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)
This version of the game is out of date and lacks many of the quality of life improvements in the latest patch (Dec 2018). If you are going to buy it, get it from steam as that is at least kept current.
