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10

Cogmind

Early access game review

Here's part of my review of this game on Steam. The amount of work the dev does to polish this game every month is amazing.

[No lore spoilers in this review.]

It is impossible to convey the beauty of the ASCII art, the polished perfection of the user interface, the depth of the lore, the variety of the character builds, or the visceral excitement of the sound effects in a little review like this. (What traditional roguelike has such amazing explosions and sound effects?!) I bought this game at the alpha stage years ago before it was even on Steam, for $25, and I feel like the dev was cheated at that price. I often choose to play this game rather than Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, ToME, or Caves of Qud. That's saying a lot, because those games are excellent. But Cogmind has charm, quality, and excitement all its own. All good roguelikes are works of art because of emergent gameplay. *This* roguelike has that in spades, while adding layers of aesthetic delight you didn't think possible in this genre. Do you want to reinvent yourself on the fly after surviving chaotic robot battles, in a rich and mysterious environment that you learn a bit more about each time you play? Then buy this game.

Did I mention hacking of robots and terminals to get more parts, modify your environment, and learn more lore? Or the multiple factions you have to sort out? Or the flying drone allies you can acquire? Or the risky choice to 'overload' your various computer parts if you wish? Or…