If you’re going in blind like me I recommend reconsidering reading this, I don’t really spoil anything all that much, but I wouldn’t have wanted to know about some of this stuff and prefer to just fuck around and find out.

So my first half a dozen-a dozen runs were absolutely disastrous, first time I think I got too friendly with a bee who just stung me to death. Then when a couple of deaths later thought I had it at least a little figured out I found myself run to a basement full of cochroaches by a zombie and losing all of my cool stuff.

After that one I just smashed my way to the roof of the evac shelter in a “fuck this shit” manner - I’d been avoiding making any noise at all and what do I find? A nice big bottle of whiskey just waiting for me. So I gargled down all the pills I could find with the bottle as a runner and jumped off of the roof figuring it’d kill me (thinking since it’s so easy to die surely this’ll do it!). Nooooooo. The one time you try to die you can’t even find a single creature to finish you off after your pitiful attempt at suicide.

I finally managed to make at least some kind of a camp at one of those survivalist cabins and survive fairly easily, even after finally confronting the paramilitarist zombie locked in the basement by blowing it up with a grenade - which I messed up of course and instead of throwing it instantly, I RAN AT IT with the grenade in my hand, correcting and then getting my leg half blown to pieces. That was when I was sure I was going to die. I figured it was karma after that catstalk-mission asshole stole all the rest of the stuff in the duffel bag he gave me and was charging me to get it back so I killed him with his own gun and made nice little hides for my Ed Gein style cabin and ate his brain (I had no food and the lesbian prepper zombie was going nuts in the basement, so I excused myself).

Fast forward to today. I got tetanus from my own bear trap earlier and it was getting annoying, so I located a hospital in the nearest city, figuring I’m probably going to die anyway getting these tetanus cramps when something or other is trying to eat my face, but at least I knew how to fight them now and survive. At least under normal circumstances. And lo and behold I stumbled upon a car, a working car, pristine condition, no alarms, and a bunch of gas in the tank as well. So I headed towards the big city. Except there’s a tiny little town on the way that’s having a post-apocalyptic free-for-all I guess. So again I figure, well this run has been a weird one and full of luck followed by something even worse.

So naturally I ram most of them down with the car (the first one I killed had the antibiotics anyway so I figured I’m in less danger here than in a big city) so I wouldn’t have to deal with the military z’s or cops with just a butcher’s knife and no real armor, destroying my beautiful new SUV’s exterior, nothing vital lost. The rest of them were just fat so I just chop them up, everything goes swimingly, I go through all 9 houses and haul all of the shit to the back of the truck. All this amazing stuff, no more eating catstalks and fiddleheads and stuff.

All this cool shit, tools, anything I could’ve never even thought to have so early into this fucked up experience, the back of the truck is literally as full as it can be and I head back home on a couple of liters of gas after one of them just decided to go through the car and damaged the battery so I kind of had that one try to get it all home.

The way I came there was through a forest trail at the end of which the car was parked, so I had to take the big road. There’s a goddamn riot blockade with the turrets. Fuck it. Floor it and hail Mary and Jesus take the fucking wheel. I can’t believe how suspenseful going, just, a bit, by, bit, one, key tap, at, a, time… could be. I make it and I make it home and I’m over the moon. I literally haven’t had this much fun in yeeeeaaars. I pull up to the yard as slowly as possible so I can later still salvage what’s left of the otherwise functioning skeleton of a car. With my luck I was sure I was gonna hit a rock and the whole thing would just explode.

I take a break and calm down and return. Start unloading the car and swooning over all the stuff and wondering about all the things I could with all of it. There was so much stuff. Unloading the food in the pantry and I accidentally mispress a key and something happens.

(here’s a tiny spoiler, if it doesn’t work on mobile, for anyone who wants go in blind like me)

SPOILER

AND THE FUCKING WALL NEXT TO ME OPENS UP

and of course, even though I should know by now, from this one alone, but I played og roguelikes as a kid, I should have known better than to get all excited and amazed, “oooooh wow I bet there’s some cool stuff in there!”

(…aaand here’s the end)

and BLAM!

A shotgun blasts half my torso away, and, I’m quoting, I’m gushing blood like a fountain and it keeps telling me “a tourniquet might help :)”, but the only tourniquet I know how to make is for an arm - but it says it can be adjusted for other limbs. So, panicked I crawl all over looking for a fucking stick so I can make this tourniquet and try to readjust it, but it’s - only - for: ''¨limbs’¨^'¨* and it cycles back to “tourniquet (arm)” like it just wanted to fuck with me one last time.

I keep trying to apply pressure and hope it’ll work. It worked with the grenade wound even with those shitty remarks about a tourniquet my little psycho cannibal Ed Gein didn’t know how to make, but this was worse. I bleed to death and burst out laughing. I had it all set up and with such luck I made it back home with a new car, food for probably months and all the tools I could need for a long time, just to practically die on the doorstep of my own home getting shotgun blasted point blank. R.I.P. Damian.

I haven’t played roguelikes in like, two decades and I’m very rusty (and I was very young and honestly sucked), but holy shit is this fun. I can’t wait to see all that’s to come. I’ve missed this.

Sorry for the wall of text, I’m just super excited, even though no-one is probably bored enough to read this shit. Cheers!