When I first tried enjoying the demo for Soulash, an upcoming roguelike by Wizards Of The Code, I believed the controls had been damaged. I’d hit the important thing to maneuver up, and my character would hop to the facet. Turns out I’m simply an fool, and this can be a roguelike the place going through issues. WASD controls hop you round, Q and E flip your summary character, and the mouse handles most else. It provides some good tactical wrinkles, together with hiding from enemies, and a way of listening to that reveals you obscure indicators of exercise occurring out of your subject of view. Give it a strive for your self, here on Itch.
From the little I’ve performed up to now, Soulash looks like an attention-grabbing combination of the minimalist Brogue (particularly in its UI) and the maximalist The UnReal World. There’s a robust survival focus to the game, with stamina and hydration bars on prime of the common starvation, however you’re not simply going to drop useless with out warning. Combat drains stamina shortly, and also you typically need to take a flip to catch your breath, at the price of fatigue, which is simply cleared by resting. Still, it’s not a game about biding your time and constructing homes, simply levelling and looting, at the very least up to now.
Narratively, Soulash provides you a great motive to do the standard RPG factor and kill/devour/destroy every part in your path; you’re a deposed god, escaped to the mortal world and on the lam. Now you’re making an attempt to beef your self up so that you could homicide your divine rivals and reclaim your throne, so every part in your path is simply one other step again to glory. Amoral, perhaps, however don’t act such as you haven’t eaten at the very least 5 hundred completely sentient creatures in Nethack.
Soulash has some very swish presentation. Most of the graphics are ASCII symbols (fudging it a little bit to simulate dense foliage, and makes use of a dot to point going through and stance), and there’s full sound results and dynamic music. Attacks and particularly spells have animated results too, and the UI may be very fashionable, with a pleasant, clear clickable hotbar and detailed graphical tooltips. There’s even a paper-doll fashion stock. For a primary debut, it’s very polished and readable, and forward of the curve even in comparison with some fashionable graphical-hybrid roguelkes comparable to Caves Of Qud and Cogmind.
You can seize the Soulash demo here on Itch. The developer is currently seeking feedback on this preliminary launch, and plans to publish a bigger alpha construct later. There’s no date on future releases at current, however the demo is mere hours outdated, and options 4 areas, two mini-bosses and a stage cap of three. Enough to offer you a really feel for the way it all works.
