stands above a lot of its trend hopping peers by virtue of its very cute and charming halloween world, and also because it requires a degree of active focus that leaves games like 20 minutes til dawn, brotato, halls of torment etc. feeling a touch lacking. i think most of these recent vampire-survivor-likes have already figured out that giving the player control of the attacking makes for more decision making makes for more engagement in simple roguelikes like this, but boneraiser flips it a little - your firepower doesn't even emanate from yourself, you're just a very fragile target floating around while your minions do all the work. as such you take a lot of damage, even minor grazes from enemies can nearly halve your health and larger waves can create a lot of instant game over scenarios.

this difficulty curve was initially a bit frustrating but i ended up putting like 30 hours into the game, which is way more than i can say for most of those aforementioned peers so clearly its good at making me invested. boneraiser minions is the first caiysware game i've actually sat down and played, but i've been familiar with the guys style for awhile and i really appreciate his taste in little pixel art ghouls & ghosts and in garish neon color palettes. at this point i'm pretty sick of the 8-16 bit era throwback style when its used solely as a callback (shovel knight and its consequences on the human race) but caiysware has a good spin on it. much recommended