Info about Basingstoke: Official game description: Basingstoke is a **tense roguelike** that mixes **stealth and arcade action**. Explore the smouldering ruins of apocalyptic Basingstoke, UK, a world of **extreme peril** where reanimated undead and ferocious alien monsters roam! Scavenge and Craft ------------------ Loot and craft as you explore. **Lob** a tasty sausage roll as a diversion, or **poison** a kebab for bait. **Sneak** up and knock a monster out with a **whack** from a cricket bat, or **slice** them up with a chainsaw. **Tranquillize** them with a dart fired from a homemade blowpipe, or **set them alight** with a DIY flamethrower. There's over a hundred useable items to loot or craft! No Second Chances ----------------- Use stealth to **sneak**, weapons to **attack**, or if all else fails, **run!** But be very careful - one bite and you'll be **ripped apart** to become a tasty snack for monsters! Violence is your last resort. **Sneaking**, **skullduggery**, and **ambush** are your tactics. What is Basingstoke? -------------------- Basingstoke is a town in England, renowned for its charming mix of hand crafted and procedurally generated features. Explore, above and below ground, and enjoy its many attractions. **Rob** a parking ticket machine, **vandalise** a keep left sign, go **shopping** at the OMNImart24/7... or if things get a bit much, **hide** in a wheelie bin. Unlockable Characters --------------------- As you progress you'll unlock **new characters**. Start as a **Tourist** and capture those special moments with your **selfie stick** or splurge at the shops with your OmniBank **GoldCard**. Play as the **Thief** and use your **Locksmith** gadget to crack security panels and break safes. Each character has specialist equipment, unique crafting recipes... and **hats**! Achievements and Trading Cards ------------------------------ The Royal Mint have issued a special commemorative set of **Basingstoke themed coins** to celebrate The Apocalypse. 1p, 2p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins can be yours, as well as an especially shiny pound coin. Collect them all, and a full range of **achievements, trading cards, profile backgrounds** and **emoticons**! Unfortunately we're not allowed to show you a picture in the store, you'll have to earn them by playing :) Welcome to Basingstoke! ----------------------- Release date: 27 Apr, 2018 Categories: Roguelike, Stealth Gameplay, Crafting, Survival, Resource Management, Single-player, Exploration, Horde Combat - 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: - Engaging & Rewarding Gameplay (weight 1): Players consistently praise the game for its engaging, challenging, and rewarding gameplay experience. The unique blend of genres and mechanics, combined with a compelling atmosphere, makes it highly enjoyable and addictive, often exceeding expectations. - Unique Art & Atmosphere (weight 0.69): The game's distinctive low-poly art style, combined with effective sound design and lighting, creates a charming yet terrifying apocalyptic atmosphere. This unique presentation enhances immersion and contributes significantly to the overall appeal. - Tense Stealth Mechanics (weight 0.3): The stealth mechanics are a core strength, providing tense and thrilling moments. The one-hit-kill system and need for tactical decision-making make sneaking around both challenging and satisfying, forcing players to master enemy behavior and environmental interactions. - Creative Crafting System (weight 0.24): The crafting system is highly praised for its depth, creativity, and ease of use. Players enjoy discovering new recipes and using cleverly designed, often humorous, crafted items to overcome obstacles and enemies, adding significant replayability. - Innovative Mechanics & Design (weight 0.15): The game features interesting and unique mechanics, particularly its procedural generation which balances handcrafted areas with unpredictable layouts. This ensures variety and encourages experimentation, keeping the gameplay fresh across multiple runs. - Balanced Difficulty & Decisions (weight 0.07): The game's difficulty is well-balanced, offering a fair but challenging experience that requires players to make difficult, impactful decisions. This depth makes players feel more connected to the game world. - Unlockable Characters & Classes (weight 0.06): The inclusion of unlockable characters and classes adds significant replay value. These new options provide fresh gameplay experiences and encourage players to continue playing to discover new ways to approach the game. - Wacky British Humor (weight 0.06): The game incorporates a distinct sense of British humor, which is appreciated by players. These funny touches contribute to the game's unique charm and overall appeal. - Praised Developer: Puppygames (weight 0.06): The developer, Puppygames, receives strong praise for their consistent quality and understanding of the low-poly aesthetic. Players express trust and appreciation for their work, viewing them as a reliable indie developer. Common complaints: - Overly difficult and frustrating (weight 0.93): Many players found the game's difficulty to be excessively high and unrewarding, leading to frustration and a lack of enjoyment. This steep learning curve, combined with long levels and punishing mechanics, made the game feel like a chore rather than a fun experience, causing