Brut@l

Imagine a traditional CRPG Roguelike (as in, like the game rogue, not whatever people think it means nowadays) but turned into a real time action RPG.
This is awesome, and I would love to see a sequel.

For the price(wait for sale i got for 99c) its a supremely good game... true rouge-like dungeon creation... cant complain at all for the price, collect letters to craft items. Basic game play.
Lava = restart
Falling = restart
Extra lives
Things to smash with loot
4 hereos
A few weapons
8 potions
hours of fun
Blood
Neat idea for a game world/art style.
instantly dying is annoying i wish there was a mode where it was a percentage of hp.

7/10

I'm a few years late to this party...
I mostly find games on sale so it's a bit harder to say no to a game listed at $15 being $1 (If it isn't an obvious scam game)
This game draws major inspiration from Gauntlet and mixes it up with a bit of Necropolis (If anyone gets that reference)

Pros
- The art concept is amazing!
- There's CO-OP
- The Characters start different, but the game lets you build skills however you like
- Comfortable responsive controller support (Apparently using kb&m is a bad idea)
- Interactive & breakable environments (Some reviews were complaining about having to break everything to gain exp. You really don't have to do this, but you might have to in order to find a key)
- Multiple save files
- Create your own dungeons
- Exploration with a tiny bit of puzzle solving

Cons
- The EXACT same first con as everyone else; Pits killing you sucks! If you're in a attack combo and you kill or knock the enemy off the edge, you cannot stop your combo. I haven't died from anything else besides pits in all my runs. I don't get the whole "jumping is hard" because you can jump/double jump the gaps just fine, they just suck in certain situations, like when you're coming towards the screen because you can't change your camera angle to show in front of the character instead, or if you're running away from an explosive enemy and you just barely get hit by their explosion off the edge. There's plenty of ways to fall into a pit, and it's ridiculous that it ends your run.
- The only thing that you keep with you between runs is the book that explains enemies (I should mention that I haven't won a run yet. That might change things, but I don't think it will). There's nothing to build up to or help you with future runs besides your own knowledge and skill
This is a con, but it's discussing more of the confusion in the reviews over the game itself.
- I don't think this game is difficult. I'm not trying to brag or think I'm a better gamer. I just don't understand what the other reviews are discussing when it comes to that. It's not in any fashion difficult; The enemies are easy and all fairly the same concept (some have different elements and there's ranged, regular, tiny latching, and explosive enemies). The procedural generated dungeons are easy to navigate. You get an overabundance of loot that you can use to make different potions/weapons. It's easy to gain experience for your character, and your abilities/weapons are extremely overpowered. You can block EVERYTHING. Getting hit (even with explosions) deals very little damage, and you constantly get food/items to heal and feed your hunger (I'm often finding myself eating food to fight starvation instead of healing). I'm not asking for Dark Souls content, but some sort of variety in the enemy's actions would be nice. Everything is a full frontal assault with little blocking in the enemy's actions. The archers are only annoying because they stun your movement slightly.
- Traps are a JOKE! They hurt the enemies as well, and they're so visible that you feel like an idiot if you set one off.
- The maps become super repetitive. It's room hallway room locked door and another hallway to another room with the key. There's a few branching paths, but the exploration is fairly linear even for procedural generation.

With the complaints I gave... Why am I giving it a thumbs up?
It's fun mindless gaming that I see myself coming back to play.
It's easy to leave and come back with a very small learning curve.
It was $1 which means it has the possibility of going on sale for $1 again.

I hate being That Guy, but I really wanted to like this. It has so much charm and is quite fun to play, despite just being a simple Diablo clone in a Nethack themed world. And the theme is GREAT, all the ASCII art, all the time.

But then... they added instakill pits. Which they don't warn you about. But they're introduced early enough that you don't lose too much progress.

But then... there are more. Like, quite a few broken up hallways with instakill pits. Which might not be soooo bad, but the platforming mechanics in this Nethack themed Diablo clone are UNSURPRISINGLY terrible.

But then... after getting many floors down, past at least one boss-type creature, with a bunch of specialized equipment, and several healing potions and extra lives... I was knocked into a pool of lava and instakilled... But then got back up! And finished the fight! And then just barely dipped my toe into another pool of lava and instantly died.

