

It shows just how intriguing and fun a combo of two unlikely genres could be. Jupiter Hell is cool not just because it made DOOM into a roguelike. Either way, this is not a dealbreaker by a long shot. Or perhaps some pre-made alternate layouts. Jupiter Hell could have used some easier access for the menus, however, so that players could more easily change the key layout to their liking. There’s no “turn-mouse-on” button in Unity or whatever engine they used. Obviously adding the mouse in gameplay would be a big ordeal for little payoff. But I would have liked for the option to use the mouse too, and play the game more methodically like XCOM. I can play it in bed on my back with my laptop battery burning my sternum. Jupiter Hell is entirely on keyboard, which has its positives.

Good luck!Īlthough I recognize that this is intended to be played like a roguelike, I still miss some of the modern elements of video games. Once your Doomguy Jupiterfella dies, you get to start over again from scratch. And unlike roguelites, there is no carry-over progression. And the more enemies you encounter, the more they swarm you. The game goes as fast as you can play it, with enemies reacting simultaneously to you. This is still a fast-paced bloodbath that at times feels just as intense as DOOM. Jupiter Hell is a turn-based game, but don’t let that fool you. And some will deploy special abilities like a smokescreen to shake things up. Some shoot with guns, others with claws and fireballs. Should you encounter one, they will generally try to kill you immediately, and you them. Your character moves, and every other NPC moves too. Every turn you can move your character around the corridors. For instance, it’s in 3D with combat more of an isometric shooter than an RPG. But there are some significant differences. The gameplay for Jupiter Hell is a lot like Rogue. Besides that, however, Jupiter Hell has successfully taken a classic genre and mixed it with a completely different genre: the first truly roguelike boomer-shooter. This stretches the limits of what a roguelike is, seeing as the game isn’t in ASCII art and isn’t sub 50 kilobytes. But these are not actually like Rogue.Ī roguelike actually has to be like Rogue to be called as such. Taking elements from Rogue generally means that the game has some procedurally generated elements, progression between deaths, and gameplay that ranges from Hades’ hacking and slashing, Golden Light’s stalking and sneaking, and Slay the Spire’s card-playing. More often than not, when a game calls itself a roguelike, what they really mean is roguelite. It’s time to rip and tear, only this time, in a turn-based fashion. You arrive back at base after your usual spaceship rounds only to find that the whole complex is overrun with demons and zombies. So it seems that mistake has been made again in Jupiter Hell. Never make your space colony on a planet that’s the entrance to Sheol. These folks have fallen for one of the classic video game blunders. Ultra-Indie Spotlight Sunday: Jupiter Hell Is Rogue, No Lite
