BARDA: Backpack Roguelike

I've played this game for a little bit, and I can count the amount of times I DIDN'T rage quit it on one hand. It is, in one word, frustrating. The game sorely lacks some kind of a log because sometimes the item says it does one thing, and then it actually does something slightly different. For example, an item says it reduces the difficulty of a challenge by 8, you use it, nope! challenge reduced by 3. Why? Was there some effect that I didn't account for? Does the 8 apply only to some challenges, but not the others?? I sure would like to know. And I've had this kind of an experience quite a few times. Extra effects you weren't aware of just coming at you out of nowhere? Like sure, maybe I have missed something, but can't you give me an explanation?? "Your item has exploded because of this and that", "you didn't do as much damage because of so and so" etc, otherwise it's just something out of left field and you're sitting there like was that a bug?? Why did the 14 fight item do 5 damage? Etc. The game is also deceptive about the durability of its items - you use something, durability goes down, you estimate that it should last for about four uses given how much it went down …

Charming game with well thought-out mechanics that are intuitive, simple, and creative. Excellent art and music that is worth the price alone. Polished minus two or three annoying bugs (item UI not bound to screen and backpack puking up half its contents the moment the physics struggles). As others are saying, a heavy chunk of this game can be RNG which can make runs easy or hard. There is still a decent amount of planning and foresight involved, though. Item variety is great but overall replayability is slimmer, but the game is easily worth a handful of hours if you enjoy it. Well worth ten dollars.

A cute little game, unfortunately it's over very quickly, which is a shame as I would love to have more reasons to engage with it! One issue I have on Deck (i don't know if it's specific to that platform, as I only played it on my Deck, not on my main PC, which is why i'm not including my specs are those are irrelevant) is that sometimes, the item physics kinda go crazy and make my framerate collapse down to 3-4 fps, it only gets better once I manage to select an item in the bag and physics freeze. Overall though, it's a short but fun experience. The artstyle is gorgeous, too!

i love Frost (happy 10th anniversary!) and i love Barda! the mechanics are simpler than Frost, with an overall easier game, but the decisions are still hard and there is a lot of thinking required, if that makes sense. the art is also really beautiful. i like the world they've invented here a lot.

I guess it was just me but I found it a little confusing. Not for me.

The content is enough for just a couple of hours, but replaybility adds to it potentially 5-15 hours. I would play this more just because it is charming: visual style, effects, outstanding sountrack.