Iter Vehemens ad Necem

4 Brutal fun
A great and original roguelike. Realism (a dark sort of slapstick realism, but realism nonetheless), humor, and difficulty are what this game runs on. It may lack some of the randomness and deep character customization available in other games of this type. Dungeons are played through in sequence, randomly arranged and populated but always with certain elements intact, like the giant carnivorous plant boss that must be killed in order to pass the first dungeon or the experimental Dwarven landmine and dungeon shop in the second dungeon. I have encountered neither magic spells nor projectile weapons, and there is no class system, stat and skill development being primarily dependent on your equipment choices. This simplicity is made up for in strange new ways, most notably in IVAN’s detailed mutilation and material systems. This is a difficult game, but does not make me feel so helpless in the face of defeat as other games, and makes me wish to play again in order to get lucky. The strangeness of this game allows for such great experiences. i once trapped the starting pet (kenny the puppy) in one tile of space and vomited on him until he dissolved, and then ate his flesh. I swiftly also slew the medic-priestess in the same room, and ate her. I was then swiftly whipped to pieces by a banana-plantation slave-driver. Just today I managed to find several longswords and a rare steel platemail in the first dungeon, making my character Lancelot seem as if he might have a very bright future, including survival-by-armor of landmines, the greatest threat I have encountered. Unfortunately, he somehow became afflicted with leprosy, causing his legs to drop off. Unable to carry my loot or even my legs for re-attachment, I rolled towards the exit in the hope that i just might have the gold necessary to buy new legs. Naked and fumbling blindly in the dark, I approached a light. Unfortunately, the source was a small glowing carnivorous mutant rabbit, which promptly devoured my sad crippled hero. In an entertaining account of another player’s first try, kenny the puppy began eating a severed human testicle off the first floor of the first dungeon. The disgusted player kicked kenny for disciplinary purposes, but, to his horror, kenny became enraged at this and dispatched him with two swift bites to the groin. It was concluded that kenny had developed a taste for such, and was anxious to find more.