Info about Abandoned Archive:

Official game description:
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About the Game
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Abandoned Archive is a uniquely crafted, fast-paced, spellcasting roguelike. Set in an archive that has been long forgotten and sealed away, the player must venture deep below ground to uncover the dark secrets tucked away.
Spells & Relics
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Discover the many schools of magic, and utilise their spells to fight your way down the tower you are sealed in. Battle with anything from lightning and air to gravity and time. Becoming powerful requires you to synergise your spells by carefully choosing upgrades and collecting rare relics that offer passive effects to be combined with your finest abilities.
Descend with Oblome
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When one day you find yourself sealed in a tower, a strange, sentient Orb proposes a deal. With Oblome the Orbite, who claims to be one with science, you forge onwards in an attempt to escape your imprisonment and find the city of Orbites. Tied to your pact, you must protect Oblome at any cost if any danger arises, and in turn, he will protect you. There is definitely something stowed away, some kind of synthetic horror at the base of this archive. Will you delve deep and decipher the mysteries? Or will you simply succumb to your surroundings?
Story
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Set in the country of Gratissia in the tower named “Turrim”, Abandoned Archive has the player exploring fragments of a species’ past, floor by floor. With an exiled ex-scientist as your guide and protector, there seems to just be many burning questions, with answers hiding in the cracks of the archive.

Release date: 24 Nov, 2025

Categories: Roguelike, Spell-based Combat, Character Progression, Single-player Story, Environmental Puzzle, Cooperative Multiplayer, Exploration


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Strong Visuals & Immersive Soundtrack (weight 0.91): The game receives praise for its music, described as terrific, epic, and immersive, significantly enhancing the atmosphere and excitement. Visuals, art style, and overall polish are also noted as good, crisp, and effectively conveying the game's aesthetic, with minimal noticeable bugs.
- Engaging & Challenging Roguelike Gameplay (weight 0.8): Players consistently praise the game's challenging yet fair difficulty, particularly noting well-designed, intense boss fights and satisfying combat mechanics. The fast-paced, high-replayability roguelike loop encourages learning and personal improvement, making each run rewarding. The varied mechanics, including elemental reactions between spells, further enhance strategic depth.
- Exceptional Overall Experience (weight 0.68): Players express an overwhelmingly positive sentiment, often calling the game 'fun' and 'addicting', with many considering it a 'Game of the Year' candidate. This reflects a genuinely engaging experience that often exceeds initial expectations, leading to long play sessions.
- Excellent Value for Price (weight 0.36): Many players highlight the game's low price point as a significant positive, feeling that it offers incredible value for the amount of fun, challenge, and replayability provided. The game is consistently described as 'worth it' for its cost, exceeding expectations for its budget.
- Deep & Satisfying Spell System (weight 0.19): The game's spell system is a standout feature, offering a wide variety of spells that can be significantly upgraded. Players find spell usage satisfying and impactful, enjoying the radical changes and synergistic combos possible, which keeps gameplay fresh and interesting.
- Immersive & Thought-Provoking Puzzle Narrative (weight 0.15): This feedback describes a distinct game, or a specific aspect, focused on a mysterious, atmospheric puzzle adventure. Players appreciate the organic storytelling, environmental puzzle-solving, and the game's ability to create a sense of unease and curiosity through subtle clues and an effective soundscape. It respects player intelligence, fostering interpretation and discussion.
- Praiseworthy Developer Engagement (weight 0.13): Players commend the developer, Vedal, for their hard work, responsiveness to feedback, and the impressive quality achieved, especially considering its origins as a side project or first release. There is a strong sentiment of appreciation and support for the developer's efforts.
- Intuitive & Customizable Controls (weight 0.05): The controls are praised for being simple, easy to learn, and customizable, with good support for various controllers. This accessibility contributes to the game's overall enjoyable experience, making it easy to get into despite its challenging nature.
- Enjoyable Co-op Experience (weight 0.04): The co-op mode is highlighted as a source of significant fun and satisfaction, allowing players to enjoy the game with friends or family. This feature adds replayability and a social dimension to the challenging gameplay.

