RICE - Repetitive Indie Combat Experience™ Review Summary

Fun, charming, and good value: The game is considered fun, enjoyable, and charming, with simple yet comprehensive gameplay and well-executed graphics. It's also praised for being a good value for its price, making it an appealing and entertaining experience overall.

Good content for early access: Despite being in early access, the game has a lot of content, build variety, and potential for a solid indie combat experience. It combines elements from various games and includes meta elements, showing promise and being worth the price for an early access title.

Responsive and active developer: The developers are responsive to user feedback, promptly addressing issues and implementing quality-of-life improvements. This includes fixing performance issues, adding HUD scaling options, and adjusting settings based on community input, demonstrating active development and support.

Appreciated humor and sarcasm: The game's humor, sarcasm, and references to game tropes are appreciated by reviewers, making the game stand out. Clear information about badges and stats, combined with meta jokes, contribute to the game's engaging and humorous experience.

Enjoyable to 'break' the game: Players find enjoyment in experimenting with builds and discovering ways to 'break' the game, particularly through the meta-progression board. This aspect encourages creative play and a sense of mastery as players understand and exploit the game's systems.

Severe performance and lag issues: The game suffers from significant performance and optimization issues, including lag, FPS drops, freezing, and unplayability, even on high-end PCs. These issues are exacerbated in later stages with more enemies and effects, and can occur even in menus. Some reviewers reported the game being unplayable due to lag.

Grindy, confusing meta-progression system: The meta-progression system is grindy, slow, and sometimes confusing, with unclear upgrade descriptions. The 'double or nothing' mechanic can lead to lost progress and currency, making runs feel unrewarding. Some players found ways to exploit the system, undermining the intended gameplay loop.

Lacks content and replayability: The game lacks sufficient content and replayability, with limited weapon variety and maps. The gameplay loop becomes monotonous quickly, and the content feels lacking even after a short amount of playtime. Some weapons are also considered low quality, further reducing variety.

Poor enemy scaling, bullet sponges: Enemy health scales exponentially, leading to bullet-sponge enemies and making the game feel grindy. This scaling, combined with limited damage upgrades, causes significant lag and slowdowns, especially with complex explosions. Some players also reported becoming overpowered, which also leads to performance issues.

Unclear mechanics, poor explanations: The game suffers from a lack of clear explanations for its mechanics, making it difficult for players to understand how to play effectively. This obscurity, intended as an aesthetic choice, hinders the player's ability to understand game mechanics. Power-ups and meta-progressions have unclear names and descriptions.

Complex, synergistic upgrade system: The game features a complex upgrade system with interlocking mechanics. Weapons are acquired and upgraded through a matching system, while permanent progression involves equipping medals and tiles into a grid, creating synergies and customizing loadouts. Stronger tiles have complex shapes, encouraging strategic placement.

Core loop: kill, loot, repeat: The core gameplay loop revolves around destroying planets or areas of 'void' to collect loot, defeating enemies for experience, and repeating the process. This 'kill, loot, and repeat' cycle focuses on providing a pure action experience, with a strong emphasis on acquiring weapons and enhancing the player's abilities.

Standard horde survival gameplay: The game is a horde survival, bullet heaven type game. During a run, the game is a fairly standard horde survival game.

Limited, expandable weapon slots: Players can equip a limited number of weapons, typically starting with 3 weapon slots and 1 reserve slot. The game allows for the possibility of expanding these weapon slots during a run, providing more options for combat.

Slower-paced than similar games: Despite visual similarities, the game has a slower pace compared to games like Vampire Survivors or Soulstone Survivors.

Too many effects cause lag: Several reviews specifically mention that excessive on-screen elements like coins, explosions, and enemy spawns contribute to severe lag and frame rate drops, sometimes to the point of making the game unplayable. This indicates a need for better optimization regarding particle effects and entity management.

Runs well for some users: Some players report stable performance and smooth gameplay, even on devices like the Steam Deck. This suggests that the game's performance may vary depending on hardware configuration or specific game settings.

4K reduces field of view: Enabling 4K resolution significantly reduces the field of view. This is a specific issue that impacts the player's visual experience and may need to be addressed with resolution scaling options or UI adjustments.

Sound settings fix startup: A specific technical issue is mentioned where the game fails to start, and the suggested solution involves adjusting the OS sound settings to 48kHz. This is a niche issue, but the provided solution is helpful for affected players.

Game engine is 'crap': One review uses harsh language ('total crap') to describe the game engine without providing specific details. This point is not constructive due to its lack of specific feedback and emotional tone.

Promising game for genre fans: Many reviewers find the game promising, fun, and worth its price, especially for fans of the bullet heaven or survivor-like genres. They recommend it to players who enjoy similar games like Vampire Survivors, praising its unique take on the genre and expressing excitement for future development.

Unstable; wait for improvements: Many reviewers currently advise against purchasing the game due to significant technical issues, bugs, imbalance, unoptimized performance, and a lack of content. Some find it unplayable or not worth their time in its current state. However, some reviewers are optimistic about future updates and improvements.

Needs performance optimization: Some reviewers feel the game needs more optimization to succeed in the Survivors-like genre. They specifically mention the need for faster-paced and smoother gameplay.

Tweak meta-currency betting system: The game features a meta-currency betting system on stage replays, allowing players to potentially double their earnings. One reviewer suggests tweaking the 'double or nothing' system to provide partial rewards upon death.

Caution in endless mode: One reviewer advises caution in endless mode, suggesting players quit after earning a certain amount to protect their computer's health. This may indicate performance or stability issues in longer play sessions.

Repetitive gameplay, lacks depth: The game's core loop and mechanics become repetitive quickly. Hidden mechanics are unlocked within the first 30 minutes, and early ascensions don't introduce new elements, leading to a lack of long-term engagement.

Active development, post-launch updates: The developers are actively updating the game and adding new content based on player feedback. This includes addressing initial balance issues and planning to add features like fullscreen mode.

Innovative and fun mechanics: The core mechanics of the game are considered innovative and enjoyable by the reviewer. This suggests a strong foundation for the gameplay experience.

Damage zones on the floor: The game contains damage zones on the floor that can cause the player to take damage. This is a specific detail about the game's level design and potential challenges.

GPU configuration instructions: One reviewer provided detailed instructions for Windows 10 users with NVIDIA GPUs on how to ensure the game uses the dedicated GPU instead of integrated graphics. This suggests a potential optimization issue or a need for specific configuration.