IOX

I know it's a roguelike, so it's supposed to be difficult, and you're supposed to die a lot. I understand that. Even so, the weird interface with very poor tutorials results in a lot of unnecessary deaths. (For instance, it took me a few character deaths to realize that you can craft SMGs and assault rifles for free in your home base. You don't get them automatically, though; you have to actually craft them.) Even the very first mission, which should have been basically a tutorial, will probably kill you multiple times. The missions are difficult, but not in an interesting way; they are all basically "get to location A while killing everything in your way; then get to location B while killing everything in your way". They get very repetitive very fast. Also it suffers from a common flaw in top-down shooters, which is that cover is very hard to use and enemies can shoot you from outside your visible range. Fights don't feel tactical; they just feel twitchy. It's free, so that's nice; you're not out any money if you want to go ahead and try it out. But it just isn't that fun to play.

[i] My Experience [/i] This game got my attention by combining the keywords "ARPG" and "top-down shooter," two genres that I'm quite a fan of. I also appreciate that the developer released this preview of his game on Steam for free (it seems that he's currently raising money for a more comprehensive release on Indiegogo). However, once I got in the game, I was very turned-off by my character's movement speed and the in-game mouse sensitivity. I couldn't find a sprint button in the controls or a way to improve mouse sensitivity within game settings. As it stands, it feels like your character is moving and shooting in slow motion while the enemies move and shoot in real-time. The game could also use a tutorial, because (as mentioned by another reviewer) you only start with a pistol and aren't given much direction on how to proceed. A crafting station exists in the starting area that allows you to put together some alternate weapons. I like the idea of a ARPG top-down shooter, but I think Iox needs a bit more time in the oven.

"IOX" is an unusual game in that it doesn't conform to the usual shovelware molds on Steam, instead we have an overly ambitious and obviously underdelivering 2D top down retro roguelike shooter. It's not great, lacks polish, really needs a tutorial, because when a game isn't great to begin with, it's really hard to convince gamers to just "figure it out" as the developer expects us to do here. What do you do in the game? There's a plot about orbiting Jupiter and doing mercenary contracts with punishing difficulty. There's really only four missions and no amount of samey procgen/die-and-retry gameplay will help them seem differentiated. And, despite not being in Early Access, the developers acknowledge the game is incomplete... but also haven't updated this in over 5 years. It's abandoned. On the topic of visuals, the weak looking 2D retro assets seem like they'd be more at home in a browser game or a mobile app. 3D graphics accelerators hit the mainstream of PC gaming in the mid 1990's with cards like the ATI Rage and Voodoo3D, there's no excuse for such poor 2D graphics in 2025. That alone is enough to disqualify this for recommendation. This game is fairly dated at 6 yea…

Игра IOX - это приятный минималистичный таймкиллер, который затягивает своей простотой и соревновательным элементом. Суть игры проста: управлять маленьким корабликом и собирать кубики, попутно уклоняясь от агрессивных противников и набирая очки. Чем больше кубиков соберешь, тем больше становится твой кораблик, делая тебя более уязвимым, но и позволяя эффективнее защищаться. Геймплей, хоть и кажется примитивным на первый взгляд, требует стратегического мышления. Необходимо умело маневрировать, предугадывать действия врагов и грамотно использовать усиления, которые периодически появляются на карте. Разнообразие игровых режимов добавляет реиграбельности и не дает заскучать. Особенно захватывают сражения с другими игроками в реальном времени, где важна не только скорость реакции, но и умение адаптироваться к меняющимся обстоятельствам. Визуальное оформление выполнено в лаконичном стиле, что не отвлекает от игрового процесса. Музыкальное сопровождение ненавязчивое и хорошо сочетается с динамикой игры. Единственным минусом можно назвать некоторую однообразность, но короткие игровые сессии и постоянное стремление побить свой рекорд компенсируют этот недостаток. В целом, IOX - отличный в…

[h1]Before I played IOX, I had a small pp, no friends, no gf, depression, and no life. These things havent changed, but the game is pretty good[/h1]

Not much here yet, but what's there is fine. The graphics are "flash game" level. There are only 4 missions. The missions are fine. There are about 8 guns, of which half can be crafted up-front, and half need to be "augmented" from base weapons plus mission spoils. This is proof-of-concept tree; like the missions, there needs to be more actual content here. Reminds me of https://store.steampowered.com/app/394510/HELLDIVERS_Dive_Harder_Edition/ ...but done by one person on their weekends.