The Story Goes On

No difficulty at all, beat the game on my first try and quit after experiencing some kind of looping mechanic?

Everything is effortless, items are boring and not needed because it's so easy

Chests spawn constantly, I couldn't open one for the first 3 floors so I thought they were some weird design choice to show you've beaten the room... turns out you need keys to drop to open them, they just are very rare for some reason

Play any other roguelike

Was alot of fun

I played this initially during early access and it was pretty bad back then and it still hasn't improved enough to recommend it. The combat is not fun, all you do is walk up to an enemy attack him twice rinse and repeat. No enemy ever poses a threat, in fact I hardly ever got hit that includes the bosses. I died twice before farming deaths for the achievement, once because a death is scripted and once because I used a character without a normal dash for the final battle.

Pretty much none of the power-ups matter, I don't really know what half of them do, Some crash your game (blackhole gun), some slightly increase your damage but most do nothing that is relevant to the gameplay. The fact that you can loop after a win and keep some of your items doesn't really make sense, the game is already too easy.

It is a shame that the gameplay is so bad because the general idea of having a book with missing pages that you can fill in over time is a really cool setting for a game. These story dungeons are the best part of the game however ironically that is the only part of the game you cannot repeat.

The Story Goes On is definitely one of those Hidden Gems. There's so many little but fun mechanics and systems in the game that just all adds up to a pleasant experience. Nothing is more cathartic when you think "will a game do this" or "reward me with something for doing this" and then it does.

My main problem with roguelike dungeon crawlers is that, when I die, I feel as though I lost all my progress. When I died in this game, I felt like the story actually went on and I still progressed.

The thing that makes Rogue-lites compelling is the difficulty. This has none, so playing this just feels like an empty chore.


It follows most of the Rogue-lite tropes started by The Binding of Isaac, does only some things a little different. But there is just virtually no challenge to this, you basically hold the attack button down and run through mowing everything down. So in a game where the entire focus is the gameplay, the gameplay just isn't engaging or interesting in the slightest. As it requires no effort from the player. The system with the dungeons unlocking after each playthrough is interesting but also just a shallow way to justify making the player go through the entire game multiple times. Because it's that easy to beat, that they basically needed to necessitate beating it multiple times as a part of the story otherwise the game would be over in less then twenty minutes.

The items are all generic Rogue-lite stuff, not very mentionable. The different areas are all incredibly bland stock map types like the grassy dungeon, the desert dungeon, the graveyard dungeon. There's no sense of atmosphere or world building or thematic consistency you're just playing through simply drawn generic dungeons filled with fodder enemies. The scarecrow is super cute and funny though, even if it lacks a distinct personality. That's like the shining ray out of the whole game is the scarecrow is the only genuinely intriguing thing. The base plot with the author and whatever isn't very well explained or told and doesn't have any meaning, so it doesn't even feel like an actual story is being played out through this.


It's not difficult at all, so the gameplay isn't interesting; the world design and plot just aren't there, so there's no story or sense of immersion to gleam from this either. The twenty minute or less journey to get to the end of the game the first time; would of made a solid free amateur game on itch.io to pave the way for more advanced and refined future projects from this developer.

But this just isn't worth nine dollars. The game takes less then twenty minutes to complete, after that you're just being forced to replay it for the progress gated dungeons over and over until you've replayed the game enough to unlock the end.

This is another really average rogue-like that's really easy to beat in my opinion. I beat it in my 2nd run in around 3 hours. You would think that means that full runs in this game take a really long time (i.e. 3 hours / 2 = 2 1.5 hours per run). Yea…….. No.

So 1 run takes 15 minutes. However, the 1st time you complete all 6 levels, you unlock 2 dungeons. These dungeons appear in the 1st and 2nd level, so in order to play them, you need to restart the game from the 1st or 2nd level (thankfully, you can just teleport your existing character back to the beginning. You have to sacrifice a lot of items and currency to do so, but it still saves time). When you complete both dungeons, you unlock ANOTHER 2 dungeons that appear in the 3rd and 4th levels. Once you complete them, you unlock the last 2 dungeons that appear in the 5th and 6th levels. Once you complete all the dungeons, you can fight the "true" final boss of the game, and then the game ends.

So the main problem with the game is that it's way too easy. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy. The "normal" enemies and "normal" bosses (i.e. not the dungeons) are not a challenge at all. I think this is because the character you play as only has a melee attack, not a ranged one. Therefore, I think the developers didn't want to make the enemies TOO annoying (e.g. like a bullet hell) because then how the hell could you ever walk up to the enemies in order to damage them. However, the developers toned down the enemies a little too much to the point that you can literally run circles around the enemies while spamming your attack button.

The dungeon bosses are a slight challenge only because you need to figure out how best to avoid their attacks (something I think ALL the bosses should require, not just the special bosses). I died to the fifth dungeon boss, but that was also because I was slightly overconfident (keep in mind I had completed like 3 complete runs of the game). After my 1st death, I played the game more carefully and then never died.

There's also not a lot of item variety to add replayability that a rogue-like should have. Most of the items are straight up stat boosts (e.g. attack up, attack speed up, movement speed up, etc…). You also only get 1 guaranteed item per level, so that's 6 items per run, so you're likely not going to get any "fun" items. While after every boss there's a shop to buy items, all of the items are "common" items, which are stat boosts…… so yea this game definitely doesn't have replayabiltiy.

There are 2 positives about this game:
• Dungeons: The dungeons, while not having difficult enemies or bosses, have some interesting puzzles. They're all also very unique, so that was a nice change of pace from the easy as hell enemies.
• OP Ninja character: You can unlock 3 characters in addition to the starting character. The 4th character is a ninja and he's OP as hell. Each character has a special move, and the ninja's special move is the a straight dash that does huge amounts of damage to any enemy in the way. You can 1 hit kill enemies with this move and like take 1/5 of bosses' health away. God Mode in any game has some fun value :) (I beat the game WITHOUT the OP ninja character for the record).

While I beat the game in like 3 hours, I spent 30 extra minutes on the boss run in order to confirm that yes, the game really is easy (since in the boss run, you don't have any/minimal items). I beat the boss run in my 1st try (again, without the OP Ninja character). So yea, the game is confirmed easy. I then spent another 30 minutes being OP with the Ninja character. Then I got bored.

There's not really a story in this game. I was getting Flowey from Undertale vibes from the Scarecrow, so I was interested in completing the game to understand some background about the Scarecrow. Unfortunately, I gave the game way too much credit. The scarecrow just exists to make some puns after completing every level or whatever random joke. Hell once you complete the game, the scarecrow says that he was good all along and was just messing with you…….

So yea, just another average rogue-like.

I mean it is pretty fun but its extremely easy. like i think i have played mobile games harder then this.

Refunded after an hour. Everything about this game makes it a subpar rogue-like. Ridiculousy easy dungeons, boring upgrades that are predominately raw stat based.

This game is amazing! Definitely one of my new favorites. I highly recommend this game. The development of the story throughout the game keeps getting better, and the gameplay that goes along with it makes it such a great experience. I really appreciate all of the effort that went into this game; the artwork, the music, and how self aware the game is. It's an overall beautiful game that really delivered.

The Story Goes On is a top-down action-RPG with roguelike elements. While there have been an awful lot of those lately, this one brings a lot of great new ideas to the table.

The game's main advantages include that the basic combat mechanics feel great and the controls are all very solid. It's quite atmospheric and aesthetically pleasing, with an above-average orchestral soundtrack and an interesting artstyle making use of parallax scrolling. Finally, the late-game content, the "dungeons", are all beautifully-crafted.

Conversely, there's not much to do compared to other, similar games -- you can see everything it has to offer in about 4 hours. In addition, the game is /extremely/ easy. With even average luck with items, almost everything becomes completely unthreatening and most bosses will go down in less than fifteen seconds. I also encounted several rather nasty bugs, including getting stuck in walls and occasionally crashing upon death.

Despite that, I enjoyed it, was worth experiencing.

This game is a very fun way too waste an hour. It is essentially a very casual version of Binding of Isacc. In my recent time playing it I only died twice. The second time a result of myself forgeting to pay attention to my health bar because of how ridiculously overpowered I had become. For some people this may be a huge plus: all of the fun non of the chalenge, and I might tend to agree with them. However there are a few reasons I can't really recomend this game. The first and most important of which being that it has been in early access for around a year and to my memory hasn't really made any changes. This combined with the some other more minor things--Bosses are boring and repetitve, you get powerful too quickly, the dash and grappling hook seem useless/are never incentivized, not enough items, not very many bosses, and there is either no way to unlock the other characters, or it isn't stated how to in the charecter menu--Have all lead me to say maybe give this one a pass.

First off, I have to say this is my first review, so I don't exactly know how to go about it.

Let's start off with the Pros:
+Good cartoon-y graphics (always had a thing for 'em)
+Decent music (though not too noteworthy)
+Rogue-like gameplay
+Humorous writing
+CONTROLLER SUPPORT (fuck yeah)

And now, Cons:
-Monsters aren't too complex. They don't require strategy to kill for the most part, just go up to them and slash. That's it, which makes going through rooms just monotonous (though there are a few exceptions)
-No item descriptions. I kinda got spoiled from Enter the Gungeon because that game has so many items and their descriptions are humorous, while giving you an idea of what the item/weapon did. Anyway, back to the topic, you need to add something that gives us an idea of what the items do.
-IMO dashing should be in the direction you're moving, not the direction you're looking. (Again, EtG spoiled me)

Granted, I only played the game for like 30 mins as of writing this, but I still think my review holds up.
Despite all of that, I'm still giving this game a thumbs up, cause I really do want to see where this goes.
This game has potential, but it's not there yet. Keep working on it, guys.

I love this game so much! Great intuitive secrets with amazing and innovative puzzles along with cute graphics and a good variety of loot. I love that your items can combine to make some really strong new passives! The dungeons differ from each other greatly and I feel like the bosses are interesting. At some points in the game you will end up looking like a rainbow, with your screen exploding and shaking and your character running around like a mad man. Love it, love it, love it! Well worth the price!

Wow, I wasn't expecting to have this much fun with this game. This game, in my opinion, is a pretty great Binding of Isaac clone. I wouldn't be fooled by the bland combat at the beginning, soon you will unlock powerups and weapons, or just continually upgrade the speed of your weapon. There are pets yopu can unlock, which when you reach a certain amount they then fuse together to make a really strong pet. There's also a selection of characters to unlock, all offering a new mix to the game.
This game is in no way AS good as Binding of Isaac, but I still had a lot of fun with it and would recommend it for a few hours of fun. Actually I think I will probably play this game some more.

Within the first ten minutes, i've pissed off a scarecrow by ignoring him, doing the opposite of what he says, walked away in the middle of a conversation, not followed him as he tried to teach me, ran into an army of minions against his wishes, been resurrected by him with a quote making me think he hates me now and wants me to suffer more than what a spike pit would do, and gotten him to call me trash, garbage, and a couple other choice names.

11/10 would be a jerk again.

Well having played lots of developer versions and versions before the game was even on early access, I've had lots of experience with this game. It's grown at an amazing rate and for an indie game made by 3 college kids, it's fucking amazing. It's a hack n' slash game but it still remains very entertaining and relaxed. I love playing this game while listening to my music. It's a really chill and entertaining game and I definately recommend it. Totally worth the price!

MORE TECHNICAL

The game runs really well, you could play this on any computer really. The game mechanics are great, the design is amazing. There are a couple upcoming bugs but they usually get fixed in updates very quickly. Malcolm and his friends are doing Early Access right, with the game getting progressively better due to bug fixes and game updates every couple weeks. This game is very well crafted. If you are a fan of Binding of Issac or Hyperlight Drifter you will most likely enjoy this game. I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for something new to play. :)

So this game being EA, I would still recommend it. The price is good, and gameplay/ mechanics work well. Of the powerups ive found they have been pretty unique and creative. One ive found really cool removes your 'hearts' and instead taken damage depletes your money stock, so running out of money will kill you!

From the time I've played so far I have come across two glitches/bugs that ruined my run.
One after beating a boss I went into the blackhole, but it seemed like under the hole was a cactus or something that killed me.
And the other bug being at the sun boss, I seemed to have broke his little sun he throws and I couldnt damage the boss at all. Though both of these issues have only happened once each, they will surely be reviewed and amended in the future.

The only improvement I would like to see is with the minimap. I find it to distracting not being able to see where i am in the rooms, but instead have to look at a string line on the minimap following my path.

All in all I am pretty curious to see what else this game can bring

It's no Binding of Isaac. Not even close.
That being said it's still a pretty good game, and (unlike Isaac) the lack of dead babies/torture/satanic imagery/killing your mother from inside her womb/poop means that I can play it with my nephew without his mom getting all weird. So that's nice.

I happened upon "The Story Goes On" whislt I was browsing through the r/gamedesign subreddit. I am thoroughly enjoyed by this game and its design. I could ask for a greater rouge-like dungeon exploring game, and my response --for the time being-- would be fruitless. This game merges beautifully the dungeon crawling experience I have so assiduously obtained from a "Legend of Zelda" title, and the rogue-like arcade aspect I have cherished from a plethora of games. This game is worth your money, and will merger the enjoyment you can concieve from other games in its genre.

Great game! It is very face paced and easy to follow with. Although I do find it annoying when you enter a room, and die immediatly because some enemy shot you with their melee attack. But other than that its great!