kasran, fourier transfemme @typhlosion@awoo.space

honestly, extremely into this game. it's turn-based, and you move on a grid in hyperbolic space. it feels a lot more like chess than your standard grid-based combat, since the goal is essentially to move around without being cornered by enemies. you die in one hit, but enemies also often die in one hit, meaning that you just need to make sure that you prune them off one-by-one and find a way to move around without getting stuck between two enemies. the game even describes the default mode as "don't get checkmated," further cementing the chess analogy

hyperbolic space makes even basic exploration interesting, since there are a lot of properties that don't apply to flat space. for one, since parallel lines always diverge in hyperbolic space, and the grid prevents you from going directly toward a target and instead chasing it along a parallel line, you can actually run away from things faster than they can chase you

additionally, one big thing about hyperbolic space is holonomy, which means that even if you don't rotate yourself, moving along a grid on its own will cause rotation. this means that it's much harder to keep a bearing on where things are and you're essentially forced to just accept whatever challenge comes your way, since anything that moves beyond your line of sight basically is gone forever

and then there's the fact that the different areas (called "lands" in the game) are so diverse and full of different strategies. among the starter lands are:

• the icy land, where walls are made of ice and slowly melt when you're near them
• the alchemist's lab, where there are red and blue tiles that you can't jump across unless you kill a slime and get coated in the opposite colour
• the jungle, where ivy constantly grows around in circles
• the land of eternal motion, where tiles fall under you and you're forced to keep moving
• the desert, with long sand worms that can only be killed if they're checkmated, who move every other turn
• the hunting ground, where you get swarmed by dogs whenever you collect things, except the dogs give up after a while

and another cool thing: the AI is 100% predictable. while how the world generates and where enemies are spawned is random, whenever you see an enemy, you know exactly how they'll react. and enemies only spawn at the edges of your vision, so you usually have time to react.

the biggest downside, honestly, is how the settings menu is a giant list of options that are hard to sift through. this is a bit disappointing because there are some genuinely good settings: like changing your player skin between the five genders: male, female, cat, dog, and familiar; or choosing whether you save the princess or prince

the game also has a ridiculous number of ways to visualise hyperbolic space, 99% of which are just memes that look cool but are entirely impractical

that said, the game does offer very extensive tutorialisation where you can right-click anything to get a description, view a big list of all the lands and what you need to be able to access them, and also go through a very jank "tour mode" which helps explain some weird quirks and strategies to know in hyperbolic space

oh, and the game is open source and available online in a limited capacity, meaning you can try it out without buying it on Steam. but if you do like it, I say it's 100% worth the 10$ it costs. and it's constantly being updated.

overall: very happy with this, very addicted, very good