Way Beyond

Roguelikes are designed to be challenging from the get-go, given the fact that you are usually allowed only one mistake before the whole thing resets and you take it from the top. Whether that’s your cup of tea or not is entirely up to you, but getting to the end of such a game is obviously very rewarding. Granted, roguelikes have to be designed with a lot of care in order to be both fun and challenging at the same time.

Way Beyond is a very basic roguelite adventure game currently in the making, in which you play the role of an adventurer as you explore a big, open world in search of gems and a few resources. It must be mentioned that the game is far from complete at this point, which means that many of the things you do are not very fun or rewarding. However, there’s definitely potential here.

To begin with, the world is procedurally-generated, so you do not have to worry about reaching the limits or see the same environments over and over again. There are quite a few different biomes as well, but then again the graphics are too simple for the differences to be very clear. Other than that, you can collect glowing things and use an axe or a pick, although the resources are not yet usable in any way.

There are also monsters to watch out for along the way, each one of which features a different attack pattern. Some jump toward you, others just hit very hard if you stay in front of them. Thankfully, you have a sword to deal with them, but the combat aspect is both simple and disappointing at this point, given the fact that all you have to do is face the enemy and press the correct key.

As mentioned before, the graphics are very simple, which is not usually a problem. In this case, however, the simplicity is a bit too much, because the different biomes are barely noticeable most of the time. There’s also the fact that everything is very small and lacking in detail, including the trees and the enemies, which is a bit of a bummer.

Way Beyond might just turn out to be a fun roguelite in the future, and the developer is definitely on the right path. However, this alpha version is a bit too barren to keep you busy for more than a few minutes or so.