Forced Showdown

Forced Showdown by BetaDwarf of Denmark seems to be many things. At its core it is an action RPG that takes place in a series of arenas where only you and an NPC companion fight swarms of enemies, working your way up to a boss. There is also a collectible card element nestled inside: each player character has a deck of cards it draws from, which give it extra powers and consumables that help you get through a given series. And it's also, arguably, a roguelike.

The term "roguelike" is bandied about fairly liberally in game descriptions of late, but while many of us perk up at the very word, it's important to know what a given game studio actually means. Forced Showdown is a roguelike in the sense that the combination of all the conditions applied to a given arena can create quite different frays to fight through, some very gruelling, others an explosion of fire and poison that can be over in a few seconds if you do things right, or you're rather lucky. As to whether or not that's sufficient to qualify as a roguelike, it's up to one's definition of the term (here's ours).

The game is organised into Shows and Dailies, the latter being a series of fights with established goals for set rewards, especially for top-scoring players, which you, odds are, will not be. Shows could be thought of as the campaign, but beyond the interstellar gameshow trappings there's not really a story so much as a broad structure to hang the random elements on. Players choose one of the four guys with differing power sets (some more melee focused, some with longer-range attacks), pair them up with one of three NPC companions, and choose a deck of cards (which you can customise beforehand). You then choose one of four Battles, which are a series of (usually seven) arenas leading up to a boss.

Each arena is based on the Battle's theme, with a set of enemies and obstacles rendered in the game's chunky, light-hearted art style, and is modified by the Battle's conditions which can affect anything from enemy speed and toughness to starting cards and mana costs. You're plopped down into an arena, playing what cards you like in a way familiar to players of Hearthstone (play cards that cost equal to or less than your mana, with mana increasing with every arena) after the enemy plays their cards. Cards enhance the character's abilities, give you consumables, or temporary advantages for the arena, and drawing the right card can make a big difference. Then the fight begins, with new traps, summoned creatures, and obstacles appearing as you play, some themed after the boss you'll face. When all the starting enemies are killed, you're moved on to the next arena until you reach a boss. If you die at any point during the Show, it's over. Any gold and quest unlocks you've earned you keep, but if you want to tackle a Show again you have to start at the bottom. This philosophy is included in the tutorial: die during one of the arenas and you have to do the tutorial Battle all over again.

When you beat the boss at the end of a Battle the powers you've accumulated through cards go away, but your points give you access to Boons, which increase your character's stats for the rest of the Show up until they're defeated or you beat the Show's final boss. Permanent upgrades for the character are unlocked as you complete quests, which are strings of challenges, from the easy to the weird, that the player can tackle as they like. Gold earned is spent in a roulette wheel of sorts that earns you new cards, and cards in excess of the maximum two are converted to shards, which allow you to guarantee what rarity of card you can randomly get.

And that's it. The battles themselves are often hectic, and you get a glowing sense of accomplishment surviving a hail of fireballs, mines, and rat creatures or undead hordes, burdened by, for example, an inability to heal or a companion that'll attack you if you get hit. We did experience some hitching and the occasional freeze on our below-minimum machine while playing, but for the most part the temporary loading happened between fights, and this was usually when we achieved a quest unlock. The game's dual stick nature, facing one direction while moving in another, seems aimed at gamepads, but mouse-and-keyboard was adequate for the most part. It's important to note that the player HAS to play through all the arenas and beat the boss in order to save their progress. These Battles are usually short, but if you have to pick up and go, you either have to concede the match or leave the game running if you're in the middle of a given Battle. If you've not completed a given Show but want to do dailies this is possible, but you can't start a new Show until you lose, concede, or beat the Show you started.

The chaos of Forced Showdown can at times be glorious, though you may not know whether to credit your tactics or your instincts for your survival. Once in a while, though, the chaos can feel rather unfair. At times you may be wishing for some way to do a dodge roll, especially during certain boss attacks - though at least some of the characters can rush or trigger temporary invincibility - and winning 20-odd arena fights to be taken down by a lack of drawing healing cards, a companion's uncooperative AI, or a swarm of enemies that conflict with your character's setup can be taxing (though many times you'll realise you gambled on a tactic and lost, or did something stupid). And yet, the promise of crazy combinations of arena conditions, earning higher character stats and new cards, and persevering despite the odds, may remain enticing, if arena battles are your thing.