Ludokultur

When you have 5 "Cute Monkeys" in your build, every other resource you pick up heals you… 🐒

Unlike many other genre entries, Brotato by @blobfishdev has quite a bit of staying power! Builds feel flexible and emergent instead of following pre-planned recipes. pic.twitter.com/WEpVq6egK6

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 3, 2022

Ten-Second Murder by @lectvs is a really fun "murder mystery" game made for #LDJAM. Every 10 seconds there's a victim, surrounded by items implicating some of the suspects. They also each have a line to say, but one of them is lying…https://t.co/ahULe2IcCO pic.twitter.com/7pE5g94nvK

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 7, 2022

The Case of the Golden Idol by @ColorGray7 is easily the best detective / deduction game I have played since @dukope's Return of the Obra Dinn. Very well made!

(Screenshots are from the very first tutorial-ish case with almost no information filled in, so no spoilers!) pic.twitter.com/K1pbmyhIHG

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 14, 2022

Right and Down by @mc2games reminds me of Forward: Escape the Fold. A simple board with just a few movement options that in- or decrease stats (mainly health / armor). Interesting approach but quite random and could use some general tuning (or a single-player ladder, wink wink). pic.twitter.com/tFj4VLjKF4

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 19, 2022

So @MarvelSnap is out. It's quick (dare I say 'snappy'), tactical, shares a lot with #CrimsonCompany in its core lane-based tug-of-war gameplay. It's way more random since it's a CCG with private collections (and a business model tied to that), decks and hidden hands. Fun though! pic.twitter.com/ch4JVp1Cmg

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 18, 2022

Top-down Tarkov-like in a world with David Lynch vibes? @HellisOthers_ is great! The core loop "go on raid, scavenge hunt, risk losing everything you brought" works just as well as expected. Between raids you build your apartment and talk to a giant crack in the wall, obviously. pic.twitter.com/AxLAsu2Omi

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 21, 2022

I looked at the post-patch #SuperAutoPets weekly and was like: "This is a Llama one!" And there it went.

Also worth mentioning that the new "randomize hats" option, of course, immediately chose to put a plunger on my pets. 🦙🪠 pic.twitter.com/e4uO8uqGXg

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 24, 2022

Showing guests around your @HellisOthers_ apartment…

"You see, I need two sinks. One for revolver and one for assault rifle buffs."

"No, I don't cook. I just use the oven to store jewelry."

"What's in my fridge? Oh just a couple grenades and 150k bucks. Standard stuff." pic.twitter.com/3sRC4qQ7uB

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 24, 2022

If you haven't played this yet, check it out! It's different from the usual "roguelike card game" things and more of a highly condensed dungeon crawler with a long chain of small decisions around movement and creating a synergistic build. https://t.co/BQ3KNcBYMj

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 24, 2022

Don't miss one of the best traditional roguelikes made in #PICO8 yet! https://t.co/JvMh7isD6W

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) October 30, 2022

Fhtagn Simulator is the Cthulhu variant of a Luck be a Landlord: Draft synergies into your deck that generate a high-enough average value to pass each level. However, items randomly line up in a carrousel here (instead of on slot machine reels) with some adjacency effects etc. pic.twitter.com/J9YEjZFcnK

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 1, 2022

Spellbook Demonslayers by @MaliciousXendra is a new Vampire-Survivors-like. Builds are quite flexible and nuanced. There's a granular "design your difficulty" system. Enemy (behavior) variety is lacking, but it's early access. Plays great on Steam Deck too! pic.twitter.com/81BZ2A3ZeM

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 3, 2022

I'm not big into builders, but @EremiteGames made something special with Against the Storm. It #roguelike-ifies builder gameplay, focuses on what would be the early-game of other genre entries and makes that part challenging and varied through lots of drafting and randomization. pic.twitter.com/dzWghGu9Tp

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 9, 2022

I like this game more than Marvel Snap! Make of that statement what you will. 🤓

Seriously though, really cool for a one-week project. Love how Arnold at this point can just slap those card animations and sound effects on a prototype and instantly make it satisfying to play. https://t.co/q2hsxX3ebz

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 11, 2022

Chess Survivors by @TheAarimous is a turn-based Vampire-Survivors-like with chess pieces, i.e. the rare VS-like that doesn't just copy, but explores and experiments. Also extremely weird in how it mixes continuous, real-time effects with discrete, turn-based movement. Love it! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/k0hoMYtvap

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 11, 2022

Another Punkcake experiment well worth diving into! 😃 https://t.co/Y5Ax3keaEx

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 11, 2022

How's your Sunday?
– Oh, just hoppin' around in my fishbowl, smashin' chess pieces and grabbin' loot. ♟️🐠#ChessSurvivors pic.twitter.com/d9zUJA7Ia6

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 13, 2022

We Who Are About To Die is a gladiator fighting game with a pretty strong management component. It was, impressively, made by solo dev @JordyLakiere. Combat isn't "press X to win" but deep and physics-driven, reminiscent of Exanima (but with more of a #roguelike-ish structure). pic.twitter.com/HH0PVcZayl

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 16, 2022

Not someone who 100%s games, but will make an exception for Chess Survivors (@TheAarimous). 🏆 pic.twitter.com/6PzpGZlnYi

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 16, 2022

New #SuperAutoPets pack is up on @TeamWoodGames test server! So many interesting new interactions!

