Alchemist's Alcove

Challenging old school roguelike with minimalist graphics. Inventory slots are limited to 16 and you can craft new spells, tools, or weapons. After defeating the enemy, some will drop items that can be combined. There are 3 exits in a room and you need to use the compass to find the next correct room. As you venture deeper, enemies become stronger and you can find better weapons and spells. [h1] Pros: [/h1] - Variety of recipes to discover. - Retro art is reminiscent of roguelike games in the 1990's and early 2000's. [h2]Cons: [/h2] - No progression besides finding new recipes for crafting. - Enemies outnumber you 4 or 5 to 1 in many cases. If you don't have a spell or weapon that can kill the enemy quickly, you are dead. Outrunning is not an option in later levels because enemies are spread throughout the room. - Limited inventory slots means you will be dropping items multiple times on a run just to craft a weapon or spell. [h3]Suggestions: [/h3] - Offer a cozy mode with reduced amount of enemies per room. - Add re-bindable keys so player can choose certain shortcuts for actions. - Distinguish weapons and spells with different colors or symbols so its obvious to player when…

Has a nice lore with cryptic scrolls and text; A noita/doodle god/roguelike mix that really scratches that itch. Very innovative!

The absolute golden example of a classic roguelike. The first few runs may be a pain of "wait, how do I survive??", but then the real gameplay strikes and its SO thematic, SO satisfying. If you somewhat liked the visual style of the trailer - I strongly recommend this to you, it delivers! Its quite painful to play this on steamdeck, but even with this - I liked it so much! Upd. --- Well, this was before I died for the first time after a 3h run --- To my sadness, the feeling of discovery vanishes just at a point where I wrote my review for the first time. I still leave it as a positive one, for the hours I really liked, BUT 1. The crafting tree is exciting. The spells it provides are not. They are, essentially, one of three types 1.1. Damaging spells - unlimited usage ones are borderline useless agains mid-tier enemies. Limited usage is better spells, but there are actually only 2-3 useful options to deal with everything that is not a base kobold. It boils down to: farm one easy area -> craft this one spell -> clear next one non-easy area. 1.2. Static summon spells - that just makes enemies attack it instead of you. Essentially it gives you time to cast damaging spells. And it does …

fire asf, I love the feeling of discovery the game gives you

Great introduction into traditional roguelike games.

Realy cool game, started playing and stoped like 5 hours later. The only complaints i have are that there could be a seperate wasd for map movement so it doesnt get jumbled with the character movement and the ability to make categorys to put your resipes into and mabe a search bar.