many to abandon it early on. - Flawed stealth mechanics (weight 0.71): The game's stealth mechanics are widely criticized for being clunky, slow, and often ineffective. Players reported issues with enemy detection, the necessity of moving at a crawl, and a general lack of precision, which made stealth feel tedious rather than strategic. This is compounded by misleading advertising that suggested more action-oriented gameplay. - Overpriced and unpolished (weight 0.5): Many players feel the game is significantly overpriced for the content and quality it offers. There are also concerns about the game's overall state, with accusations of misleading advertising, a lack of future support, and a general sense of wasted potential. - Repetitive gameplay and levels (weight 0.48): The game suffers from significant repetitiveness in its gameplay loop and level design. Despite procedural generation, levels often feel similar, leading to boredom after a few hours. This lack of variety, combined with long levels and a tedious progression system, negatively impacts replayability. - Punishing save and progression (weight 0.37): The save system and progression mechanics are a major source of frustration. Players lose all progress upon death, forcing restarts of long levels, which is particularly punishing given the high difficulty. The 'roguelike' elements are also criticized as misleading, as they often result in soft-locks or simply replaying the same level with minor variations. - Ineffective crafting and resource scarcity (weight 0.27): The crafting system is largely deemed useless due to a scarcity of materials and a lack of clear recipes. Furthermore, weapons are rare, break quickly, and ammunition is scarce, forcing players into frustrating situations where they lack the means to defend themselves effectively. - Poor controller support (weight 0.2): The game suffers from poor controller support, with issues ranging from unresponsive inputs and incorrect menu navigation to general clunkiness. This significantly detracts from the gameplay experience for those preferring controllers. - Broken achievements (weight 0.1): A significant number of achievements are reported to be buggy or broken, with counters not tracking correctly. This prevents players from unlocking achievements, diminishing the sense of accomplishment and completion. - Unsatisfying game ending (weight 0.07): The game lacks a clear and satisfying ending, with the final mission often feeling like an infinite survival mode. This leaves players without a sense of closure or accomplishment for their efforts. - Poor map usability (weight 0.06): The in-game map is criticized for being too large, lacking zoom functionality, and having overlapping icons that make it difficult to read and navigate effectively. - Lack of ongoing development (weight 0.04): Concerns were raised about the game's development status, with reports of developers leaving and a lack of active support. This suggests the game may not receive future updates or fixes, impacting its long-term viability. Gameplay feedback: - Level-based roguelike progression (weight 0.53): The game is structured into distinct levels with roguelike elements, including procedural generation of layouts and item placements. While death restarts the current level, a campsite/safehouse system at the end of each level allows players to save progress and carry a limited selection of items forward, balancing challenge with progression. - One-hit death mechanic (weight 0.44): The game features a challenging one-hit death mechanic, where any damage results in instant death and a restart of the current level. This design choice emphasizes cautious play and learning from mistakes, as players must navigate levels carefully to avoid instant failure. - Extensive crafting system (weight 0.35): A robust crafting system allows players to combine various scavenged items into new tools, weapons, and consumables. This system is crucial for survival, enabling players to create diverse solutions for combat, stealth, and traversal challenges. - Stealth and lighting mechanics (weight 0.26): Stealth is a core gameplay mechanic, heavily influenced by lighting and shadows. Players must use their torch strategically, as it provides visibility but also attracts enemies, encouraging careful movement and environmental awareness to avoid detection. - Post-apocalyptic Basingstoke setting (weight 0.2): The game is set in a post-apocalyptic Basingstoke, where players must escape a town overrun by zombies, aliens, and other creatures. It blends elements of survival horror, stealth, and action, with a focus on escaping the chaos. - Unlockable characters and skills (weight 0.13): The game features multiple playable characters, each with unique skills and starting gear, which are unlocked by completing specific tasks or achievements. This adds replayability and offers different playstyles for players to explore. - Limited weapon durability/ammo (weight 0.12): Weapons and items have limited durability or ammunition, breaking or running out after a few uses. This scarcity encourages resource management, strategic engagement, and often favors stealth over direct combat. - Avoidance and survival focus (weight 0.1): The game emphasizes avoiding zombies and other creatures, often through distraction or clever maneuvers, rather than direct confrontation. Players