Inkbound

Great core gameplay, but devs pulled the plug on supporting the game before the game got any proper polish. What that results in, is a load of bugs and atrocious design decision including a terrible hub, UX, "quests", uninspiring and terribly boring story, an art direction that leaves a lot to be desired, awkward gameplay/progression, cluttered fights, limited content and other varied clunkiness. Shame because it had the potential of being an amazing co-op roguelike.

Please Note that the game exited Early Access in April 2024. They announced that development would not continue in Jan 2025 on Discord. NO official announcement on Steam or elsewhere. If you buy this game expecting it to be updated and fine tuned. Do NOT buy this game. Ok! Inkbound is an enjoyable and fun game. I love The Main story and characters was kept me coming back and play more runs. Its solid to play it with friends. **Buy it on Sale since $30 is honestly steep for this**. All characters has their own mechanic and gimmicks so not one of them feels like a knock off of another. Look I do not regret the near 100 hours I spent playing this game as the Story made up for it. I would recommend it to others if it wasnt for the fact that despite being out of Early Access, it still feels like its in Early Access. There aspects and issues I am bothered by that I was expecting to be dealt with in future updates. For instance after beating the main story, the game teases you with a new story surrounding a character you interact during the main story but disappears only to return after you beat the Main story. I believe this was intended to be either a Future DLC/Update release containing the last 2 Classes and Post-Game Story content. The Visages and Trinkets are limited in synergy options forcing you to pigeonhole in on 1 build archetype in order to have a successful run especially on higher difficulties. Additionally, I wish Shiny Shoe would restructure their Story Quests as it contains a lot of busy work that is reliant on RNG in order to complete them instead of being able to smoothly progress through the game. It took me 98 Hours to beat the Story. Look the story is excellent, but it should not take me over 50 hours for it. I would play a JRPG if I wanted that experience.

Inkbound: The Roguelike That Loves You and Kicks Your Butt Into Roguelike Addiction Spiral. TLDR Below. I went into Inkbound expecting a cute little turn-based rogue-something to kill time while my main games were in timeout. What I got was an emotional rollercoaster that made me question my friendships, my tactical intelligence and occasionally my sanity. In my opinion Inkbound deserves way more love. It’s an underrated gem that deserves better visibility and a bigger playerbase. At first glance, it’s like Hades had a baby with Slay the Spire then let it had way too many fantasy novel and The Pagemaster movie. The combat? Turn-based in real-time-adjacent with fast movement but has enough decision making to make you sweat like you’re defusing a bomb! It feels so good and satisfying. Now here’s the game wants you to win, but not without gas-lighting you into thinking you’re a God for two runs and then slamming you into a wall so hard you start wondering if your build or your soul was condemned. Everything work is part of the game learning process, this is how you master and manoeuvre your build as whatever RNG throw at you. The Co-op? Amazing! Team Synergy builds? Chef’s kiss! Be it solo or multiplayer is wildly fun but also sometimes it feels like the RNG gods just threw your hopes in the shredder. One run you're an unkillable death machine chaining explosions and melting bosses. Next run? You're a slightly magical wet sponge wondering why you do much lesser damage. Now the graphic and artstyle was phenomenally immersive. Vibes? strong. Lore? actually is interesting, though I’ll be honest...I did read through most of it and skip some because there moments I had that “one more run” "I'm gonna get it this time!". Despite some of those BS moments and the occasional "how the freak did I did end with such crappy built there??!" Inkbound somehow keeps pulling me back with their mesmerising aesthetics and deeply satisfying turn based fights especially in Multiplayer. TLDR: Inkbound is a criminally underrated roguelike that looks charming, plays smooth, and secretly drags you into a tactical addiction spiral. It mixes Hades-style flair with Slay the Spire brainwork, then lets RNG slap you around until you learn to outsmart it. Combat feels amazing, co-op synergy is chef’s kiss, and the art and vibe are straight up gorgeous. One run you're a God of destruction, next run you're a soggy sponge questioning life and you’ll still queue up again. Alas sum it up Inkbound is stunning, chaotic, and stupidly fun and deserves way more love.

Really fun game, could have been much better had they not abandoned it. Class balance and length of runs etc seem to be lacking and could have done with more items. Still a very worthy game worth picking up on sale.

