Cogmind enters paid alpha

Word reaches me that there’s a new roguelike in town: Cogmind. Developed by the Taiwenese one-man studio Grid Sage Games, Cogmind is a sci-fi affair–you play as a robot that can reconfigure itself using parts scavenged from the shattered bodies of its enemies.

The premise:

Experience sci-fi tactical combat and exploration in a procedural world that combines traditional roguelikes with an immersive modern interface like no other. Build yourself from components found or salvaged from other robots. Attach power sources, propulsion units, utilities, and weapons to become a slow tank bristling with weapons, or a fast-moving flier zipping past enemies before they even have time to react, or a stealthy sword-wielding assassin/hacker, or whatever else you can come up with from the salvage you find. The situation can quickly change as you lose components and rebuild yourself from enemy remains. You are the Cogmind. Discover what that means as you explore a living, breathing world ruled by robots.

As you can see from the trailer, Cogmind employs ASCII graphics, though it does so with a panache that one doesn’t generally see in traditional ASCII roguelikes:

The feature list:

• Build and modify a unique robot from parts found, or enemies defeated
• Dynamic character development without XP/grinding
• Procedurally generated world combined with hand-crafted content
• ASCII evolved: Most advanced terminal interface ever
• Thousands of particle effects and SFX
• Fully destructible environment

The developer posits this as something analogous to a full, version 1.0 release, but he wants to continue working on the game, so he’s calling this an alpha. (This is, of course, par for the course with roguelikes, which can be complete and playable and yet subject to further development for decades.)

You can snag Cogmind direct from Grid Sage Games for $30. Windows only.