Reviews from

in the past


hey. so this game is pretty cool. its like a satire of trendy start-up culture or whatever and ngl its sometimes a lil cringe and wont age well but thats okay. i know roguelikes are poppin but thats a big ask upfront sometimes. i gotta put in alot of work before i even know if the game sucks or not lol. im a renaissance man, you gotta court the yalp. anyway i kinda like this “series of mini runs” approach cuz the investment to payoff ratio is a bit more consistent and thats just like….. better

speaking of better, going under is set up in a very non-egghead way. instead of crunching numbers, combat focuses on a more “chaos baller” style of engagement. things are exploding, youre grabbing chairs and keyboards, victory is determined by how much you can go wit the flow, think on your feet. most of the skills make more things explode, or give you command of the explosions, or make people date you. i thrive in chaos, i love to go hyatt (she makes that noise cuz its like zelda) and i too hate capitalism and love spongebob

anyway games pr sick
see you later gamer dweebz xoxo

Well this is a charming little project :)

With Aggro Crab's upcoming crustacean-themed souls-like "Another Crab's Treasure," releasing this coming week, I figured I'd familiarise myself with their debut game, Going Under: Internships Are Heck, to give it its full title. Suffice it to say, I was incredibly charmed by the cut of this game's jib.

Going Under is a procedural roguelike dungeon crawler where you play as newly-employed intern Jacqueline Fiasco as she tries desperately to climb up the corporate ladder of her employer, Fizzle, a lowly subsidiary of megacorporation Cubicle. Though she was hired based on her marketing skills, Jackie finds herself instead trawling through dungeons and fighting goblins, demons, and skeletons in the vague hopes of getting a promotion.

It's a cute and humorous premise, and honestly, it gets a lot of mileage out of it, employing (pun intended) a sharp wit (with some genuinely funny dialogue) and a charming cast of co-workers to pull you into its world and keep you there with a simple yet engaging combat loop that never really gets tired, thanks to a rotating roster of skills, modifiers, and weapons that help continuously switch things up.

Needless to say, the art style is, of course, also a huge draw, seemingly drawing from corporate motivational posters as inspiration and spinning that off into its own kitschy, genuinely adoring look and feel for all of its characters and props.

Really, I'd say the only part that could bring the whole thing down a bit for many people is the difficulty spike in the second half of the game. To provide a bit of context, as spoiler-free as I can make it, the game has its own "rotating of the castle" moment at the midway point and encourages you to go through it all over again except with an extra challenge this time in order to get the true ending.

Now, usually, prospects like this (especially if they are mandatory to seek out the "true" ending) generally turn me off, but to its credit, Going Under isn't a particularly lengthy game; it has a really enjoyable gameplay loop, and there are some handy 'assist mode' settings for accessibility purposes that you can tweak on top of that, so it's really not as taxing as that might sound.

So yes, there is a difficulty spike in the second half, but it's much more manageable than it might seem.

Really, my only complaints are down to issues with RNG, but really that's more of an issue with roguelikes as a genre than this game specifically, as its kind of built-in to the whole experience of them. Besides that, the combat can perhaps get a bit repetitive, especially if you're attempting the same dungeons multiple times in a row during that tricky second half, but again, it does the job well enough.

For a first outing, though, Going Under is incredibly charming and supremely impressive in how well it is put together and presented in all facets of the game. There are some setbacks but not enough to warrant caution in recommending it to anyone at all.

In fact, if you're tired of scrolling through Indeed or LinkedIn all day, playing this will no doubt prove to be an incredibly cathartic experience.

8.5/10

Somewhat padded out but there was enough variety of weapons to keep it fun.

Man, what a game to finish at the height of the gaming industry cutting jobs and dissolving studios. My heart goes out to those affected, hope you can find work soon.

Going Under is a fairly short and challenging rougelike beat em up that satirizes corporate and company heads and how they affect all kinds of businesses and people. Its shite we gotta deal with in the real world, and in lieu of that, the writing and characters are pretty relatable as well.

The music is chill and the visuals are so appealing-I love how the character designs and overall style of the game replicates material you'd see in Job PSAs, Safety, and Pamphlet ads. its very distinct.

