Dice 'n Goblins

I've been playing dungeon crawlers since the Gold Box games, and this is a wonderful example. It's cute, sure, but it also has a lot of really interesting ideas for the combat system and traversal of the dungeons. The battle system is turn-based and involves triggering dice combos while trying to avoid enemy dice combos - sort of like a hybrid between D&D's various polyhedronal probabilities and something like Yahtzee or Mahjong. Your equipment is the main determination of your combos/dice, but you can also get permanent upgrade skills that allow you to change things without filling an equipment slot, so there's both flexible and more concrete build options. Death is not a grueling punishment, you're just sent back to the last bonfire with all your XP/Gear/Map progress intact to try again. The level design is also great, with a lot of focus on verticality, looking around for clever places to jump, and shortcuts back to bonfires. They're interconnected to an extent as well, allowing you to enter areas from different directions, and because the combat system is so focused on doing interesting stuff with new gear - unlocking new combos/dice - every treasure chest that has a bit of gear or money towards buying new equipment is meaningful and satisfying, making the exploration excellent. The only downside I've found so far is that the game lacks traditional dungeon crawler secret doors, so I'm not pawing at the walls like a maniac (this may not be a downside to most people), and the design of the levels doesn't really lend itself to filling out each area with 100% completion, as there's a few places that are inaccessible but still technically walkable. It is a bit on the easier side for most of the game, as long as your luck isn't awful and you understand probability/push your luck mechanics, but the late game really makes you get thoughtful about your build and flexible about changing it to suit conditions. The difficulty curve is defnitely there, I went from not dying except for falling into a very deep pit to dying quite a lot until I figured out where my build was going wrong against the tougher enemies. I also really like the music and aesthetics, but you can figure out if that's for you from the trailer. There are a couple of minor irritations - no game is perfect. The dice seem to be less of a behind-the-scenes RNG generator and something closer to a physical object that bounces off walls and into other dice, which can cause the game to slow down for a while as it waits for a janky spinning dice to settle itself on to an actual face; also, the start of the game where you're mostly working with d4s has them reroll to exactly the same number way more often than they should because of the shape of the dice and their interaction with the physics of the rolling. Combat animations are very simple, basically just jiggling papercrafts around... until you hit a boss, which is a fully animated 3D model while your character is still a little cartoon on a bit of paper. It's a little incongruous. The map is generally pretty good but you can run into trouble of not really knowing where to go next, and there's no quest log/next objective reminder. This is overall a really satisfying dungeon crawl, it's got a fun, cute story, it seems to draw inspiration from Blame! (Dyson Goblins!?) and Girls Last Tour for some of its worldbuilding, and I had a thoroughly good time the whole way through. Full disclosure: I liked it so much I bought additional copies for my friends. I really hope this is successful enough to get a sequel, I loved it.