The Serpent Rogue reinvents the roguelite with a continuous but randomized world — Hands-on Impressions

gamepur.com:

A plague-doctor looking character awakens in darkness, before shortly fleeing a growing army of miasma-filled bulbs. This corruption continues unfettered, engulfing the entirety of a giant mountain in the distance. Armed with some tea leaves, a few worms, and an affinity for shoving things together to make potions, you set off in search of a way — any way — to cleanse the corruption. The Serpent Rogue knows how to make an opening statement, and it follows through with a uniquely fun approach to the roguelite genre.

Once you’ve completed the tutorial explorations, you are essentially given free reign to do as you please in your goal to cleanse the corruption. This really does mean anything, by the way — while you are restricted in which materials you can find early on in the game, you can find rare items on non-hostile NPCs that occasionally wander into your camp. By find, I mean steal, and by steal, I mean you can kill them to take their items. This is morally pretty bad, of course, but it’s all in the service of cleansing a great evil from the land, so it’s fine, right?

If you’re wondering where the “roguelite” part of this game comes into play, it’s baked into the exploration. Every once in a while, the non-camp zones of the game undergo a “Corruption Storm”, which not only resets the area, but modifies what objects, items, and enemies show up in that area. The topography of the zone stays the same — for example, the river in the Wastelands will always be right there at the beginning — but everything else changes. One reset you may discover some Sulfur, while another there will be a locked chest instead. This allows the game to feel different each excursion, not unlike dying and respawning in other roguelites.

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