Now with it being a rougelike, it is one of those games that won't click with everyone. You die, you start from square one, but you can have mentors and skills to help you out as you unlock them. Layouts are varied per dungeon, you may notice similar layouts be used per run, but Going Under combats this with differing enemy types per run per room.

I can see how the game's combat may come off as mindless button mashing to some but honestly? Didn't feel that way to me. I really enjoyed thinking of the most optimal skills and mentors to stick with and maximizing the amount of damage i can deal per room with what's available. Deaths are frustrating for sure, but its so satisfying to nail victories.

Overall, I enjoyed Going Under! It was a fun time!

This review contains spoilers

box cutter buster sword wasn't something I knew I wanted till this game


fun roguelite with clever writing and a baller soundtrack.

Equal parts witty and painfully relatable. Going Under is filled with charming characters, a banging soundtrack and unique combat that sets itself apart from its competition. A very impressive first game for a small studio and one that I recommend to anyone who is apart of that Corporate Ladder.

A fun little rougelike with an entertaining story about dudebros and corporate America. It's short and sweet with a bumpin soundtrack and plenty of funny moments.

Gameplay wise, it is a bit on the simple side and certainly coulda used more depth to really help it pop (Especially since it isn't particularly hard) though I did enjoy the ability to pick up and throw most items. And for the short run time, I think it works well enough, so I had a lot of fun with it.

Going Under para mim é um jogo bem simples, mas ainda sim tem seu charme. Sinceramente não prestei muita atenção na historia pelo fato do jogo estar totalmente inglês então não vou poder opinar muito sobre esse fator, mas acredito que seja alguma crítica ou reflexão sobre a vida corporativa. Agora algo que é maravilhosa nesse jogo é a sua gameplay, o fato do cenário ser a sua arma é algo genial e fora os combates desse jogo serem bem frenéticos. As boss fights também são bem desafiadoras, não diria impossíveis mas também não tão simples. Sua estética é bem distinta, os gráficos bem cartunescos e os visuais estilizados o tornam algo bem chamativo junto da trilha sonora que se torna uma peça principal por contribuir na diversão e na emoção do game. Pode jogar sem medo, é bastante desafiador mas ainda sim muito divertido

it's a fun little game, good as an indie title

Going Under was quite a refreshing experience for me. It is an interesting twist to the rogue-like genre with tons of personality and charm.

First off, let's start with the obvious: the artsyle is amazing. I love how they used a 'graphic design' approach to everything (UIs, companies' logos and visual identity, character design...), and then made it 3D, achieving a high degree of designery flavour that gives the game a lot of charm. The tech company vibes are on point and definitely give Going Under a distinctive flavour among other recent indie game releases. The music and sound design also fit that friendly-looking corporate theme completing the startup-esque experience quite accurately.

As for how the game deals with its story and message, you should not expect a deep narrative with lots of social commentary or lore. Going Under does throw in some criticism and satire to the modern entrepreneur environment, but it is done in a humorous, lightweight manner. It does throw a punch here and there with some dialogue lines from time to time, but it always tries to do it in a not-so-serious way.

Gameplay-wise I must say I had a ton of fun playing through it, and I'm sure I will keep playing a bit more. The controls are buttery smooth, the combat is fluid and very straight-forward (though rather deep if you take your time to learn all of its potential) and the Tasks give you constant new challenges and twists to how you approach the dungeons helping them stay fresh for quite a decent amount of time. And speaking of tasks, you should definitely take your time pursuing them in the first half of the game, otherwise the second half will become a very steep difficulty spike for you. It has an interesting approach to managing dungeons, progression and content by mixing everything up and adding in some new things, but if you are still in a very early state for your character and power-ups you will suffer a lot. Fortunately Going Under comes with some very cool accessibility options for you to tweak in case you just want to have simple fun at some point.

I just hope they keep adding content via DLCs in the future, because that could increase the game's playtime quite a lot. They already have all the ingredients in place, so I'll be keeping an eye on future developer's updates.

