Game #38/200 As an enjoyer of roguelikes, I knew it was only a matter of time before I would play a game in the "arena" subgenre after the success of Vampire Survivors. Initially, upon seeing VS, I was unimpressed by the seemingly braindead gameplay and ugly visuals. By now, the genre is decently saturated, so I have been able to …
Game #38/200 As an enjoyer of roguelikes, I knew it was only a matter of time before I would play a game in the "arena" subgenre after the success of Vampire Survivors. Initially, upon seeing VS, I was unimpressed by the seemingly braindead gameplay and ugly visuals. By now, the genre is decently saturated, so I have been able to look around and choose 20 Minutes Till Dawn, whose aesthetic is quite cool and gameplay seems a little deeper than some other titles I observed. Like most roguelikes, 20MTD borrows quite a lot from Isaac, even if it is a far removed cousin. The main mechanic that it uses from Isaac, (other than the formulaic "play many short runs with some random generation to gain incremental permanent progress") is the synergy-building item selection. Like Isaac, you will need to carefully select the items you are presented with to create a powerful character whose benefits work with one another. I found 20MTD really successful in this regard. Runs are fairly long at 20 minutes, and there is a lot of opportunity to get swarmed and die. I rarely found that choosing "damage up" or "fire rate up" items to be an easy path to victory, as it is in Isaac sometimes. Instead, you really have to carefully consider the strengths of your character/weapon selection and decide which type of run you want to build. Even some builds that seemed innately powerful to me (namely, summons) were not automatic wins. You often need to play skillfully and consider your needs. I did have an absolutely insane lightning-based run that seemed a bit cheap, but it was only one occasion. 20MTD is an addicting game to pick up and play, and win or lose, I often wanted to go into it again. Yet I do think the game suffers a bit from its over-simplicity. After 7-8 hours or so, you've seen pretty much every power up or other mechanic that is in the game. The "one more run" impulse dies down quite a bit and it's easy to put the game down after you've won a number of times (keep in mind this game is about the price of a 7/11 coffee).
Unlike Isaac or Gungeon, which require quite a bit of mechanical skill, success in this title is almost entirely dependent on decision making. You will have to do a bit of dodging, careful reloading, aiming, etc., but it's really not too demanding if your build is good. I also think the dark and drab visuals, while cool, can be a bit exhausting after many runs. Not only that, but there are only 3 maps with just a bit of variety among them. I wonder if this subgenre is just a bit too boxed in by its inherently limited scope, where there is not much that can be done to expand on the in-game worlds. Yes, you can add more guns, power ups, characters, enemy types, etc., but you're stuck with a very small number of sandboxes to play in. I'll have to try Vampire Survivors and Brotato and see how I feel from there.
