MidBoss update makes life easier with fast travel and new abilities

MidBoss is a roguelike that puts you in the shoes of a lowly dungeon imp. You rise to glory by possessing other monsters and stealing their abilities, working your way up the dungeon food chain until eventually usurping the dungeon boss himself. It's much like the way I've been possessing my colleagues at RPS, absorbing their writing abilities one by one until I'm ready to take a run at head honcho Graham Smith.

The latest MidBoss update might not help me with that, though if you've played the game then you'll pleased to hear that the update does away with various inventory management woes, adds three new abilities and introduces a fast travel system.

The changes to the inventory system come in the form of an upgrade that can be bought from the game's merchant (who, I must mention, is a cat). The upgrade lets you "scrap useless items into a single (sellable) pile, increase the number of slots in your inventory, and stack potions and tomes". Anything that cuts down on inventory faff is a welcome addition in my book.

As for those new abilities: 'Throw' allows you to chuck anything you find on the dungeon floor at your enemies, 'Guard' increases your damage reduction and 'Miasma' creates an icky field that blinds anything that has the misfortune to stumble into it. Disgusting.

The update also adds an item quickbar, a choice of game modes that can turn your quest into a nightmarish slog or a story-focused stroll, and various enhancements to the New Game+ mode. There are plenty more changes I haven't mentioned, which you can read about for yourself either in this highlights post or in full over at the changelog.

We haven't written all that much about MidBoss, though it was Alec's pick of the week in his first ever Unknown Pleasures. Here's how he described it:

"Kirby as roguelike – a turn-based, isometric dungeon game in which you gain new abilities by possessing your enemies, be they fantasy tropes like giant rats and bats or oddball creatures such as magic floating shields. Very charming, and the innate tension between staying alive and taking risks in the hope of possessing something new definitely gives MidBoss a distinct personality. Also: the shopkeeper is a cat who only accepts yarn as currency. MidBoss is perhaps needlessly over-complicated in some respects, and the UI’s a bit of a mess, but I’m definitely down for more of this."

You can pick MidBoss up on Steam or Itch.io, and it's currently enjoying a 35% off sale in both stores.