Following Orders To The Letter: The Nightmare Cooperative

Were I to join a cooperative of dungeon-crawling adventurers, I'd expect a little teamwork, a little coordination to stop monsters murdering us. I would be a bit disappointed if everyone moved in unison, copying each other's moves in every situation. There's a time and a place for walking straight into a wall like a tiresome child who giggles "But you said we should all walk forward!" and it's not when a masked giant armed with a trident is staring you down in an ice cave.

That's the idea of The Nightmare Cooperative, a dungeon-crawling puzzler where your team acts as one, following the same commands, making it part-block puzzle and part-dungeon adventure. Developers Lucky Frame have announced they'll release it next Wednesday, July 16, for $9.99.

The Nightmare Cooperative has caught our eye before, but to recap, it's officially described as a "fiendishly difficult charmingly beautiful single-player permadeath roguelike game."

Let's see about that. "Fiendishly difficult" seems fair enough, as you need to think about how your move will effect every character. Send one up and they'll all go up. Send them left, and they'll all go left. Unless someone's already up against a block on their left, of course, in which case they stay still while everyone else moves. Block puzzle tricks like that seem important for getting your party under control. It reminds me of playing two Spelunky characters with the same controls. "Charmingly beautiful," well, I'll go along with that. And the rest, sure, why not?

Here's a new trailer: