Thanks for this bit of info you hit the nail on the head with lost progress, hard pass for me; permadeath=100% dealbreaker... but I still hope it sells well here as there's more than a few rogue fans, it's just too bad that they could not separate modes instead of a blanket permadeath mode.

In addition to what bler144 said about the progress that you keep between runs, you can run past enemies in almost all situations (except for in a few optional event rooms where the exit blocks you off). If you keep dying to a boss and don't care about leveling up, there's nothing stopping you from running around looking for the stairs instead of engaging with the dungeon's enemies, and the procedural generation will inevitably have you running down the wrong path and into rooms with new temporary upgrades to make up for the ones you lost upon death. This game is pretty tame in terms of its roguelike/lite elements.

Nope, doesn't count. Yeah, you just lose the progress in the current dungeon, but you do lose it. And it is procedurally generated, not something set you can go at again knowing just what you'll find and how to prepare, and which may cause issues on its own if something goes wonky in the algorithm. And if you want to avoid a risk of death you need to give up on exp and other possible good stuff. So nope, no way, any of this makes it no go.

Another great release. And even has me tempted despite im not the biggest fan of roguelikes. But everything i saw so far looks quite promising

Dang... this is a feature I dislike. To have a roguelite where your previous progress lets you upgrade the "dead" player seems to turn games into grindfests.

I think there's some magical balance between roguish and cheaty. E.g. FTL and Risk of Rain unlocked new playable ships/characters, but I never felt like I ground my way through to them. They were just new ways to play.

how does the co-op work?

I decided to give it a shot and have played through it for a few hours. The dungeons are broken up into segments, so you can play through the whole thing in about 10-20 mins before hitting a boss. Defeating a boss finishes that segment, and acts as like a checkpoint. You can go back and run through the dungeon later (ie to level up other chars) but it's not too bad when you die. There seem to be some world events about the family that run, and advance when you come back to the house (by finishiing or dying). Died a few times so far, but normally you have enough to get some upgrades and run back through the level no problem. Doesn't really feel all that grindy, which is what I was worried about.

There are no real loot drops though, so the only upgrades to the chars are to things like health, attack, speed etc. Have a few other games for loot fest thrills, so don't mind it. If that's really what you are looking for recommend Grim Dawn or Titan Quest.

Is this release somewhat of a big deal? I just ask because it has its own banner on the front page which usually seems saved for the relatively "big deal" releases. (granted it's not a big banner)

Well, it's been coming soon for two full years.
Nope, not one for ARPGs in general. Liked Divine Divinity, but that was about it.
Was mainly drawn to the family mechanics, what I gathered about those events you mention, what I understood of character development as well...

Ah, haha.

well, I see where you're coming from, but the dungeons are moderately short, and not particularly sprawling. So it's not like you get to level 50 and lose many hours of progress.

That does create other potential problems, though - which is why my concern was whether there's really "enough" content to justify $20 (which for me, is a lot). But at least through the first dungeon it didn't feel super grindy - really pretty quick for the most part.

I'll be really curious to hear updates as you progress further!

Played it a little, seems pretty nice except gamepad support is messed up (on Macs, though I see on the Steam forums some Windows users having issues too). You can remap controls, but the on-screen prompts don't match the buttons. At least the devs are aware and are working on it.

Nice to know, thanks for the heads up! I'll wait in any case then.

good release. glad this is finally here. spent several hours playing it last night and it is good.

No answer from anyone on rebinding keys?