Ten hours with action roguelike Ovis Loop brought chaos and nostalgia, gorgeous pixel art, buttery animations, dark mystery, and constant action. Despite some early access bugs and minor gameplay loop issues, the overall experience has been fantastic.
This 2D side scroller from Lifuel Games is available in early access via Steam.
Getting Started
Ovis Loop teaches you to play as you go, drip feeding mechanics with only a very basic “tutorial” section. The game doesn’t hold you back from running head first into battles right away, which was an exciting way to start. As is the fun with roguelikes, you know that dying is eventually coming your way anyway, so the game doesn’t try to wrap you in cotton wool.
The Story
As you start your first foray into the orange wasteland, much like with the mechanics, you are fed small snippets of lore to begin piecing together the dark and brutal overarching story. In this world, the wolves have hunted down the sheep to near extinction. You play as one of the last living sheep, and to the world’s inhabitants’ surprise, it’s your turn to become the hunter (This sheep has… Teeth?).
There’s currently only three stages of the story in this early access build, with more to come as the game heads towards a full release sometime in 2026.
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Gameplay Loop
Ovis Loop has a fairly standard roguelike loop, in that your run is broken up into stages. Each stage has a major boss at the end and a randomly generated forking pathway to get you there. Pathways provide different bonuses depending on the node you encounter, with most nodes resulting in a battle and a reward: weapon modifiers, new skills, blue-p (currency that only lasts for the current loop), or a permanent buff module.
There are also rest stops, shops, and “unknown” nodes. Once you die you return to base to spend retained currency to increase your base strength, making subsequent runs slightly easier.
My biggest gripe with the gameplay loop is the “unknown” nodes that drag down the pacing of the game. Every other node feels breakneck fast, as you’re thrown into high adrenaline combat, but unknown nodes present you with slow scrolling text based situations. They’re a strange break from the fast paced gameplay loop and I found myself trying to avoid them wherever possible to keep my momentum going. Perhaps they’re intended as a moment of respite for the player but… There are rest stops for that!
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Combat
Combat is where the game really bares its teeth. There’s plenty of skills to unlock that feel satisfying to use, and the combos you can build are absolutely ridiculous, often making me drop my jaw in shock. Dodging grants invulnerability frames (yay for the souls-like players) and the four unique weapons available in the current build allow for unique playstyles.
The Greatsword offers a fairly standard combat style, with decent paced attacks and decent damage, while the Electro Rapier is very quick and has a long reach. The Charge Hammer has a basic attack that can be charged up for harder hits, and the Gunblade is quick and nimble with a unique four stage combo.
My two standouts were the Gunblade, for the sheer fast paced chaos and huge combo potential, and the flame version of the Greatsword, which I enhanced to increase the burn damage and absolutely decimate those pesky wolves!
The devs have worked to make each weapon feel unique, and I’m excited to see what get’s added in future updates, and how new weapons, might combo with the various skills and passive upgrades.
Should I play Ovis Loop?
Ovis Loop is shaping up to be a little gem of a roguelike, with a satisfying gameplay loop and fast-paced combat. While I had a few bugs early on — like when the controls froze up after exiting the menu — it’s in early access to iron out those sorts of issues.
Sign me up for the full release! And in the meantime… I’ll still be trying to defeat the third stage boss… Yes I am terrible at action games.
A review copy of Ovis Loop was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this preview.
