This is the one hundred eighty-first entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.
Our one hundred eighty-first random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has appeared with a whole menagerie of monsters. It’s Realm of the Ghost King, by Mantis-Eye Labs, and its tagline in the bundle reads:
A quick-play roguelike
Long-time readers will know that I’ve been writing about roguelikes since before they were cool.
There’s a certain type of roguelike that is really more of a puzzle game. I’m talking about games like Hoplite or ENYO, where the randomized dungeon floors tend to fit on a single screen, and players must carefully consider a set of moves in order to dispatch enemies without being killed. These games tend to simplify or remove the more complex role-playing mechanics of traditional roguelikes in favor of quick-play navigation and battling, where careful turn-based planning is needed to win the day. Realm of the Ghost King is such a game.
It’s also one I’ve read about before, since it was highlighted in Sin Vega’s sadly now defunct Unknown Pleasures column for Rock, Paper, Shotgun (although it’s been semi-replaced with her current Scout Report series, which is criminally only available to paid supporters of Rock, Paper, Shotgun). In fact, Sin went on to include Realm of the Ghost King in her roundup of the best Unknown Pleasures of 2018 — a choice which prompted Mantis-Eye Labs to release a Game of the Year Edition of the game, which is the version I played. This is encouraging, because Sin is rarely wrong.
I must admit, however, that I wasn’t sure about Realm of the Ghost King at first. In its small grid-like dungeon areas, movement is only allowed in the four cardinal directions. Players can attack enemies by moving into them, as is tradition, but all enemies take two hits before dying. Fortunately, an enemy who has just taken a hit will be stunned and miss their turn, so a lone enemy can be dispatched easily. That is, unless the enemy is an odd number of tiles away, in which case it’s impossible to approach it without letting it get a hit in first. There’s no way to simply wait and do nothing in Realm of the Ghost King, which really threw me since I’m so used to waiting and letting enemies approach in other roguelikes. And don’t even think about getting surrounded. That spells quick death, especially since players usually only have three health (and sometimes even less!).
The other tool at players’ disposal is the mighty spirit bomb, but I never quite got the hang of using these effectively. It takes one turn to place a bomb, on the player’s current position. Then, players must spend the next two turns moving away, after which point the bomb will go off, dealing two damage to anything on its space or the four adjacent spaces. If a player does anything other than move twice after placing a bomb, they’ll be caught in the blast. If I got surrounded, it was already too late to drop a bomb, but if I had a way to retreat, I could often catch multiple enemies in the blast since they don’t try to avoid it when moving. Spirit bombs come in a limited supply, however, and players might want to save them to blow up walls in order to collect valuable health restoring items or reach the portal that lets them buy upgrades. More on the upgrades in a moment.
It didn’t help that the only playable character available at the start is the ghost, whose special ability I found very tricky to use effectively. Collect spirit energy from fallen enemies and players can activate their character’s special ability, which in the ghost’s case means taking two turns in a row. This seemed to require a similar level of thinking ahead that effective spirit bomb use does, and I rarely had the foresight to use the ability in time. Fortunately, players can unlock other playable characters, each a version of one of their adversaries. Enemies all have different behavior. Ghosts simply move twice every turn (including attacking twice!), making them much better than the player’s ghost. Mushrooms teleport away after taking a hit. Slimes deal two damage with each attack, and sometimes cover the player in slime, which can randomly prevent movement. Performing certain in-game feats — mercifully spelled out on the character select menu — will unlock each of these monsters as playable characters, and many of them are actually more powerful in players’ hands than they are as enemies. The playable mushroom, for example, can perform a telefrag at the cost of some spirit energy.
Unlocking a few of these monsters helped a lot. I eventually found some that I found more intuitive to play, like the ice monster who can freeze nearby enemies in order to dispatch them before they can attack. That let me get out of trouble when I was the wrong distance from enemies, or when more than one enemy was in range to attack. Special abilities take a few turns to cool down, but the freeze lasts long enough that I was usually able to use it again by the time my enemies thawed, as long as I had enough spirit energy in reserve. I also learned to spend some spirit energy on upgrades, like increasing the amount of spirit energy I could hold so I could keep freezing for longer, or increasing my spirit bomb capacity for those situations when an explosion was sorely needed.
At this point I started to appreciate Realm of the Ghost King’s design. It’s extremely quick to play, with small levels filled with a handful of monsters and a few items. A bad run will last less than a minute, a good one just a few minutes. Each new level is a new location, from the starting Graveyard through to the Forest, Swamp, and so on. Not only do these slowly add a wider array of monsters to fight, but they start to have different layouts or special features. Facing enemies in the narrow corridors of the Catacombs is a different proposition to fighting in the open cavern of the Depths. The right mixture of enemies can create interesting tactical conundrums which, with careful planning, can be sorted through. There’s a string of weird items to pick up, like the pieces of a key which can then unlock treasure chests (although I never figured out what was in these chests, they just made a noise when I opened them?). And, of course, a whopping twelve characters to unlock and try out. I started to make steady progress.
I usually succumbed as I tried to collect everything across every level. My trusty ice monster ran into trouble with late-game enemies who couldn’t simply be frozen and bashed to death. I experimented with other characters and eventually settled on some sort of ooze that could create a friendly clone of itself. This not only acted as a de facto “wait” command when used, but the clone would then help fight enemies. By forgoing some of the mysterious collectible items and focusing on getting as far as possible, I eventually defeated the titular Ghost King with this character.
But there’s a lot more I could have tried to do. I could have investigated these mysterious treasure chests, or gone after every single secret I could find. I could have tried to master the huge roster of characters, and win with each — including the lowly ghost. I wasn’t quite enticed enough by Realm of the Ghost King to pursue these, but I did end up enjoying it a lot. Once things clicked, I looked forward to each run, knowing I had a good chance to find something new within just a few minutes of playtime. I do think it’s a game better played in short bursts, which unfortunately wasn’t how I approached it as I tried to finish it for this series, so keep that in mind if you decide to check it out. It’s a smart game that does a lot within its simple ruleset, so I recommend that you do. As usual, Sin Vega wasn’t wrong. If you missed it in the bundle, Realm of the Ghost King is sold for a minimum price of $2.99.
That’s 181 down, and only 1560 to go!
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