There's some great ideas concerning characters and their play mechanics but, sadly, Inkbound is designed for online co-op so single player is quite shallow; requiring many runs to tediously 'grind' up your stats so that you stand a chance against a level boss. All devices and mechanics are given wacky terms to elude to a sophisticated learning curve but it all boils down to hot-bar abilities, currency and optional buffs to select at the start of each run. Can't recommend unless you're going to play online and we all know how long most multiplayer games remain populated these days....

Fun turn based tactical RPG with lots of different options to unlock and explore. The quest tracking is kind of a mess, and the story progress is too slow and relies on a lot of RNG or restarting a run as a new character or picking skills/etc that suck for your build, so can be slower still. I started getting tired of combat long before getting through all the quests, and eventually just started speed running in lowest difficulty. Oh well - fun for a while and hope for a sequel to improve things.

I recommend this game on sale, as the base price is pretty steep for what you get. It is a fun spin on the turn-based rouge-like, but it suffers from poor balancing and an overall lack of variety. The biggest problems are that it feels unfinished, and there are certain builds and items that just steamroll everything, while others that ought to be viable aren't due to poor balancing choices. 6/10, get this on 75% off sale and play it for a week.

Highly enjoyable turn-based roguelite. Started getting a little repetitive around the 20 hour mark, but still overall a good game

Fun game to waste an hour or two on every now and then. Although it's quite addictive when you get started so there's a good chance you'll return to it often.

The game is so good you will be sad the they stopped developing. Don't get me wrong, the game has tons of content and is so fun and worth playing alone or with friends, but some corners appear to be lacking content, like some worlds without a villain; the screen to choose your class has two empty slots; and the very few variations of body skins for some characters. Despite all of that, the game is great. It had an even greater potential. It's sad to see that capitalism destroyed another amazing game.

This account is not the only one ive played this game from, so don't be fooled by the low amount of hours. i've mainly played one asepect and even with this the game is entertaining. It is hard for me to notice something that bad, that is worth mentioning. i guess this game could do with more bosses and enemy variety, but it's not really bad atm, too. it has a relatively low population and you could help fix that problem, makeing a far more fun place to be. So here is why you might wanna join in on the fun: + i haven't played that many roguelikes, but this game offers a lot of options and variety and the turn-based aspect of it makes it very relaxing too. + Characters are charming and are all voiced very well and have their own personalities they stick to. + i have not finished the story, but it has has kept me invested so far and i am interested to know where it goes. + idk about the future, but right now the dlcs for this game are cosmetics only. While cosmetics are a big part of the game, there are not that many games out there that don't lock content behind a dlc. Inkbound seems to be fully available once purchased. + Tons of cosmetics that impress even a player that is not interested in cosmetics that much.. give it a try and help it grow

good single player, not too slow. difficulty is forgiving enough that 5 or so mistakes on a 30min dungeon wont cause you to die at the end. rewards arent too generous or too stingy, a at least 1 interesting unlock per run even after 20 hours. most playstyles are good, the more powerful, the less reliable.

The combat is superb, mechanics are fun and varied, all classes feel distinctly different, a lot of different gear to try and break the game Quests are mind-bogglingly bad and live-servicey, you'll run back and forth between 2-3 NPCs for HOURS fetching some mcguffin. My best advice is to skip all and any dialogue because it's mostly meaningless and there's A LOT of text All in all tho, gameplay is king and it's good, so it's an easy recommend

Want to play MMO raids with your buddies but without the endless grinding of fetch quests and guild drama. Buy Inkbound. I'm enjoying this way more than I thought I would. Almost addicted. Get it while it's cheap. 20h played. Also fuck that tentacle boss monster.

Extremely fun rogue-like game. Well polished and well made. Hopefully the devs pick it back up for a sequel.

Really difficult game for me. Killed last boss one time, all other times felt like Sisyphus work because I couldn't even kill first boss. All of that gives filling like one successful time was pure luck and for me it's too hard to feel any joy from runs. Probably, with investment of more time I'd learn how to play, but this investment feels too painful

good game, not* worth full price, buy on sale or find free key

Not too complex but fun

Abandoned game, do NOT buy

Friend convinced me to buy it and I am now out 30 bucks

this game made me shoot ink everywhere

fun

Game good

i liked this more than monster train T.T

Where is inkbound 2?

fun, cheap

4/5