Cryptark Is A Roguelike Shooter From Apotheon's Devs
On the side of a futuristic vase
I like procedurally generated spaces not because I enjoy muddled corridors, but because it pushes designers to give their locations structure in other ways. In the case of roguelike shooter Cryptark [official site], that's filling its hulking spaceships with systems such as shield generators, repair systems, signal jammers, drone factories, sentry controllers and more. You have to decide how to deal with each one of them before taking on the ship's core. The game arrives in Early Access tomorrow and there's a trailer below.
I hope there's interplay between these different systems, such that you can manipulate the environment by picking and choosing which to take on and which to ignore. Being able to take out the drone factory to reduce the number of enemies you need to fight is great, but it'd be a shame if those optional objectives just make the game easier in a linear fashion, meaning that tackling them is all but essential before attacking the core.
Cryptark is being made by the developers of Apotheon, the exceedingly pretty side-scrolling platformer designed to look like an ancient vase. Pip loved how it looked but found it unwieldy to control, especially when it came to its melee combat. Cryptark seems more about laser guns than javelins, so perhaps that won't be an issue here.
The game will be released into early access tomorrow, Wednesday 7th, and will cost $13 after an initial launch discount of 15% runs out.