cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/patientgamers/p/880636/infra-arcana-is-the-most-brutal-game-i-have-ever-played

Roguelikes are infamous for their ruthlessness: instant deaths that could only be prevented with spoilers, early game hell gating most of the game for those who aren't able to learn all the intricacies of the system, many ways to permanently cripple your character in one wrong move, unbalanced classes / builds with no clear indication on what's a good choice for a beginner...

Some games like DCSS and Brogue see this as a fundamental flaw of the genre. Others lean into it instead, turning pain and (perceived) unfairness into a new masterpiece. That's Infra Arcana.

Let me predict your first run in IA:

• You open a door and meet face-to-face with a pack of wolves. They kill you easily.

• As you explore a wall collapses and a group of zombies appear. You either try to kill them and die or you try to run away and reach a dead-end. And if you somehow manage to get rid of all the zombies you end up being infected crippling your character for the rest of the run. Yeah.

• You meet a cultist with a shotgun. You make one step forward to them and they one-shot you.

• You confront a blind zealot and they maul you to death.

• You open a sarcophagus and a ghost saps your spirit in a few turns.

• You drink an unidentified potion and die.

• You try to cast a spell that removes all your spirit in one casting.

Even if you are well familiar with the genre you will find plenty of (deadly) surprises as you try to keep a character alive for more than a few floors.

Here's an example from my recent run:

I started as a rogue (focused on stealth) and opened a door in a room I spawned in. Immediately a wolf pack went inside started attacking me. I make a step back and a cultist with a shotgun appears!

I saved myself by tossing a Molotov cocktail but even then I already was one hit away from death. One of the wolves wasn't affected by the cocktail (the only way to include it in the "explosion" was by exposing myself to it too) so I had to fight it with my weak starting dagger. If I got a little bit more unlucky, that one wolf would have finished me off.

As you can see, the early game difficulty is somewhat offset by the amount of tools you start with. Every character (except ghouls) start with a melee weapon, a gun with some ammo, some explosives and throwing weapons. War veteran (the local fighter) starts with the best equipment overall while occultist (the local magic user) has the worst equipment. Since magic is very dangerous in IA and every occultist starts with only 2 spells, veteran is actually the most versatile character at the beginning unlike so many RPGs I know of.

Now, you might have a question: why would you want to play such a brutal and unforgiving game? Regardless of whether the game is actually unfair or just feels like that to a novice, it will still invoke the same feeling of a cheap death. Well, I cannot make you enjoy experience that just aren't for you but hear me out!

The game provides a formidable challenge but it's never impossible. From the very beginning you have the tools to confront the horrors of the cult: even the weakest starting gun deals a lot of damage, explosives can get rid of hoards of undead and starving canines, stealth is a powerful tool that's not punished at all (enemies grant no experience), spellcasting while dangerous is open to all who amass some spirit points, throwing weapons are a cheap and quiet way to damage enemies from afar, statues and braziers can be kicked on your foes to get rid of them wasting no resources.

Infra Arcana is a game that's very satisfying to conquer. And, no matter how harsh it looks at the beginning, it wants you to succeed.

There's plenty of bounty to reap in The Rabbit's Haul

Rogue Voltage on Steam

You'll find some tower defence and roguelike elements in there too.

• KingFish Reveal Trailer
• KingFish on Steam

Game: Ballionaire (really fun, highly recommended)

Final boss score: 2 million

I manually ended the run at 552 quadrillion because the game had gone into an infinite loop. Left it running for half an hour and it wouldn't end. PC slowed to a crawl with the game running at 1 FPS with balls filling the entire screen. It was a fun run.

Also got 4336 rerolls....which was amusing.

Yesterday the Devteam (it is always THE Devteam) released version 5.0 of legendary and venerable rogueike compuer game NetHack. It is 39 years old.

Nethack (I am more used to writing it without the capital H) is a venerable roguelike computer game, and by some measures the greatest roguelike of them all. Long before Caves of Qud or Dwarf Fortress it was, and still is, a game of surprising depth, and for many years no other games were anything close to it. Even today, few games do.

The history of the game is recounted on the excellent Nethack Wiki. (unaffiliated with Fandom, yay!) It got its start as a remake of Jay Fenalson’s Hack (1981), itself a recreation of Rogue (1980), and which was remade by Andries Brouwer (1984). The first version of Nethack ”NetHack,” was 1.3d, posted to Usenet by DevTeam leader Mike Stephenson in June 1987.

Nethack 3.0 (July 1989) saw major changes to the gameplay. Nethack 3.1 (January 1993) greatly changed the dungeon, and in large part all following versions are modifications and elaborations upon it. In the time since sometimes there have been great pauses in its history. Nethack 3.2 arrived April 1996; Nethack 3.3 in 1999; Nethack 3.4 in 2002; Nethack 3.6 in December 2015; and now, Nethack 5.0 on May 2, 2026.

Here is a list of major changes, though it contains significant spoilers, and a note tells us that this is a renamed changelist from 3.7. With 3.4 the Devteam switched to a Linux-style numbering system: even minor numbers (like 3.6 and 5.0) are releases for wide play, and odd minor numbers (like 3.5 and 3.7) are development versions mostly intended for work and bug testing. Even so, as with all major versions of Nethack, bugs almost certainly exist in this version. Nethack jumped past version 4.0 probably because a notable fork called itself Nethack 4.

Three major architectural changes made in this version: the code now supports C99, bringing its source to the cusp of the 21 century. Much better support for cross-compiling exists now, building it on a system it’s not intended to run on. And the old yacc/lex special level construction system has been replaced with Lua. This make Lua a build requirement.

Diablo II meets Vampire Survivors meets inevitable skeleton puns in spooky roguelike autobattler Skull Horde, out today.

Skull Horde on Steam

We're streaming one of the OG traditiona roguelikes for 52 hours. Each streamer passes the save file on to the next to continue the character.

Slay the Spire 2 has been averaging over a million users per day since launch.

Won't somebody give this guy a break?

Mega Crit have a massive success on their hands with the Early Access release of Slay the Spire 2, smashing records across the Steam store.

Mister Morris Games have been anything but idle.

Everything is Crab, including me

Wanderburg is nuts. A roguelike where you build up a castle on wheels (or legs) and battle through various locations and it instantly hooked me.

Fight your way to the top of the government in card-based roguelike Prime Monster.

Insider Trading is a roguelike deckbuilder where you bend the market to your will. Stack synergies, trigger price swings, and trade wisely.

With a pretty creepy looking style, the dungeon crawler Pluto is all about experimentation as you construct spells and wiggle your fingers.

It was so cool that you could have an endlessly replayable game like that