Crypt of the NecroDancer announced

Word reaches me that Brace Yourself Games is working on a “roguelike rhythm game” called Crypt of the NecroDancer. I’m not sure words will do this justice, so watch these two videos instead. First, some early footage:

Second, a live recording of indie darling Matt Thorson actually playing an early build of the game using a DDR dance pad:

Brace Yourself coder Ryan Clark recently did an interview with IndieGames.com where he spilled the beans on how this game works. It’s close to a true roguelike, but it’s real-time and rhythm-based in an effort to subvert what Clark sees as the “extremely unfair” nature of Rogue itself. He states: “I want NecroDancer to be based on a player’s skill more than knowledge of arcana.”

As for how the rhythm factors in:

Well, the main survival strategy is to observe the movement patterns of the enemies and use those to your advantage. (Every enemy has a predictable, repetitive movement pattern.) Most enemies move only every second beat, while the player moves on every beat. This means you have time to hit an enemy and retreat before it has a chance to strike back. And, for the enemies that do move on every beat, we’ve generally made them weaker such that they can be killed in a single strike. The player simply needs to wait for them to approach, and deliver a timely blow!

Clark tells me that they plan to release Crypt of the NecroDancer sometime in 2013 for Windows and Mac, with the possibility of other platforms to come after. If you want to keep abreast of the development process, Brace Yourself Games have invited the public to follow along on their forums.