*pulls out acoustic guitar* anyway, here's Redwall
April 27, 2022 9:02 AM Subscribe
You ever wish you were an adventurous pixel-art mouse doing inventory tetris while exploring a randomly-generated dungeon and engaging in turn-based combat with wee slimes and hostile rodentia? Great, you should play Backpack Hero. You should also play it if you haven't specifically wished for that previously, because it's delightful and charming and good.
That post title is just *chef’s kiss*
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:10 AM on April 27, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:10 AM on April 27, 2022 [10 favorites]
Am I correct that it doesn't work on mobile or am I just missing something? I can get it to run, and I even found a way to turn on a 'rotate' button to complete the first task, but then I can't seem to move on from there.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:21 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by jacquilynne at 9:21 AM on April 27, 2022
Oh, that's a good question and I have no idea; I'm playing on desktop.
posted by cortex at 9:26 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by cortex at 9:26 AM on April 27, 2022
Not having seen it yet, your description evokes almost perfectly the game I didn't know I needed right now. I'm looking forward to being bad at it when I can get in front of a Real Browser.
...doesn't work on mobile...
It emitted a stack trace from deep in the (presumed engine) wasm somewhere so, yeah, I'm assuming Mobile Safari is not up to the task. Those on mobile platforms with less-wonky browser infrastructure might have better luck than I did.
...actual coins and you have to put a pile into your inventory somewhere in order to carry them around.
Diablo II -- the definitive Inventory Tetris game -- would like a word.
posted by majick at 9:44 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
...doesn't work on mobile...
It emitted a stack trace from deep in the (presumed engine) wasm somewhere so, yeah, I'm assuming Mobile Safari is not up to the task. Those on mobile platforms with less-wonky browser infrastructure might have better luck than I did.
...actual coins and you have to put a pile into your inventory somewhere in order to carry them around.
Diablo II -- the definitive Inventory Tetris game -- would like a word.
posted by majick at 9:44 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Literally Every Modern Game: "Oh, it turns out people hate inventory management and we can improve QoL by de-emphasizing it or getting rid of it entirely."
This Game: "Hi."
posted by The Bellman at 9:51 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
This Game: "Hi."
posted by The Bellman at 9:51 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Well this is lovely! I finished the first level (the crypt) and enjoyed the game. I rolled my eyes at first at the inventory tetris conceit but they use it in a lot of interesting ways. The dragonfly, for instance, gives bonuses to adjacent weapons but also it moves around in your inventory and only gives those bonuses if there's a free adjacent spot to move to. Neat way to add a little puzzle game to the rest of the game.
I got tripped up by the gold thing too. The confusing part is the way it drops makes it look in the UI like it's in a little side pocket in your bag. If it's not in the grid you don't have it.
posted by Nelson at 10:38 AM on April 27, 2022
I got tripped up by the gold thing too. The confusing part is the way it drops makes it look in the UI like it's in a little side pocket in your bag. If it's not in the grid you don't have it.
posted by Nelson at 10:38 AM on April 27, 2022
I first encountered a (much earlier) version of this watching Rhaps and Teak Take a Peek at the game. It's a uh, well, it's two and a half hours, but there's two people talking through their thought processes playing the game and they're pretty engaging. if you want the absolute highlight that had me laughing for a quarter of an hour, that's at 1:59:43.
Anyway, it's a great, somewhat unbalanced game and I recommend it to all roguelike fans.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 11:03 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anyway, it's a great, somewhat unbalanced game and I recommend it to all roguelike fans.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 11:03 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Re: Inventory Management
The 'annoying' things often work better when it's THE core game mechanic instead of another annoying thing to keep track of.
The other example that comes to mind is heat management in space+combat games... It's kinda great in Battletech, as it's a 'soft' limit on actions with some physical motivation: You can choose to risk overheat to get in a couple extra hits in an emergency situation, but it is a real risk.
Oxygen Not Included also goes all-in on managing 'annoying' stuff. Heat management, air circulation, and sanitation most notably. Inventory management is a bit of a problem: it's kiiinda automatically handled by the semi-autonomous colonists going to get stuff, but if you let it get out of hand they'll spend more time collecting ingredients than actually doing their jobs.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:27 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
The 'annoying' things often work better when it's THE core game mechanic instead of another annoying thing to keep track of.
The other example that comes to mind is heat management in space+combat games... It's kinda great in Battletech, as it's a 'soft' limit on actions with some physical motivation: You can choose to risk overheat to get in a couple extra hits in an emergency situation, but it is a real risk.
