Loot Rascals, a card-swapping roguelike with asynchronous ‘steal or share’ multiplayer, a retro-sci fi aesthetic and very silly British humor is now available to a select few PC gamers. Only 500 keys for the ‘Refinery Edition’ of the game are for sale via itch.io for $15 each.
The game will officially launch in Q1 2017 on PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam, but Hollow Ponds – a veteran team comprised of developers who worked on Hohokum and an Adventure Time animator – is releasing a small number of keys on itch.io for players who want to get in first, helping the developers fine-tune the game and forming the nexus of the game’s community.
“Helping fellow players is a big theme of Loot Rascals, but to refine the final version of the game we need the help of the PC gaming community,” said Ricky Haggett, founder and lead designer, Hollow Ponds. “We’re particularly looking for expert roguelike players who are up for dying over and over and over again, and shaping the game with their feedback. We’re going to make graphs. So many graphs!”
Players guide the survivor of a rocket crash, exploring a vibrant procedurally-generated world to find the exit portal, battling a bunch of strange space baddies, and stealing their Loot Cards. Cards min-max the player’s attack and defense stats, as well as granting special abilities such as being able to create wobbly decoy dummies, teleporting or shocking groups of enemies with chain lightning.
Choosing which cards to equip requires strategic thinking, and players much decide which of them to sacrifice, because cards are also the precious resources they need to heal!
In Loot Rascals, the baddies can loot the dead players – stealing cards which then drop into other players’ games. When players defeat an Elite Baddie they’ll get another player’s card, and decide whether to return it, or keep it for themselves.
These decisions have consequences: Each player in Loot Rascals has a Hologram who visits other players’ games. If a player keeps another player’s card, that player’s Hologram will hunt them down to seek vengeance – or come to their aid if the card was returned!
