War of the worlds in the time of Kings & magic

Disclaimer: Medievalien was provided to me by the developers.

It’s a beautiful moonlit night, and you’re out on the hunt for tomorrow’s food. The wind is slightly blowing. The moon is nestled behind a light layer of clouds, and the crisp night air smells clean. You spot a Rabbit and begin to nock an arrow when suddenly you hear a loud rumbling in the distance. As you look in the direction of the noise and you see something, unlike anything you’ve witnessed in your life. A massive glowing object is coming down from the heavens! You see a streak of magic from the old wizard tower attack and bring the object crashing to the ground. Heart pounding you run to the tower to see what has happened.

This is how you’re introduced to the new roguelite Medievalien by dOOb games srl. I have always loved Aliens and Medieval Fantasy. Looking at the books I read, it’s quite often one or the other. Medievalien blends Fantasy with Aliens and so far in this roguelite, it’s a combination that works very well.

Gameplay

Medievalien follows your typical twin-stick shooter format for its gameplay. You start each run with a bow or crossbow, a bomb, and the ability to dodge. Ammo counters are a thing of the past! Your weapons all have unlimited ammo and rely on cooldown timers. Often I feel these kinds of games are sluggish at first until you get a speed buff, but Medievalien starts you off with a good amount of speed.

You move along waypoints on a map very similar to Slay the Spire. There are levels where you will explore and fight enemies, areas with random events (random enemies or treasures), a blacksmith for upgrading, shops for selling or buying, rest areas, and more. All of this ends at the top of the map with your boss fight.

LOOT!!!

Loot! Glorious Loot! You want it, Medievalien has it. Throughout the levels, you will find various ways of filling your bag with loot. There are a ton of destructible things around the map that contain gold and sometimes will drop a weapon. You will also find treasure chests, some unlocked and others requiring a special key to get into. You will also find a random drop pod that requires energy to open (you gain energy by killing enemies) although this will not always have a good thing in it. In the chests and drop pods you have the potential to find weapons of varying rarities, secondary weapons, or Fate Shards (run modifiers to be applied at the beginning of a level) and passive modifiers.

Some rooms will also house events, like killing 4 waves of enemies as you light 4 braziers will provide you with loot as a reward. Or you will find small shops with very limited items and only the ability to buy. These are just a few of the things the game has to offer within each level

Beautiful Landscapes

Now I am a sucker for any game that is low-poly but I can promise you this is my unbiased opinion, Medievalien looks beautiful. The various regions all have a unique but cohesive feel to them. There are various structures and objects throughout each area that adds to the life of the planet. Chunks of the alien craft are littered throughout and the scars in the earth they left show the destruction that rained down.

My favorite location so far was when I entered some castle walls. I saw a bustling village with people around and a beautiful castle. In the second one I entered, I saw vast destruction and aliens ravaging what remained of the town.

Early access done differently

Having seen the successful early access that Super Giant Games had, dOOb Games is looking to approach its early access differently. They see this as a unique pathway with untapped potential for developers and players.

dOOb Games assembled a “Roguelike Advisory Council” comprised of roguelike streamers that will help provide feedback weekly and to pull viewers of these streamers into the feedback process as well. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out and I wish them the best of luck.

There is a lot of potential for weapons and enemies. With the way Medievalien blends fantasy and aliens together there is so much the developers could do with this and I am extremely excited at the possibilities.

Grab Medievalian on Steam. Follow the developers on Twitter.

You can also see my first look coverage below.