Ring Of Pain Review

The latter half of 2020 has seen a bumper crop of roguelike games across different subgenres, from Hades’ synthesis of visual novel storytelling and mechanically dense combat to Spelunky 2’s more essential exploration of system interaction. Signs of the Sojourner mellowed out the deck builder experience and tied it to conversations. And Monster Train literally built upon a successful, if more traditional, foundation. 

So, where does that leave Ring of Pain, a new roguelike adventure from developer Twice Different? In it, you trudge through consecutive randomly generated encounters, managing your health in an attempt to travel as deep as possible before something mean and nasty stops your momentum dead flat. It’s familiar, sure, but only because Twice Different isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, they’ve designed everything–gear, enemies, and progression–around one concept: positioning. 

Each room in Ring of Pain features a carousel of cards, composed of monsters, treasure, health potions, interactive objects and the door (sometimes doors) leading deeper down. Two cards will face you at all times, offering you a directional choice. Defeating a monster on your right shifts the entire ring right, while consuming a potion on the left shuffles the whole thing in that direction. You always have the ability to ignore a card (for the time being) and move on. Be warned: monsters will take the opportunity to swipe after you. 

Success is a mindstate (and mostly luck)

Success in each room, and in each run, wholly depends on the order in which you interact with a room’s card permutation. Do you attempt to give that bog snake the slip so you can chug the potion on the other side? Depending on your stealth stat, it may work. Or it may inject a slow venom that will kill you before you reach your prize. A shiny piece of gear waits on the other side of an explosive blob. Perhaps it’s worth it to eat the damage and clear the way to your prize and the door beyond. 

You will often find yourself dancing back and forth between enemies that stalk around the ring, waiting for them to be caught in the blast of a caustic trap. Certain foes switch between a defensive and vulnerable state, forcing you to wait or approach it from another angle. If you aren’t surveying each room’s unique landscape before choosing that first step, failure can’t be too far behind. It transforms each room into a puzzle solved by a series of small, seemingly minor decisions– an interesting twist on a staple of the roguelike’s textbook design. 

Helping you survive the bevvy of rats, rot dogs, and shambling humanoid horrors are equippable items that raise anywhere between one and four of your many stats. Weapons, armour, talismans, spell scrolls, spell books, and more will be found littered throughout the nightmare nest. Some slowly accrete better bonuses while others have limited uses that recharge over time. You will never not be desperately seeking a bump to one of your stats, lending frantic, crossed-fingered energy to each find.

It’s just a flesh wound

I found myself looking at a weapon that pumped up my attack at the expense of nearly a quarter of my health pool, deciding to prioritize anything that helped achieve my glass cannon dreams. Hit first; hit fast. On the next run, early finds boosted my Clarity–a stat that affects, among other things, the number of souls each monster drops. Souls are the currency in Ring of Pain. You use them to unlock chests, purchase items and as a resource for some spells. That trip became a “money run”, thinking of my purse beyond anything else. 

Items of a higher rarity will gradually unlock as you add more failed notches to your belt, keeping each successive foray into the Ring interesting. I wish you could better count on a specific item landing in your lap. The random nature disincentivized me from ever choosing gear with built-in synergy. 

I’m also left wanting more from Ring of Pain’s narrative. Two entities also inhabit this weird needle pit: The Owl, a lanky feathered thing that reminds me of William Utermohlen’s self-portraits with dementia; and a nameless, shapeless void you will encounter in their own liminal space. Each claims to be helping you against the wishes of the other, and there’s obviously an adversarial relationship between the two. Are you trapped here and vying for freedom, or is the Ring a mindscape you must traverse in order to grow and better understand yourself? In my time with the game, I have encountered more questions than answers. If all you do is seed the story space with hooks, players won’t have anything to follow.

Needs more power

Finishing a run might help, but after a week and half of regular play, I’ve yet to complete one circuit of the ring. Am I bad at roguelikes? I don’t think so, but neither am I the (editors note: handsome) editor and video game masochist Jason Coles. Ring of Pain just doesn’t seem interested in helping me achieve success. It leans too heavily on randomization and chance for even my best, most kitted-out run to survive a bad batch of enemy cards or the cursed potions, which seem to offer a 50 percent chance to heal you or drop you to 1 HP. Your only meta-progression comes in the form of unlocked items added to the random treasure table. Completing the loop of rooms might finally pay off a narrative beat or unlock some new system, but when the deadliest enemy in the game is pure dumb chance, my motivation bottoms out.

Ring of Pain understands what enamours roguelike fans to a new arrangement of rules and challenges. The focus on lateral movement and strategic interaction forced me to think ahead as I fought my way through a world full of beautiful and haunting creature designs. But an over-reliance on chance and an underdeveloped world cut the legs out from underneath all that polish and initial charm. Those hungry for something different will love the first taste, but I’m just not sure it will convince you to come back for a second helping.

[Reviewed on PC]