What is Tangledeep?
It’s a fairly traditional but accessible roguelike (so ‘turn-based’, one hero, random maps, hack & slash in a fantasy world) with a JRPG/SNES art style, that is fascinating me with its set of features for a low pirce. I want to recommend it, therefore, this thread.
In a way this post is going to be spoilery (in gameplay), it feels better to play the game and discover some of the things you can do for yourself as you progress, so you’ve been warned. The only way to not being spoiled is playing the game. Or not reading this, I guess…
Let’s start from the beginning.
Jobs
-There are 12 jobs (classes), that are decently original, instead of being tropey (so no warrior, archer, wizard, not even necromancer and barbarian). For example you have the Brigand, the Floramancer, the Spellshaper, the Budoka, the Edge Thane… of course they are their takes on known concepts (scoundrel/assassin, summoner, blade mage, monk, etc)
-The jobs are fairly well designed, with different starting weapon, stat bonuses, with a special job passive that can be upgraded, and 10-13 abilities, 10-11 of them active abilities. There are even more abilities you can gain (see below), in that regard it’s a roguelike more focused on ~active things~ than in proc chances and lots of passives.
An example of upgredeable passives, as you see they also can include new active abilities.
-Three of the jobs have to be unlocked first, but it’s done on the first 5-6 hours of play. Although I don’t like they are only unlocked for your current save slot, and not the others.
-You can change your ‘current job’ in the game, allowing then for multi-classing. Floramancer/Hunter for example is something you can do.
-The job progression is fast, so you don’t have to wait several hours until the gameplay gets engaging, a flaw in other roguelikes.
-There are job trials, with three tiers to do, which are fun dungeon challenges that you have to finish with some limits (use skills only of that job, only 5-6 health potions, only can use 3 consumable items, no pets). Finishing them give you a special item with effects designed for that job. They even allow for customization as each has two options. Example, the Brigand:
-Unrelated to jobs, but the character also has two starting feats, three of the possible feats have to be unlocked first with achievements.
-And when you level up, apart for choosing one stat to improve, every five levels you get a new perk for your health flask, with two options every time.
Progression, Options & Difficulty
-It isn’t a hard roguelike, it’s much more accessible from what I’m seeing. It isn’t a game where you are supposed to die 20 times in random ways before you accrue enough veterancy in the game and start having a real chance of beating it.
-There is a bit of meta-progression, you keep the town status & what is in the bank (gold & items stored by your previous character) for the newer characters. But it isn’t a game like Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells or Dungeonmans where it’s the central feature, and you need to ‘grind’ to lower the game difficulty enough.
-There are a good number of starting options to control the difficulty, from game mode (Adventure/Heroic/Hardcore, Adventure you die and respawn in town with half good and less xp/jp, Heroic is normal permadeath, Hardcore is like Heroic but you don’t have the meta-progression) to special modifiers that make the game easier and harder. Although there is not a straightforward difficulty option like ‘enemies are 20% tougher’.
-Related to difficulty, you can find on your adventures a chest called ‘Pandora Chest’, with better loot than usual and extra xp. In exchange… they raise the difficulty of that floor, and raise slightly the difficulty of the entire world (by 1.5% or something small like that). Not a lot, but after 15 chests is going to be +15%.
-There is a New Game+, interestingly you can choose if to reset the Pandora Chest counter, or continue it (so the new game will be harder).
-It has a decent amount of system options, some of them useful like enemy health bars, zoom level, verbose combat log, ms delay for movement, custom keybind, support for keyboard, gamepad and mouse, etc:
It seems silly to show that, but the previous roguelike I played didn’t have a controls menu :/.
Pets
-You can capture monsters. First you have to lower their hp and then use a special item, a bit like in Dead Cells with the Hunter’s Grenade.
-Once you have the monster captured, you have to increase their happiness level with food, until their monster level, then you are allowed to use them as pets.
-You can only have up to 12 monsters captured, and even if you don’t bother with the pet system having them give you a combat bonus against them.
-When the pet dies, it automatically comes back to the Town, but it loses its happiness level and it’s pissed with you for 3 days. You can pay insurance for your pet to avoid this and being able to use it again instantly.
-Pets have disliked and liked foods, to improve their happiness faster, but you have to experiment to gather the info.
-You can groom the pets to improve their looks, and give them special ‘romantic’ food to increase the love between two pets. Once it’s high enough… they can breed and create a random pet!
-Later in the game, you can pay in JP to learn a new ability for your pet.
-You can free captured monsters, and depending on their happiness, they may give you one of their abilities to be used in another pet.
-Pets, apart from being fun addition to the game, are a smart money sink, something usually needed in a RPG. You need to buy the capture item, later you have to groom them (money) & feed them (more money to buy ingredients) and finally pay insurance (still more money) if you don’t want to lose their happiness level. Still, all this is optional because you don’t have to use pets.
Weapons & Items
-This isn’t a roguelike with hundreds of weapons and items, there are 10 types of weapons with 7-8 different weapons names (ie: pocket axe, hand axe, battle axe, bloody axe…) each.
-On the other hand they feel more unique than in other roguelikes, apart from damage/range/rank/rarity, and the obvious random attributes they can have (140 different affixes in total), every weapon type has an unique effect. Maces can stun enemies and damage them by 10% of their hp, polearmas can root enemies, claws do extra damage based on the hp you recently lost, etc.
-Every weapon type also has associated a weapon mastery, which are three more abilities you can pay to get, and can use as long as you are using that weapon type. You don’t pay with gold but with JP (job points, xp points associated to a job)
-And finally you also can get a ultimate ability after getting the full weapon mastery of a type, but here there is a limit: characters can only learn one weapon ultimate.
