Dusky Depths is an oddly relaxing name for a roguelite bullet hell about escaping a dead planet

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Image credit: Bow Echo Games

Dusky Depths – what a pleasant name for a game. It makes me think of sleepy suburban soap operas, slightly worrying brands of shampoo or chocolate, and easy listening radio shows on long-haul train journeys. It doesn’t make me think of getting vapourised by laser beams in an exoplanetary cave system, which is what happened when I gave the demo a try.

Brought to you by tiny German indie Bow Echo Games, Dusky Depths is a roguelite twin-stick shmup in which you explore a planet infested with rickety robot defence systems and noxious wildlife. You have but one goal and that is to leave, by finding pieces of crystal to activate some ancient warpgates, which also requires that you enhance and re-accessorise your usefully omni-directional spaceship.

Dusky Depths – Nextfest February 2024 Trailer

Levels are that nowadays ubiquitous, reassuring mix of generated and “hand-crafted”, with the option of blasting the terrain into a preferred shape, though I wasn’t able to do this using the few guns I gathered during my demo run. What guns were these? Well, I had one that shot energy bolts in all directions with a kind of Force push alt-fire, plus a twitchy, back-and-forth laser beam – useful for dealing steady damage to larger targets, less fun when aiming at smaller prey.

There are over 100 different weapons, augments, companion drones and other items to acquire in the course of the game’s roguelitings, plus playthrough-shaping “auras” or modifiers. The full game includes PvP and co-op multiplayer, so you can “modify” other people’s playthroughs for them by slapping them with an energy-draining missile out of nowhere.

True to its picturesque moniker, Dusky Depths has a lovely atmosphere, with festering purple layouts forming an appropriate background to projectiles of all shapes, colours and sizes. There’s a 2D physics simulation which is slightly reminiscent of Noita, though the chain-effects aren’t nearly as crazy.

One comparison is Cryptark, which Marsh (RPS in peace) deemed solid back in, my goodness, 2015? Videogame journalism isn’t allowed to be that old. Anyway, I had fun with this and reckon you too should get blown to pieces in the demo – here’s the Steam page. If labyrinths of withering robot turrets aren’t your cup of tea, here’s a list of other Next Fest demos to try.