Wot I Think: The Legend Of Bum-Bo

Bum-bo has to cope with plenty of crap. Generally that crap may be very literal, sentient, and coming straight for him. Generally, the crap continues to be literal, nevertheless it’s his software and his protect. It fuels his nightmares, and his particular skills. It’s his deuce within the gap.

Crap jokes really feel inevitable right here, as a result of The Legend Of Bum-Bo is a prequel to The Binding Of Issac. It’s set in the identical universe, which is one ruled by pee and sweat and poo. Regardless of this, nevertheless, it’s a really totally different sort of roguelike, which swaps out twitchy exploration for turn-based, match-four puzzle grids. I’ve grown to fairly prefer it, despite the fact that at first it made me need to tear my hair out and throw clumps at Edmund McMillen’s disgusting menagerie, probably including to it within the course of.

Bum-bo is a balding man who has simply jumped right into a sewer, in pursuit of a shadowy monster that’s stolen his coin. That is defined through a sixty second cutscene resembling a toddler’s drawing, in the identical model as Isaac’s, solely this time narrated in wacky bum discuss. I’m not a fan of the wacky bum discuss, however that’s no massive deal as a result of the opening is among the uncommon events when the narrator (presumably, lead bum Bum-bo himself) intrudes on the puzzling. The puzzling… takes extra explaining.

Each room within the sewers incorporates a handful of cardboard horrors. The rooms themselves are cardboard, in truth, and most assaults and talents seem as cut-outs on the tip of skinny little sticks. It’s a puppet present for troubled toddlers, and builders McMillen and James Interactive needs to be happy with this ‘new however outdated’ aesthetic avenue. This can be a good new dimension for morbid dungeoneering, and I’d anticipate nothing much less from the person who made these.

The cardboard monsters trundle in the direction of you alongside three separate lanes, and also you cope with them by aligning 4 or extra matching symbols in your puzzle grid. You’ll throw enamel and bones for injury. You’ll cowl enemies in snot that tangles them up for a flip, and canopy your self in sweat or urine (I can’t inform, it might be a combination) that grants you further strikes. And you’ll throw up poo as a defensive protect.

These are the fundamentals. Throughout every struggle, you often get two possibilities to shuffle columns and rows throughout the grid, and success is about doing as a lot as you possibly can in a single transfer: getting new alignments in place whereas prioritising current rows of the weather you want. After all, the sport doesn’t name them parts, however the concept Bum-bo’s universe is essentially comprised of grimly bodily constructing blocks is just too compelling to withstand.

Nevertheless, every time you line your shits up in a row and clear them from the board, you don’t simply throw them away. The assorted chunks and fluids are pocketed (urgh), the place they change into mana on your spells. That is the place the deck-building half is available in, and issues get cleverer.

Spells do all kinds. They may do straight up injury to a a goal or two, or they may allow you to shuffle tiles round in some particular manner. Certainly one of my favourites removes all of the tiles of a selected kind from the board, then throws them at a monster of your alternative. This one does injury based mostly on what number of tiles of that kind are being flung, so it combos properly with a urine-powered spell that will increase the variety of a tile kind of your alternative. However! A good smarter plan could be to test for tiles whose removing may lead to one other tile match going off. A good smarterer plan could be to rigorously engineer such a state of affairs. It’s rather a lot.

That’s a part of what bothered me at first. I’m susceptible to evaluation paralysis, and I spent my first few hours eyeing up grids for much longer than I wanted to. Many conditions are easy sufficient to make determining an optimum flip believable, however advanced sufficient that you simply’ll solely see it should you squint for a strong minute or two. If Bum-Bo had been a board recreation, my fellow gamers would in all probability have shoved me off my chair and brought my flip by the point I made my transfer. A part of me would have wished them to. This was admittedly primarily a difficulty with my foibles, although I do assume a good few folks will overthink their manner into the identical lure I did.

My different major drawback was a bit extra common, and boiled all the way down to the truth that encountering new enemies usually led to me taking injury as a result of nothing besides prior expertise may inform me how they might behave. Studying the best way to cope with new conditions is mainly the central enchantment of roguelikes, positive, however they nonetheless should really feel truthful. Shedding a Bum-Bo run since you didn’t know tossing a turd at poison gasoline would make it engulf you is neither a contented expertise nor an fascinating failure. Deaths like that make me dearly miss the readability present in Slay The Spire, the place enemies politely inform you precisely what they’re as much as.

There’s a selected sort of unease that comes with being compelled to make high-stakes choices whereas missing very important data. That discomfort usually outweighed my enjoyment as I bumbled by the early recreation, unlocking new characters that began off with totally different skills. Regularly, although, the stream of latest enemies slowed to a manageable trickle. I additionally skilled myself to agonise much less, plumping for the primary good flip I noticed quite than furrowing my brown in quest of an unnecessarily superior one. I’m much more snug now, in additional methods than one.

Ultimately, Bum-Bo can’t reside as much as Isaac – You mix skills in intelligent methods, positive, nevertheless it’s extra concerning the cerebral pleasure of effectively translating enamel into injury numbers, than the wild and unpredictable interactions of Issac’s many gadgets. I don’t assume the purpose was to copy, thoughts, although there’s a sure structural similarity there. And moreover, you possibly can’t choose every part by the requirements of a traditional.

Those that performed Isaac will know that the dungeon’s depths go additional than they first seem. I’ve reached an ending in Bum-bo, of kinds, however I do know higher than to name it quits now. My irritation has pale into nice satisfaction, and I’m interested by what areas and talents nonetheless lie beneath me. Bum-bo might should cope with plenty of crap, nevertheless it’s all properly price pushing by.