Totally recommended!

always have a great time playing it

Dropeado. Realmente lo jugué el año pasado pero we, lo revieweo ahora porque lo he desinstalado. El juego en si está chulo pero los roguelite no son lo mio y me aburro rápido. Los dialogos son super graciosos (esperable de los de Aggro Crab) y la direccion artistica mola.

I've played a decent number of CAPITALISM BAD games but Going Under might be the most consistently clever, funny, and real about its theme than any other I've played, despite literally being about an AI trying to hack humanity's souls through the use of arcane objects spawned from human greed and failure

that lost achievement for beating the impostor a bunch of times sure was really fuckin hard tho

Enjoyment - 8/10
Difficulty - 4/10

Going Under pits you against angsty co-workers, unfair working conditions and insufferable bosses. This hits too close to real life, but it works! Playing as a new marketing intern, you must progress through each company dungeon, battling enemies along the way, collecting new gear, and defeating bosses. This rougelike is a little bit uncommon, which is surprising because it is a solid game.

It also offers an assist mode that drastically reduces the difficulty of the game if you need it. Complete the main story, side objectives, unlock all the original skills, get specific kills on enemies and the platinum is yours!
🏆

Charming art style, great music, very silly writing. The only problem is that a roguelike/roguelite is mostly carried by its gameplay, and Going Under doesn't have those legs to stand on.
The combat never really evolves as you're frantically spamming the attack button every single run while scrounging for whatever has the highest damage. You don't get any invulnerability frames when dodging, nor can you use it to cancel animations so you're mostly committed to your attacks. Later on, combat gets so frantic and hectic that it's hard to tell what's happening and damage more or less becomes unavoidable.
You can pick a skill to start your run with but there's no reason not to choose the one that gives you five whole seconds of invulnerability. There are so many skills that completely dilute the item pool and unlike something like The Binding of Isaac, you don't have multiple pools to separate the skills from. Unfortunately, the skills you unlock earlier on tend to be much more helpful than the ones in the middle of the game, so you're just making it harder on yourself when you buy them.
When you hit the second part of the game, everything gets much harder without warning. All of the dungeons you were running before get enemies that are tankier and have attacks that are much harder to dodge. Thankfully you can hit a lever now to go back to the old dungeons but they don't properly prepare you for the end game.
I think this game is worth a shot on sale, but you shouldn't go in expecting something like Enter the Gungeon or Hades. It's a quick ten or so hour jaunt that's simple but fun.

This review contains spoilers

What an excellent idea for a roguelite, this game unlike others in the genre has you bein able to pick and choose one of three different dungeons to journey into to try and get a key plot relevant asset to advance the story and give Fizzle more power
And on top of that youre goin through a beat-em-up style take on the formula where every equippable item that aint your fists is a disposable breakable item!! and this can range through a LOOOOOOOOT of different shit
it can be staplers or stacks of paper to fucking buster sword boxcutters, spears or drills it rules

I think the mentor system is also pretty great too, i personally gravitated more to Kara and Swomp's perk abilities bc stealing 1 item from the shop or holding two apps at one time is so fire

LIKE tabbi's money perk is cool.. but why would i give a fuck about an exclusive prime shop when it takes so much time to even see the shop
AND U DONT EVEN KNOW IF ITS GONNA HAVE ANYTHING YOULL ACTUALLY WANT TO USE LMAO
And Ray and Fern i admittedly never used much, i wasnt rocking with either of their perks or even tried them more than once, it wasnt even some shit tht felt like it impacted my runs for the better.

and SPEAKING of runs, I think the bosses are fun and even the imposter MODE difficulty is pretty fire. THOUGH I DO GOT MY GRIPES AND CRITICISMS OF IT. . . LIKE. the journey getting to actually fight imposter is funny because shes not a hard fight at all. infact shes like depressingly easy to me
but i guess thats what happens when you get sent through all three dungeons in one swoop over and over

what i Dont get is like.. when you beat all of that shit! there's no grand plot revelation with Jackie, there's no huge thing its just
"yea u keep beating me.. keep coming back! keep going if you can muahaha" and thts it.. just endless internal str-... hm. maybe its just suppose to play on that though. This game has a LOOOOT of outward obvious joking and comedy about capitalism, workplaces. coworkers, etc the works! i mean for fucks sake even the art style is intentionally riffing on corporate training video design but in a roundabout way its all really charming to me

