RogueStache

Facial hair was extremely common up until a few decades ago, because every man had some kind of beard or mustache. While the trend subsided for a while, it seems to have returned in full force in the last couple of years, with more and more men choosing to display their true heritage. In fact, it has become a sort of fashion accessory, as well as a statement regarding the individual’s sympathy for certain subcultures.

RogueStache is a roguelike platformer in which every level is procedurally generated to be as punishing and difficult to pass as possible. You play the role of a manly man that can grow a number of different mustaches, each one of which grants him special abilities. The task is to get to the end of the stage and gather as much money as possible along the way, in order to purchase more powerful items.

There is not much of a story to talk about, because there is no dialog and no cutscenes to bother you. Your only concern is survival, and it gets tough from the first minutes of gameplay. Besides the many enemies that litter the stages, there are traps all over the place as well, such as spikes that force you to be careful at every jump. Death is final, so each mistake can be your last if you don’t pay enough attention.

As mentioned before, weapons are crucial when it comes to survival. You start with a simple pistol, but you can unlock shotguns and various other powerful guns by purchasing them from the shops in between the levels. Mustaches come in handy as well, because they provide you with extra abilities and stats that increase your chances of survival. On top of that, they also look pretty glorious.

Crates can be broken or unlocked using the keys you pick up along the way, and they usually hold useful items like health and grenades. These are stored in a rather limited inventory, so you kind of have to use them often to avoid being left with no room to spare. As far as the graphics are concerned, the 2D artwork is not impressive in any way, but it gets the job done.

So far, RogueStache is quite the intriguing game, but there are problems that have to be ironed out. The stages may be randomly generated, but they are mostly empty as of right now, which is annoying. Items and healing orbs can get stuck in the environment with no way of reaching them, and it would be nice to see a change of scenery every now and again, because the stages become repetitive.