Rotwood

Rotwood is an action fighting game set in a cartoony fantasy forest, where you fight off hordes of monsters until you die, then upgrade your gear and do it over again. As you play, you unlock ever more outlandish and extravagant weapons with which to defeat the fantastical forest foes you fight against, and slowly fortify a safe haven from which you set forth. It stands out for the beautifully animated cartoon characters and fights that offer surprising flexibility in how you play.

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Play involves moving through the world, using attacks to defeat enemies and dodges to avoid incoming fire. Different enemy types have different attacks, and learning and developing the best strategies to defeat each type is essential. As you progress, you unlock boosts for your characters, such as increased run speed or greater attack power.

When you die, you lose these boosts but keep any other loot you find, which you can then use to unlock and upgrade new weapons, abilities, and armour pieces. There are lots of upgrades and items available, and experimenting with what works best for you and developing ambitious tactics for dealing with harder enemies is essential. You can also fortify your base of operations, before heading out and starting again, now with increased strength, but also with better knowledge of enemies and what's coming. As you do run after run, you slowly advance, getting slightly further each time.

The result is an experience that looks more like a cartoon than a video game with a beautiful environment, characters and enemy designs. The wide array of weapons and player choice enables you to approach each run differently to slowly hone your strategy and master each attack.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Rotwood 9 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 8 weeks ago.