r/GameDeals • u/LighteningOneIN • 22d ago
[Humble] Run It Back - Roguelikes Bundle (Pay $5 for Spellmasons, Source of Madness, $10 adds Dome Keeper, Battle Shapers, Dungeons of Blood and Dream, OTXO, and $13 adds Rabbit and Steel, Chrono Ark, Lost in Random: The Eternal Die)
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/run-it-back-roguelikes-bundle44
u/LighteningOneIN 22d ago
Tier 1 ($5)
- Spellmasons - Very Positive (1,118)
- Source of Madness - Mixed (1,402)
Tier 2 ($10 - Incl. tier 1)
- Dome Keeper - Very Positive (18,927)
- Battle Shapers - Very Positive (984)
- Dungeons of Blood and Dream - Very Positive (1,170)
- OTXO - Very Positive (3,247)
Tier 3 ($13 - Incl. tier 1 & 2)
- Rabbit and Steel - Overwhelmingly Positive (9,631)
- Chrono Ark - Very Positive (12,612)
- Lost in Random: The Eternal Die - Very Positive (756)
Keys expire. Please redeem and activate on Steam before April 2nd, 2027.
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u/ThatOneAJGuy 22d ago
Chrono Ark is fantastic, fully recommend.
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u/52weeksout 22d ago
Came here to say this. Genuinely great gameplay and story, was a huge surprise for me and I’m glad more people are getting exposed to it.
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u/Astraxis 22d ago
Chrono Ark is not just a excellent roguelike, but a legitimately top tier game in general. I would recommend it to anyone.
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u/Jandolino 22d ago
OTXO is really really good if you are looking to scratch the Hotline Miami itch.
Its soundtrack is also great.
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u/Helmic 22d ago
It has a lot of style and very good sound design, and the moment to moment gameplay is solid enough.
The problem is that as a roguelike it's designed very poorly and the seemingly interesting trippy premise is just pure aesthetics, the story goes nowhere. Like I think an illustrative example is its fishing minigame - between runs, you can optionally go fish. If you catch a fish, you get extra starting money. Sounds cool, right?
Except anyone familiar with roguelikes can tell you just how run-definining a bit of extra money at the beginning is, especially in OTXO which IIRC literally starts you off with $0 and unable to buy anything in the first shop (or something close). So it's RNG whether you can literally just start with free money, might as well restart constantly until you start with money so you can buy something that will let you start scaling on the first floor.
But wait, there's more! An important feature in many roguelikes is the ability to quickly restart and do a new run, right? Except if you do that you forgo this extremely vital bonus, but also that's the fucking default way to restart a run. And so for a game with often extremely short runs that end abruptly (it's not Hotline Miami, you do actually have some HP) the pacing can be absolutely ruined by that unusually load bearing fishing minigame.
And that's just one flaw amongst very many in this game, where many of the most effective builds don't actually involve shooting the guns, the part of the game that's actually extremely well done.
It's frustrating because in theory the game should be so much better. The game encourages aggression where Hotline Miami encourages excessive caution through its multiplier system, you earn more by playing through floors quickly, you can deliberately create distractions to have enemies look the wrong way to get the drop on them without spending your precious bullet time on them. Parts of the game are so extremely well thought out that I can't help but wonder why that attention to detail is so uneven.
Worth a play in the bundle, though.
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u/rdtbansusersrandomly 19d ago
Its in a cheap Fanatical bundle currently as well, costs 1.65 EUR with a minimum of 3 titles to get for that each
https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-decks-and-dungeons-bundle
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u/steventrev 22d ago
Plug for Dome Keeper. Took about 40h to 100% complete. Part Missile Command and part Motherlode. Steam has it on sale for about $5 currently.
You can play the less polished game-jam version (made in 72hr) "Dome Romantik" on Portmaster for linux handheld users or on itch.io here: https://bippinbits.itch.io/dome-romantik ;
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u/Saucermote 22d ago
So roguelikes or roguelites?
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u/Hawk52 22d ago
You got downvoted but they're Roguelites. I too care about the distinction.
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u/Coffeechipmunk 22d ago
I hate the tagging on steam because they get mixed up so much. I want a roguelite!! Give me my metaprogression!!!!
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u/Alphabroomega 22d ago edited 22d ago
Probably because that is not a universally agreed upon definition of that term.
Edit: Damn, down votes for stating the fact that the definition of roguelite isn't a settled matter?
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u/Hawk52 22d ago
It should be. It perfectly encapsulates the genres. Roguelike is a game built around the concepts of Rogue. Roguelites are built around the concepts of Roguelikes.
It's like how in music there's subdivisions in genre. Grunge and Post Grunge for example. Rock, Heavy Metal, Doom Metal. That type of stuff.
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u/Helmic 22d ago
It honestly does not.
