In the survivorlike ARPG 'Conquest Dark' you start off nude and build up clothing as you go with multi-life mechanics

Just what the survivorlike bullet heaven genre thingy needed - nudity! Conquest Dark from Eldritch Sword Games actually has quite a number of fun game mechanics worth exploring, the nudity is optional but it has a point. Tested on Desktop Linux with Proton, it works perfectly. Note: personal purchase.

To be clear; by default your character will have some underwear on, which you can toggle off in the settings. What's the point then? The developer said:

I wanted the world to feel dark, primal, and brutal, and also create strong contrast between the character's initial state and the state at which you end up after acquiring power. The most primal state you can start is naked, just with your fists as weapons, and then progress to a god-like champion with golden armor and a flaming sword.

Sounds fair enough to me. It's not like staring at a willy or boobs is the focus of the game, it's about showing how vulnerable you start off in it. Then again, the same feeling can be gained from seeing you suit-up as you continually level-up from underwear (but hey, options are nice?). You even start off by picking between different undressed characters of different classes, races and genders each with their own set of different initial stats.

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That's a very nicely crafted trailer too that really helps sell it I think.

This was an accidental discovery of mine when browsing Bluesky, coming across a post from the developer where they recently announced they've managed to sell over 63,000 units in the first week of release. They've built up a Very Positive rating on Steam already too and I can clearly see why — I'm already hooked on it.

Conquest Dark has multiple game mechanics that I think are interesting to genuinely make it feel a bit different, and a bit more like a proper ARPG blended with the features popularised by Vampire Survivors. In a way, it's a little bit more like the excellent Halls of Torment for building up the character with items as you go, although in much smaller more claustrophobic arenas more like the also great Brotato.

Actually seeing your chosen character go from wiggling their bits to the world, to being covered in clothing and armour might seem like a small thing on the surface, but it really helps add to that feeling of becoming overpowered that the genre is much loved for.

There's so many different types of character builds that you can do that makes the repeated runs really fun, making me itch just to give it another go. My favourite run in it so far was with a bow that I powered up to fire shots that bounce between enemies, while also sometimes setting them ablaze, with multiple multi-shot abilities and constantly picked a buff to my attack speed on level-up that I was just firing arrows constantly and it got quite hilarious. Very satisfying to hear the constant crunch of my arrows tearing through skeletons.

You have a dodge ability in the game too, which you can also power up and turn it into something else. You could make it so as an archer to fire off multiple arrows when you dodge, or completely change it into a leap as a barbarian when you smash down into a group of enemies, which is especially fun if you go through the upgrades to get multiple charges and just repeatedly leap around the arena. There's so many different ways to power-up differently each time.

Here you also get to start with 10 lives. Each life lost results in a health reset, but you'll begin bleeding more and more to have your health go down faster, eventually to your death. There's various ways to counter it (apart from not repeatedly dying) like ability buffs to reduce bleeding, or abilities that end up spawning lots of healing orbs. It doesn't make it all that difficult, but just an interesting life system that keeps you on your toes a bit.

True to the genre, the more you play of it the more of it you'll unlock. You play across a map with different nodes, with each node being split between arena fights, altars you can pop resources into to power up some more, obelisks to power up the enemies to give yourself an added challenge (and some extra resources) and more. When you manage to fully complete an arena fight, you'll also unlock more of the game like extra character classes and abilities.

It's not perfected yet though. It's Early Access, so rough edges are to be expected, and in some ways the overall content is limited but there's enough there for hours and hours to play right now. My main wish for it is to have some more arenas that are faster, as in general the game is a bit on the slower side.

The new roadmap that's been put up has me excited for the future additions too like new events, new weapons and armour, a new class and more.

For a solo developer, this is really impressive and continues to show how you can do a lot with a little.