Ring of Pain

Ring of Pain has some slight issues that hamper its replayability but, overall, its a dark, atmospheric and well rounded addition to the card rogue-like genre

Ring of Pain is an immensely enjoyable experience that can be monumentally frustrating due to its luck-focused nature. It has excellent mechanics and really has a way of worming itself into your brain. But it can be horribly aggravating all the same.

Ring of Pain can be frustrating in its difficulty, but more often than not, it's satisfying and wonderfully creepy.

Ring of Pain probably isn’t something you’ll sit and play for hours at a time. It’s the sort of thing you’ll enjoy a few rounds of before turning it off, more than likely feeling defeated. But it won’t be long before you’re itching to jump back in and try again. There’s something infectious about its simplicity; it’s a roguelike dungeon crawler like no other, and despite the lack of action or actual dungeon-crawling, it’s huge amounts of fun. Even when you’re exploding left, right and centre.

A speedy roguelite with confusing narrative content that bogs down an otherwise fulfilling blueprint of satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay and positively off-putting visual design. A case of carte blanche backfiring in the face of a finale that fails to uphold a promise on one end, betraying that quick-thinking nature.

Ring of Pain shows creativity and promise, but all to little depth to carry those qualities through. The choices presented by the game are interesting in principle, but in practice your success or failure are determined by luck more than anything else. The result is a game defined by repetition, which struggles to justify the time it asks of you. That said, for a minor price and a fun few runs, you could do far worse as a distraction.