Here is a list of the scraps I see on my desk at the time of writing: one piece of dirt brought from a nearby forest with a curl of oak leaf sticking out of it; two condensed, possibly intelligent balls of cobwebs; two fingernails (I know, this is a terrible habit, I promise that in a decent office environment I'm not so rude); three screws that really need to be part of my bed; one discarded bottle of antivac; ten unidentified somethings.
What do all these objects have in common? Obviously, they would make awesome roguelike protagonists. I know this because I played in… Morceli!
Edwin: I expected Morsels to be a top player after trying him out at the Summer Geoff Fest, and Furkula's creature-collecting roguelike didn't disappoint. It's a queasy palimpsest of worlds dedicated to mutant trash—both literal lumps of sentient trash and various pop culture gargoyles reminiscent of both Goya and '90s animated TV shows.
There are giant noses in hoodies, snakes invading the map, beached whales, giggling dumpsters and cats that turn into crabs and carnivorous plants. It creates an unreadable feel, which is exactly what I like. More games should be unreadable. It's nice to meet a new enemy in Morsels and not know what he's going to do.
Your abilities as a player aren't all that stunning, although we're a far cry from the class archetypes in regular fantasy roguelites. In short, you're a mouse climbing through the layers of a procedural dungeon after being eaten and discarded by Space Cat. Master Morsels are characters with quirky abilities that can be hot-swapped.
Hogzel is a chewing snake that constantly eats itself. Shromzel turns into clones controlled by the same controls – a private army gained by moving more slowly. You'll level up your Morsels and give them various modifiers as you go through each little labyrinth in search of the exit staircase.
Along the way, you'll get into at least one completely chaotic, multi-room pinball machine battle with various furballs, fatbergs, and fairies. The game's physics are often your worst enemy, but critters are just as prone to getting caught by ricochets and random explosions, resulting in a winning “ecology” of side effects. If you're tired of the map's instability, there are puzzle rooms you can dive into that call back to a bunch of old games, from Frogger to Snakes & Ladders.
In retrospect, I think you'll be less shocked by Morsels if you've played The Binding of Isaac, but I think Morsels stands out for its junkyard plot, sheer visual imagination, and strange beauty. The world may be a cesspool, but it's also a casual embrace, a raucous mouthful of secrets playing the part of a disreputable cousin. Animal well.