-There is a side quest in a special dungeon you can complete to get an armor mastery, a passive ability related to a type of armor (light/medium/heavy). You can learn only one of them.
-There are unique legendary weapons and gear sets, as it’s tradition in these kind of games.
-There is a good number of items (not equipment for your character), around 150, between consumables (dozens of recovery or buff items), offensive use consumables (molotov, caltrops, etc), summon items (summon a allied monster) and misc items (shovel to destroy a wall section, teleportation scroll, etc)
-The equipment menus has both filters for your items, sorting features (a-z, rarity, value) and they are even searchable with a textbox.
-Unlike most traditional roguelikes, it has four slots for weapons, they appear on the quickbar, and there is no penalty to change weapons.
-There are items that once equipped in the misc slots give you new active abilities too (pebble pouch gives you a throw rock ability, nordic helm give you a shout ability).
-The weapon upgrade system is… pretty damn cool but it will be even longer to explain: Introducing the Dreamcaster.
Dreamcaster
-It’s the equipment upgrade system. You have to sped a rare object, an orb, with each use.
-There are more types of orbs than the normal one, like Lucid Orbs (extra affix to the item), and Skill Orbs (extra effect only associated to a specific skill of a job, so it may be useless to you).
-You can also pay JP to increase the chance of having a new affix, in addition of the item power upgrade.
-Upon activation, you can enter in the item you want to upgrade, a kind of dream world associated to the memories contained in the object. It’s a random dungeon with a difficulty that depends on the item level and a series of modifiers that depend on the random attributes the item had. On top of that, sometimes there is an extra global modifier like ‘enemies are berserk’ or ‘costume party!’ (enemies sprites are exchanged). Because it’s a dream world and it’s all weird!
-There are special monsters, or void tiles (damaging floor) used in these dungeons.
-There are also crystal auras, zones of the world with a color, that have an effect (ie: player cannot use abilities, healing effects are doubled, etc)
-You can find consumable items in the dreamworld, but they are ‘dream items’, and disappear once the dungeon is finished. A way to promote using the consumables you find over others.
-Because you are entering into an object, you won’t have that object with you in the dungeon. It’s interesting because usually it’s going to be one of your best items, so it’s a smart way to make the dungeon slightly more difficult.
-You also use the dreamcaster to remove an affix you don’t like, and in exchange obtain a shard, gather 3 for a Lucid Orb.
-And then there are the nightmares… sometimes in the dungeons there are Nightmare Prices, if you defeat them you will finish the dungeon and won’t get the new upgrade for the weapon, but will have a shard. Gather enough and you can gain a Nightmare Orb, which allow access to Nightmare dungeons, with a special boss that give items with nightmare affixes.
Monsters
-There are almost 70 different monsters, a respectable number, although not as big as in other roguelikes.
-However, I feel they are better characterized here than in other games. Apart from damage, range and base stats, they have their own active skills and attributes. Attributes can be things like ‘immune to mud’ or ‘calls for help’ or ‘run at low health’, while the abilities are interesting attacks, debuffs or movements. Charge, flame circle, forcefield, hop, smoke bomb, etc.
-Monster have an aggro range, that complements with the stealth stat in the game, to allow for some build more based on stealth (basically, fight without pulling mobs, or even some monsters will stay neutral).
-Some of the abilities give you a 1-turn warning so you can try to evade, you see what tiles are going to be affected, or who is going to get attacked, Into The Breach-style, and you act accordingly. It really gives it a more tactical
-There are elite monsters, four tiers of them in fact, and have assigned unique attributes and abilities, something that reminds me of Dead Cells too. They usually have some elemental resist, and one or two extra abilities, like health regen, summon allies, phasing, whirlwind (summon tornadoes that can pull you), throw spinning blades, and a long etc.
Mechanics
-You can plant seeds to get trees in a garden in the town, they give fruits to recipes, or xp by chopping down the trees. Later you have access to a Cart where you are paid for the food most in demand.
-There is no ‘free’ resting mechanic, not even free healing in the Town, nor auto-rechargable mana. There is a priest in the Town who can heal you via gold, but the price increase for each use, until it resets when enough time passes.
-You have a single health flask with several charges (this game somehow reminds me of Dead Cells), which is a good idea to avoid the clutter of health potions. You find fountains in the dungeons have give you 2 charges to the flask if have less than 25, and 1 charge otherwise. That’s the main healing method, apart from foods.
-In between dungeon floors, sometimes you find a small room with a side quest, or a new npc, or more commonly, a campfire. You can use it once to rest and recover your health/energy, or use it to cook a special consumable for later. The campfire disappears after use.
-Because there is recipe system, where you can discover new recipes, in scrolls or by experimentation, mixing foods and even optional seasonings to craft even better foods.
-There are Rumors, that are random sidequests system, like ‘go to x floor and kill y’ or ‘defeat x champion in y’ or ‘give x food to y enemy’, etc. Sometimes they have conditions like ‘don’t receive more than x damage’ or ‘don’t use more than xxx steps in the dungeon’.
-You can be blessed in the Town after some gold, to gain temporary an stat bonus.
-There are some environmental effects in the dungeons, like water affect the ranged defense in general and the electrical damage or mud that can root you.
-There is a small curious mechanic, every x turns you win a free turn or action whereas enemies don’t act. There is a stat that improves how many turns you need for it.
-The game promotes gambling, because there is a casino with a shop with legendary items and high levels hit but they only accept their casino tokens as payment. You gotta plays slots, dice or blackjack to win them :/.
There is an idiom in English, about ‘embarrassment of riches’, right? I think it really applies to the current indie market, because we have games like this, charming, well designed and full of content, and the price isn’t $35 or even $25… it’s $15. 12.5€ in Europe. Crazy. And that’s the price without any offer.
