Ziggurat

When you play Ziggurat, you'll find these secret rooms behind breakable walls. Inside these rooms are a random special perk, and a stained-glass window with an image from the game itself, or a game the team previously made. They're very straightforward about what crappy games they made in the past. They look like cheap, embarrassing XBox Indie Game cash grabs. Seeing these, it's hard to believe the same team made this really excellent game. Ziggurat is a fantasy-based shooter with randomly designed levels. It's just hard enough, and has just the right amount of trickling of perks, and is shooty enough to kill time with. The controls are tightly tuned after a moderate period of adjustment. Then you fire it up when you feel like a good quick shooter that's not entirely predictable. That's it. It's good fun, and it's not dumb. Visually, it's really well constructed, given its really simple premise. There's a real show of care here, it won't drop your jaw, but it's clear they cared about the presentation. It's really consistent and attractive. There are even thoughtful little scripts you can find that hint at some meta consciousness about the game. Do you wonder where all these little carnivorous carrots might be coming from to eat you? The game wonders that, too. In all, it's just a pleasure to play, not too full of itself, not too light. Five stars, well deserved in what I'll term the rogue-ish FPS category.

This game has not aged well, but even ten years ago it would have felt repetitive and shallow. There's not much variation, or much to do, let alone look at.

At first the game didn't catch me. I couldn't figure out success formula and kept failing and failing runs. I kept playing only because it was good to play while watching stuff. But after some time I got the hang of it and started completing runs. Now I must say it's a solid experience without very notable heights, but with polished game mechanics that feel right for roguelike-fps. This game go well when listening to podcasts or watching something.

A fun little time sink that, while enjoyable to play, lacks any real depth. It’s a simple and fast paced frantic first person shooter, with a good selection of cartoon like enemies and traps. The level art lacks variation and after a few runs, you’ve seen all the enemies, bosses and rooms, although there are plenty of unlocks to work towards – probably too many considering the limited amount of content in the main game. The randomised enemies, levels and perks does work and it isn’t as annoying as it could have been, but I still find easy too easy, and normal too hard.

If you like roguelikes and you like FPSs it's great. You kind of need to like both things equally, though. If you want a modern shoot-em-up there's a new Doom game, I hear. On the other hand, if you love rogue-like progression but aren't very good at dodging, precision aiming, and running backwards, it could be a pretty difficult game. It has a progression vibe entirely like Binding of Isaac, which is to say you unlock new things in the dungeon and new characters, but when you die you're back to square one. The shooting, as I said, requires aiming. I turned off motion blur and adjusted my mouse resolution a bit and it's a decent shooter, but it'll never be completely easy, no matter what cards you pick up when you level. If you've played Immortal Redneck, the shooting is harder but I think the lore is a little more interesting and starting over from 0 makes it a different sort of challenge. Also, in this game there's lore. :) It's not super deep but it gives it some flavor. I recommend it, even at full price. At the current price of $3.75 I double recommend it.