Info about In Celebration of Violence:

Official game description:
In Celebration of Wikis
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About the Game
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In Celebration of Violence is a fantasy action roguelike of exploration and murder. The methodical combat requires that you plan your attacks, dodges, blocks, and parries while considering your opponents and the environment. Death is permanent but you can improve your stats and purchase items to aid future lives. And if things get too tough then up to four local friends can grab controllers and aid the hero as player-controlled monsters, zombies, and bandits.  
Before I do all the marketing stuff below I want to get the basics out of the way. This is like if The Binding of Isaac and Dark Souls got smushed together. And Rogue Legacy is is there too. And Hammerwatch. The combat is weighty and deliberate, the story is vague and largely nonexistent. A successful run through one of the branching paths could take three hours.  
In Celebration of Violence is meticulously unclear. The most you get are the basic controls. All other items, secrets, and mechanics are up to you to decipher. It is difficult, and much of the challenge comes from figuring out the systems at play. Thanks for the interest, I hope you get a chance to play :)  
Large, procedurally generated and interconnected lands range from plains, to swamps, to cities, to dungeons. These lands offer multiple paths to reach the variety of final bosses. Dungeons are a dangerous but rewarding risk. In dungeons you will have to move slowly and be on the lookout for traps and secrets while searching for the exit.  
Elements interact with each other and the environment. Fire reacts to the temperature, weather, and any flammable objects, especially people. Electricity will arc towards entities and is especially dangerous around water. The chances of rain or snow adjust organically to the area’s climate and can become both a hindrance and an advantage.  
The shrines of multiple gods litter the land. Players can choose to pray to shrines they come across to receive a variety of favors, bonuses, and items. One must choose carefully though; every god has a different price and some become displeased when their rival is the subject of worship. Some gods may also become angered by actions the player takes while adventuring, such as destroying foliage or killing civilians.  
Scores of weapons, items, spells, and mementos are scattered throughout the world to find. One may acquire a powerful enchanted ballista early into one life, only for the next to yield nothing more than a couple of wooden clubs.  
Mementos represent objects remembered from past lives and change the rules of gameplay. You may discover a memento that summons spiders from enemy corpses, improves your stats while on fire, or reverses the effects of death.  
There are multiple paths to victory. One could be nimble and stealthy, charge in waving a hammer, raise an army of undead, harness a variety of spells, manipulate enemies into traps or flames, amass resources to acquire the most powerful items, or simply play it safe with a sword and a shield. The various characters simply offer different starting points, every decision is your own.  
No life is predetermined for success. The cheery graphics disguise a brutal and unyielding experience. Unforeseen obstacles will need to be dealt with in real time and even a regular enemy will be deadly if you’re not careful. To reach the end, players will need to demonstrate that they are able to consistently overcome these obstacles. Failure can halt or even reverse progress.  
As you accumulate experience, discover schematics, and defeat bosses you can become permanently better prepared to tackle future challenges. The choices and advantages a player has at the beginning of a playthrough will dramatically increase as they play. New characters, items, and bonuses are unlocked in ways that are only hinted at during gameplay.

Release date: Feb 15, 2018

Categories: Soulslike Combat, Roguelike, Top-Down Tactical Shooter, Character Progression, Procedural Generation, Elemental Combat System, Metaprogression with crystals


