This roguelike deckbuilder has a great twist (and the worst name imaginable)

There’s no way to get around it. I have to, in the process of constructing this post, write the name “Slopper Johnson: Graviton Agent.” I don’t like the feel of it in my mouth or in my brain, but as a game, Slopper Johnson is too interesting to ignore. It’s a roguelike in which you construct your actions during combat by wiring together modules as you would with a modular synthesizer.

Here’s the new trailer:

Roguelike deckbuilders often have the feeling of creating a damage-dealing engine with your card abilities, but it seems more literal here. The different modules you can append to your rack can either generate energy, modify it, or spend it to attack your foes, and you’ll be deciding what modules to add, swap out and how to wire them together. From the look of it, it also reminds me of various Zachtronics games.

It seems you can also use your machinery to move forwards or backwards in time. In practice, this looks to be altering the turn order of attacks, letting you skip enemy moves or grant yourself multiple opportunities to strike.

The rest of the game’s structure should seem familiar if you’ve played the recent spate of roguelike deckbuilders. You’re advancing through a “world haunted by permanent storms,” ​​rendered with wonderfully grungy pixel art, but in practice this takes the form of visiting nodes on a procedurally generated map to fight whatever baddies you find there, as per Slay The Spire and its ilk.

My only real problem is that the name “Slopper Johnson” turns out to be the exact opposite of “cellar door”, . Thankfully there’s some hope there, too: regarding the name, the developer commented on Twitter that “the final decision in this respect hasn’t been made.” For now, you can find out more about Slopper Johnson: Graviton Agent over on its Steam page or in this longer video.