Oxygen Not Included also goes all-in on managing 'annoying' stuff. Heat management, air circulation, and sanitation most notably. Inventory management is a bit of a problem: it's kiiinda automatically handled by the semi-autonomous colonists going to get stuff, but if you let it get out of hand they'll spend more time collecting ingredients than actually doing their jobs.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:27 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
The boss for the crypt put the hurt on me... I had been favoring an armor-less built with a splint (heals you when you damage enemies), but the boss summons nasties that do an ungodly amount of damage and I couldn't keep up.
posted by Mayor West at 11:28 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by Mayor West at 11:28 AM on April 27, 2022
Cute, but it crashes reliably after a few minutes for me, forcing a browser restart.
posted by bonehead at 11:33 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by bonehead at 11:33 AM on April 27, 2022
I’ve spent a bunch of hours at this and it’s super fun. It has limited replayability for me right now bc any build I go for really limits what i can include — that is, it feels like the build you choose in the first few rounds is the direction you have to keep going in to have a chance of survival. I keep getting interesting items later in the game but can’t incorporate them because it would require a total re-architecture of my build, which would be a major hit to my character as the new architecture may take multiple rounds of getting stuff to make into an effective build. I have a hunch that larger bag size will help with this, and I hope it’s something they’re considering for v1.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:47 AM on April 27, 2022
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:47 AM on April 27, 2022
My mind is belting out,
"He's a BACK PACK HERO. Got stars in his eyes."
"BACK PACK HERO" Come alive tonight.
Damn you Foreigner!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:03 PM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
"He's a BACK PACK HERO. Got stars in his eyes."
"BACK PACK HERO" Come alive tonight.
Damn you Foreigner!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:03 PM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
cf. Cold As Mice
posted by cortex at 12:15 PM on April 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by cortex at 12:15 PM on April 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
You're willing to sacrifice our cheese
posted by axiom at 1:27 PM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by axiom at 1:27 PM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
...they'll spend more time collecting ingredients than actually doing their jobs.
Say, how long has it been since we had a Dwarf Fortress thread, anyway?
posted by majick at 3:02 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Say, how long has it been since we had a Dwarf Fortress thread, anyway?
posted by majick at 3:02 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Huh, had a good run fall apart in the Magma Core. I had a build around blocking damage and killing things with spikes. Was sort of ridiculously OP right until I ran into the team of 3 guys who was dropping 2x1 curses into my inventory and setting me on fire. RIP little mouse.
posted by Nelson at 3:29 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by Nelson at 3:29 PM on April 27, 2022
Made it to the boss of the Magma Core and got promptly wrecked. It's basically Slay the Spire but inventory-puzzle instead of card game, but I do enjoy all the Redwall-y bits about it.
posted by mstokes650 at 3:45 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by mstokes650 at 3:45 PM on April 27, 2022
I'm still wondering where this alleged cheese is. It's promised right at the start of the game, then I beat the act 3 boss and there's no mention of it, just "wanna keep going with terrifyingly inflated monster stats?".
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:45 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:45 PM on April 27, 2022
Perhaps the real cheese was the damage engines we built along the way.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:46 PM on April 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:46 PM on April 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
Perhaps the real cheese was the damage engines we built along the way.
i.e. Cheese Strategy.
posted by zamboni at 4:56 PM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
i.e. Cheese Strategy.
posted by zamboni at 4:56 PM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Cursed Whetstone is either not working as intended, or very cursed indeed. You might think it's going to increase damage, but what actually happens is there's a bug where you instead get a new curse every time you try to use the weapon.
posted by zamboni at 5:08 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by zamboni at 5:08 PM on April 27, 2022
There's a sword and an accessory that benefit from curses, but I've never been brave enough to try that build, nor lucky enough to get enough of those components early. There's also an accessory that eats curses for you without the endlessly scaling damage. Similar but less risky builds (fish sword, key sword) have been pretty powerful.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:43 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:43 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh wait, you're talking about the cursed whetstone, not the cursed shiv. Same comment, pretty much.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:44 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:44 PM on April 27, 2022
"Backpack Hero" makes me think of a short story I enjoyed recently on a podcast, about a non traditional hero who uses "storage magic" in creative ways to save the world. I am struggling to find the title though, sound familiar to anyone?
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 6:52 PM on April 27, 2022
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 6:52 PM on April 27, 2022
Literally Every Modern Game: "Oh, it turns out people hate inventory management and we can improve QoL by de-emphasizing it or getting rid of it entirely."
This Game: "Hi."
Next we need a dungeon-crawling game that is literally about dungeon crawling. It's 3D in the style of Eye of the Beholder. It has no combat, and no in-game compass. The game mechanic is that you have to draw a map as you explore the dungeon and you get points for how accurately your drawing matches the actual game map.
posted by straight at 7:07 PM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
This Game: "Hi."
Next we need a dungeon-crawling game that is literally about dungeon crawling. It's 3D in the style of Eye of the Beholder. It has no combat, and no in-game compass. The game mechanic is that you have to draw a map as you explore the dungeon and you get points for how accurately your drawing matches the actual game map.
posted by straight at 7:07 PM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Backpack Hero" makes me think of a short story I enjoyed recently on a podcast, about a non traditional hero who uses "storage magic" in creative ways to save the world. I am struggling to find the title though, sound familiar to anyone?