Common complaints:
- High Difficulty & Polish Gaps (weight 0.5): The game is perceived as excessively difficult with a steep learning curve, particularly early on, exacerbated by numerous bugs, unclear mechanics, and a general lack of polish. Players experience frustration from inconsistent hitboxes, unrewarding progress, and a feeling of the game being unfinished.
- Awkward Control Scheme (weight 0.39): Players report widespread issues with controls, particularly for controllers, citing awkward default keybinds, lack of remapping options, and uncomfortable button layouts. Specific mechanics like dodging and stance switching feel clunky, and issues like excessive vibration or a non-following camera further degrade the control experience.
- Missing Map & Navigation Issues (weight 0.38): The complete absence of a mini-map or full map is a significant source of frustration, making navigation difficult and causing players to get lost frequently. This is particularly problematic in a roguelike genre where efficient exploration is key, leading to repetitive backtracking and annoyance.
- Unfair Bosses & Visual Clutter (weight 0.37): Boss encounters are often criticized for feeling unfair due to untelgraphed, too-fast, or off-screen attacks. This is exacerbated by janky animations, disorienting camera movements during boss actions, and general visual clutter from various effects, making it hard to discern enemy actions and react effectively.
- Unbalanced Spells & No Meta-Progression (weight 0.36): The spell system is criticized for unbalanced utility, lack of variety in upgrades, and clunky swapping mechanics, often relying too heavily on random rolls. The absence of persistent meta-progression means losing runs feels unrewarding, diminishing motivation for continued play beyond personal skill improvement.
- Poor Localization & Font Issues (weight 0.11): Multiple language localizations, notably Russian and Chinese, suffer from clunky, potentially AI-generated translations and missing characters. Additionally, some in-game fonts are hard to read, affecting punctuation and overall text clarity, which hinders comprehension and immersion.
- Mixed Roguelike Appeal (weight 0.06): Some reviewers express a general dislike for the roguelike genre, while others find the game less polished and balanced compared to more established titles like Enter the Gungeon or The Binding of Isaac. This feedback reflects personal genre preferences and comparative standards.
- Lacks Basic Display Options (weight 0.04): Players note the absence of fundamental display and accessibility settings, such as a brightness slider, refresh rate control, or options for more readable fonts. These omissions limit player customization and comfort, impacting the overall user experience.

Gameplay feedback:
- High Difficulty, Skill Required (weight 0.23): Players consistently report the game is challenging, requiring significant reflexes, patience, and skill to master, especially early on. Many struggles are noted with the very first boss, indicating a steep initial learning curve. Some attribute this to fast-attacking enemies that predict player movement.
- Standard Roguelike Design (weight 0.19): The game is widely recognized as a typical roguelike, often compared to titles like The Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon, featuring permadeath and no permanent upgrades between runs. Progression involves climbing a tower, with each playthrough demanding strategic planning.
- Spell-Based Combat System (weight 0.1): Core combat involves combining various spells, with players needing to return to a starting room for upgrades that reset each run. Spell availability is random, some are better than others, players are limited to three spell slots, and every attack has a cooldown. Relics are also important for run progression.
- Keybinding Customization Crucial (weight 0.08): Several players found it necessary to remap default keybindings, particularly for dodging and interaction, to achieve a more natural and effective control scheme. This suggests that the default bindings might hinder smooth gameplay for some users.
- Boss Fights Require Dodging (weight 0.07): Bosses appear to have set attack patterns, requiring players to repeatedly learn and master dodge mechanics as there's often no cover. Specific bosses like the Magician, Rufus, Burst Boss, and the final boss have unique challenges highlighted by players.

Performance notes:
- Russian language support available (weight 0.04): Players confirmed that Russian language support is present in the game, and important information is translated normally, contradicting the Steam store page's description. This is positive feedback for Russian-speaking players.
- Quick bug fix for tutorial (weight 0.02): A critical bug in the Chinese version's tutorial, which caused players to get stuck, was swiftly addressed and fixed by developers within hours of the game's launch. This demonstrates excellent responsiveness from the development team.
- Runs well on low-end PCs (weight 0.02): The game is noted for its good performance even on less powerful computer systems, making it accessible to a broader range of players. This indicates good optimization for various hardware configurations.