I think there's nothing wrong with making a game thats topical because the core of the writing isn't even just being quirky but mocking things like amazon warehouses and how inherently insatiable progressing technology is and toxic work culture and bag chasing
to the point where the whole damn city's on fire but atleast everybodys not chained to working somewhere shitty for now........sometimes THE POINT rings harder
in a way the game has a good ending tht also has bad/sad undertones to it because in a bittersweet way, fizzle and cubicle were pretty much just two of several companies like this.

ALL IN ALL THO, I LOVE THIS GAME, was surprised with how queer positive it all is too its awesome
I think this is also not a very long game in the grand scheme of things so you could say itd be a great first roguelite to put someone onto the genre and understand how it works too :)

lilli and jackie shouldve had a date at the end so the lack of this cements a whole star being docked... /lh

this game killed my fucking cat

found it weirdly hard (maybe just havent played enough) and quite repetitive, but dang i really like it

A game that makes fun of soul-sucking opportunistic corporatism while refusing to comment on its own indulgence in trendy play mechanics, linguistic tics, and aestheticized pastel wholesomeness is what one might call "hella sus." I might still have come away positively on the experience if the final dungeon wasn't so fucking horrible. Relegating 50% of the gameplay to the Hades-lite character sidequests and then deciding that none of them matter makes no sense except as a concession that the developers didn't know how to balance the home stretch. All that's left is a stark look at the bones of what you're actually playing, and they are not pretty.

Working in the United States is designed to make you insane.

All of the sneering dipshits you have to deal with in order to make a meager living, or even worse, endure Internship which is essentially unpaid labor for the fake promise of anything getting better in our rigid, rote, always crumbling but never collapsing capitalist system of exploitation and FUCKING GARBAGE

All of that plus the fun of the fare are in this game!

You can grab a desk and slam crypto influencers in the face with them as hard as your corporate artstyle MC is able to without breaking her own arms! That's awesome, that's fun, there is more to life than giving up 3/4ths of your life to corporate systems that turn your young ever expanding mind into dull, cynical grey mush.

God I am so angry office work is THE DRIZZLING SHITS

- Uuuuu -
Siento que es buen juego, pero sus niveles de dificultad y su mal sistema de combate hace que el juego se haga muy imposible de pasar, y más cuando superas la primera fase de la compañia.
Es creativo y lindo, pero tiene ese punto que me molesto, tambien la mayoria de armas no sirven.

Sometimes the combat can be a little bullshitty but I had fun playing it.

Quirky "Zelda but about the parts of corporate work that blow" rogue-lite.

Platinado! Depois de Hades eu entrei numa pira de joguinho rogue like, e esse me pegou pelo fato da tematica diferenciada. voce se pega muito facil se imaginando na situaçao da protagonista e rindo do estereotipo de uma start up comica, usando equipamentos e skills totalmente nao convencionais em qualquer outro jogo mas que se encaixa demais nesse! alem dos cenarios tambem que atravessa tantas tematicas de outras start up falidas


Great game, a bit of an unorthodox roguelike what with the weapon system, but I found myself liking this a lot more than I thought I would. And thank god it's not political!

Going Under is a fun roguelike that has some good ideas and a charming story that my friend Rebao told me to play. The best parts of Going Under are made by the powerups gained through your co-workers and the ability to pick up any object and use it as a weapon. The corporate art style also adds a bit of character surprisingly and is a bit funny watching their stiff animations swing boxes. The story, while not anything special, keeps you going and gives you a reason for your actions. Going Under is a good time and I would say give it a play, but you're not missing out on anything if you decide to skip it.

A fun roguelite making fun of corporate culture and design.

CAPITALISM BAD
amazing music and art direction
i loved the combat system too, its a rogue-like where anything can be your weapon, so you can literally throw a chair at crypto-bros , GOTY