The Depths of Tolagal

The Depths of Tolagal is a ripoff of Hack/Rogue (from 1980), but with shallower gameplay, and slapped together with Node.js. Gameplay consists of ambling around a procedurally generated map and being hacked up by the various enemies. RNG is king here. With game development, it's important to use the right tools for the job. Node.js can be used to make video games, that's true, but it's not the best tool for that. Much like you can eat your dinner with a screwdriver and a hammer. You could get the food in your mouth, sure, but this is not going to be an enjoyable experience at all. And the resulting product shows, too. There's a huge number of defects here, many that spring from the limitations of the poor choice of game engine, and others that spring from poor design choice. A choice was made to use obsolete retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. While there is full screen support, there's no graphics tweaks, resolution is locked and can't be changed, so there's no way for the gamer to try improve the very po…

This is one of the most satisfying and more streamlined roguelikes I've ever played, easily on my top 5.

Inessential, no interesting or new mechanics, skippable.

Meh

Nice rogue-like with attractive gameplay.

Buy the game! It's very cheap and worth every penny. Minimalist gameplay, permanent death.