cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/26337485

First of all, Bug Hunter is by no means a traditional roguelike. The controls are menu-based, most enemies can't damage you and your character can't take hits without dying at all.

Yet BH is arguably very close to some aspects of tradroguelikes: turn-based tactics with a great emphasis on positioning, multiple losing conditions, trade-offs between short-term advantages and long-term empowerment...

Positioning in this game is great - higher and lower ground give advantages to either you or bugs depending on who's beyond who, placement of enemies and energy cubes interact with multitude of your actions in complex ways.

Randomness of bug types and actions that will be available to you in each run prevents you from sticking to a single strategy while having more than one losing condition (your character can die, you can run out of time or an egg may hatch) adds tension to this already stressful (due to permadeath) game.

And then there's a whole action buying system which is excellent! When you start, you only get 7 actions for the turn - and each action can be used only once per turn. When you run out of actions you have no choice but to end the turn... ... unless you have some energy. When you get 2 or more energy you get access to the shop where you can replace your existing actions for new and better ones, for the cost.

New actions are immediately available for use, even if you replaced an used one. Most actions cost 2 energy but stronger actions cost more - creating an interesting trade-off: you can buy a cheap action now and get more done on the turn, or you can wait til you have 4 energy for the strong one that will help you a lot in a long term.

Waiting is punishing - the bugs that survived a turn evolve into stronger forms gaining special abilities which are quite nasty. Thus, you get to choose: whether you want to get stronger but to let the bugs to become stronger too, or you want to play safely but stay with limited power for the run.

With all these mechanics of hidden complexity and fast-paced thinky gameplay, I got that feeling I'm playing a good ol' roguelike yet again. Sure, it's not much strategical so probably DCSS and TOME4 players won't find that familiar but for Brogue fans it can be quite familiar.