Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
(+2)

Hear me out here: a roguelike that only has detrimental upgrades? Trust me when I say, this game is surprisingly fun even if that first question leaves you scratching your head at how that could possibly be.

The premise of The Lesser Evil is really simple: survive 10 nights (levels) in a room with 10 spawning enemies a night that can be defeated with your flashlight; each night, you gain a curse ranging from decreasing your visibility on screen, making the floor slippery, messing with your controls and flashlight visibility, and even outright changing your onscreen colors. The game is simple enough in that it plays like a standard top-down run 'n gun with a couple of enemy variants and a boss; this simplicity and the variety of curses allows the game to have moderate replayability as you attempt to beat each of the 4 difficulties.

While I couldn't find any glitches on the runs I did (2 on video, 5-ish on downtime), I can say that the biggest sore spot of this game is really just the balancing of the curses. For example, there are curses that just change the color palatte of the game, while others insta-kill you if run out of battery power or mess with the aim of your flashlight. Now, this wouldn't be an issue if the curses gradually got worse as you progressed through the nights, but unfortunately you can run into the much more unforgiving curses multiple nights in a row.

All in all, this game feels nice to beat. It's short and sweet, and while the curses can definitely be a detriment, the game never feels unbeatable regardless of the difficulty you're on. If you have 7-ish minutes, give it a try :)

My playthrough: