by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Tangledeep
• Developer Impact Gameworks
• Publisher Impact Gameworks
• Switch, PC

As someone who spends a lot of their limited time trying to keep up with games, the phrase “rogue-like” tends to get me to immediately back away. I enjoy what a lot of games bring to the style, but the threat of losing all progress each time tends to guarantee I won’t see more than the first or second stage on most runs and ironically shortens my interest in the game. 

So knowing Tangledeep gives you the option to opt out of the harshest penalties single-handedly saved it from being ignored. A good thing too, because not only did I find a lot of what I enjoy about rogue-likes in Tangledeep, but it turns out it’s even more varied and customizable than I thought.

In terms of roguelike philosophy, I personally find there are two camps: one that focuses on upredictable, systemic interactions between mechanics, and those that aim to bring dynamism to traditional dungeon crawlers. Tangledeep falls closer to the traditional dungeon crawler style. You won’t be tossing fire potions on top of meat to cook them, or recounting some absurd event where a magic spell caused something in your inventory to go off and led to your untimely death. Tangledeep tends to be transparent. If you got killed it’s your fault, and you probably ignored several warning signs on the way there.

Tangledeep’s variety instead comes from its several character classes and gameplay modifiers. Three difficulties adjust the penalty for death–from the lenient MMO style gold and XP penalty, to the now standard “permanent character death with persistent world upgrades”, to straight up traditional rogue-like instant game over.

In addition there are several character feats to give characters bonuses, and major gameplay modifiers, both helpful and debilitating. Tired of having to constantly spend gold or cook food to regain health? Turn on health regen out of combat. Want to get better gear at the expense of escalating enemy strength? Increase the amount of Pandora’s Boxes. These options let you choose what you value in the genre and skew Tangledeep closer to it.

Each of the game’s jobs refreshes your approach as well. In my time with it I only was able to experience three of them, but each of them offered a unique style of engagement. The first one I played was the Sword Dancer, which used different elemental abilities to control the space around her. My favorite ability was one that created a wall of flame that advanced with me, causing extra damage to enemies that didn’t escape. The Budokan, the monk type class, causes damage through several passive abilities, striking pressure points to deal continued damage, or parrying attacks to avoid it. Meanwhile, the Floramancer plays more defensive, able to set grapple points to pull herself towards, and create plant creatures to support her. Some classes are more straightforward than others (which the game helpfully lays out before you start), but all of the ones I played felt viable as long as I considered the space around me.

These varied approaches, alongside the turn based format, give Tangledeep a solid tactical feel. Tangledeep definitely has a strong survival aspect, since resources constantly need to be rationed. Even returning to base won’t replenish your health for free. You either need to pay an increasing fee or level up to get back to full health. Thankfully, the base at least provides you a place to recoup, which you can return to at any given time, provided you have can survive the few turns needed for the spell to activate. It turns ever dive into the dungeons of Tangledeep into an expedition, where you bet your tactical decisions and resources against the death of your character.

Of course, that’s only if you play with the default settings. The modifiers can make it a much more lenient or oppressive game if you really want it to me. Personally, I found myself playing on the easier difficulty, enjoying the challenging combat, without the frustration of losing everything for making a mistake. I can’t emphasize how much losing the permadeath penalty changed my approach. I hit a wall several times, but it allowed me to experiment a little more without fear, and made me more excited to try new approaches in future runs.

Tangledeep provides the appeal of a dungeon-crawler style rogue-like in a more accessible package. It gave me what I wanted out of other entries in the genre, without the frustrations that drag them down.