Duskers

puzzle roguelite that is actually a puzzle and a roguelite

Very promising. This game has a lot of good ideas, and it does feel pretty novel. I really wanted to like it, and came back to give it more chances. But ultimately, it has a fatal flaw: It's too easy to get stuck in a puzzle with no solution other than to reset by dying. Once you accept that, the horror premise of the game loses its punch. There's a hard balance to hit with a horror game like this: Making the player feel like their close to death, while allowing them to patch themselves back up and limp on after a near brush with death. This game gets the first part right: You're constantly skating close to death. The second part is where it falls apart: After you take a hit, you often lose the tools you need to continue by any means other than suicide-reset. You can't patch back up and limp on, having learned the threats that are out there.

Such a unique game. I love it dearly. It's not something I can play consistently, but going back to it every once in a while is ideal for me. I don't think there's ever going to be another quite like it, (Except for Duskers 2.0, which I am very excited for)

love hate relationship with this game. How little it explains is both what makes it and what breaks it. It's VERY difficult. Took me 2 hours to realise that enemies could travel through vents, I thought the game was just spawning in monsters for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles. I also don't like that all the enemies basically one-shot your drones, gives you literally no chance to respond to the threat, especially in a game where all the commands apart from movement are entirely text-based

I originally marked this game as unrecommended, but, it does have A) a manual, which is a neat throwback, and B) a setting to make the starting sections easier. It feels like giving up, but having not-completely-unreasonable starting zone should at least make the game less frustrating than real life is in 2026. Also, the game is 10 years old, from 2016? How? That can't be right.

The game has a interesting idea and, even that the overall difficulty level makes it a little frustrating to play, it's a nice thing finding a challenging game since they are not the norm anymore. Thumbs down because this was on a programming sale event and the game has absolutely nothing related to programming.