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00
  - Reasoning: The reviews express that the game is worth its full price and a great deal on sale, which implies the current base price is fair. Without explicit price numbers, a typical indie game price range of $10-$20 is inferred based on community value sentiment.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 100.0h
  - Story completion: 16.0h
  - Session length: 1.0h
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: Story completion of 16 hours is directly reported for finishing the first playthrough. Game completion is estimated at 100 hours based on a player's expectation to achieve all achievements. Session length of 1 hour is supported by multiple reports of runs lasting about an hour to reach bosses. No reliable evidence for endgame duration is available, as the total playtime of 144 hours includes many playthroughs and is not specific to endgame content.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The game has a steep early learning curve with punishing slow combat and minimal tutorial, but becomes deeply rewarding once the combat systems and weapon mechanics are understood.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: Understanding the combat systems and weapon mechanics
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: steep learning curve; lack of proper tutorial; slow-paced deliberate combat; punishing death (souls-like); vague progression goals
  - Unlock drivers: mastering weapon mechanics; learning parry and dodge timing; understanding meta-progression systems; looking up guides or wiki
  - Conditions: player must invest time to learn mechanics; player must have patience for slow pacing; player must understand each weapon's unique traits; player may need external resources due to lack of tutorial
- Player Archetypes:
  - Souls-like Enthusiast (buy)
    - Motivation: Mastery of deliberate, punishing combat and exploration
    - Playstyle: Slow, methodical, focusing on timing, parrying, dodging, and learning enemy patterns
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: Dark Souls; The Binding of Isaac
  - Roguelike Enthusiast (buy)
    - Motivation: Replayability, meta-progression, and stacking difficulty through multiple runs
    - Playstyle: Iterative, learning from deaths, adapting builds, experimenting with weapons and upgrades
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: fan of rougelikes; fan of the rogue-lite genre
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Completionist Grinder (sale)
    - Motivation: Unlocking all achievements and overcoming grindy meta-progression
    - Playstyle: Focused on long-term goals, efficient farming, and methodical progression
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Curious Explorer (buy)
    - Motivation: Discovering game mechanics and lore through trial and error
    - Playstyle: Experimental, patient, willing to die and learn, slow-paced exploration
    - Experience: newcomer
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: N/A


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:
- Fun and entertaining gameplay (weight 0.76): Players consistently describe the game as fun, entertaining, and addictive, especially praising its roguelike elements. It is considered worth the price.
- Satisfying combat system (weight 0.5): The combat system is frequently highlighted as amazing, satisfying, and challenging, with tight controls, parry, dodge, and weapon variety. It offers a high skill ceiling.
- Good value for price (weight 0.39): Multiple players affirm the game is well worth the full price, offering good value for money. It is considered a worthwhile purchase.
- Dark and atmospheric setting (weight 0.28): The game is noted for its dark and grim atmosphere, drawing comparisons to Dark Souls and Binding of Isaac. This style appeals to fans of those games.
- Deep and interesting lore (weight 0.27): The lore is deep and interesting, reminiscent of Dark Souls storytelling. The game is considered good overall, with a promising feel.

Common complaints:
- Combat and movement too slow (weight 0.88): Combat and movement are repeatedly described as very slow and deliberate, with wind-ups that take too long and enemy attacks that are much faster. This makes encounters feel tedious and unbalanced, as players feel limited to basic attacks while enemies use combos.
- Unfair enemy difficulty (weight 0.8): Enemy AI, speed, and difficulty spikes are criticized, with archers too fast, bosses reliant on luck, and regular enemies becoming as tough as bosses. This creates unfair and unbalanced encounters.
- Missing Chinese localization (weight 0.58): Multiple reviews highlight the lack of official Chinese translation or localization, requiring players to rely on mods or fan patches. This creates a significant barrier for Chinese-speaking players and has persisted for years.
- Missing proper tutorial (weight 0.51): The game hides many mechanics and lacks a proper tutorial, leaving players confused about core systems. Levels feel cluttered with random items and lack linear focus.
- Vague item descriptions (weight 0.48): Item descriptions are often unclear, unlock one letter at a time, or mousing over tools does not explain their use. This vagueness makes early game confusing and forces players to examine everything closely.
- Poor quality soundtrack (weight 0.32): The background music is widely criticized as terrible, gloomy, or like random piano keys. This contributes to a depressing atmosphere that makes the game feel boring.
- Missing multiplayer and guides (weight 0.3): Lack of cooperative multiplayer and a small player base make the game feel isolated. Incomplete online information and guides further hinder progress.
- Performance drops and lag (weight 0.28): Performance issues such as lag, frame drops, and display problems occur, especially with high XP or blood stacking in later playthroughs. This severely impacts gameplay enjoyment.
- Saving & level generation bugs (weight 0.27): Saving is tied to completing entire levels and bosses, which can take over an hour. Bugs like lost dungeon keys, impossible levels, and getting stuck in walls add further frustration.
- Progression balance issues (weight 0.26): Shrines can be abused to trivialize the game, while enemy stats become too high after NG+4, leading to severe numerical issues in higher cycles. High cycles feel meaningless.
- Controls and hitboxes wonky (weight 0.21): Controls are described as not perfect and sometimes difficult, with wonky hitboxes that make precise gameplay frustrating. This impacts the overall feel and fairness of combat.
- Hard to reset progress (weight 0.14): Players cannot easily reset their data, which is a persistent complaint from older reviews and limits the ability to start fresh.
- Startup crash without offline (weight 0.09): The game crashes at startup unless the player disconnects from the internet, which is a significant technical barrier for many users.
- Poor first impression (weight 0.09): The game gives a terrible first impression, which likely drives away many new players early on.

Gameplay feedback:
- Souls-like combat difficulty (weight 0.73): The game combines Souls-like mechanics such as stamina, parry, and dodge with Dark Souls-inspired difficulty. This fusion creates a deliberate, hardcore combat experience that prioritizes boss-oriented progress and precision.
- Top-down roguelike action (weight 0.54): The game is identified as a top-down roguelike action RPG with deliberate, slow-paced combat and minimal explanation. It blends rogue-lite progression with sword-fighting elements, offering a methodical dungeon-crawling experience.
- Metaprogression with crystals (weight 0.49): A metaprogression system uses crystal currency for upgrades and stat allocation, with permadeath but permanent stat boosts from experience points and special items. Players can collect diamonds and allocate stat points to develop their character between runs.
- Achievement-based class unlocks (weight 0.27): Achievements unlock diverse classes such as Blacksmith, Pariah, Ranger, and more, with specific unlocking conditions like destroying 5 weapons for the Blacksmith. This incentivizes exploration of different playstyles.
- Diverse weapons and spells (weight 0.23): Players note a wide variety of melee weapons, ranged weapons, spells, passive abilities, potions, and magical accessories. This variety allows for diverse combat strategies and build customization.
- Pixel art procedurally generated (weight 0.16): The game uses pixel art style with a procedurally generated open world, offering visual nostalgia and high replayability. The 2D top-down perspective complements the roguelike exploration.
- God favor gameplay impact (weight 0.16): A deity or god favor system influences gameplay decisions and rewards, adding a moral or alliance-based layer to player choices. This system encourages replayability through different deity alignments.
- Crafting and gathering (weight 0.15): A gathering and crafting system allows players to collect materials and create items. This system adds a survival-craft layer to the roguelike loop, enabling resource management.
- Varied enemy types (weight 0.14): Enemy types include bandits, wizards, archers, and monsters, providing varied combat encounters. This diversity requires players to adapt their tactics against different enemy archetypes.
- Destructible environments (weight 0.14): The game features destructible environments that can be altered during combat. This mechanic adds strategic depth by allowing players to change the battlefield dynamically.

Performance notes:
- Blood and XP lag (weight 0.24): Excessive blood or XP on screen causes severe performance drops, sometimes to sub-frame-a-second levels or 1 frame per 10 seconds. This is a critical performance issue affecting gameplay.
- Crash on startup (weight 0.1): The game crashes at startup, requiring users to disconnect from the internet to stop the crashing. This is a blocking issue for affected players.

Recommendations:
- Good value for price (weight 0.59): Feedback frequently states the game is worth its price, especially during sales, and offers strong value. Many reviewers specifically mention getting their money's worth.
- Highly recommended overall (weight 0.36): The majority of feedback strongly recommends the game, with many calling it a worthwhile purchase. This is the dominant sentiment across many clusters.
- Challenging and rewarding gameplay (weight 0.34): Players who enjoy difficulty and trial-and-error discovery highly recommend the game. The challenge is seen as a positive feature for the right audience.
- Not for casual players (weight 0.28): Some feedback warns that the game's slow pace, high difficulty, and lack of explanation make it unsuitable for casual players. Patience is required.
- Worth sharing with friends (weight 0.2): Some reviewers suggest buying the game for friends or telling others about it, indicating strong enthusiasm and word-of-mouth potential.
- Not recommended without English (weight 0.07): A single review advises against playing without English proficiency, suggesting language barriers impact enjoyment. This is a niche but important warning.
- Specific gameplay tip shared (weight 0.07): One reviewer offers a practical tip to keep the torch with you, indicating that some mechanics may not be obvious. This highlights a learning curve element.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.2): Players are frustrated by slow combat, grinding, and a lack of Chinese translation that makes understanding mechanics difficult. Physics bugs, high enemy stats in later cycles, and unclear item descriptions further compound the feeling of unfairness and tedium.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.13): Players find satisfaction in the deep combat system, tight controls, and rewarding gameplay once understood. The variety of builds, high replayability, and meaningful trade-offs contribute to a sense of accomplishment.
- Excitement (weight 0.1): Excitement stems from discovering secrets, hidden content, and the game's deep, hardcore systems. Players enjoy the rich content, challenging action, and the roguelike feeling they have been seeking.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Players enjoy the fun, engaging gameplay with a deep Cthulhu-themed story, tactical combat, and high replayability. The variety of weapons, magic, and secrets keeps the experience fresh and entertaining.
- Disappointment (weight 0.03): Disappointment arises from slow movement and looting that overshadow the appealing combat, as well as broken numerical balance in high cycles that makes the game unplayable. The terrible BGM and failure to deliver on promised improvements also contribute.
- Surprise (weight 0.03): Players are surprised by the depth and variety of content, which exceeds expectations for the price. The game continues to reveal new interactions and secrets even after many hours of play.
- Curiosity (weight 0.03): Curiosity is driven by the desire to discover hidden story secrets, mysteries, and connections in the game world. Trial and error in learning spells, items, and lore keeps players engaged in exploration.
- Amusement (weight 0.02): Amusement comes from humorous moments like enemies screaming cutely when dying, and the absurdity of suffering through long recovery times for a laggy run.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance is caused by game crashes at startup requiring an internet disconnect to fix, and the terrible BGM that detracts from the experience.
- Fun (weight 0.02): Players find fun in the roguelike gameplay that encourages gradual learning through deaths, and the process of deciphering weapons and powerups.
- Achievement (weight 0.02): Achievement is felt from beating the game, uncovering secrets, and completing the first playthrough. The perfect progression system provides a strong sense of accomplishment.
- Engagement (weight 0.02): Engagement is driven by the dark atmosphere and cryptic lore, with NPC dialogue that encourages players to learn more about the world.
- Accomplishment (weight 0.02): Accomplishment comes from ticking achievement boxes and seeing tangible rewards, as well as completing runs through focus, good choices, and luck.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from the inability to figure out spider AI even after 250 hours of play, indicating unclear enemy behavior.
- Pride (weight 0.01): Pride is felt from surpassing previous best playthroughs despite the game's high challenge, showing personal improvement.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger is caused by enemies being much faster and using combos, making combat feel unfair and punishing.
- Fascination (weight 0.01): Fascination stems from the sacrifice and reward system that evokes the Cthulhu mythos, and the captivating dark atmosphere with hidden systems like the day/night cycle.
- Mild annoyance (weight 0.01): Mild annoyance is felt from the tedious requirement to fully clear every level for resources, which slows down progression.
- Exhaustion (weight 0.01): Exhaustion results from having to constantly look up guide images while playing due to hidden elements, which disrupts immersion and flow.
- Satisfied (weight 0.01): Players are satisfied because the game delivers the desired eerie and dark atmosphere, meeting their expectations for the experience.}