FOG is a third-person perspective roguelike with a deep emphasis on custom builds. Despite the rather simple description, this game contains a variety of elements that make it worth of discussion. From its unique and charming art style to its very much needed take on the roguelike genre as a whole. Innovative, wild, random and full of personality. This is the type of game we are dealing with today.
FOG’s core behaves as a roguelike. With each death throwing us back to the previous level. And each complete level awarding us with experience and ten haloes, the game’s currency. The latter of which we will receive, given that we were able to find the hidden gray man on the scenario. Experience is used on the impressively big skill tree, where we can improve many stats like recoil, attack, move and reload speed, life steal, critical hit chance and many others. Fifty being the maximum level we can achieve, thus meaning that we can not max out the entire tree, and it’s designed in a way which makes us think about our decisions on which abilities we want to level up. It is an amazingly well crafted system that ties directly onto the items we can equip.
Haloes, on the other hand, are the currency used to buy all the items available. This ranges from a full armor set, to different weapons, spells, and many other objects which are meant to upgrade or alter the behaviour of certain aspects of our character. Maybe it’s a small boost to one of the previous explained skills, maybe we are talking about a very powerful weapon but with a clear downside to it. That said, the catch with these items is that they are all random. We spend 10 haloes to buy an item from a certain category, to then leave it up to the game to decide its stats. Despite this seeming unfair at first, given that getting haloes is not such an easy task, FOG decides to take that risk in order to teach us the real value of these items. It’s not about getting the best ones, more so about learning to play with what you get and adapting to the different outcomes.
That is the key component of FOG’s amazingly fun yet simple gameplay. The different builds that you can think of and that the game is willing to give you. You may choose to have a very high chance of explosive damage, but a rather tame weapon. Maybe you compensate the obvious downsides of a melee choice like an axe with an absurd amount of movement speed and life steal. The game wants, and will, force you to adapt, think and vary the style of your playthroughs. Despite this, it is true that you will eventually find a powerful enough weapon that will trivialize most, if not all, of your items. Not only that, but your use of the skill tree may become less restrictive.
This very damaging flaw is what would hold the game back, if it wasn’t for the constant display it does in favor of replayability and encouraging the player to try out new alternatives. For example, given that you can find the gray man on all levels, you guarantee yourself 10 haloes per scenario, which translates to one item per level. But once you beat the game, you are awarded with 50 haloes. This is done in order to encourage the player to go on a shopping spree and test out different equipments. Which does wonders to the game in the long run. FOG is, simply, a different kind of roguelike. On which going for long and extensive runs is not really the point, but rather focusing on the way you play around and face situations on a rather short experience, roughly two hours long.
Moving on to other topics, the charismatic visuals of the game are also worth mentioning. Making use of Unity, the title decides to create a unique set of worlds that can only be described graphically with an example, think of it as some sort of… Soda Drinker Pro. But it goes beyond that simple comparison (which I honestly think just underestimates this game, but there is no easy way of describing it). It’s the subtle, and not so subtle, details that contribute to making FOG’s world one of the most interesting to look at and revisit, something that many roguelike games tend to forget.
The NPC’s and bosses are specially interesting when it comes to designs. These models use distorted photographs of human faces and colorful textures that all together form a very unnatural set of characters. This, accompanied to the symbolism scattered across the levels and menus, endow FOG with a delightful atmosphere that is worth checking out on its own. Atmosphere that is also accompanied by very bold creative decisions, like the complete lack of any type of soundtrack.
FOG is, overall, a great experience worth both your time and money. Its simple premise, controls and game mechanics are solid enough to counter some of the downsides that one could argue the game has. Like the lack of any tips or explanations on how anything works. Which, then again, makes the experience all that more entertaining in my opinion. The refreshing approach with which the game presents the roguelike genre is executed with care and shines because of it. All in all, we end up with a fun challenge that will both appeal to those seeking for a short game and to the ones who enjoy discovering new play styles and dissecting each aspect of a game to it’s core.
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