For a start, witness the Cone Snail | Bulldog | Silkmoth sandwich! 🐌🐶🦟

Also trumpets! 🎺 pic.twitter.com/iVGo4jbGgc

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 17, 2022

Stronghold's Dungeon by @fazerdoo is a slot-machine deckbuilding #roguelike similar to Luck be a Landlord, but with ideas of its own. You're balancing generating money and damage. Items can affect the "board" permanently. There's "curses" for difficulty. Needs speed settings! 🤓 pic.twitter.com/3KSxGssTn7

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 17, 2022

🐺 -> 🐷🐷🐷 is pretty strong tbh pic.twitter.com/AnxfSApvw7

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 18, 2022

Cards with Personalities, one of my favorite #PICO8 games ever, is now on Steam as an all-new shiny HD version! Super solid mechanics in there for deckbuilding fans!

It's designed for controllers btw, which also means it's a great fit for the Steam Deck! 🙂 https://t.co/PHbVyntqvt pic.twitter.com/IRKJYY0W9G

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 18, 2022

Right and Down by @mc2games received solid updates since launch! Just smashed through a bunch of forests with triple Poison Tabard. Although in the end I believe the simple Reinforce Armor skill (add 2 to armor cards after moving ➡️⬇️) was the real MVP. Won with 180 armor left. pic.twitter.com/m6yAi76peO

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 23, 2022

The digital adaptation of Roll Player is good! It's "character creation, the game" thematically, but what it comes down to is a solid dice drafting game with very dynamic score goals ("traits"), elements of set collection ("equipment"), and lots of dice manipulation ("skills"). pic.twitter.com/TwX1pgmGmB

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 24, 2022

This one is certainly a unique kind of trip. If you don't mind reading and the premise of "weird visuals from lifeforms on the brink of extinction" sounds interesting to you, check out the demo! https://t.co/1H5azcDk9Y pic.twitter.com/HcBtsqn1qL

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) November 28, 2022

Mage and Monsters by @slahserdota is an auto-battler where you draft units and spells to influence battles "live". It's also a micro-game that just got less micro with its 2.0 update by adding a whole new map with new enemies and challenges. Worth a look if you like the concept! pic.twitter.com/arIcQEIs0O

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 2, 2022

Gotta admit the higher-tier decks in Marvel Snap are more fun, cause they're harder to pilot and thus have more actual “play” going on. Doesn't really excuse dozens of hours of grinding dumb bots (that never fully go away btw) and playing low-level decks on auto-pilot though… pic.twitter.com/FmQ5qMlLmL

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 3, 2022

Impaler by @apptivus is an arena FPS that adds, well, "impaling" into the mix. It makes enemies drop health kind of like DOOM's melee, but it manifests actual physical objects. You can even use it to "rocket" jump. Lots of simple elements combine to interesting, fun interactions! pic.twitter.com/x707rZ0j9P

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 6, 2022

The #SuperAutoPets Doberman is another example of clever #GameDesign by @TeamWoodGames. It gets a strong buff if it's you lowest tier pet, i.e. it encourages pivoting to high-tier animals sooner. This makes runs more dynamic and increases the density of interesting decisions. pic.twitter.com/r5A8xmpCgK

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 8, 2022

Checked out @SchuMode's Dicey Football demo (also called "Dicey Birdball" in the Steam description). Cool tactical football game, including a career mode where your team and the league rules evolve over time. All the indicators and dice slot highlights are quite polished already! pic.twitter.com/ntiDnSGvEH

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 10, 2022

Tried @RoboquestGame and it's a well-polished #roguelike FPS. Feels a bit like a faster, DOOM-ified version of Borderlands with much more mobility. And of course there are random weapons, roguelike-y traits, synergies etc. Very solid and not even fully released yet! pic.twitter.com/PkCXuvYXp2

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 15, 2022

Checked out @twopm's WizardChess on Steam. I like the snappy gameplay a lot and it has a really cool combat system about "overcoming defense" instead of the old "HP sacks exchange hits until one is empty". Also apparently they just added dynamic difficulty adjustment. 👀 pic.twitter.com/ZN2ijPo3Os

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 20, 2022

The demo for Mr. Sun's Hatbox by @KennyYSun gives me strong "Tarkov meets Streets of Rogue" vibes and I love it! You go on missions to collect loot, then upgrade your base, brainwash captured enemies, equip your units and start the next "raid". Looking forward to release! pic.twitter.com/tAH8tTwxxu

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 22, 2022

Trying to get a cultist build going in the latest update of @fazerdoo's Stronghold's Dungeon. It's simpler than Luck be a Landlord in many ways and has a way to go through early access, but there's quite a bit of potential here for another great "slot-machine" #roguelike! pic.twitter.com/ID2s0t9txH

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 27, 2022

Spire of Glory is a #roguelike auto-battler where you build a team all via equipment (even transforming base units to different ones is done via items). Also it's not fully "auto" since you can dodge skill shots during combat if necessary. Interesting take on the genre for sure! pic.twitter.com/Sv2apaE26U

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 29, 2022

Remember Last Group Out? It received a "hardcore" mode recently, which brings it even closer to Tarkov, including risking your equipment, bleeding out, losing limbs, inventory tetris, hunger and hydration. If early-wipe Tarkov disconnects are getting on your nerves, check it out! https://t.co/2mnzLVlbYL pic.twitter.com/efiWi2GX3L

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) December 30, 2022