A modded, legendary weapon might have to be tossed aside for a benign, vanilla plasma pistol if the ammo just won’t drop. Even a seasoned player might have trouble if the game isn’t cooperating. By its limited nature, players have to constantly make challenging decisions about what to keep, what to pass up, and what to use in a moment where it might not be perfectly optimal to use. Inventory management is probably an essential component of success in Jupiter Hell. An even bigger galaxy brain move might be using the sense you’ve earned over hundreds of hours to launch a rocket across the map where you predict explosive barrels might be and hit a whole bunch of enemies that you intuitively understand might be milling about in a lobby area.

Better still, maybe you prepared for the fight in advance by not putting yourself in such a precarious position in the first place. Or maybe you’ve chosen one of the several complex skills while leveling up to help you dodge out in the open while firing automatically. An onlooker might wonder-okay, where’s this so-called “depth?” Well, cover’s important if you want to live, so maybe depth is risking a step or two to lower the enemy’s chance of hitting you while you shoot from behind a wall. With a game like Jupiter Hell, the only thing that changes between runs is what you’ve learned from Yet Another Stupid Death (affectionately referred to as YASD in the roguelike community). Earning resources and leveling up ensure victory at some point. Modern roguelikes-roguelites-function more similarly to traditional RPGs in that with enough grinding, players can eventually win. Playing is simple, but if you want to be any good and have any chance of winning, you have to learn the systems. Traditional roguelikes are a unique bird in that they’re often intimidatingly deep. The strategic depth, heartbreaking (and stupid) deaths, faithful commitment to Doom’s world, and hundreds of hours I devoted to it were proof that it could stand taller than almost any commercial release over the last few decades. To me, DoomRL was nigh-gaming perfection. I could certainly understand Kisielewicz wanting to take his project to the big leagues where he could get, ya know, paid. Whether you’ve taken a cursory look at Jupiter Hell waiting to see how the final product shakes out or you’re a long-time fan of Nethack, rest assured that the developers have shot the ever-loving out of my expectations.īeing a long-time fan of DoomRL, I wondered how it could be improved. Since that time, Kisielewicz and his team made countless updates to this freeware for fans of traditional roguelikes and, of course, the first-person shooter: Doom. Kornel Kisielewicz’s baby got its start as DoomRL ( Doom the Roguelike, now DRL due to legal concerns) in 2002. Jupiter Hell is not a new game, and, no, I’m not speaking about the years of early access since its Kickstarter success.

Jupiter hell gameplay