The gameplay screen of Realms of Requiem, featuring the main gameplay UI as Hegar Darnish.

You awake in a dry desert. Your mind is shattered and your memories are broken. For a second, everything goes blank. Who are you? Where are you from? Even when you try your hardest to remember, only parts are able to be recalled, at least in your current state.

These are the opening lines of Realms of Requiem, a pixel art roguelike by SlickRamen. While I’m no roguelike expert, this opening prose convinced me to dive in.

In each new game, Realms of Requiem allows you the choice of three random characters so you can choose someone that fits your play style. For example, you can play as a magic-focused mage, or a warrior with a dominant primary attack. After you pick your character, you must learn your weapon and the right combination of base action, and primary traits, and secondary traits to survive the world. As is a tradition for a roguelike, the enemy difficulty increases level by level, requiring you save and upgrade your kit to survive more levels below.

My early attempts ended in failure, but I kept trying characters until I found one that fit me—a dwarf warrior equipped with a longsword. I had to figure out what items were most essential, and how to manipulate the enemies. In later levels, enemy difficulty and progression became a little flat for me as I understood the framework and wrapped my head around enemy behavior, but saving for better weapons was essential for the final level.

Realms of Requiem was made in under a week during the Bored Pixels Jam 4 game jam. The pixel art of Realms of Requiem is excellent—which makes sense for a game made for a pixel art game jam. Additionally, the game’s UI is pixel-forward, well polished, and looks great for a game of this small scope.

You may enjoy Realms of Requiem if you enjoy games like Binding of Isaac, but set in a fantasy setting. Realms of Requiem is available on itch for Windows. I played for about an hour, and my successful playthrough took about twenty minutes.

The Missing Quests Season 1 is Complete

The Missing Quests was a season of sharing small indie games by Alex Guichet.
Stay tuned for new writing projects, or a potential next season of TMQ.
Alex Guichet @alexguichet
A screenshot of the main gameplay of Ramen Rave, showing a timer, ramen, eggs, and flavor packers.

Ramen Rave, by Andy Bae, is just your average cooking platformer—if a “cooking platformer” were a standard game genre. Tasked with making ramen for your friend Jammy’s birthday, you must use your platforming and utensil skills to make a perfect bowl of ramen. Shoot away flies and undesirable ingredients while allowing only right ingredients in—such as eggs and flavor packets.

Matching the quick preparation time of instant ramen, Ramen Rave is a fast mini-game experience that is done in just 3 minutes. The pressure stacks up as time goes on—more and more ingredients fly by, requiring you even more quickly and accurately, lest earn a lower score. When the timer runs out, your score is tallied up and added to the leaderboard.

Ramen Rave is available on itch.io for windows.