Waypoint Kangaroo is a novel that is kind of based on this concept and it is pretty good. There is a second one as well, Kangaroo Too. If you like the sci-fi subgenre of the annoying idiot protagonist, you will probably enjoy them.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:00 PM on April 27, 2022
Waypoint Kangaroo is a novel that is kind of based on this concept and it is pretty good. There is a second one as well, Kangaroo Too. If you like the sci-fi subgenre of the annoying idiot protagonist, you will probably enjoy them.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:00 PM on April 27, 2022
The game mechanic is that you have to draw a map as you explore the dungeon and you get points for how accurately your drawing matches the actual game map.
A version of this map-making is a core conceit of the Etrian Odyssey series; the need to make an accurate graph paper map in order to successfully navigate and puzzle your way through levels is a really nice twist on the general JRPG vibe.
posted by cortex at 8:29 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
A version of this map-making is a core conceit of the Etrian Odyssey series; the need to make an accurate graph paper map in order to successfully navigate and puzzle your way through levels is a really nice twist on the general JRPG vibe.
posted by cortex at 8:29 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Miasmata has my favorite video game mapping mechanic, requiring you to sight landmarks (in first-person) in order to use triangulation to fill in and and find your position on new sections of your map.
posted by straight at 12:19 AM on April 28, 2022
posted by straight at 12:19 AM on April 28, 2022
I need to stop playing this, but it's so good! I've gotten the cheese twice now, once with arrows and once with the fish sword.
posted by Akhu at 8:31 AM on April 28, 2022
posted by Akhu at 8:31 AM on April 28, 2022
I've gotten the cheese twice now, once with arrows and once with the fish sword.
If this sentence doesn't sell you on any activity, I don't want to be your friend anymore.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:41 AM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
If this sentence doesn't sell you on any activity, I don't want to be your friend anymore.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:41 AM on April 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
Well, I can't get past the Crypt boss. I clearly make poor life choices.
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:31 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ApathyGirl at 9:31 AM on April 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh son of a bitch, it runs in a browser. I was supposed to work today, folks.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:41 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:41 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
Beat my first run with a letter and a double bladed polearm, and the second with a bow and arrows (pivoting off of a brick wall plan). Still want to try magic.
posted by NMcCoy at 10:47 AM on April 28, 2022
posted by NMcCoy at 10:47 AM on April 28, 2022
I had a fantastic first run, using a buckler with "Block, adjacent weapons get +2 damage for the rest of combat", a staff with "Summon an ethereal dagger" (0-energy, 1 attack/turn) (and a Necronomicon which didn't end up coming up that often since I didn't need extra mana that often), & a set of cleavers with "also uses adjacent cleavers".
That way, I could put almost all my energy into blocking, then use the stackingly powerful daggers.
My run ended when I hit a glitch? near the end where I got a curse & a bunch of items, but I couldn't pick any of them up because they were all stacked on top of each other.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:32 AM on April 28, 2022
That way, I could put almost all my energy into blocking, then use the stackingly powerful daggers.
My run ended when I hit a glitch? near the end where I got a curse & a bunch of items, but I couldn't pick any of them up because they were all stacked on top of each other.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:32 AM on April 28, 2022
Cursed run was fun, pairs pretty well with seasoning engine, also four shivs and a bunch of gems and a chunk of coal for abundant free damage was good.
posted by sibboleth at 12:53 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by sibboleth at 12:53 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is fun! I got to the second boss in the new game+ mode and couldn't get farther (the amounts of hit points the monsters get in the second go-round was eventually overwhelming). I had good success with the key sword + cleavers and with the pick-axe. I have not been able to make a build with archery or magic work out yet. I'm looking forward to a full release of this.
People who vibe with this might also like Loop Hero, which has similar aesthetics and is similarly focused on a single core mechanic.
posted by whir at 8:29 PM on April 29, 2022
People who vibe with this might also like Loop Hero, which has similar aesthetics and is similarly focused on a single core mechanic.
posted by whir at 8:29 PM on April 29, 2022
« Older I’m better at this than you are at everything you... | Hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
The biggest thing I found confusing at first was that gold is not an abstract quantity you have floating in the UI: it's actual coins and you have to put a pile into your inventory somewhere in order to carry them around. I don't think I figured that out until most of the way through my first attempt.
There's several different kinds of builds you can go for, focusing your always-too-little inventory space on e.g. raw damage output, on active and passive blocking with shields and armor, or tackling some of the more complicated builds like bow-and-arrow or magic use. I've had the easiest time so far with a mix of a good weapon and a sturdy armor build but I'm excited to keep poking at other approaches to see what can work.
posted by cortex at 9:06 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]