Recommendations:
- Highly Recommended & Great Value (weight 0.36): Many players highly recommend the game, praising its value for money and potential for long-term engagement. It's often seen as a challenging roguelike experience with good replayability, appealing especially to fans of the genre.
- Potential for Future Refinements & QoL (weight 0.28): Players express a desire for future updates that include refinements and quality-of-life features. This indicates a belief in the game's core potential and a hope that developers will continue to polish and enhance the player experience.
- Mixed Satisfaction & Progression Barriers (weight 0.28): A segment of players expresses moderate satisfaction, giving the game average ratings and finding it 'not bad but not peak.' Some struggle with progression or prefer alternative titles, indicating it may not universally engage all players, especially with potential difficulty spikes or a lack of compelling long-term motivation for some.
- Support for Developers/Streamers (weight 0.08): A significant portion of recommendations stem from a desire to support the developers (Vedal, Neuro-sama, Tutel) or are directed at their specific fanbase. This suggests a strong community connection driving some purchases and positive reviews.
- Niche Roguelike Appeal (weight 0.04): The game offers a distinct experience that resonates with players who have extensively played other popular roguelikes like Gungeon or Isaac, possibly looking for something different. However, it may not appeal to all veteran roguelike fans, suggesting a specific niche or a polarizing gameplay style.

