Scrubbin' Trubble

Incredibly cool. I have always had boundless respect and fascination for the "true roguelikes". I've spent countless hours in college faffing around in the first ten-summat floors of Nethack, peered deep into the bottomless depths of ADOM and Elona and Caves of Qud, to embarrassingly little avail. But even the more streamlined Mystery Dungeon series tended to be a bit long-toothed for my neurodivergences, and fruitless to recommend to my less seasoned friends. Enter Scrubbin' Trubble! This game filters the simultaneous-movement, bump-combat dungeon crawler into a zippy, cute arcade experience that feels, well, a lot like a modern tactics roguelite. Except this time, it's largely faithful to the genre's historical core mechanics; which is to say, I'm pretty sure this would pass the Berlin Interpretation! (if you know you know) It's still incredibly hard, full of unexpected mechanics interactions, and completely wipes your progress between runs, but the tight focus and great controller layout makes it a lot easier to get hooked. it foregoes open-worlds and daunting megadungeon structures in favor of a disaster-management format with a series of quick procgen skirmishes; we're jus…

I think my favorite part of the game is the confidence it has in its presentation, it starts with taking simple concepts like play on words for fantasy troupes, and then it pushes them to such an extreme that it left my mouth dropped. This game is also gorgeous to look at, everything has this beautiful aesthetical flow, would absoulutly reccomend.

A very fun bump combat roguelike game designed around online co op. Optimizing movement and item use to clean areas as efficiently as possible is very satisfying, and just about everything in the game is based on a silly cleaning pun. There's no meta progression, so you're not unlocking anything or getting stronger between runs, which I personally prefer. While there isn't a massive amount of content, trying to get a higher score to top the leaderboards keeps me itching for another run.

I generally enjoy traditional rogue-style games, and this is a very charming one! +++Pros+++ +The rising pressure of the thematic grime build-up works really well over the course of a run. The cleaning theme overall is well-realized. +The character classes all feel really different from each other despite having the same base movement and basic attack. The unique perk upgrades are always meaningful. +The music is just awesome. I found myself bobbing along to the tunes many times. +Simultaneous Multiplayer that syncs up during combat zones. This lets players express themselves freely while separated, but still come together towards a common goal when together. Best of both worlds, really. +It has that addicting "one more try" itch to re-try after a death. For not having any progression unlocks, it just feels fun to jump in and play regardless. ---Cons--- - Some of the art can get a little messy (pun intended) and it's easy to lose track of what's around you, especially when things are layered over one another and even moreso in multiplayer. - Some characters are clearly stronger than others. Washbuckler and Detergilist are on a completely different power level compared to the Bubb…

Beautiful presentation and fun premise! It gets really hard for me, but it's a perfect game that you play a little bit, then put down to let it simmer in your mind, and then come back to it stronger. Recommended for roguelike enthusiasts.

This game is super engaging and silly. I love the puns and soundtrack