Inkbound

Fantastic roguelike that gives me a mix of Hades arena battles, with the more measure and turn-based nature of something like Slay the Spire. Really interesting possibilities can be achieved with the various ability mods and items you'll pick up, certainly enough to keep me very entertained for 90+ hours. Definitely recommended.

Genuinely brilliant and dynamic game system design with endless replay value. Easy to get into, but hard to master. Great for a real solo challenge or casual fun with up to 4 players. It's fairly expensive but well worth the price.

Only downsides are that the game has been left for dead by the devs (as of time of writing), and the game isn't particularly well balanced, as some builds (frostbite, non-poison bleed) are simply are not viable on the highest difficulty.

Devs have gone missing without a word and the community's pretty much dead at this point.

Otherwise it's a great game, but it's a shame to see it dead.

Fun and easy turn based roguelite game. Worth shot if you're into the genre

Awesome Roguelike. I appreciate how unique and inspired the classes feel. It took me about an hour or so to get into the groove of things but once the gears start clicking the game play is a joy.

Would recommend 10/10
Would Ink Dive again.

This game is fun when doing solo runs, but the multiplayer is where it really shines, when you're working together you can feel downright unstoppable sometimes. definitely worth the buy, especially if you can lasso one or two friends to play it with you.

Absolutely charming co-op tactical roguelite.
Grab some friends and hit the books with Inkbound!

Pretty fun and strategic, especially with friends and different classes. One class can cover the weakness of the other and help each other.
Grab this game if you like some strategic + chill back with some friends

Slay the Spire + Hades + Monster Train but co-op multiplayer! And fine if you want to just play single player offline, too.

Great game to co-op. Not entirely sure what's going on with the story but the battles have been interesting and it's been fun piecing together various builds.

Fun, great story, amazing game-play, game for all skill levels

Great game that i didn't think would have this much fun with, the art style is very cool and even though i didn't like rogue likes before, this here opened my eyes. It's a great game to play at any time be it solo or with friends, it's very nice how you could try out many different ways of playing it and find new strategies to try out. Very fun can only recommend it

Fantastic combat style, this has to be one of the few combat games I would like to re-create myself as well.

Inkbound is an incredibly unique roguelike experience. The turn based combat is almost puzzle like and the build variety is rich and satisfying.

An amazing game by the amazing devs that also brought us Monster Train. Whether you like to play alone or with a team of up to 4 people, it's all great fun. There's also an amazing amount of original storyline content and fully voiced cutscenes.

If you find yourself struggling, be sure to check out my or other player's Youtube videos with several daily challenges and highest difficulty playthroughs for every class.

Very fun roguelike. Meta progression is limited and mostly sideways. Lots of builds possible.

One of the best coop games I've ever played. It's a little baffling for the first few runs, but once you figure out a few of the core mechanics like stacking icons for ability types and that group communication and planning is SO important, working together to force enemy positioning/facing as well as sharing damage around... then the true genius at the heart of the system becomes clear.

It's a true gem. No surprise really given these guys made Monster Train, another brilliant turn based game, but seeing them take the same level of design to a coop game--a TURN based coop game--Wow.

Monster Train II though, devs? ;D

Inkbound is a really good core game system, but it's weighed down by the initial structure having been as a live service game. You can feel the remnants of this old idea clinging to a lot of systems in it. The story is also really, really long and not all that compelling.

I sound not-very-enthused here, but I had a great time once I looked past the shortcomings and I think these devs are awesome. Looking forward to what they do next in any case.

Fun game, but takes a lot longer if you want to play optimally with friends.

Really good tactical roguelike with a neat system to deal with turns.
When enemies have their turn they all attack at the same time, and you can see where their attacks will go or who they are targetting beforehand. When its the players's turn, you can all go at the same time. Attacks happen whenever someone chooses to, so you dont need to wait for someone else if you just want to do your thing, but it also lets the group do any variety strategies. Combined with the many upgrades and items you get in a run, this adds quite a bit of depth in battle regarding buffs, debuffs, how to defend, who to target and how.
The game has a nice matchmaking system and it finds groups quite quickly, but the game is perfectly playable solo if you are not up to it or just want a quick easier run.

I really like the game, the story is messy for me since I've played the game since a very early version and I should maybe have restarted just to follow it. But I assume that if you start it now and go through it it's way easier to follow =)

I haven't tried the coop yet since I don't have anyone on my friendslist that has the game and I don't like joining randoms in gaming cause more often than not you end up meeting people that aren't like yourself at all in the way they communicte or play.

