Moonless Formless is a solo developer. What sorcery is this?
Show him some love.

I found out about Withering Rooms from Punchy's GDQ speedrun and I'm forever thankful to him. It's a horror metroidvania with procedural elements, I guess? And also a profound ARPG if you consider late Castlevania games as such. Stylistically, WR possesses traits of Sanitarium, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and American McGee's Alice. Still in a league of its own, it bleeds profusely over the world it animates. You wake up in a corrupted Dream as a girl with bad posture, a clinical patient named Nightingale. A silent child in a screeching night with no end. The Dream isn't an evil phenomenon like Elm Street, only a violated miracle comprised of looping incorporeal processes. Bubbling with cruel ideas, the setting goes balls-to-the-wall, incorporating character-driven Lovecraftian sci-fi about human vices, trans-dimensional interpretation, and cycles of abuse. Defying thematic cohesiveness, the game invents its own theme of chaotic insanity. The setting takes root in Aztec culture and Byzantine mazes, all wrapped up in 1900s clinical horror.

Washing away the meaning of things, burrowed deep within the heart of the Dream is the Curse. Its spiffing scorn permeates the grimy scenes of eclectic depravity. Being its guest, you shall burn alive, dredge knee-deep in poison sludge, and get eviscerated with a rusty sickle. So far, the Dream is unique to Mostyn House, which went from being a country retreat to a cholera clinic, then our trap - the asylum. Swarming with monsters and secret passages, the Lament Configuration twists itself each night on all layers of unreality. While the real-world bodies of its comatose explorers rot in beds, becoming nightmare creatures. Death in this existential deadlock is a fluke, your real body rots all the same. The suffering is tangible yet normalised. You won't see empathy from the desensitised factions, conflicting in a crackhouse world. Most inhabitants whose minds are still intact only push you around. By doing their bidding, and by your will, the Dream shapes into 4 endings.

Its pliant nature isn't fully reflected in the game's randomiser. It's more of a theme. The overall map structure shifts slightly, it mostly impacts monster placement and loot. This could get monotonous if not for the constant growth. Initially, you get a few floors to roam, a lame Overlook's hedge maze. Then the world blows up, sprawls, endlessly choking on its own trauma, and protrudes its entrails further, with shortcuts, pits to jump into, sights to see. Dilapidated backgrounds bathe in crispy lighting, the visuals are explicit and raw, overtly Satanic, with slick animations and stark enemy designs stimulating the ultra-violence. When the Curse meter rises, reality peels off with it. Walls bleed, dressers turn sacks of spasming meat. Oppressive ambience, unnerving giggles, hidden chests, and panic-inducing hallucinations ensue! Alas, you won't be as amused when the meter fills. A massive chunk of Curse Rot damage suddenly hitting my face during an odd fight was the main cause of my strokes.

"Janie says we're all such a crush of want, half-mad with loss
We're violated in our sleep & we weep & we toss
& we turn & we burn, we're hypnotised, we're cross-eyed
We're pimped, we're b#tched, we're told such monstrous lies
Janie wakes up & she says: we’re gonna have a real cool time tonite!"
— Nick Cave

Panting, you scour around the mansion and its outskirts like a mouse, appearing from behind wardrobes and disappearing in mirrors. A bottom-feeder's min-max involves more than leaving a tart for later. The early power creep lies in discovering blood altars and travel points, slotting your item wheels with explosives along the way. Bring people's organs to blood altars to remember valuable items, build your permanent arsenal step by step. Death takes all that is forgotten, so embrace the "use it or lose it" mindset for resources and consumables. And there's no reason to grind. The game is separated into 4 chapters with progressively better loot in corpses and furniture. When you uncover most fast-travel mirrors, death recovery takes mere minutes. As long as you're running somewhere terrible, you make progress. I think running is better than the local stealth system. You can crouch under a table, but I only used it to evade shots and charges. Let the bodies hit the floor. Everyone's mortal, lootable, and the killing feels great! Granted, combat tends to go out of hand. One moment I'm on my merry way when, in a second, my army of knight armour and human-sized dolls gets incinerated by an SS flamethrower hulk.

Next time, holding a Bible and a scythe, blindfolded, you pump a Byzantine titan full of paralytic agent. An axeman curses you in Greek while a witch of Salem giggles in the corner. Toss a grenade, slash her face, shotgun the Greek. Swap to the camera! Flash a ghost, run, get jumped by a nurse with a necrosis needle, roll, fireball, run outta the room to get sandwiched between a stone eye and a body bag slug! Still can't wake up. But can bulk up! WR's wide array of customisation options begins in its progression system. To level up your stats, initially, you offer organs to a witch. Or should you use a machine to harden your body with organ grease instead? Later, infuse yourself with ancient blood you found on a dusty skeleton, why not? It's more simple than it looks. The system constantly shifts like a dream, but it's intuitive and impactful. The stats should be familiar to everyone. Vigour, poise, resistances, curse tolerance, luck, perception, that useless inner light, and more... there’s room for self-expression. I went full-luck procs with a drop of vampirism, effortlessly facetanking all enemies and bosses by the end.

I had to get crafty to make it work in NG+, but the level reset is free, you see. Consider this: the "rebirth" involves tearing off Nightingale flesh chunk by chunk, then reattaching it for whichever build you desire. Meanwhile, without any such requirements, the agreeable gear system provides a lion's share of your stats and important transformational effects. There's a heap of swords and whips to try on almost a hundred enemy types, each sporting a set of cheeky moves imbued with status effects. But you're spoiled for counters. Choose your synergetic dresses and rings with care, fashionably swapping outfits according to the situation at hand. Cursed or not, it's still a dream, so your drips can be as outrageous as you want. WR is pregnant with gunslinger hats, golden armour, and vampire tuxedos. It even has... 2 guns. But it's a classic combo - a revolver and a pump-action. Stab or pump, you have to be quick, aim accurately, and self-bandage timely. Staying lucid to pepper the crowd with acid jars and fireworks in-between. What else? The puzzles are clever.

Withering Rooms is obviously the fruit of many sleepless nights. I was bewitched and couldn't play anything else. Not until I was done enjoying melting every face available, exhausting every dialogue option with those I couldn't melt. I took their plights personally, which is a testament to the abnormal writing of this game. The visuals you can see, but that part is the jack in the box I can't convey without spoilers. I would never list to you all the intricacies forming this spectacular danse macabre anyway. In my case, it effortlessly eclipsed all competition for 2 weeks. Upon completion, I went for the NG+. Hard as nails, with a dress made of star meat and a sparkly sword, it was so different! I still prefer ending C, though. You may think differently, but you'll get involved to your ears. Because Withering Rooms is thoughtful, polished, well-balanced. It's mad as a Hatter and it's a barrel o' fun.

My curator Big Bad Mutuh

I am become Colony Ship's Jehovah's Witness, knocking on every door to proclaim the profound truth: this is the best space sci-fi CRPG ever made. They got rid of the stiff framework. In the process, the arrival might've lost some of its experimental exoticism and replayability but gained a better sense of direction. I found the restrictions imposed upon the player by The Age of Decadence charming. Clever compromises allowed Iron Tower to realise an epic ambition. This time, behold a vision implemented in full scope.

A ship named Starfarer carried 50k settlers on a desperate Mission through space and time. Centuries have passed, now their descendants chew cardboard and drink rat poison. Barely anyone on board believes it could reach the planet Proxima-B in Proxima Centauri to establish a religious colony as the founding fathers wanted. The ship may be still on course or, in my ally's words, it may be a cosmic-scale fool's errand. The can of evolutionary dead end sealing a decaying post-hope society barely holds. Hull breaches are scarcely patched, the fusion reactor is crippled, radioactive spills turned whole areas unsalvageable. To boot, a mutiny happened in the past, then a civil war. Today, several factions constitute the spine of the ecosystem, begrudgingly coexisting. The premise develops and deviates, putting the balance of power in your hands.

One would think the Pope heading the Church of the Elect must be a pious moron, but we got along. Protectors of the Mission are fascist pigs, but the chain of command is important. Could the Brotherhood of Liberty ever come to a consolidated opinion? The cyber-mutants of the enigmatic House Ecclesiastes bargained for peace in exchange for maintaining the irradiated Heart of the ship. Ghouls or cronenbergs? Neither, just transhumanist matriarchal waifu nuns simping for King Solomon. Shoot that mutagen up my vein, NOW! You are a shipborn drifter who stumbles upon a mysterious machine. Looking for the highest bidder leads you on a grand adventure through the whole ship. Sometimes it means changing the world, sometimes running errands. Choices matter, but local freedoms are inconsistent. There's less fooling around. Your killcount can't be leveraged as much, there's no 'word of honour' stat I praised in the AoD.

