The Pit: A Sci-Fi Roguelike in the Sword of the Stars Universe

A deadly plague ravages your world. Your last hope: a legendary alien facility dug deep into the Feldspar Mountains...a massive Pit, built by the ancient Suul'ka

If 'The Pit' really exists, there might be something left. Something that will give your doctors a fighting chance at the cure. 

This opening found at the website for The Pit starkly lays out the players task. Get in, get out, don't die. But some things are harder than others.

The Pit is a new roguelike being developed by Kerberos Productions and crowd-funded on IndieGoGo that tasks players with delving as deeply as they can into a dungeon-esque pit to recover a cure to a mysterious disease. Much in the vein of other games like Spelunky, you only have one life in The Pit to complete your task and are scored for how far you get.

Of course you'll find yourself fairly well equipped. The player can choose one of multiple character templates and then increase levels as they gain experience by killing enemies, repairing equipment or opening locked containers in the search for loot. And loot does play a big part here. Everything from ammo, to food -yes you need to keep yourself nourished while exploring-, weapons and electronics; it's only by scavenging around that you'll truly prepare yourself for what lies beyond.

There is also a litany of skills and abilities to rank up as you start gaining levels and, from what I can see, multiple ways to interact with the world through electronics such as scanners, lock-pickers, data-pads and the like.

All movement, action, and combat is turned-based meaning you'll need to keep an eye on your surroundings at all times in lue of your interactions with the world...and your ammo count. During my playthrough I was constantly making sure I kept my guns loaded (which can take two actions) and my health up (one action) so I wouldn't be caught flat footed by a charging enemy.

An alpha demo for The Pit has just been released on Kerberos' website and even though the video below gives a good idea of what the game has to offer, I implore you to check it out firsthand. As I said, the game is still in Alpha stage so you'll find some things are a little rough around the edges, but overall this is shaping up to be a great game so far.