Review GameBanshee Reviews Sword of the Stars: The Pit

[Infinitron]

Tags: Eric Schwarz; Kerberos Productions; Sword of the Stars: The Pit

Kerberos Productions, developers of the Sword of the Stars series of space-themed 4x games, recently made the unusual choice of developing an SotS roguelike spinoff title. Its name is Sword of the Stars: The Pit, and it was released two weeks or so ago, after a not-so-successful funding campaign on IndieGogo last year (but thank god for Flexible Funding campaigns).

Now, Eric "sea" Schwarz has written a review of the game for Gamebanshee. His impression of the game is mostly positive. Here's the opening:

Canadian developer Kerberos Productions made a name for themselves nearly a decade ago with the release of their Sword of the Stars 4x strategy game, a title met with generally positive reception. After following it up with a sequel, which unfortunately launched with quite a bit of bugs and other issues, Kerberos have decided to take their Sword of the Stars universe in a very different direction, with The Pit, a fan-funded roguelike title which blends punishing old-school gameplay with a more modern interface and presentation.

As the roguelike genre has seen quite a bit of activity in recent years, The Pit goes to some lengths to distinguish itself with its sci-fi theme, inclusion of ranged combat, and lighthearted tone. While not a perfect game by any means, it certainly features the brutally difficult, "one more try" gameplay roguelikes are known for, but makes things accessible enough so that you don't need to be experienced with the genre to enjoy it.​

Sword of the Stars: The Pit is available for purchase on Steam and GamersGate.

 

[norolim]

TB also has a WTF video of it, for those who'd like to see some gameplay:

Looks rather interesting. Might give it a try.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

whatever happened to northstar

 

[Overboard]

Yeah I'm also vaguely interested, but not 10 dorrar interested.

 

[Severian Silk]

Nerd Cubed is also a pretty funny youtube channel. They didn't review this game though.

 

[norolim]

whatever happened to northstar

Waporware I guess. It's been sitting in my bookmarks for years, now. I checked it every half a year but there were no updates. The Northstar page and forum are still up, though. There was even some discussion about KS, but Kerberos said they would not be using it to fund the game, for now.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

"Sword of the Stars" in the same line as the word 'enjoy'? Preposterous.

 

[General Maxson]

Wow, this actually looks and seems really interesting. I might have to give it a try.

 

[sea]

Yeah I'm also vaguely interested, but not 10 dorrar interested.

This to me is kind of the deal breaker. $10 is not a lot, but the game is limited enough that I'd say $5 would be the perfect "no brainer" pricing. If it had say, an expansion pack's worth of features on top of it, I'd say $10 would be a more reasonable price. But when you can get Dungeons of Dredmor for less, which has far more content, it's a bit harder to recommend this as a "my first roguelike".

 

[Infinitron]

This to me is kind of the deal breaker. $10 is not a lot, but the game is limited enough that I'd say $5 would be the perfect "no brainer" pricing. If it had say, an expansion pack's worth of features on top of it, I'd say $10 would be a more reasonable price. But when you can get Dungeons of Dredmor for less, which has far more content, it's a bit harder to recommend this as a "my first roguelike".

I guess they figure everybody will wait for the Steam sale anyway.

 

[Jaesun]

The stat checks are most interesting.

 

[Grunker]

I bought it, playing it in the days to come.

 

[Jaesun]

I bought it, playing it in the days to come.

oooh give us some thought's then when you can.

 

[Grunker]

I bought it, playing it in the days to come.

oooh give us some thought's then when you can.

Will do

I'm pretty bad at rogue-likes though. Only played Dungeons of Dredmor and DoomRL, and I was very bad at both

EDIT: And FTL, which I was kindda good at.

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps we need a dedicated roguelike review guy. I think the Bee would qualify but she's too busy these days.

 

[felipepepe]

Bought it as well. Very fun to play, and while Dungeons of Dremore does have "more stuff", I feel like this one has "more of the right stuff"... it feels like a more solid game that just needs expansions to add more stuffies.

Or maybe I just prefer the tons of skills of The Pit than the tons of weapons and magic of DoD... :skillfag:

Also, this:

Not sure if complete fail at humour or a grim visage of a future when WASD are replaced by motion controls or whatever...

 

[Grunker]

Perhaps we need a dedicated roguelike review guy.

sea, you can come write for us if you promise to trash Darksiders II

But yeah, a dedicated Roguelike-reviewer wouldn't be bad with the focus they seem to be getting now.

 

[Gragt]

Not sure if complete fail at humour or a grim visage of a future when WASD are replaced by motion controls or whatever...

Nowadays movements are done with the left stick.

 

[DwarvenFood]

In the grim dark future, there is only button A

 

[Ogg]

In the grim dark future, there is only 'Awesome' button

Fix'd

 

[Mrowak]

In the grim dark future, there is only 'Awesome' button

Fix'd

'Awesome' is its original name, but they dumbed it down streamlined it so it's 'A' now.

 

[Nathair]

Well there is that long standing feud is between WASD and number pad keys..... I always used the latter in *bands where you do an awful lot of both diagonal movement and standing on the spot. Have a vague memory that rogue was WASD though?

 

[Yeesh]

I am fairly excited, not "super excited" as the video reviewer suggests, and I too look forward to hearing more impressions from the forces of .

 

[Gurkog]

I just bought it as a way to kill time and am having some fun. It was 10% off on the STEAM store... so i sullied my HD with that. The insane difficulty randomly throws high level enemies into the early levels... so it is almost impossible to kill them quite frequently. Other than that, the combat is fine mostly because there is a wide variety of enemy abilities to plan tactics against.

 

[Metro]

It'll be 75% off soon enough... or in an indie bundle.