive is that none of the RNG or the frequent deaths felt cheap or too unfair. It just felt like the luck of the draw, or that I should have turned left when I turned right. Try, try again. Each run can last anywhere from less than 10 seconds to over 20 minutes, though most will be somewhere in between. And each will help unlock a vast range of items, spells, creatures, and other stuff, which, of course, lures you into doing more runs. It's just a really well-thought-out, intensely fun game, with creepy music & atmosphere, simple but effective graphics, unique bosses, and endless replayability. In recent months, I have had a thing for deck-builder games, and this is the best one that I've played thus far. I would also recommend Monster Train, Forced Showdown, and Trials of Fire. Still haven't played Inscryption or Slay the Spire, but they're supposed to be good as well. 4.25/5