Info about Halls of Torment:

Official game description:
Halls of Torment is a horde survival game with a pre-rendered retro look reminiscent of RPGs from the late 90s. Choose one of many hero characters and descend into the deadly Halls of Torment. Fight unholy horrors from beyond and survive wave after wave of enemies until you face one of the tormented Lords. Strengthen your hero with character traits, abilities, and items. Create a new powerful build during each run. Explore various underground expanses and find new powerful items that enable you to venture even deeper into the abyss.
Features
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*   Quick and casual 30 minute runs
*   Old school pre-rendered art style
*   Quest-based meta progression
*   Large selection of diverse abilities, traits, and items, all enabling you to create interesting synergies
*   Diverse bosses featuring unique mechanics and attack patterns
*   Several distinct characters allowing for many different play styles
*   Unlock and explore multiple interesting and challenging underground worlds
*   Unique items can be sent up to the overworld and used to customize future runs
*   Craft magical tinctures to direct fate in your favor
*   Unlock the power of each class and combine them with your chosen character
*   Defeat the Lords of the underworld and explore infinite growth
*   Find rare item variants to further improve your builds
*   Put your strategies to the test in the late game against the unbeatable Shrine of Torment
Full Content List
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*   6 stages with unique environments
*   11 playable characters & character marks
*   25 blessings that make you stronger for each run
*   60 unique items to retrieve and unlock
*   240 higher rarity item variants
*   74 abilities and ability upgrades
*   30 artifacts to customize your game experience
*   35+ unique bosses
*   70+ unique monsters
*   500 quests to complete
*   1000+ traits that upgrade characters and abilities

Release date: 24 Sep, 2024

Categories: Build Crafting, Character Progression, Dungeon Crawler, Item Management, Meta-Progression, Real-time Combat, Single-player, Wave-based Survival


- 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:
- Diverse characters and build variety (weight 0.93): The game offers a diverse range of characters, each with unique abilities, playstyles, and upgrade paths. This, combined with a wide variety of items and equipment, allows for extensive build customization and experimentation. Players can create unique and powerful builds, encouraging replayability and strategic thinking.
- Engaging progression and unlockables (weight 0.92): The game features engaging progression systems, including meta-progression, character upgrades, and unlockables. This creates a rewarding gameplay loop where players feel a constant sense of improvement and discovery, motivating them to keep playing and experimenting with different builds and characters. The game avoids feeling like a grind by providing meaningful rewards and a clear sense of achievement after each run.
- Addictive and highly replayable (weight 0.75): The game is described as highly addictive and engaging, with a simple yet satisfying gameplay loop that keeps players coming back for more. The combination of challenging gameplay, rewarding progression, and diverse content creates a "just one more run" feeling that can lead to hours of playtime.
- Great for short play sessions (weight 0.71): The game is well-suited for short play sessions, with runs typically lasting around 30 minutes. This makes it easy to pick up and play for a quick burst of fun, while still offering enough depth and progression to keep players engaged over longer periods. The game is also praised for its accessibility and suitability for portable devices like the Steam Deck.
- Great value and developer support (weight 0.66): The game is praised for its excellent value for money, with many reviewers noting that it offers a substantial amount of content for a low price. The developers are also commended for their continued support of the game, with frequent updates and new content being added after release. This demonstrates a commitment to quality and provides players with a sense of ongoing value.
- Nostalgic Diablo-esque aesthetic (weight 0.38): The game's art style, atmosphere, and sound design evoke a strong sense of nostalgia, particularly for fans of classic dungeon crawlers like Diablo 1 and 2. The retro-inspired graphics and dark, gritty aesthetic create an immersive and engaging experience that sets it apart from other games in the genre.
- Improved Vampire Survivors formula (weight 0.34): The game is frequently compared to Vampire Survivors, with many reviewers considering it a superior or more complex take on the formula. It successfully blends the core gameplay of Vampire Survivors with elements from Diablo, creating a unique and addictive experience that stands out in the bullet heaven genre.
- Extensive achievements and quests (weight 0.18): The game features a large number of achievements and quests, providing players with clear goals and a sense of accomplishment. These achievements often unlock new content, such as characters, items, and abilities, further enhancing the game's replayability and progression systems. The sheer volume of achievements caters to completionists and provides long-term engagement.
- Satisfying power progression (weight 0.11): The game provides a satisfying sense of progression, with players starting out weak and gradually becoming more powerful as they unlock new abilities and equipment. This creates a rewarding power fantasy that is both exhilarating and addictive. The game is also praised for its immersive atmosphere and ability to make players lose track of time.
- Strategic and accessible combat (weight 0.09): The game offers a mix of tactical planning and reaction-based combat, requiring players to strategically choose upgrades and adapt to different enemy formations. It also includes accessibility features like auto-aim and auto-attack, making it enjoyable for a wide range of players. The game provides options to customize the difficulty to suit individual skill levels.

