Chris InglisDeath or Treat is a 2D action roguelite game developed by Saona Studios and published by Perp Games. The game is set for release on May 11, 2023, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, with PS4 and Nintendo Switch versions coming soon. The hand painted environments and movement/combat feels very much like Ori and the Blind Forest, only this time with a spooky and ghostly Halloween theme. I have been eagerly waiting for a new game to replace Ori and the Will of the Wisps and I was glad that this has a similar vibe. It’s challenging but not overly difficult as you complete runs to build up resources, unlocking shops to purchase various upgrades to improve Scary’s abilities.
You will play as Scary, the owner of Ghost Mart, leader in manufacturing candies for Halloween. He has set up shop but there are no customers in sight. Scary reads a paper and sees advertisements from big corporations such as FaceBoo headed up by Fackerberg. In Hollowtown, a pumpkin head character called Mr Jobs isn’t concerned about the other corporations as he is hooked on his music here instead. It is clear these are parodies of real-world social media outlets and so the tongue-in-cheek humour sets a great tone for the game ahead. We must defend our home in HollowTown from regular and corporate ghouls to save Halloween.
In town are various shops that require resources to be unlocked. There’s Detox Bucks for health upgrades and Necrosoft for skill upgrades. Candies are the primary resource, but we also need to collect things like batwings, pumpkin seeds, metal nuggets, pieces of wood and more. We start with nothing so, armed initially with a simple broom stick melee weapon and a choice from three special skills – ghost explosion, boo!merang and jumpscare. We then load into the first world of Darkchat and start to fight our way to the first boss. The game’s music is whimsical and suits the aesthetic of the game well.
Controls on the PS5 are very simple with standard actions like jump, double jump, dash and using our skills available from the start so we don’t need to unlock anything to get right into the action. We can also do light or heavy attacks, an uppercut or an air smash. Each world has several rooms that you must navigate and take out enemies to collect candies and resources. They are small areas and are relatively linear, though some take advantage of verticality well. Sometimes you need to take leaps of faith to get to higher places and are rewarded for your efforts with crates of candy. Sometimes opening the large chests would lag the game slightly when lots of candies burst out of them. There are also environmental hazards to look out for like spikes, vats of poison liquid and gas outlets.
Monsters utilise a mix of melee and ranged damage, with some monsters having a red skull icon above them which are stronger variants that drop more valuable loot. Like most platformer/action combat games, I seem to always struggle with aerial mobs. I see them, I hear their tell and I know they are going to swoop down onto me, but I will be hit 90% of the time. It’s frustrating but that’s a me problem. There are some hulkier slow-moving melee monsters that will hit you hard with a hammer. You can hit them a couple of times as they wind up their swing, then dash behind them and keep hitting them until they turn around. Again like most games in this genre, the combat scenarios you face are building your skills for the boss fights.
As you traverse several rooms, you know you are close to the boss room because you will come across Hatter’s shop that has various mystery potions available. You are warned that these could be beneficial or a detriment, and they will either buff or debuff your health, damage and agility. It’s a bit of a gamble as you try to get the positive benefits to prepare you for the boss fight ahead. You will also get a choice between two optional items that do things like provide an ally to fight with you, a random weapon proc, give you a buff that when your health drops below 25%, your agility increases, and so on.
Defeating the first boss took me at least a dozen attempts He has three phases, and they seem so simple, but the green blobs he shoots hit hard. I let out a woohoo of joy when I finally defeated him. You are given a choice to continue playing or to go back to Hollowtown. I chose to continue, and the next area was Rip-Tok which had it’s own unique colour scheme. Monsters were similar models to the first zone with some additional types like a flying one that dodges you, but you can hit their projectiles back at them, and another where a skull shoots orbs in several directions. This makes exploring the new worlds fresh with the simple aesthetic change and slightly different foes.
I eventually died as I learned the new area layouts and new monster types. This took me back to Hollowtown. I bought an extra inventory slot which used some of the super rare materials I got for defeating the boss. What I didn’t realise was that you can’t just go back straight into Rip-Tok, unless you have the resources to unlock a portal there. As I had spent my rare resources, I had no option but to run back through Darkchat, defeat the first boss again to get to Rip-Tok. This makes the game a little grindy, but if you knew this in advance you could plan your resource allocation better. I really liked this system as it gives you that one-more-run feel.
Overall, Death or Treat is a great action-roguelite game that challenged my old man reflexes and keeps you doing multiple runs to get resources. Each death is a learning experience and the random room layouts for each run meant it didn’t feel too repetitive if you died a lot. It’s a great game to jump in for a quick 20-30 minutes to see how far you can get as you’re always building up resources, but it’s also good for longer sessions with its variety of excellently hand drawn environments.
This review utilised a PS5 key provided by Renaissance PR and Death or Treat will launch on May 11, 2023, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, with PS4 and Nintendo Switch versions coming soon.
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