![]() ![]() The right combinations can result in your character becoming a devastating whirlwind of retribution on the heroes invading your land. These can and do pair with increasingly power with items that you pick up that complement the characteristics of speed: power or balance more so than the other skulls. There are common skulls: rare ones, unique ones and legendary ones. Within that there are different tiered skulls that give your play a different level of deadliness in attack and variety. Each skull will be focussed on either speed, physical attack, magic attack or a balanced one of all elements. There are about thirty-five skulls you can be given but you can only use two at any one time so, there are choices to be made. The ability to swap your skull and pick up another with radically different merits and powers. These issues could cripple Skul, but they don’t, because what lifts Skul: The Hero Slayer out of what would have been a mediocre entry to the genre at best, is an amazing mechanic that is the core attraction of the game. ![]() You can easily die fifty or sixty times with little progress beyond the early sections and seemingly scant character trait improvement. The other problem is that in the early stages of the game, progress is very slow and the difficulty is punishingly hard. There could (and should) have been more on offer here to make replaying them seem like less of a pointless grind in getting to whichever level you are currently powered for. Whilst the rooms are procedurally generated, the enemies within rooms are not RNG they are the same ones in the same places, following the same movements each time and there is limited variety in rooms. ![]() How does Skul do at this? There are two things that let it down. So, a roguelite has to constantly offer you demonstrable character improvement to keep the player in that feeling of ‘this time know I can get further…one more go’. That, after all, is why they are playing it. It was understanding what the central appeal or mechanic of your game was and to not limit it, but give lots of it to the player. One of our developer podcast guests recently described a lightbulb moment for him. There is nothing worse than being thrown back to the beginning for the 80 th time, hating the idea of having to do those rote early levels yet again. The trick (and difficult bit) of making a successful roguelite is to avoid the improvement seeming like too much of a grind. So far everything is pretty standard stuff for a roguelite, it’s done very well, but nothing special. You also have the end of level doors marked in red where you fight mini-bosses in the shape of caped heroes or one of six end of section big bosses. ![]() Throughout levels there are shop doors to pass through that offer the chance to spend money on a variety of RNG items in each of the categories and a free skull is often offered to you. This allows you to somewhat control what you get in reward at the end of each room on your run. There is also a blank room which is simply a random pick of any one of the above. You get this reward when you clear the room full of enemies, but the level of reward, common, rare, unique and legendary are randomised. You do so by journeying through RNG rooms that you have some control over.īefore entering the next room, you are presented with a choice of two rooms from one that delivers a skull, one that delivers money or one that delivers a power-up item. All except you that is… You are Skul, the tiny little skeleton sent on a final desperate mission to expel the Heroes and rescue the Demon King. The premise is that the heroes of the world have united to finally conquer the demon kingdom and have imprisoned the Demon King, defeating and capturing monsters and wraiths of the underworld in the process. Gradually a combination of mastering the attack styles of enemies and the compound difference of incremental trait advances starts to pay off you can go further, do more and so the game scales. You die lots and keep nothing with you except for small incremental trait improvements which are split into three options, magical attack, melee attack and critical damage chance. The whole look of the game is retro styled and has an early Zelda feel to it. The graphics and the way the text scrolls one generated letter at a time is very much like an old Nintendo Entertainment System or SEGA game. Skul is a pixel art 2D platform roguelite. One Large Retro Pixel Art 2D Roguelite, Please ![]()
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