Common complaints:
- Grindy, unbalanced difficulty curve (weight 0.33): The game suffers from a steep difficulty curve, requiring excessive grinding to progress, especially in the early game. This is exacerbated by a lack of clear explanations of game mechanics, leading to player frustration. Some reviewers also found the game too easy after a certain point, with gameplay becoming repetitive and boring.
- Repetitive gameplay, limited content (weight 0.27): The game becomes repetitive due to limited content, including a small number of levels, enemy types, and skills. This leads to a lack of replayability and a feeling of monotony, especially in the late game.
- Unclear stats and upgrades (weight 0.21): The game lacks sufficient explanation of stats, skills, and upgrade paths, making it difficult for players to understand how they work and how to optimize their builds. This lack of clarity extends to tooltips and in-game systems, leading to confusion and frustration.
- Inferior to Vampire Survivors (weight 0.08): The game is unfavorably compared to Vampire Survivors, citing a lack of content variety, less engaging weapon/ability selection, and a less intuitive number-crunching system. Reviewers feel it doesn't innovate enough on the established formula.
- Lacks polish, feels generic (weight 0.07): The game lacks polish and feels unfinished, with missing quality-of-life features, a weak storyline, and unclear guidance for progression. Some reviewers also noted the game feels generic and doesn't stand out in the crowded survivor genre.
- Frequent crashes, performance issues (weight 0.06): The game suffers from frequent crashes and performance issues, especially on Steam Deck and Linux systems. These crashes can lead to lost progress and significantly impact the player experience.
- Weak and uninteresting items (weight 0.04): The item system is considered weak, with limited bonuses and a small number of drops per run. Many items are just stat sticks, lacking interesting gameplay changes, and some sub-weapons are significantly more powerful than others, limiting weapon selection.
- Lacks multiplayer, other features (weight 0.03): The game lacks multiplayer functionality, a dash mechanic, and Traditional Chinese language support. Some reviewers also noted the game has only a few maps and is missing some quality-of-life features.
- Poorly designed quest system (weight 0.03): Quests are poorly explained and can hinder progress, with some hiding traits and powers that should be readily available. The game also lacks a quest tracker, making it difficult to follow objectives.
- Weak meta-progression, poor balance (weight 0.03): The game is missing meaningful meta content beyond passive buffs, and the quest-based meta progression is not particularly engaging. There are also concerns about poor game balance, with only one or two viable character builds.
- Slow start, poor navigation (weight 0.02): The game starts off slow, with a 30-minute slog of running away from enemies with slow movement speed. The game also lacks a level map and fast travel option, making navigation tedious and frustrating.
- Weak story, poor translation (weight 0.02): The game's story is lacking, and the player characters are unvoiced and have no dialogue. There are also some translation errors and disappointing aspects.
- Characters lack depth, unbalanced (weight 0.02): Characters play too similarly and don't engage or synergize well with skills, resulting in a lack of depth. Character balance is also uneven, with some characters being overpowered, some average, and some underpowered.
- Generic, repetitive soundtrack (weight 0.02): The game's soundtrack is generic and repetitive, with few tracks and uninspired sound design. The sound effect for collecting level-up gems is also irritating.
- Overly Addictive (weight 0.01): This cluster shows signs of review bombing. The game is so engrossing that it causes neglect of real-life responsibilities like work, sleep, and family. While some players may find the game addictive, these points are hyperbolic and lack specific details about the gameplay.