Other player notes:
- Driven by streamer/meme culture (weight 0.2): A significant portion of the player base purchased the game due to popular streamer endorsements (e.g., Neuro-sama, Vedal/Tutel) or community memes. While some feedback includes ironic negative comments mimicking streamer sentiment, it often coexists with an underlying desire to support the creators.
- Positive initial impressions (weight 0.16): Despite some areas needing improvement, players generally view the game positively for an indie title, especially considering its price point. Some reviewers have given it very high scores, even those new to the roguelike genre.
- Requires more content and polish (weight 0.1): Players indicate that the game could benefit from further development time to add more substantial content and general quality-of-life improvements. While initial bugs existed, the developer's responsiveness is noted, and there's an appetite for continued updates and richer gameplay experiences.
- Requests meta-progression systems (weight 0.1): Many players feel the game would benefit significantly from meta-progression mechanics that offer persistent rewards or character growth across runs. Suggestions include permanent upgrades, cosmetic unlocks, and adjustable difficulty modifiers, enhancing replayability and player investment.
- Desires expanded lore (weight 0.02): Players express interest in seeing more lore integrated into the game, perhaps through environmental storytelling or character interactions. This would deepen the world-building and narrative appeal.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.22): Players express satisfaction primarily due to the game's well-balanced and rewarding difficulty, which encourages learning and improvement. This is complemented by engaging gameplay loops, a robust spell upgrade system, responsive controls, and high overall quality, including good graphics, music, and performance. Many also appreciate the game's value for its price and its accessibility to both roguelike veterans and newcomers, further enhanced by developer attentiveness to bug fixes and language support.
- Frustration (weight 0.17): Frustration stems significantly from the game's high and sometimes unfair difficulty, especially regarding boss fights with unclear telegraphs and disproportionate power. Players also experience frustration due to a lack of quality-of-life features, such as a mini-map, persistent progression, and clear UI/spell descriptions. Technical issues like awkward/clunky controls, visual clarity problems (dark environments, visual noise), FPS drops, and localization errors also contribute to negative experiences.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.14): Players find enjoyment in the game's overall fun and challenging roguelike dungeon crawler experience, which combines intuitive, fast-paced combat with a satisfying risk/reward system. The creative skills, spell variety, and synergistic upgrades offer unique playthroughs and allow players to genuinely engage with the mechanics. This positive experience is often amplified by the game's challenging nature, retro-inspired art style, and the fun of learning enemy patterns and improving over time, leading to a strong desire for continued play.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement is generated by the game's exceptionally high overall quality, often described as a "masterpiece" with "exceptional gameplay" and "terrific music." Players are thrilled by the addictive and rewarding challenge, fluid combat, diverse options, and intense boss fights, often leading to a changed perception of the genre or spellcasting mechanics. The game frequently exceeds high expectations, offering a genuinely fun experience, unique lore, and a strong desire for more playtime and future content.
- Disappointment (weight 0.07): Disappointment stems from unmet expectations regarding overall game quality and a perceived lack of consistent fun. Players are often let down by shallow builds, underwhelming relics, and a strong absence of quality-of-life features like a level map or persistent progression. Specific issues such as an overpowered final boss, clunky mechanics, and localization problems (e.g., Polish/Russian translation, font display) further contribute to this sentiment, with some feeling the game lacks innovation or polish in core elements.
- Joy (weight 0.04): Joy arises from the sheer fun and engaging gameplay experience, often unexpectedly, leading players to "fall in love" with the game. This positive emotion is also driven by strong overall game quality, including the soundtrack and level design, as well as the enjoyment derived from spell crafting and multiplayer interactions. The surprise discovery of unlisted features like Russian language support further enhances this feeling of delight.
- Surprise (weight 0.04): Surprise is frequently triggered by the game exceeding players' initial expectations, often being far more fun or of higher quality than anticipated, especially if purchased for support or as a "meme game." Players are also surprised by the game's unexpected high difficulty and finding enjoyment in a genre they don't typically prefer. The discovery of unlisted features like Russian language support or compatibility with specific display ratios also contributes to this sense of pleasant astonishment.
- Challenge (weight 0.02): The emotion of challenge is primarily driven by the game's high difficulty, which many reviewers describe as "pretty hard" or requiring "super fast reflexes." This includes bosses that are tough but generally perceived as fair, pushing players to improve their skills. The initial hurdles, particularly with the first boss, are also a significant source of this demanding but often rewarding experience.
- Humor (weight 0.02): Humor in reviews often arises from the game's satirical tone, the incorporation of internet memes, and reviewers using self-deprecating humor, particularly regarding their 
- Desire (weight 0.02): Players express a strong desire for quality-of-life improvements and additional features, most notably a dedicated map system to aid navigation. There is also a clear wish for better gameplay mechanics, such as an improved spell swapping system, and broader content enhancements like more rewards or specific fan-related additions, including character romance options.
- Amusement (weight 0.02): Amusement is caused by specific, often humorous criticisms of game elements, such as the goofy sound effects of certain weapons or satirical critiques of the game's premise. Reviewers also find amusement in sarcastic negative feedback, inside jokes/memes, and self-aware comments about their "skill issues" or how the game's "clunkiness" unexpectedly adds to the challenge.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Players express appreciation for the game's high-quality art direction, compelling soundtrack, and consistent aesthetic and style. Significant appreciation is also shown for the developers' hard work, effort, and impressive achievements with a seemingly small budget. The inclusion of features like Russian language support and fair pricing further solidifies this positive sentiment.
- Support (weight 0.02): The emotion of support is directly tied to players' desire to back the developers, such as Tutel, Twins, or Vedal. This often stems from an admiration for their work, including the challenging game design, and a general wish to contribute to the success of their projects. Many purchases are made explicitly with the intention of developer support.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is primarily driven by the belief in the game's strong potential for future improvement and continued development through updates and DLC. Players express a desire for the addition of crucial features like metaprogression, clearer character stats, and item descriptions, anticipating that these enhancements will further elevate the game's quality and experience.
- Engagement (weight 0.01): Engagement is consistently observed due to the game's highly addictive nature, causing players to lose track of time and find it difficult to stop playing. This is further fueled by the game requiring significant focus for success, compelling puzzle design, and an invested interest in its unique spell mechanics and narrative elements.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from several design and technical issues, including disorienting screen jerking and attacks that occur off-screen, making combat difficult to track. Players also experience confusion with strange or unclear controls, difficulty understanding how to use certain spells due to font issues, and cumbersome spell swapping mechanics. Specific design decisions, such as the absence of a minimap, also contribute to this feeling.
- Determination (weight 0.01): Determination is evident when players express a strong commitment to overcoming the game's challenges, even when struggling significantly, such as not being able to beat the first boss. This includes a clear desire to win, complete the game, and persist in playing, sometimes even despite initial negative feelings, driven by the underlying challenge or potential reward.
- Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration is a strong positive emotion stemming from the game's exceptional overall design, atmosphere, and storytelling. Players are deeply impressed by the game's high-quality music, visuals, and its challenging yet player-respecting difficulty, often labeling it a "masterpiece" or "the best of the century." This sentiment extends to profound appreciation for the developers' craftsmanship and dedication.
- Evaluation (weight 0.01): Evaluation involves players critically assessing the game's overall quality, value for money, and its position within its genre. This includes considering factors like its simplicity, price point, and how well it measures up against other titles. The feedback typically focuses on a holistic judgment of the game's worth and execution.
- Curiosity (weight 0.01): Curiosity is sparked by the game's unusual release context, particularly when it originates from a meme or has a mysterious aura. Players are intrigued by the prospect of new game mechanics, exploring an unfamiliar genre, and discovering the secrets behind its mysterious sound effects and overall presentation.}