Shot One Fighters is an indie game that blends 2.5D fighting mechanics in a roguelike progression. This game offers a unique approach by requiring players to navigate through randomized stages that change with each playthrough. Creating a higher replay value. We had the chance to demo the game during the Summer Game Fest.

Fixing What’s Broken

In Shot One Fighters, Volley accidentally breaks the seal that unleashes Paradox, causing reality to fracture and losing her best friend, Vlad, to the void. Determined, Volley searches for him, but every time the Void kills her, she wakes up in the severed head of a giant-sized mecha she calls home and gradually uncovers the truth of what happened.

During our demo run, we played as Volley, but there are additional characters to play: Kiera and Kyu. Volley is the only human character, whereas Kiera is a humanoid wolf and Kyu is a small cat operating a mecha (neat). Each character is uniquely designed and carries unique characteristics. Enemies are designed just as well too; that makes the game pop with its character visuals and clean illustrations. Backdrops are clean but could showcase more details and more visual depth.

Build What You Can

The game plays in a single-player mode where you’ll travel across a board of various paths you can choose that lead to an event. These events can vary from battles, shops, and surprises (good or bad). The game uses RPG and roguelike elements. Every move you make on the board, you’ll earn a moveset that can benefit your fighting abilities, such as special attacks, counters, gap closers, and more. Players can improve their roguelike run with over 100 artifacts, but they must plan their deck, as there’s a limit to what they can attach to their character. Players can land a curse card that can backpedal your skills; for example, a character skill can be disabled for a certain amount of battles. These cursed cards cannot be removed until the requirements are met.

Your health gauge carries over each battle, but you’ll have options to replenish it on your travels. Players will face tough boss battles, but if you survive, you can earn powerful moves and artifacts. Perish, and hopefully your next build will get you over the fence. Picking up and learning the mechanics felt smooth and easy enough to understand. Battles tend to spike in various spots. For example, the second battle against a refrigerator, as silly as it sounds, proved to be more difficult than the following battle. It’s hard to determine whether the intention was to make these battles fluctuate or if they were meant to gradually become more challenging.

Overall, Shot On Fighters gives a different style of gameplay that you don’t see often. With over 40,000 wishlists since earlier this month, using stylish visuals and unique customization battle mechanics, it’s a game worth keeping an eye on during its development.

Shot One Fighters is set to launch for PC (Steam), a release date not confirmed yet. Fans can visit the game’s official website for more information and future purchasing options. The game is available to wishlist on Steam and the official Kickstarter page is available to view. We appreciate Day of the Devs team for giving us the opportunity to battle it out at the Summer Game Fest.