This was my first roguelite, I was never a fan of the genre but Inkbound managed to change that. If you're like me, I'd recommend getting it with a friend, as co-op is very fun and a huge part of why I like the game so much.

fun and interesting game play mechanics. Unique character abilities and fun story

• Good combat.
  
• Annoying quest objectives.
  
[*]Fun with friends and alone.

The combo-ing system and creativity with builds blew me away. I think this is easily a game that would come to mind if someone would ask for an engaging and rewarding style of rogue-like. I was obsessed with their previous title, Monster Train, and knew this one would have me hooked all the same. Can't wait to see what more comes from Shiny Shoe!

Great turn-based rouge-like. It was something that I felt like I wanted for awhile. I really like the item mechanic.

But I do feel like the replayability is a bit lacking. It feels like each character only has one real "build" to aim for and if you don't get it, might as well start the run over.

I wish I could give a neutral recommendation.

Gameplay and buildcraft are fun. Enough to carry the rest of the, mostly bad, systems in the rest of the game.
Maybe not the hugest build variety, but enough to keep you interested for a while.
Co-op turn based games aren't the most common, and unlike story based games such as Baldur's Gate you're not left hanging if schedules don't line up for a while.

The game starts off pretty easy, but as you win more runs higher difficulty ranks are unlocked. Also seems a lot easier solo, feels like you really need to synergize in coop to make it through. At least in 2 player, or it's just a skill issue tbh.

I didn't give the game's story a chance, so it's not really fair for me to comment on it. I picked up the game solely for gameplay, and the very small amount of story I've read hasn't really made me regret that.

The quest/unlock system is, to put it bluntly, godawful. It's like the worst parts of a bad MMO questing system. I honestly think the game would be better if quests were entirely optional, with nothing locked behind them.
Riveting stuff like
-"Go to X zone as Y character," as 5 different characters and zones. Also you might as well reroll the run if the zone doesn't show up as one of the 3 options at the start. Should just let us pick from all the zones tbh.
-"Go to this zone and talk to this character," in a room/path that you probably don't want to go to since it misses out on a room you'd probably prefer to go to. Also after you do that, do it again next run.
-"Complete another run to unlock more quests." Meaning immediately abandon a run to unlock stuff quicker.
-I hope you didn't want to play the star captain class, because almost 40 hours in and I haven't unlocked it yet.

tl;dr
Gameplay good, quests very bad. Chill, low commitment coop with friends good.
Get it on sale because they should be paying you to play through the quest system.

I was kind of on the edge about getting this game, but it has been relatively decent. It was kind of hard to judge what to expect from the steam store.

I typically don't like rouge likes however this game very different to what I've grown to be accustomed to in typical rouge likes.

It's cool, not sure how long i'll play it but 6 hours is pretty damn long for me on this genre.

This isn't a bad game, there's a lot that's good about it, but in the end there's just not enough variety. In many ways it's modeled after Hades but with a different combat system. The difference is it's too easy to win a run. You will accomplish this fairly quickly. Then there's nothing to do but keep repeating it over and over again... literally you're given a quest that says just do the thing you just did 3 more times. Okay, now 5 more times. The gameplay just isn't engaging enough for that to be fun.

Absolutely fantastic game. I'm a huge fan of Monster Train and you can see some of that DNA here. If anything this game is kind of like a turn based Hades, but I prefer the gameplay to Hades and it's generally more thoughtful because of the turn based nature. There are tons of viable builds with a great amount of variety because of the huge number of vestiges.

The only con I'd say is that the quest system is kind of annoying - but it's no more than a minor annoyance and you certainly aren't locked into specific quests.


Highly recommend this game if you like games like Hades/Monster Train/Slay the Spire.

Fantastic Turn based system and a great roguelite, plenty of replayability and fun, especially with the daily challenge runs. Looking forward to future updates

Great if you like to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

Seriously, finished my run on 2nd try, finished a few more times for a few different bosses, same areas and all though, they add some difficulty modifiers and a few trinkets here and there, but it's pretty much all the same over and over and over.

7/10 - Hades-style roguelike with turn-based combat similar to that seen in Transistor. Worth a play

Pros: Polished, crunchy game play experience that keeps you glued to your seat during a run (~60 minutes) as you try to build game-breaking combos. Co-op is a nice addition and adds incredible strategic depth.

Cons: Clearly tries to capture the magic of Supergiant games like Hades, but the dialogue, story, and other intangibles simply fall short

This is a fun, not too difficult roguelite with a story and unlocks that will keep you coming back for another run. At some point, I'll try to ascend the ranks, but for now I'm enjoying playing and learning. Now, if I could just convince my friends to play it co-op with me...

Extremely good roguelite with Divinity-like gameplay. Great for Co-op.

