Ok this is old school RPG mudding with music, great adventuring and story line.
The developers really need to follow this up with another in the same mode.
Very artistic game, I really enjoy playing in classic mode.
If you like text based adventure games this is a must IMHO!

All you need to know about this game. Can be found right here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGEY0o51v4A

THIS GAME IMO:

-Very fun puns and jokes (aside the randomness of some).
-Doesn't require a new rig to run.
-Really enjoyable reading.
-Classes are very balanced.
-Very customizable.
-Very challenging.
-A must for those who are looking for a game that "feels" like the old classics.

Damn good

The game was pretty fun! Good graphics, funny, hard, and I enjoyed the hell out of a 5 hour session. Next day, I load up the game and it synced the savefile of my badass character with a corrupt one. Character had 1 hp, all my gold and items are gone, everything was lost.

I would highly suggest not putting your gaming time into a game which may or may not have all your hard work saved for the next time you play it. When I read the other bad reviews, many complained of bad programming and now I'd have to agree. A sync should overwrite an older file with a newer file, but in this case it replaced my local mainsave_black.dat with the older one on the steam cloud and completely screwed me over.

Don't waste your time.

I'm really torn on recommending or not recommending the game.

It is a great game that simply shouldn't be a rogue-like. Deep combat, huge amount of RPG goodness like classes, crafting, customization, skills, discovery, exploration, and a deep narrative. So much to do. So much love in this game and the DOS-like interface is hardly noticeable. The game is very, very immersive and you grow attached to you characters. The game is deceptiely deep.. literally not one dull moment.

There is a lot of content in the game. A full playthrough could easily go 10-15 hours.

Therein lies the crappy part - this game is a 1-death permadeath roguelike. Some enemies are very very strong and sort of "come out of nowhere" and two-shot you (often after a wave of trivial fights). Your characters die rather... unceremoniously... and you get nothing from their deaths. It's not like other roguelikes where the game is short enough to where it's alright, or you have sort of an "HQ" through which dying at least allowed some sort of gain... you start from square one.

There is a "softcore" mode... but each death in this mode reduces global item drop rates. That just isn't fun. So much of the game is collecting items and managing them... not an inspiring or fun way to play the game. I don't count that as a decent softcore mode - each time you die the game becomes less fun and more tedious.

EDIT: I WAS WRONG ABOUT SOFTCORE MODE! Each death DOES NOT drop global drop rates. Rather, global drop rates are dropped just once.. at the beginning of the game. Not as harsh. THAT SAID - the reduced item drop rate still is a "punishment" mechanic for choosing an easier difficulty. Further, softcore mode just feels... lame. You die and instantly come back and can enter that exact same fight with a single keypress. In other RPGs with a save system, you at least have to "go through the dungeon" or something similar. There are some stakes on the line for dying - you'll have to climb to the top of the mountain, or whatever. Softcore mode removes the stakes entirely. The game has two extremes - a completely inappropriate die-and-restart-the-entire-15-hour-game, or absolute-0-consequence-for-dying. Neither are compelling to me as a player. Game would be perfect with a Final Fantasy style in-between.

Also, I know people say "yeah, hard perma-death... that's the fun! that's the point". But I don't know. It doesn't feel right for this game. It's so deep... there is so much joy just from the RPG elements. The game replays every narrative scene on playthroughs.... you slowly unlock gameplay elements EACH playthrough... it's like the game wasn't MEANT to be a roguelike. You end up banging the spacebar through story sequences you've already seen. You end up saltily unlocking skills and gameplay elements that you already have intimate knowledge of ("You've unlocked crafting - here's hw you craft" after having been a craftmaster last playthrough). I feel like the developer jumped on the roguelike train on a game that didn't need to be a roguelike.

The result of the harsh roguelike set-up with a simply ANNOYING and UN-FUN result is that you grind grind grind to make sure you don't die to an encounter that catches you off-guard. You make your character OP. Still, you may die to a surprise insanely powerful enemy... but maybe not.

All this bad stuff said - the game is great fun. Well worth 5 dollars. ESPECIALLY if you like challenging rogue-likes and are slightly masochistic... GET THIS GAME. If you just want a great RPG... maybe look elsewhere. This game will frustrate you for being a great RPG that deletes your save when you die.

3/5 (5/5 if not a rogue-like)

If you like exploration, witty dialogue, loot whoring and good music then you owe it to your self to try this game out. It has more depth than you might expect just by looking at it.

- Crafting system? Check
- Run a tavern? Check
- Eat hobos? Check
- Go mining? Check
- Wrestle dragons with your pants down? Check

Hate ASCII graphics? Well I hate you too, this game is easily the best $5 I've spent on a game this year.

Great writing, Excellent Gameplay and a Great developer with community involvement.

PLUS it's the perfect game to play while you make dinner for the kids (no joke, ive set up a PC on my kitchen bench just to slay leg's, robots and blobs between dicing vegies and straining pasta while my daughters scream "NERD" at me across the living room).

This may be the one ray of sunshine in my otherwise tired afternoons :)

Pros:
- Very nice fighting system: you can't just spam your preferred skill until the enemy is dead, but you have to actively respond to his attacks and pay attention to his bonus stats.
- Has a lot of humour in it. (a lot of potatoes as well)
- The music really fits with the ASCII-images
- This game proves that flashy graphics are not needed for a good game.
- You're not just limited to fighting enemies, but you can also craft, run a tavern, dance naked and do unmentionable things to potatoes.
- Exploring all of your options is rewarded.

Cons:
- The game can sometimes get grindy: all of a sudden you'll need X items to progress the main story.
- What I really miss in this game is some sort of backpack, no matter how limited. Most of the time it is pretty clear whether you should keep your current item or replace it by a new one, but in some cases (like with weapons that do extra damage at night) it really depends on the situation. A backpack would really be useful in such situations. (Note: there is a backpack in game, but it is only used for crafting mats and such, not for equpable items)

All in all, this game is really worth your time and money.

P.S.: I kissed a great potato.

My biggest (smallest?) gaming discovery of 2015.

I'm too young (or better: not old enough) to have a first-hand experience with terminal-based cRPGs of their era.

So initially I was just curious. Then I became addicted. It's a wonderful sensation to feel your imagination start working again. It's also remarkable - but shouldn't be surprising, right? - that you can have the amount of mechanics comparable to, say, Witcher's, embedded within medium so tiny.

I only wish it was a little bit less cruel. But perhaps it's me who should be a little bit less soft :)