Now, for something that leaves it in the dirt. The visuals that had an immense stopping power before blew my skirt up. Not by being flashy or technologically advanced. I mean, the walking animation begins with a janky slide, the portraits are boring, and combat could be more punchy. Nah, it's about how the presentation weaves into the setting. The industrial landscapes scale from cargo container favelas over pitch-black abysses to luxurious skyscrapers. The score is great, the shadows are crispy. Characters look hardcore wearing their accurately displayed techno-gear and the steaming vents are so Blade Runner. Aside from the bad journal I barely used, the UI is slick and informative, resembling Shadowrun with its minimalist neon frames. And the INFINITE grid-based inventory is neat. The AoD's utilitarian angle worked for me, but I can publicly call CS pretty without crossing my fingers.

Then I stepped into the world, more precisely, a personal cargo container in The Pit. A place where I was free... to feed the bioreactor or be fed to it. I soon felt the world's oily touch through the writing, which portrays a believable morality that pertains to a society of cosmic isolation, disconnected from the natural order. They didn't just plug normal people into the setting and call it a day. The world is demented. The Pit's mayor rules from a brothel and it isn't even the worst (best?) place! Hydroponics is a jungle swarming with a sigiled starfish beast, super-fungi, and psychic frogs. Armoury is a D&D dungeon and Mission Control is a Space Hulk where the Great Serpent Ol' Bub nests in the bottomless pit. This is the kind of bright-eyed sci-fi that hits close to home. Where the day-to-day stakes are so high there's no need to involve cosmic threats or a harem of alien races. Yeah, there's only one race of space losers to play as. Us.

Everything was decided the instant I realised I could be a cult leader for my companions. Whole 3 of them to witness me get eaten by every frog. I took some social studies, thieving skills, a trusty shotgun - and rolled out. Immediately noticing the skills are raised by using them! It's a flexible system, but the meat of it is the feats you add with level-ups. Yes, levels are also present. Most of the feats are combat-oriented, yet I immediately went for haggling. Squeezing a better deal is something only you can do while allies provide other perks, if unreliably so. You need to ask one to hack or sneak for you, which often leads to situations when they can't help since there is no dialogue attached. On the bright side, being able to influence allies is fun. Say, one of them killed a man for the first time and I had convinced her killing was great. She decided to become an assassin, receiving a neat feat in the process! It happens sparsely, don't expect affectionate relations. Usually, your choices quietly lead to bonding, providing party-wide stat boosts.

Anything to help you outsmart and persevere, grinding teeth on the unforgiving fights, trying different synergies. The lack of a squad was a huge detriment to the AoD's combat system. It was completely reworked, distancing itself from mere bottleneck exploitation. Combat is now cover-based and feels like Wasteland with a pinch of Xenonauts/X-com. Before some battles, you're sometimes given the chance to use the puzzle-like stealth system, allowing you to go behind enemy lines and kill a few guys or use skills like computers to reprogram turrets and such. When all else fails, you can normally position companions strategically and then use ample tactical options: perform a snapshot, burst, double shot, target weak points, disable limbs, or do a power move. Some things don't have limbs, some armour demands more penetration, all that jazz.

Encounters are more sophisticated than conga lines of humans and gods. There's plenty of distinct creatures and cool stuff. A mutant frog sweeps you off your feet while the spitters blind you? Come back with good leg armour, eye protection, or bigger guns. There's always a counter if you can afford it. The economy stays a money sink until the end, so the gear remains desirable. Save up for your boomsticks, street sweepers, doomslayers, time-warp gizmos, brainwave disruptors, pulse alternators, combat stims. Cut cyber-implants out of corpses, upgrade and overclock them. Tinker with your energy shields and cloaking devices. Grenades still rule the ball. Flashbangs, gas, stasis to divide and conquer, EMP to shut down fields and robots. The actual explosives are probably loathed in space. I also noticed how believable the local technobabble sounds, making all that stuff seem plausible.

By providing a plethora of tools, this candy shop of a game took me for a spin, putting me in life-or-death scenarios with little time to breathe. Its challenging nature procures cathartic rewards. You know you want to crunch these numbers and influence the lives of whole communities. All that's asked in exchange for your emotions is some forward-thinking. That said, now you could see 99% of the content in one go without being anal about it. Cease your anxious calculations. Enter the stern yet somehow hopeful world unprepared and you'll see that Colony Ship is as clever as it is engaging. It channels the cerebral bliss of Robert Sheckley and Harry Harrison, filling your heart with longing for the distant stars to then cruelly bring you down to Earth, face-first.

My curator Big Bad Mutuh