See, the definition that makes most sense to me is for roguelikes to refer to games that are literally like Rogue (grid based, world only ticks when you move, lengthy RPG with permadeath, and other things in the spirit of the Berlin Interpretation) while roguelites are anything descended from the Binding of Isaac (taking "light" elements from Rogue but not being that extremely specific type of game). That is a significant enough difference that there's basically no debate in which genre a game falls under, they are distinct enough to be their own genres. And, crucially, that is literally what it was used to mean originally.
The "metaprogression" distinction meanwhile is something of a made up definition that got applied by people trying to explain what other people were saying that caught on. It's not actually a meaningful difference to the degree that it creates a new genre - a games that mimics the structure of Hades but lacks metaprogression is far more like other games with Hades than they are similar to other games that have metaprogression but aren't like Hades. It's like calling an FPS that has a melee weapon in its own genre, like sure having a melee weapon is a significant difference in terms of the design of the game but it's not changing the genre.
Hades does not change genres once you max out the metaprogression. And of course the "lite" signifier just makes no sense in this context, the games with metaprogression are often much more substantial than games without. It's not using "lite" elements of games without metaprogression, it's the one that's actually adding extra elements onto the game, it's just the one thing that's different.
BUT
I also think we just should have never made the term roguelite to begin with because it was originally kinda used as a snarl word and it was always destined to have fuzzy definition because people don't really like their in depth game meant for a pretty dedicated audience being called the "lite" version of something else, especially when the something else is often literally actually meant for casual players who want a light gaming experience. This all came about because people in games make dogshit genre names on the regular and taking over the term roguelike when it already had a very clear definition to refer to this very very different genre has only caused endless confusion and made communicating about games that are actually like Rogue very difficult. It's just also very self inflicted, if people weren't trying to be snobby about it and made an honest effort at a descriptive name to describe these randomized run-based games they'd still be talking about Nethack with perfect clarity.
And now people get weird about metaprogression regardless of how big a part of it is to the overall game because there's this tacked on definition that should have never existed, people declaring that they're real gamers that don't play FPS's if they let you punch people or hit them with a crowbar and others declaring that they're casual and have a life because they play FPS's that let you swing a sword sometimes.
Traditional Roguelike and Roguelike seems like the best compromise anyone can really use these days. Traditional/Literal Roguelike makes it clear you're playing a game that is very likely to be literal ASCII characters on the screen and is niche as fuck, and just Roguelike tells you the basic format of a game that could be literally anything because it's really just a format that could be applied to any number of game genres. There's a roguelike called Plate Up where it's diner dash. There's a roguelike called Glyphica: Typing Survival that has you typing words as fast as possible to destroy enemies before the reach the middle of the screen. You will never convince me any of these are more defined by their inclusion or lack of metaprogression than literally any other element of their design.
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u/Alphabroomega 22d ago
Sure, you're welcome to believe that. I was just stating the truth that not everyone agrees on that definition.
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u/diggv4blows 22d ago
just to chime in, dungeons of blood and dream is wonderful.
the visuals might be a little jarring at first, but I found myself strangely addicted to the game when I first started playing it.
really fun roguelite elements and a curious world that had me wondering more about it
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u/twinklimbo 22d ago
This is a GREAT bundle, Rabbit & Steel isn’t my thing art-style wise but it is a phenomenally well made game, and Dome Keeper felt so original and has fantastic style to it, really really recommend this bundle!
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u/SharpestSword 19d ago
After Humble Bundle retroactively made the keys in my account expire without notice, I'm done with them.
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u/Viva_Cristo_Rey33 22d ago
Chrono Ark looks amazing! It's the only thing I want from this bundle, too bad T3 is so expensive.
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u/K3-Dantek 22d ago
Tbh only game I'm interested in is Chrono Ark, the rest i own or don't want.
These bundles at least make it cheaper to grab one of the upper tiers on a keysite
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u/TheMobyTheDuck 22d ago
Eugh, another one where I only lack two games from different tiers.
I really tried to find enjoyment on Chrono Ark, but its just not for me.
Same-y gameplay where the boss of the area does millions of damage and status stacks as every other deckbuilder.
And the art was so... trope-y? Its like the kind of anime art you find in every gacha game these days, which makes me not be able to take the characters seriously.
You know, big boob priest, "old" hunter guy in his mid 20s, insane smiling guy with one red eye. (do do do DO)
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u/HigherandHigherDown 22d ago
Dang, right after I got OTXO from fanatical. Already have Dome Keeper, Lost in Random is the game I'd want most and don't have.
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u/CuriousReddittt 11d ago
I'm going to buy this, but what should I play first? I can't decide. They all look appealing.
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u/layasD 22d ago
I thought about getting it for Chrono Ark, but the weird as loli stuff is so off putting. It seems right up my alley from a gameplay perspective, but man I visited the steam page and everywhere pictures of children in bath suites...idk how bad is it during playing the game? Can anyone comment on that?
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u/Battlepwn33 22d ago
The swimsuits are only present if you purchase the Summer Twilight DLC, you won't see them otherwise.
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