There's punishing and then there's Brut@l. And Brut@l should have had another couple of passes through QA to iron out what should be considered acceptable behavior from roguelike dungeon crawler platformers.

is a allright game love the game "art style" a very lovely game for people who love old roguelike i mean "REALLY OLD" ones

this game is always my go to casual game, and the further you get the cooler it looks. you should check it out. :)

This game is great. It's essentially Diablogue. I am a big fan of hardcore, old-school Roguelikes (Moria, Angband, etc.), and unfortunately, that can be a very picky and elitist community. I get it. Back in the day, it was a special niche created and supported by the people who played. Most of the true Roguelikes are free and open source, and that's dope. So, if the learning curve of a game purporting to be a "Roguelike" isn't a 90 degree angle, it doesn't play like Angband, doesn't utilize every last key on the keyboard, and doesn't have cutting-edge Apple II graphics, it's not a "true" Roguelike. I largely agree. However, that doesn't mean that games using some of those elements can't be great games in and of themselves, and much like a Roguelike, we have looped back to the beginning. This game is great.

I can't really think of anything I don't like about it.

I love the style. Very creative.
Characters, game play, and mechanics are nice.
Animation - or perhaps model movement? Well, some of the animations of the characters look a bit off.

I love it. Very fun.

Overall game is great.
Personally I like the Roguelike kind of games and this game touches the deepest strings of my oldfag soul. It has almost all things that I loved in Roguelike games but made simplier.

Pros:
+ game is super stylish if you like minimalistic design of roguelikes
+ main mechanics of rogulikes are here: starving, health, enchanting and FIGURE-OUR-WHAT-IT-IS
+ crafting/enchanting from ASCII letters is super cool
+ you can use potions in any way you want - you can drink vampire curse potion and go to lava to heal for example

Cons:
- the game is quite easy
- I don't like that you can just shoot your enemies through "walls". And they are as well
- controls are clunky, it feels like console game but I got used to it
- not much enemies and content in general: rooms look like each other. Probably it would better to have subset of pre-made levels or level parts. Also I'd like to see more kinds of enemies and maybe chasms that will throw you in next level instead of just dying
- if you fell into chasm now which is not so hard with this clunky controls - probably would better just not to kill you and take part of your health and put you back to platform

Very fun and beautiful rogue like game until you get platforming parts and you throw away all founded wepons, enchants, full armor, crafts everything couse you insta die if you fall. Very bad design decision.

The core idea of a 3D hack 'n' slash rogue-lite is a good one, but the execution here leaves much to be desired. Controlling your character feels clunky, even with using a controller as recommended. The art style is a nice nod to the roguelikes of yesteryear, and the developers did a great job translating the ASCII style into 3D. That said, it doesn't suit the gameplay well, and makes navigating around difficult. Especially when the floor is black, and insta-kill pitfalls blend in. I want to like this game, and I may give it another chance later. First impressions however, left me disappointed.

The art style is cool, and the brawling has weighty but responsive animations which make it feel fun to fight the enemies. But so much of the game isn't about the pretty nice but not exactly special brawling mechanics, the majority of it is instead about repeatedly hitting barrels for the XP, and suddenly dying to instant kill pits that fade into view as you enter a new hallway. Instant kill pits are the biggest threat in the game, and by golly it sure is annoying for there to be one hard-to-see obstacle that kills you instantly in a game with 10+ minute runs.

This wants to be a good game. It's a roguelike in the most literal sense of the term. All progression is lost on death. There are no upgrades to be received outside of runs. I found the lack of progression to be jarring, especially with terrible platforming sections that can easily kill a run with an instant death. The gameplay is decent, but I'd really like some sense of progression over time even if it were really minor unlocks. The platforming should have been removed before release. This game just isn't a platformer. the camera, controls and nearly everything about it is designed for hack and slash gameplay, and throwing in instant death bottomless pits is an exercise in frustration.

There was a lot of potential in this idea but they're all ruined by the modernizations. I played three runs, and every single one ended with me plunging down a bottomless pit because the jumping is delayed and the controls randomly send the player in zigzag directions. The shield throwing mechanic could have been awesome if it was even remotely useful, as it stands it's really just there to let the Ranger do distance-target puzzles (another botched modernization). The block/parry/dodge combat suffers from the same delayed control issues, for example you can only dodge if your shield has been up for at least a half second or so, making it among the more worthless dodge mechanics. The visual style (which is admittedly cool) doesn't help in trying to read enemy movements or figure out that the reason you're losing health is because a tiny spider crawled on you.

