I’ll admit, I approached Slimekeep with extreme caution when I received a review key and saw that it pitched itself as a mashup of two of my favourite indie titles.
Those, for reference, are Enter the Gungeon and Slime Rancher, two titans of their respective genres that each brings something very different to the table.
Needless to say, my immense curiosity and also some nostalgia for Slimekeep’s Game Boy-inspired visuals pulled me in, and I found the ride to be mostly enjoyable.
What is Slimekeep?
Slimekeep is a fast-paced action roguelike that creatively combines the best aspects of both of the games that I touched upon earlier. Players gun their way through procedurally-generated levels using an arsenal of 80+ unique and wacky weapons.
Enemies are all different forms of slimes which can be sucked up with your capture gun and raised as pets back at your home. You can then sacrifice your newfound pals and extract their essence to buff your character within the game’s skill tree.
In a unique twist, you can challenge the final boss at any point, but that’s unlikely to end well. Otherwise, you can spend up to 13 days preparing, raising slimes, building up a diverse arsenal, and doing everything to survive the formidable battle ahead.
Keeping slime for a living
One of the game’s most interesting mechanics means the longer you leave slimes in captivity, the bigger they will grow and the more points you can extract from them. The trade off is that your character will not be able to reap the rewards instantly, and you will have to rely on your current build in the meantime.
The creature collecting and gunplay feel tightly connected, and I was always weighing up whether to go in guns-blazing or hold back to hunt a new squishy friend. Each slime gives you points for different sections of the skill tree, so you need to consider which to capture to give you the perks that you desire. Using the capture gun also leaves you pretty vulnerable whilst you try and wrestle to secure them, and your ammo for the gun is in extreme short supply, with batteries popping up on occasion to give extra juice.
On the flipside to this though, gunning down your potential new friends gives you money that you can spend on new guns, items, and mini-games with NPCs. This pushed me to keep reflecting on my current build in every dungeon I entered, to ensure that I was getting the resources that I needed to progress the most positively.
The Verdict
The monochrome Game Boy-inspired visuals of Slimekeep made me feel all fuzzy with nostalgia, at least at first, but staring at such a limited colour palette for so long did leave me fatigued.
This was compounded by the capture gun, as some of the other weapons looked nearly identical when using the default settings. Fortunately, you can change the game’s hue, saturation, and brightness in the options, and you should adjust to taste sooner rather than later.
When it comes to the feel of the game, everything works because the creature collecting and the gunplay are connected in a really thoughtful way. Furthermore, the risk-reward elements really pushed me to think about how I approached each new dungeon.
As for those lofty comparisons up top, Slimekeep might not reach the same heights as the games that it claims influence from – a tall order indeed – but it’s still a fun genre mashup that I’m glad I stumbled upon.
Finally, a big thank you to BenBonk for providing us access to Slimekeep, which is out now on PC (Mac, Win).