are rewarded for creative solutions to survive and progress through levels. - High difficulty curve (weight 0.06): The game is noted for its high difficulty, especially in the early stages and around the halfway point. Players should expect a significant amount of trial and error to learn the game's mechanics and rules. - Horde mode for endless survival (weight 0.06): Beyond the campaign, the game offers a 'Horde Mode,' an endless survival challenge in a large, zombie-filled arena. This mode provides a different gameplay experience focused on sustained combat and resource management. - Purchasable save points (weight 0.06): The game includes an 'Insurance Policy' item that functions as a purchasable checkpoint. While cheap early on, its cost increases, offering a strategic choice for players to mitigate the impact of the one-hit death mechanic. Performance notes: - Stable and Bug-Free Performance (weight 0.13): Many players reported a smooth and stable experience, with no significant bugs, crashes, or frame drops. This indicates a high level of polish and optimization from the developers. - Recent Patch Improvements (weight 0.02): A recent beta patch (1.0.3) addressed several issues, including intro sequence problems, level map fixes, and the addition of new achievements and an ending for Level 12. This shows active developer support. - Good Visuals (weight 0.02): Players generally found the game's visual presentation to be appealing and well-executed. The graphics contribute positively to the overall experience. - Long Load Times (weight 0.02): Some players noted that level loading times can be a bit long, especially without an SSD. This could be an area for potential optimization. Recommendations: - Good value on sale (weight 0.5): A significant number of reviews suggest that the game is best purchased during a sale, with many feeling the full price is too high. However, if acquired at a discount, players generally find it to be a worthwhile and enjoyable experience. - Generally positive reception (weight 0.31): Despite some reservations, many players rate the game positively, often giving it scores between 7/10 and 9/10. They describe it as fun, interesting, and a great game overall, especially for its entertainment value. - Niche audience appeal (weight 0.16): The game is frequently recommended to specific audiences, particularly fans of roguelike, stealth, or survival horror genres. It's noted for being challenging and not holding the player's hand, appealing to those who enjoy such experiences. - Try before you buy (weight 0.05): Several reviewers advise utilizing Steam's refund policy to try the game for a short period. This suggests that players should test it out to see if it aligns with their preferences before committing. - Unique graphics, solid gameplay (weight 0.04): Players appreciate the game's unique graphics and solid gameplay. There's also a specific request for a multiplayer sequel, indicating a desire for more content in the same style. - Challenging, requires persistence (weight 0.02): One player noted completing the entire map after numerous deaths, highlighting the game's challenging nature and the persistence required to progress. - Controller recommended (weight 0.02): One reviewer specifically recommends using a controller for the game, implying that it might offer a better or more comfortable gameplay experience than keyboard and mouse. Other player notes: - Desire for new game modes (weight 0.1): Players desire additional gameplay options, such as a multiplayer mode or a dedicated 'killing-fun' mode with enhanced weapons. There's also a wish for controller support and more puzzling elements. - Unique British setting and humor (weight 0.09): The game's setting in a post-apocalyptic Basingstoke, infused with British humor and reminiscent of campy zombie movies like Shaun of the Dead, is a notable and appreciated aspect. - Future content and updates (weight 0.06): Developers have promised future updates, including new maps, enemies, items, and additional game modes like Commando Mode and Horde Mode, suggesting ongoing support. - Similarities to other games (weight 0.05): Reviewers frequently compare the game to other titles such as Teleglitch, Droid Assault, Mall Monster, Pixel Dungeon, Mini Thief, and Sir, You Are Being Hunted, indicating its genre blend. - Strong developer support (weight 0.04): Several reviewers express strong support for the developer, PuppyGames, and hope for the game's success, indicating a loyal fanbase. - Unique graphics and genre (weight 0.04): The game's graphics are noted as unique and interesting, though some players initially found them difficult to appreciate. The overall game experience is also described as hard to categorize. - High difficulty/low completion (weight 0.02): The low achievement rate for level 10 suggests that the game might be quite challenging or that many players do not complete a significant portion of the game. - Potential for stealth mechanics (weight 0.02): A suggestion was made for a 'stealth tag,' implying that stealth mechanics could be a valuable addition or are already present but not fully emphasized. - Intense combat in promos (weight 0.02): The promotional video highlights intense combat, which might set expectations for a fast-paced action experience. - Unclear game mechanics (weight 0.02): One player discovered a game mechanic (blowing up locked doors) late in their playthrough, suggesting that some mechanics might not be clearly communicated or discovered organically. - Potential horror elements (weight 0.02): One reviewer mentioned avoiding horror games, which could imply the game has horror elements, or that its marketing might deter players sensitive to horror. - Desire for localization (weight 0.02): While not critical, Russian localization was suggested as a helpful addition, indicating a desire for broader language support. - Suspicious player metrics (weight 0.01): A reviewer noted a discrepancy between the low concurrent player count and the high number of recommendations, raising suspicion about review authenticity. This could be part of a review-bombing campaign. Emotions: - Frustration (weight 0.25): Players experienced frustration due to a combination of poor game design choices, including unfair difficulty spikes, one-hit deaths, and repetitive gameplay. Technical issues such as buggy achievements, finicky save systems, and poor controls also significantly contributed to this negative emotion, often leading to loss of progress and tedious restarts. - Satisfaction (weight 0.19): Satisfaction stemmed from the game's unique atmosphere, engaging decision-making, and well-implemented mechanics, particularly the crafting system and strategic resource management. Players found it rewarding to overcome challenges, master the game's systems, and appreciated the overall quality, polish, and replayability, especially when the game exceeded their expectations. - Disappointment (weight 0.17): Disappointment arose primarily from the game not meeting expectations, often due to misleading advertising and unfulfilled potential. Players felt let down by the high price point for perceived lack of content, buggy features, and a repetitive or uninteresting gameplay loop, leading to a sense of wasted potential and low player retention. - Enjoyment (weight 0.09): Enjoyment was driven by the game's overall fun and creative nature, including its unique atmosphere, sound design, and challenging gameplay. Players particularly enjoyed experimenting with item combinations and different playstyles, finding the game both engaging and well-made. - Excitement (weight 0.08): Excitement was generated by the game's terrifying moments, challenging nature, and palpable tension, especially from the one-hit death mechanic and dynamic level changes. The thrilling and engaging experience, combined with discoveries and creative item uses, kept players on edge and invested. - Anger (weight 0.04): Anger was primarily caused by the game's price point, especially unjustified increases, and perceived blatant lies in advertising. Players also expressed anger over losing all progress upon death and the game's overall quality and design choices, including re-hashed levels and constant enemy respawns. - Joy (weight 0.04): Joy was experienced through the game's creativity, fun, and scary elements, often combined with cute aesthetics and humor. Players found delight in emergent gameplay moments, the well-designed crafting system, and the overall engaging gameplay loop that exceeded their expectations. - Engagement (weight 0.03): Engagement was fostered by the game's creepy setting, constant challenges, and tension-building sound design. The core gameplay was found to be solid and addictive, creating a strong 'just one more go' appeal that kept players invested. - Fear (weight 0.02): Fear was primarily induced by the presence of realistic and frightening zombies, as well as the experience of enemies stalking and sudden encounters within the game. - Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom stemmed from the gameplay feeling tedious, lacking sufficient incentive, and a perceived lack of replay value that failed to keep players invested over time. - Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement was derived from the game's quirky humor and silly examples, which complemented the solid stealth gameplay. - Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration was directed towards the developer's work, the game's brilliant design, smart mechanics, and overall polish, as well as its distinctive graphic style. - Addiction (weight 0.01): Addiction was described as the game's ability to consistently occupy the reviewer's thoughts, indicating a strong desire to continue playing. - Intensity (weight 0.01): Intensity was felt as an overwhelming sensation of being weak and unprepared within the game's environment. - Contentment (weight 0.01): Contentment was a general positive feeling regarding the overall purchase of the game. - Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arose from the game's high rating despite its perceived simplicity, leading to a disconnect between expectations and reality. - Challenge (weight 0.01): Challenge was a direct result of the game's high difficulty, providing a demanding experience for players. - Surprise (weight 0.01): Surprise was experienced due to the unexpected quality of the game, exceeding initial expectations. - Immersion (weight 0.01): Immersion was achieved through the game's effective atmosphere and sound design, drawing players deeply into the experience. - Tedium (weight 0.01): Tedium was caused by the game's difficulty and restart mechanics, which became particularly frustrating for the reviewer given their age.}