I really, REALLY want to like this game. Unfortunately nothing feels like a bigger flip off than getting 4 levels deep, with a respectable arsenal, and losing it all because of a sudden left-lurch while trying to jump a chasm... then have the game tell you "PROTIP: try not to die so much". There's playful taunting, and then there's the game grabbing your hand, making you slap yourself in the forehead, and saying "stop hitting yourself".

Man I fell in love with this game really quickly. We need mods for this game to create more indepth classes and more weapons though!

If you are an action game fan, disregard this "not recommended" and check other reviews to see if Brut@l might suit you.

If you are looking at Brut@l because you like proper roguelikes (Rogue, Nethack, Dungeonmans, Caves of Qud, ADOM, that sort of thing) and are tempted by the ASCII-inspired graphics, move on. There is nothing remotely proper-roguelike about it.

Brut@l looks great, however many other features of the game don't compare.

The game has a few misleadingly simple mechanics that appear interesting at first,
but cause the game to get dull very quickly. To build weapons you must find letters, but letters are not used up
in the process presenting a player with no opertunity cost in doing so. Potions are randomized each run, however there are only 8 kinds of potions avalible. "Secret rooms" are just rooms locked by an element that have to be broken into with a weapon upgraded with that element. These elemental upgrades come from letters colored acording to the element they are representing and each weapon needs a paticular letter to be upgraded. These letters are found everywhere and in furniture randomly. Furniture will provide 1xp per piece broken, and quickly becomes a necessary chore. There are about 20 skills that can be seen from the begining and every charicter comes with a few unlocked. One skill point is gained per level and the skills are simple. To get an extra life, you must gamble loot, which is useless for anything else (score maybe?). There are elite monsters that have a element attached to them and that is the only aparent enhancement. There is a boss at the end of the game, not sure about anywhere else, i got bored about 7 levels in (out of 26!?) and did not finish, which brings me to my last point.

Brut@l is Painfuly Easy for experienced rougelike players. Dodging is directional with one button and can be done constantly and can interupt the enemy. Many enemys and especially traps deal little damage. Hunger and health are dealt with through eating. Power attacks (mostly jumping and landing) hit many targets and end just about any fight, yet recharge rapidly.

Overall, this game may actualy be close to the original rouge (I have never played rouge) than many other rougelikes out there, but those games are much more fun and rewarding.

5/10, for visuals and polish, and it could be enjoyed casualy. Refunded.

So although I am actually enjoying this game as a time waster, there are too many design decisions that make me say do not buy. The first issue is the obvious, the controlling scheme. The character feels 'floaty' and is too unresponsive at the best of time, meaning that most falls will be to the game over-steering and not to any actual skill and thus not the players' fault

Secondly, the lackluster combat. The fact that's a simple three hit combo is fine, the button presses are reasonably responsive, but the targeting is sloppy and in a game like this that means most of the combat deaths are not going to be the players' fault.

Thirdly, the risk-reward factor. The further you go down, the slower the progression becomes and for some reason, someone thought it would be a fun idea to slowly reduce the amount of loot you get per floor. The excuse of it's supposed to ramp up the difficulty is a bad one because to go further down into a murder hole like this the rewards have to be worth going down there in the first place.

Now, before anyone whines about how this is supposed to be replicating Rogue or Moria or any of the other random number generators of that era, I'm going to repeat what I just said, Rogue and the others in that genre are not games based on skill, they're purely based on luck and meticulous tedium requiring you to test every wall, and hope to whatever greater power (including Science) that the next room doesn't have a creature you can't handle, or that every tag you do is a hit. No skill involved. And anyone who has played those game has a story of how their high level X was taken down by a rat because they kept missing, and it kept hitting, solely by the random luck of the 'dice'.

Final Verdict: No.

This will become a cult classic for ARPG/Roguelite fans

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

MMMMM, I missed you ASCII
First let me start out by saying this game is rogue-like, why there is no tag? who knows (There's a tag now).
This is a game that takes inspiration from old ASCII dungeon-crawlers. There's crafting (things such as potions, weapons, talismans), enchanting of weapons, local and internet co-op, a wide variety of baddies to square up against.

Now for the actual review:

Pros:

Cons:

Verdict: