Seems like it has fun gameplay. Shame they went the "roguelite" route rather than hand-crafting. I read their blog post about it, but that still doesn't convince me that the random isn't detrimental.

If GOG or the developer makes it possible for Mac users to start the game from the Launchpad and give it a nice picture-icon, it would be fine. Starting the game from the Program folder and through the Terminal, although it is v1.0, still feels a bit like a beta.

Stiill, I wish to have the release experience.

I'm a bit disapointed for now. Difficulty curve is quite steep at the beginning (with some really annoying and unfair level blocks) and I'm still wondering if the unlocking is balanced.

I remember in the ea, that I had only unlocked the vine, and felt quite bummed not able to use that sarcophagus and what not.

Also, those timed doors are really disapointing too. Encouraging only the speedrun is not very cool I think.

procedurally-generated =/= random

If it has been random, game would never be playable.

Reading online, they're random. Your argument's only true if they used procedural generation to generate the world, then "locked it" and finished development/release from there. This game has generation every time you play. That's random. Combining that with permadeath (and "tough combat") and I'm no longer interested in a game that seems to try to get in the way of joy.

Now they need to allow gog users to download it from Steam Workshop.
That's the only issue I have with this game, the rest is amazing.

You need to check your definition of random. Random means that the designer has no say in how a game level is made, which is false.

Take Spelunky, if level generation had been random there would be a pretty low chance for the level to be finishable. The player could spawn with dirt all around them or not even ground under them.

One of the way to use procedural generation, as in Spelunky, is to design bits of level configuration and put them together following a certain set of rules. Design rules.

You seem to be mixing things up, go look into it further. It is an interesting subject.

No, you need to check. Procedural generation is a type of random generation. I didn't say it was pure random.

But I'm done engaging with you and aggressive strawmen and misconceptions.

Lol! As you wish. I'm glad, no problem.

I'll just leave this here, check the first definition:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/random Procedural generation is, by definition, NOT random.

See that wiki page and the use of the word random is what is putting you off track, dear sir.

Are you no longer tagging reviews made while the game was In Development as "[In Dev]"? Did you simply forget this time? (If you have to do it manually, note that there are already 2 reviews that have been posted since this 1.0 release.)

Also, you may want to consider changing the stated release date on the game card to today's date (Aug. 7, 2018), if only for consistency's sake.

Gotta side with Zoidberg in this matter. I can't confirm that this is how this game was made, but I believe it follows the same idea as Rogue Legacy: the devs hand-crafted several sections (rooms) which are then slapped together by the game's engine as needed to create the current playthrough's map.

And YMMV but with this approach Rogue Legacy's procedural generation didn't kill its fun for me.

OK, don't buy it, then. See, game developers, when they make a game, are not actively trying to make a game for everyone, catering to every single person's tastes. I don't like slow games, strategy games, tactical stuff. They're not the games for me. But why should people care about the fact that I don't like those games? What's the point of going into a release thread of a game in a genre I don't like, or with aspects I dislike, to complain about them? No one really cares, and the devs themselves shouldn't change a game A LOT of people like just the way it is, to accommodate some random person in a forum who thinks "random is detrimental".

I could explain to you how these "dreaded" randomly generated worlds/levels in roguelikes and roguelites work, but you're clearly biased towards it, so I don't see the point. They're not as "random" as you might think, let's leave it at that. In fact, roguelites (the good ones, at least), are all made with a mix of handcrafted levels, level sections or rooms that are then put into the game, and randomly mixed together when the game generates a new world. I understand your fear of lazily-made games using randomly generated worlds, but that hasn't happened in YEARS. You can't effectively get stuck in a roguelite, when it's well done, because every handcrafted part is made to work flawlessly with every other handcrafted parts that connect with it.

See, I couldn't care less about Phantom Doctrine, which just went up for pre-order here on GOG. But I don't feel entitled to go into that thread and complain about this or that, because that game is clearly not made for me, just like Dead Cells isn't a game for you. And that's fine, we like different things, different strokes for different folks. I just don't understand what's the point of gamers feeling the need to complain about ANYTHING they feel is "killing the game industry" (because everything is killing the game industry, apparently), just because developers are not making a game "for them". Well... that's just not feasible. Devs can barely make ONE game, let alone thousands of them at a single time, to cater to each and every specific gamer that's interested in it.

I bring it up because I *love* Metroidvanias. It's potentially my favorite genre. [Side note: The Dandara developers said in email to me that they are in communication to bring that game to GOG.] But I tend not to like roguelike games, indeed. I continue to bring it up because the developers were aware of this while they were making the game: that "metroidvania" as a genre is known for its having well-done, hand-crafted levels. They knew they were burning some people when they decided to go with procedural generation (which, they admitted, they did because they felt they didn't have enough time to hand-craft levels sufficiently).

Communicating this can help the developer get feedback on their decisions. I likely would have been a day-1 purchaser with proper levels. But, with random levels, this is relegated to sale-fodder for me.

In short: I post because I care about the product and want developers to have everything they need to make informed decisions.

Fair enough.

Still, most people like the game as it is, and I don't think the devs lost all that much by alienating the few metroidvania purists that can't stand roguelikes/-lites. We should vote more with our wallets -- and eventually do --, and I think the sales numbers speak for themselves: Dead Cells is the third best-selling game on GOG, right now, despite all the people who (like myself) had already bought it when it was InDev. This speaks way more to the devs than the odd 50 or 60 sales they lost to purist metroidvania fans who hate roguelite elements.

As for the "pure metroidvanias have better-designed levels because they're entirely handcrafted", I reserve the right to call BS on that. I've played a bunch of indie metroidvanias that have way worse level design than Dead Cells -- or Sundered, another "roguevania" by the devs of Jotun --, despite having everything handcrafted "the way it should be".

Point is, you're obviously entitled to your opinion, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter much, since the game is doing great, sales-wise, most people who aren't stuck-up elitists mortified of change and experimentation ("Oh, no!, how DARE they sully the name of the metroidvania genre?!") are extremely happy with how the game is, and it's to those (you know... the people who actually paid to get the game) the devs should listen to, if or when complaints exist.

Disclaimer: I'm not implying you are one of these "stuck-up metroidvania elitists", I'm just saying there's clearly a few of those around.

The more I read it and look, the more I think they should just call it what it is: an action/combat platformer, and not a metroidvania. Again, randomized levels aren't part of that genre, and, while they call out "gear lock items", how is that accomplished with procgen? The whole core of what sets a "metroidvania" apart from action/combat platformers is those, which invoke remembering the map, learning paths, recalling openable areas for backtracking once you get later powerups. None of that seems to apply to this.

NOW interpreting it from the perspective that it's not at all a "metroidvania" and is just being mislabeled, I have a better reception of it. (But I'm still not going to pay full price for a game that uses the ridiculous, and frankly pretty awful, toxic, elitist, and community-splitting, phrase "git good" in its game card.)

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