Still in development, Marc-André Toupin's SPOINGS, aside from being fun to shout and presumably snack food for Mr. Saturns, is a minimalist turnbased roguelike RPG that's all about luck. You move your little avatar with the [arrow] keys, jumping from one quadrant to another, but the catch is the square you land on in each area is random, and moving out of a quadrant causes it to be replaced with a completely new one. Figuring out what each different icon represents, and what they do, is part of the challenge since the game offers no instructions. It's sort of like if someone dumped a bunch of unassembled IKEA furniture at your feet without instructions, and you had no idea what any of the tools were or what they did, and also you might be a little on fire. Run out of hit points, as indicated in the top-left corner, and the game will inform you that U ARE DED, prompting you to start anew, hopefully a little wiser for having had your nose bloodied. (Was this game designed by Q?) Some will find it infuriating for lacking any instructions and leaving so much up to chance, while others will find it addictive for the same reasons, especially since once you learn the ropes you'll realize it's not nearly as baffling as it seems. (Or you can just cheat and read the official TIGSource development thread for more clear instructions.) SPOINGS is planned to eventually land on mobile devices once more work has been done, so give it a spin, and drop the developer some feedback when you're done!
This game heats my CPU up in no time, albeit I cannot see anything that would account for that.
If I had a nickel for every time I pressed the wrong arrow key and died as a result...
Okay, this is all I know so far:
Hearts and heart jars give a varying amount of health.
Torches show where you'll land on certain quadrants.
Keys unlock the dotted outline spaces.
Crystals are currency for the shops that pop up.
Flying Crystals turn all enemies into crystals, and vice versa.
Guns allow you to defeat an enemy without damage.
Question marks change everything on the board, except for your quadrant.
Crosses drop all other spaces on the quadrant, forcing you to move to another.
Skull spaces cause enemies to appear, generally over other items.
Stars make you invincible for the set number of moves.
Swords are still a little confusing. They upgrade your crit stat at the bottom, which I assume gives you a chance to kill without damage.
I also noticed, at least under the torch's influence, that your movement to other quadrants retains your mini-quadrant position. If that sounds confusing, try looking at the lit spots when holding the torch. if they show up in multiple quads, you'll see they're all the same most of the time.
LVL 17 was the highest I got to. That was fun and addicting, I am sure I will play again. I do wish it had a mute button.
level up tip
However many you go over subtracts from your next level up amount. This only happens when either you have the gun or you are invincible. Do not necessarily take the largest you can find, it might only be one over, often you use several small and then go for the big one when you are closer to leveling up.
I got up to 16 just mashing keys really fast. I think it's meant to be played that way; all jangly and bloopy and flashing. It gets easy to spot which squares are going to be most profitable without deeply strategizing.
This game is very fun, And easy to learn. I would love it in a mobile version with prettier graphics honestly! Very addicting and quick to learn.
I love this game. I got to level 54. It gets hard because there are increasingly more enemies who are higher than your max HP.
Got to 33
dang 54
You really have to try to get that last kill for leveling up above the number you need. It really helps if you have the laser gun. When I was around 30 my hp was about 31 and the most baddies were around 25. Lots of strategy, sometimes choosing not to level up and wait can be better than taking one you have the opportunity for sooner.
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