Great solo, and great in coop. Coop is especially nice because you can share items, which further enables great builds in each run. And because it's turn based, it means that it can still be very chill even at high difficulty levels. Gameplay is addicting and each run feels rewarding.

fun system to tinker with in a rogue lite game type, difficulty definitely ramps up in co-op runs, so far I've had plenty of replay value on runs. Just because a character starts out pretty weak doesn't mean you can't augment the hell out of it to be a monster.

While it's short, Inkbound has enough variety and content to make it worth the asking price. Variety in enemies is low, and there are only a small number of stages. The interesting variety comes from the interesting builds you can accomplish, and how you cope with the smattering of powerful items and passive abilities you accumulate through a game.

Multiplayer is by far the most fun way to play. The game difficulty is very poorly balanced for 1 or 4 people, and seems to work best at 2 or 3. At 4, enemy AoE attacks and HP scaling become difficult to manage. At 1, you lack versatility.

I would say that the unlock procedure for the aspects (classes) is tedious and takes far too long considering how short the game is. Because the game has few locations and few enemies, getting quicker access to all the classes would help keep ti fresh a bit longer. In particular, the most recent aspect at time of writing, the Star Captain, didn't get unlocked at all by 2 or the 4 members of my play group before we decided to retire the game.

Still, overall I recommend it, if you have a small group and enjoy developing builds.

A unique turn based tactics roguelike. Take a game like slay the spire or monster train and add an aspect of positioning on a 3d level and you'll get Inkbound. Lots of run variability, many characters, and a reason to come back and keep playing to unlock more upgrades/trinkets/characters.

very unique roguelike with lots of unique builds and playstyle. Tons of cosmetics and drops.

It's pretty fun. Play mostly solo and get some pretty good enjoyment out of turning into a superhuman. Definitely feeds the rogue-like power trip you want from these types of games. Multiplayer isn't perfect, especially with randoms, but with friends its a good time.

It's just a math problem disguised as a video game. And honestly, I would get tricked into doing my assignments again and again.

Inkbound is another roguelite from the developers of Monster Train. Its not a deckbuilder, but it has a similar focus on turn based combat. Unfortunately, while Monster Train is one of my top three favourite roguelites (alongside Slay The Spire and Balatro), Inkbound doesn’t come close to that high quality level.

Gameplay (average quality)

Story (poor quality)

Technical (good quality)

Recommendation

I'm eagerly awaiting expansion for this game with new character classes.

A bit overwhelming and confusing at first with a lot of narrative elements I just cannot imagine caring about, overall its a fun package and despite the limited options and enemy variety you definitely don't feel like any run is like the last. The 3D isometric turn based gameplay uses movement within a defined area as part of your turn and most of the gameplay is about playing out your abilities, moving around, and then letting the enemy have their turn in the way that deals the least damage to you but its hard to explain without seeing it or doing it yourself - definitely not as dull as it sounds.

Phenomenal game. Great variety of characters/aspects, builds, and tons of choices to make over the course of a run to really customize and break the game. Quite interesting lore and surprisingly long quest chains/story with quite a few unlockable items through meta progression. Granular adjustable difficulty that scales quite a bit from easy to hard (unranked to rank 20). Soundtrack and art are A+. This game is amazing and I can only hope for more content! Highly recommend for roguelike deckbuilder/strategy fans.

Played for 30 minutes and it already crashed in the middle of a battle. This isn't Early Access, so you get no leeway for a buggy game. It's getting returned.

Steep learning curve but easy to get into.

Glitzy, sticky, doughy, and stubborn, Inkbound's rainbow of possibilities manages to spread a little bit of ink, quite a bit too thinly. Roguelikes are a good bargain from a design point of view, because a few piles of separate game elements can randomly collide in unplanned ways that are fun for the player. There's lots to experiment with, and the weird quest progression system will certainly give you reasons to run gauntlets AGAIN and AGAIN, but as you do you'll start to notice that mix & matching isn't very good, and that "correct" play has you investing deeply in a few vestige classes on every given run. With a few exceptions, battles feel monotonous, and I could tell designers were struggling to use the game system to challenge their players with the inclusion of the closing ring of poison and the heat-seeking, infinite range attacks that enemies resort to. Turn-based perfect-information combat makes dodging way too easy. So character builds and combat decisions alike become too rote, too soon.

Weirdly, as a player who rarely cares much for story, Inkbound made me miss the driving momentum of Monster Train and Hades. Escaping from hell sets a clear atmosphere you can taste from the word "go". Inkbound just says there's a bunch of ink everywhere and it can become sentient or something.

I'd recommend it for $15 or so.