Endless Night

Roguelikes can be tons of fun if you don’t like to back down from a challenge, but they can also be quite frustrating at times, especially since they require some luck. Thankfully, the genre is still getting some love from modern developers, given the fact that there are so many different choices out there, each one of which features a certain theme and ingenious gameplay mechanics.

Endless Night is a first-person roguelike with retro graphics and pretty simple gameplay mechanics in which your goal is simple: survive and explore. It may not feature complex crafting systems or an intricate story, but the challenge of staying alive is quite exciting, at least if you do not mind having to restart the whole thing a few dozen times after losing everything in a fight.

The first-person perspective is quite interesting in a roguelike, but it’s obviously not original. Hence, you move using the on-screen directional keys, which should be pretty easy to figure out, even if it’s your first time with the gimmick. It used to be quite popular three decades ago, but the rise of 3D environments made the system pretty much obsolete.

The combat system is about as basic as it gets as well, since all you need to do is click on the attack button whenever an enemy pops up on the screen. Everything takes place in turns, so you can only attack once and wait for the enemy to make a move. You can also flee if you do not like your chances, but it’s always a gamble anyway, because only your hit points are displayed.

Each monster you kill drops a certain amount of gold, and you can use this gold later on in the game. As for the world itself, you can explore a variety of locations right now, but it’s still pretty small and crowded with trees and impassable terrain. The sound effects are quite absent most of the time, which is kind of a bummer.

All things considered, Endless Night is not quite there yet, but it shows potential. Hence, if more content is added and maybe a bit of variety when it comes to combat, the game could certainly turn into something more exciting.