A really cool concept, but has too much working against your investment in a run.

If you aren't aware, the big thing this game has to offer is a risk management system in a run. The "artifacts" you pick up are actively harmful and increase your risk level. Rack up a ton of risk and make it to the shop where you can cash in all the bad artifacts for a lootbox of random helpful passive items. It's got a lot of potential but the game is a bit too brutal for its own good.

Pros:
- Risk management system has you picking your poison and pushing your skills to the limit for a (potential) big payoff
- Really interesting variety of items and artifacts
- cute art
- difficult
- quick runs?

Cons:
- Coins seem kind of useless? The main use seems to be for buying other guns in the shop, but many are lackluster. If you like your gun, coins don't seem to do much for you. Also buying a gun completely replaces your current gun, so it's not like it affords you some flexibility
- Everything is excessively RNG-heavy. Loot drops, artifacts, and cashouts. this normally isn't a problem for me but in this game it's just a buzzkill. You can survive a gauntlet of levels with 6 risk, meaning you've been playing with something like your gun having a chance to not fire, no ability to heal, reduced move speed, and shooting an enemy causes bombs to fly at you, and the reward can be a payout of items that DO NOT HELP AT ALL.
- 0 power fantasy. Your character starts out very weak and the main "power spikes" of this game seem to be just getting rid of artifacts to return to your base kit. From what I've seen the actual rewards rarely compare to the benefit of just not having artifacts.

Ultimately the game undermines your agency as a player and is more interested in ruining your day than presenting you with a fun challenge. The levels are filled with too much danger and not enough of a reward. I'm pretty shocked with how many times i've revisited this game that steam says I've only given it 3 hours. I guess it's the opposite of "time flies when you are having fun?"

I would love to see this game's most interesting mechanic explored in a different, more fun game. Even just having some choice via rerolls or whatever to get different rewards for your risk would make this game so much better. As is, I don't think it's worth another 10 minutes of my time.

pretty good top down shooter

mmmmm chicken