Unlike other rooms, bosses mostly give you the full screen to play with and are far more bullet hell like than the rest of the game so conquering them just naturally feels rewarding. Fighting the bosses are such a joy thanks to Monolith’s tight controls and smooth graphics. At the very least I believe there at least 3 different possible bosses per dungeon, if not more. Not only have I been discovering new rooms I’ve never seen still, but I’ve also been coming across new bosses.Įach dungeon has a boss, and from what I’ve gathered bosses are randomly selected from a pool for each dungeon. Every run I played felt fresh and like going through a whole new configuration of each dungeon, and not just with the same 10 or so rooms copy and pasted around. But there is so much variety to be found here, I rarely even thought about that fact. As I’ve said, Monolith is randomly generated, a phrase that typically turns off a lot of people, myself included. Kawaii skeletons aren’t the only thing with variety here.
I don’t believe I’ve seen a duplicate yet and I’ve put over 12 hours into the game. Off of the top of my head, I think I’ve seen a wig, glasses, cat ears, and maybe a monocle if I recall correctly. Another such example, which also falls into the cute category, is that skulls (one of the frequent enemy types) will every now and then spawn with an accessory. Backtracking through empty rooms? Not here, you can simply press a button to pull up a map and instantly warp to any rooms you’ve visited. Small touches like this set Monolith apart from other games in the genre for me, such as the HUD fading and flickering the closer you are to death. I especially like one of the small touches the developers added in the water dungeon in which anytime you submerge your ship in water the music slows down just a bit, same as your ship. Each level has its own music that seems to match the theme of said levels such as fire, ice, mechanical, and so on. The soundtrack here is one of the more memorable chiptune offerings I’ve heard in some time that compliments the game well. Perhaps cutest of all is the pause menu that features your ship sipping a cup of coffee while a flurry of bullets scatter around the screen and an upbeat chiptune song plays. Not only does the feline orb have a fun little personality, but so do many of the enemies that will randomly pop by your humble abode from time to time to non-violently chat. For a game about going through dungeons and killing things, Monolith manages to be about as adorable as you can get. You read that right, you buy weapons from a cat blob, who is heckin’ cute. Additional consumable weapons can be found in each level, with more to be purchased in the game’s lobby from a blob-like cat. Along said journey, there are various shops, and secrets to find to purchase upgrades for your current run including extra bombs and health. Here players control a little space ship with twin-stick shooter controls on a quest to journey deeper and deeper into a dungeon killing enemies and huge bosses along the way.
Monolith is another one of those indie pixel art roguelike shooters with randomly generated levels, only it is damned good. When I come home I just can’t wait to get inside of it and go as deep as I can in its fiery dungeons while spraying my hot loads in every direction. The dungeons of Zelda, the cute characters of Undertale, and Geometry Wars had a threeway and gave birth to this wonderful roguelike that I’ve been having a deeply romantic affair with for the past couple weeks. Effectġ00% body armor, 100% fire armor, 100% spirit armorĭisplays the message "AHH.Down down baby your street in a Range Rover boom boom baby
To enter in cheat codes, first press T, then enter in your desired code. This will reveal the red exit switch which will take you to E4M9, "Mall Of The Dead". In the cavern with the end level switch after defeating the queen spider (or luring it into the water where it can't get back out, whichever works), use the napalm cannon or dynamite to the wall on the right side. This trick will require you to reach the end of E4M4, "Crystal Lake". Push the skull switches to this combo: Dagger, Eye, Moon. Ahead of you are some switches on a big stone. Swim to the surface to end up in a small cave.
Then, blow up the crack in the wall and jump into the little pond. At the end of the level, after the bridge explodes, instead of jumping down into the water to get to the exit, jump to the other side to the ledge, using the pillars of the bridge. To get to the secret level in episode one of Blood, you must be in map E1M4, ''Dark Carnival''.