Roundguard is an interesting peggle-like with RPG elements; You shoot your round hero around, hitting enemies, breaking pots to collect gold, use skills and items to get stronger and clear the rooms until ultimately you manage to save the king or die trying and restart, unlocking new powers and challenges to make your next runs different. I had a good time with it, although I’ve found the game a bit too punishing for my tastes.
After choosing from four available classes - Warrior, Thief, Mage, Druid - you’re introduced to the mechanics of the game, which are that you start in a catapult and aim to throw your hero at enemies using a little guide line to show you the general direction you’ll go. I find it a bit weird that time isn’t stopped while you are in the catapult and some enemies can still act. Then you shoot your hero and bounce around, hitting enemies, breaking pots and collecting potions. The interactions have at this point is to use the mouse buttons to use one of two skills you can equip. Some warp you around, others help you smash through enemies and pots, others fire projectiles, etc. A golden scarab will move around from pot to pot, giving you a great gold multiplier bonus if you manage to hit it.
If you bump into anything, you bounce around in an unpredictable manner, gaining gold for broken pots, hitting enemies and damaging them while getting damaged in turn, this one-for-one battle system means that sometimes you’ll take way more damage than you’ve planned for, just because you bump into enemies a lot without defeating them, which can get frustrating. Then you drop at the bottom of the screen, where you’ll either land on a cushion, or in some damage-dealing pit. Rinse and repeat until you defeat all enemies, giving you an opportunity to get a new piece of gear or a new skill. Then you choose a new room to get into, with various enemy types and rewards.
Between levels, you’ll get an intermission where you have a chance to win a trinket based on the gold you have collected so far, and these can really change how your character deals with the rest of their run. Healing when you poison enemies, being immune to certain statuses, a lot can be gained there. After a while you fight a boss - and these fights are often very chaotic - and move to the next stage. Enemies and characters can have a bunch of status effects, ranging from poison, to being petrified, invulnerable, regenerating, burning, etc. and these must be used to great effect. Some characters are more versatile than others, being able to launch yourself again in another direction mid-flight is really useful - although you can’t do it infinitely because it costs mana - and it makes doing multiple runs really fun.
There is a lot to do and unlock in Roundguard, quests, relics, daily challenges and the like, and if you can stomach the chaotic direction some rooms might take and enjoy a more complex take on the simple bouncing-around-pegs gameplay, it’s a really neat game!
