I've always thought the Pokemon Nuzlocke formula would make a great standalone roguelike - now an indie dev's made almost exactly that and it's off to a flying start on Steam

Elements from a widely popular, fanmade Pokemon challenge have infiltrated a standalone indie game that's off to a flying start on Steam.

Game Freak's loveable RPGs aren't quite as difficult for life long fans as they were three decades ago, when some of us were but younglings and some of us weren't even alive. So the community's come up with multiple self-imposed challenges over the generations.

The best-known one is undoubtably Pokemon Nuzlocke, which has two key rules: you can only catch the first wild Pokemon you find in an area, and any downed Pokemon are considered dead and need to be released. It's permadeath Pokemon, essentially.

I've always thought Nuzlocke could be remixed into a standalone creature-catcher quite nicely, and the newly released Aethermancer just does that, remixing its permadeath rules with a roguelike.

"If a monster dies in combat, you'll lose it," the game's early access Steam description explains. "Permanently. But you have the power to defy death by rebirthing their souls. Don’t lose hope! Your monsters might change in the process, but will still be the same companions you once established a soul bond with and will grow stronger from their previous lives."

Right now, there are three biomes, a total of 28 monsters to find, and a "deep skill system to build one crazy build after another in 3v3 combat." The game's developers estimate it'll be in early access for "approximately 1 year."

"Tons of different strategies to employ, plenty of monsters (and their shifted variants, now!) to catch, and a really cool system of synergies that means disparate monsters might fit together better than they first appear," one of Aethermancer's 500 or so 'Very Positive' user reviews says. "Also the pixel art's really pretty. Buy this game."

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