Steam’s Early Access recently got a new addition: Guidus Zero, a top-down dungeon crawling roguelike developed by indie South Korean studio Izzle.
The story takes place in a world where a war raged for ages without a clear victor. After it ended, the central continent was declared a neutral zone. A massive sinkhole called The Scar opened on that continent, and from its depths comes a mysterious substance known as Black Blood that spawns corrupted beings. It’s unknown how this sinkhole came to be, where the Black Blood is coming from, or what waits in the deepest regions of The Scar. That’s where you come in.
You’ll join a cast of characters in The Scar, traveling deeper and deeper beneath the surface while facing all manner of enemies that have been corrupted by the Black Blood. You’ll have several different controllable characters to choose from, each with their own strengths and abilities. There’s real-time action combat with a bit of a twist: You and your enemies move between tiles on a grid in which you can only navigate in the four cardinal directions.
When an enemy is about to attack, an exclamation mark will appear above their head and the ground will be highlighted showing where their attack will land. Different enemies have different attack patterns — some strike directly in front of them, some hit a long line, and others target a larger area of the grid. You’ll face several enemies at a time, forcing you to stay on your toes and react quickly to dodge attacks.
While moving, you can roll to make yourself invincible, but each roll consumes stamina. And since you can’t move diagonally, you’ll need to be strategic about which direction you move and how often you roll. You don’t want to end up trapped between attacks you can’t avoid.
Combat isn’t all about avoiding damage, though. You need to be able to dish it out too, but how you do that changes depending on what character you pick. Before each run, you’ll choose a character and their starting trait. In classic RPG fashion, killing enemies gains experience, which makes you level up.
As you level up, you’ll unlock choices for skill upgrades that are unique to the trait you picked at the start of the run. These will define the playstyle of that run, so even if you play the same character, runs can play differently depending on the starting trait and upgrades you pick. Your levels and progression selections are exclusive to that run, so when you die, they’ll all reset.
Not everything will reset, though. During the course of a run, you’ll come across ore veins you can break to obtain stones, which have their own stats. All the stones in your bag will add together, and reaching certain stat thresholds will give your character buffs. You can equip stones in available slots, which will preserve them even after your run ends. Any unequipped stones in your bag when your run ends will be converted into stone fragments, which can serve as currency or be reforged into new stones by an NPC blacksmith.
During each run, you can also discover special rooms with treasure chests where you can find artifacts. They grant unique buffs and improve your abilities, and over time can build up stacks of elemental effects. If an artifact reaches five stacks, it becomes bonded with a spirit that corresponds to that element and allows you to use unique elemental attacks and effects.
Becoming bonded to Ignis, the fire spirit, gives you access to a burn debuff that deals continuous damage. Atlen, the water spirit, slows enemies and freezes those with a wet debuff. Rathorus, the lightning spirit, inflicts a shock debuff that deals additional damage. Enryl, the wind spirit, increases your movement speed and enhances multi-hits with a sprint buff. Terrania, the earth spirit, inflicts a petrify debuff that causes fragments to shoot out when you attack petrified enemies.
This all adds up to a roguelike with a classic “one more run” feeling. Stones provide permanent growth, while your choices for character, starting trait, and ability upgrades make every run different. If you’re interested in checking out Guidus Zero, it’s available now in Early Access on Steam.
They’re celebrating launch by offering a 10% discount that will last until Dec. 9. Guidus Zero is also considering future releases for Xbox and Nintendo Switch, but a console release has not been officially announced.
