If you're reading this sometime before the 25th of November, 2014, grab Teleglitch free from Humble Bundle.

This game is hard. As in "taking your hard-earned progress, spitting on it, stealing your bombs, sticking them near you, blowing your face into the ground, laugh at you" hard. And yet it's a ton of fun, provided it is your cup of tea. If it isn't, there's not much of a chance that you'll like it. And I love it.

Teleglitch: Die More Edition is a top-down twin-stick shooter with roguelike elements. These elements materialize in the form of pseudo-random map generation, random item placement, basic crafting, and brutal permadeath. The high difficulty doesn't help. It pulls in the control scheme from it's twin-stick counterparts, using the W A S D keys + the mouse for movement and aiming, respectively. It obviously is in real-time, unlike roguelikes.

The art, while not perfect, is very good, and very nicely accents the themes the game was going for. It's pixeled, but there appear to be several layers of textures, so that the game is not just a grid. When you fire your guns, there's a neat lighting effect that happens to distort the environment; makes it feel like you're really ripping space apart. Teleglitch uses a simple but incredibly effective point-of-view system that hides areas of the environment that would logically be out of view and keeps the player guessing what's around the next corner. My only complaint with the lighting system is that it is rather easy to exploit it a bit to find secrets, but I shan't diverge how it is done here. I also wish that the colors were a bit more varied.

The music is mostly atmospheric, which fits the theme quite nicely. There's really not much for me to say here. The sound for the guns and bombs fits well; not too wimpy or loud. If you're concerned about preserving the theme while you play, you won't want to use music. Otherwise, go ahead and play your tunes if you want to.

There's a nice selection of weapons and items available, guns, bombs, medicine, etc. Much of what you get you have to craft. The crafting system is simple, effective, and (most importantly) usable in the middle of combat. (If you can keep your focus) The amount of ammo you get for your guns is balanced well enough. You never feel as if you have too much, or that you were given much too little. Usually, when you run out of ammo, there were playing techniques you could have used to avoid it. One of my personal favorites is the cangun; useful for clearing a corridor.

Now, with permadeath, there has to be a reason to keep playing. The most notable reason to keep playing is the pseudo-random level generation. It appears that the game has a database of rooms and corridors, and strings these together to create a playable level. Then, secret areas, items, and monitors are placed in the level. The theme is usually the same in the same level, such as the Algae pits for level 2b, but it feels coherent and gives the impression of roaming around in a military complex. Note that some rooms have the Teleglitch in them. I'll leave it to you to figure out what it does and how to deal with it.

Summary: I heavily reccomend this game. It has an excellent mix of shooter and roguelike. That said, there are people from both genres who won't like it. If you don't want the pain of losing all your progress forever, or if the randomness just isn't something you'd like, or if the hectic combat just makes you lose your cool, you may want to consider other options.

If you're reading this sometime before the 25th of November, 2014, grab Teleglitch free from Humble Bundle. This game is hard. As in "taking your hard-earned progress, spitting on it, stealing your bombs, sticking them near you, blowing your face into the ground, laugh at you" hard. And yet it's a ton of fun, provided it is your cup of tea. If it isn't, there's not much of a chance that you'll like it. And I love it. Teleglitch: Die More Edition is a top-down twin-stick shooter with roguelike elements. These elements materialize in the form of pseudo-random map generation, random item placement, basic crafting, and brutal permadeath. The high difficulty doesn't help. It pulls in the control scheme from it's twin-stick counterparts, using the W A S D keys + the mouse for movement and aiming, respectively. It obviously is in real-time, unlike roguelikes. The art, while not perfect, is very good, and very nicely accents the themes the game was going for. It's pixeled, but there appear to be several layers of textures, so that the game is not just a grid. When you fire your guns, there's a neat lighting effect that happens to distort the environment; makes it feel like you're really ripping space apart. Teleglitch uses a simple but incredibly effective point-of-view system that hides areas of the environment that would logically be out of view and keeps the player guessing what's around the next corner. My only complaint with the lighting system is that it is rather easy to exploit it a bit to find secrets, but I shan't diverge how it is done here. I also wish that the colors were a bit more varied. The music is mostly atmospheric, which fits the theme quite nicely. There's really not much for me to say here. The sound for the guns and bombs fits well; not too wimpy or loud. If you're concerned about preserving the theme while you play, you won't want to use music. Otherwise, go ahead and play your tunes if you want to. There's a nice selection of weapons and items available, guns, bombs, medicine, etc. Much of what you get you have to craft. The crafting system is simple, effective, and (most importantly) usable in the middle of combat. (If you can keep your focus) The amount of ammo you get for your guns is balanced well enough. You never feel as if you have too much, or that you were given much too little. Usually, when you run out of ammo, there were playing techniques you could have used to avoid it. One of my personal favorites is the cangun; useful for clearing a corridor. Now, with permadeath, there has to be a reason to keep playing. The most notable reason to keep playing is the pseudo-random level generation. It appears that the game has a database of rooms and corridors, and strings these together to create a playable level. Then, secret areas, items, and monitors are placed in the level. The theme is usually the same in the same level, such as the Algae pits for level 2b, but it feels coherent and gives the impression of roaming around in a military complex. Note that some rooms have the Teleglitch in them. I'll leave it to you to figure out what it does and how to deal with it. Summary: I heavily reccomend this game. It has an excellent mix of shooter and roguelike. That said, there are people from both genres who won't like it. If you don't want the pain of losing all your progress forever, or if the randomness just isn't something you'd like, or if the hectic combat just makes you lose your cool, you may want to consider other options.