Gameplay feedback:
- Combines Vampire Survivors, Diablo elements (weight 0.18): The game blends elements from 'bullet heaven' games like Vampire Survivors with Diablo-style gameplay, visuals, and loot grinding. Players survive against hordes of enemies, level up, and acquire equipment. The game offers both auto-attack and manual aim options.
- Survive, level up, acquire items (weight 0.14): Core gameplay involves surviving enemy waves for a set time, leveling up, and acquiring items/skills from bosses. Players can transfer items between runs using a well system, allowing for strategic choices and build planning. Maps also contain optional objectives that make the boss easier.
- Active dodging, varied enemy abilities (weight 0.11): The game requires players to actively dodge projectiles and learn boss attack patterns. Bosses and elite mobs have a variety of abilities that change how you deal with them. Enemy AI is basic, with most mobs simply walking towards the player.
- Extensive meta-progression, build variety (weight 0.1): The game features extensive meta-progression, including unlocking new heroes, skills, and items. Players can experiment with different builds by combining equipment and skills, focusing on elemental damage, defense, or minion enhancements. Leveling up primarily enhances character stats and weapons.
- Customizable, scaling difficulty options (weight 0.07): The game offers scaling difficulty through modes like Agony and artifacts, which buff enemies and grant more XP. Endgame content includes reroll mechanics and the Vault, providing challenges and scaling stats indefinitely. These systems allow players to customize the difficulty and rewards.
- Varied classes, unique traits (weight 0.03): Players choose from multiple classes, each with unique skills, stats, and traits. Leveling up allows players to select traits to power up their character, with some traits unlocking further possibilities. Class skills can be transferred between characters for unique builds.
- Stat understanding for optimal builds (weight 0.02): The game requires understanding of stats to optimize builds, including subtle differences in how stat effects work. The game clearly shows how stats affect weapons. It features block ratio and trigger probability stats, which is a unique addition.
- Abilities from scrolls, upgradeable (weight 0.01): Abilities are learned from scrolls found on the map or dropped by elites, up to a maximum of 6. Picking up ability scrolls increases the number of upgrades in the level up pool. Skills can be upgraded at levels 3 and 6.

Performance notes:
- Excellent performance on various systems (weight 0.05): The game generally exhibits excellent performance, running smoothly on various systems, including the Steam Deck. Many players report consistently high frame rates and long battery life on the Deck. Some reviewers specifically praise the game's optimization.
- Windowing and crashing issues (weight 0.02): Some players have reported issues with the game's windowing, particularly on multi-monitor setups, where the game may open with a portion of the screen cut off or anchored in the wrong location. There are also reports of crashes and severe FPS drops in later stages.
- Low system requirements (weight 0.01): The game has low system requirements and a minimal storage footprint of only 1.5 GB. This makes it accessible to players with older or less powerful hardware.
- Unclear launch option purposes (weight 0): The game has three different launch options, but their purpose related to hardware usage is not immediately clear, requiring external research to understand their function.
- Direction keys sometimes stick (weight 0): Some players have reported that direction keys sometimes stick, potentially due to keyboard incompatibility. This issue can be temporarily resolved by remapping the key bindings.
- Opacity setting added (weight 0): An opacity setting was added for visual clarity, either in the full release update or shortly before, improving the player experience.
- Bridge graphics generation lags (weight 0): Some players have reported that bridge graphics generation lags constantly.

Recommendations:
- Great for genre enthusiasts (weight 0.45): A common sentiment is that the game is highly recommended for fans of the 'survivor' or 'bullet heaven' genre, particularly those who enjoy games like Vampire Survivors and Diablo. Reviewers often highlight its addictive nature and engaging gameplay.
- Strongly recommended overall (weight 0.27): Many reviewers express strong positive feelings towards the game, recommending it without hesitation. They emphasize its engaging nature, fun gameplay, and overall quality, making it a must-try for many players.
- Hopes for future content (weight 0.23): Reviewers are enthusiastic about the game's future, expressing hope for continued updates, DLC, and further development. They are eager to support the developers and see the game expand with more content.
- Mixed feelings, minor issues (weight 0.06): Some reviewers express mixed feelings or note specific issues, such as a lack of explanations or potential for repetitiveness. However, these concerns are often tempered by the game's low price or addictive qualities.
- Receives high review scores (weight 0.04): The game receives high ratings from many reviewers, with several giving it perfect scores (10/10) or near-perfect scores (9/10). This indicates a very positive overall experience and high satisfaction among players.

Other player notes:
- Continued development planned (weight 0.01): The developers have announced paid DLC, indicating continued development and support for the game beyond its initial release. This suggests that players can expect new content and features in the future.
- Balance tuned periodically (weight 0.01): The developers periodically adjust the game's balance, but some overpowered elements tend to persist. This suggests that while efforts are made to maintain fairness, certain strategies or items may consistently provide an advantage.

Emotions:
No emotions}