A quick apology, a recommendation, and an update · 2:51am Jun 26th, 2020
So if you want to know what's up with the delay on the next chapter of Trouble at Midnight Castle, you can blame the above game. I got it last week when it was on sale on Steam, and have been playing the heck out of it for several hours after work each day. While I have been writing, it hasn't been with quite as much dedication as Midnight Castle probably deserves. Again, blame the game up there.
That being said the game is Hella fun, at least for me personally. I've actually never really played a roguelike (or in this case, "rogue-like", since it's not turn-based) game before, so City of Brass is my first experience with the genre. Official critic reviews of it weren't great, but the Steam user reviews are very positive. For my own part I'm a sucker for Arabian myth - when I was a little kid my parents got me a copy of The Arabian Nights rather than Grimm's Fairy Tales or Hans Christen Andersen or Irish fairy-tales or anything else you'd expect a pair of white Irish Catholic immigrants to get their American kid - and then at around the same time, Disney's Aladdin came out, and then I read A Horse and His Boy, in my opinion the best Narnia story. So I've always loved deserts, genies, ghouls, thief-acrobats and guile heroes, and so on.
As to the game itself...it is pretty simple but murderously difficult, but I like it. The story is...there is no story, really. There's a city, it's full of treasure, traps, and undead. You are to gather treasure while evading or defeating traps and undead. If you die, you start over - not start "the level" over, but in fact the entire run.
After about a week I've only been able to get about halfway through the twelve procedurally-generated levels. Each level so far has tended to introduce at least one new kind of enemy to make your life difficult, and often a new kind of trap as well. I've also managed to unlock each of the characters, most of which have slightly different playstyles from one another. Gameplay is smooth, and the whip that every character has is really well integrated into the game as both a weapon and a tool for navigating. It is, I'd argue, more important than your sword. or fist, or knives, or whatever your character is equipping today.
All in all it's been fun...but, like I said, distracting. Sorry. That being said it's also been an inspiration in some ways for Midnight Castle, so...yay? Also like I said I haven't been ignoring writing completely; I'm currently sitting on about 5,500 completed words and am working on finishing up the final scene of the chapter. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.
So, yeah. Sorry. But if you have the time, I'd recommend City of Brass. The sale is over, but the regular price of $19.99 isn't a bad price for what you get, I feel.
Never been into rouge-like games myself, but I might give this one a look. Recently I've been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, aka "I can't believe it's not Castlevania" and another game called Hardcore Mecha which is an exceptionally well done 2D mech action game that is very much Gundam inspired.
The game's trailer doesn't really sell me on it, personally. Maybe it's just that the idea of a 3D roguelike is strange to me. I'd ask for some comparisons to other games in its genre but this seems to be your first. If you think you like this genre, there are many great 2D roguelike (roguelite?) games such as Enter the Gungeon, The Binding of Isaac, and Dead Cells. Also: the Steam summer sale is going on now so the game is currently $2.99.
I'd recommend more games but I also want to read more of you fic.
If You are interested in rather, hm, oriental themes, then perhaps You could take a peek at "Unrest"? It's pretty cheap on Steam right now, though it's an indie RPG, not a roguelike...
Sounds cool and I dig the aesthetic, a shame I am not into games all that much, so little time and even less skill on my part XD
Also cool new avatar and good luck with your writing!