Risk of Rain

Overview

Risk of Rain is a 2D sci-fi action-adventure platformer developed by Hopoo and published digitally by Chucklefish for the PC (via Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store) on November 8, 2013. It was made available to Mac and Linux platforms on October 28, 2014.

After a large space freighter explodes over a mysterious planet, players control an unnamed survivor (either alone or with a group of other players) as they progress through the hostile world to find an escape. Along the way, they unlock a random variety of items, most of which provide unique passive benefits (similar to The Binding of Isaac). Similar to other "rogue-lite" games, Risk of Rain focuses on repeated playthrough attempts using perma-death and procedural environments. The game's signature feature is its time-based difficulty, which gets progressively harder as players explore the environment, fight waves of enemies, and make purchasing decisions.

The game was developed in GameMaker and funded in part by Kickstarter. It was later ported (with assistance by Code Mystics) to both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on April 12, 2016, to the Nintendo Switch on September 19, 2018, and to the Xbox One (published by Gearbox) on August 30, 2019. While the game was normally released digitally, it received two limited-edition boxed releases: one for computers (by IndieBox) on February 2015 and one for each of the PlayStation consoles (by Limited Run Games) on April 26, 2017.

The game later received a direct sequel on August 11, 2020, bringing its concepts to 3D as a third-person platformer.

Gameplay

There are multiple layouts for each available stage, so each play through is a little different than the other. There is only one playable character available from the get go, but as player achieves certain listed milestones (for example reaching a specific stage) more become available. The game contains rogue-like elements: at every new run player character starts on level one with no items. Every kill yields experience and money, which allows for progression for that specific run. Each stage contains randomly placed portal, which must be activated in order to progress. Once activated, a 90 seconds timer is started and a random boss is spawned with lot of normal stage specific enemies. After the minute and a half is up, spawning stops and player must clear the stage from all remaining foes. When the last one falls, the portal activates and player is transported to another level. From the very beginning a separate timer is running, which increases difficulty in regular intervals. This prevents players to grind experience and money indefinitely - the difficulty spikes faster than it's possible to manage. This mechanic introduces a constant time pressure making the action move forward at a brisk pace. As the player progresses through the game, not only more characters (each with completely different skills) become available, but also more items for use in future runs. These can include variety of improvements from faster attack rate to healing on hits or summoning ghosts of enemies. These effects also stack which means player can pick up the same item multiple times for improved effect.

Classes

There are 10 different classes in Risk of Rain, each with different stats and 4 unique abilities.

Commando

The commando is the starting class and does not have to be unlocked.

Enforcer

The Enforcer becomes playable after defeating the Magma Worm, Wandering Vagrant, and Colossus on any difficulty.

Bandit

The Bandit becomes playable after beating the third stage on any difficulty.

Huntress

The Huntress becomes playable after collecting 15 Monster Logs.

HAN-D

HAN-D becomes playable after finding the robot janitor.

Engineer

The Engineer becomes playable after buying 40 drones

Miner

The Miner becomes playable after clearing a path for the survivor.

Sniper

The Sniper becomes playable after beating the game on any difficulty.

Acrid

Acrid becomes playable after freeing the chained creature.

Mercenary

The Mercenary becomes playable after beating the game five times on any difficulty.

Gameplay

Items

There are about 101 unique items players can pick up and use throughout their adventure. Some items are locked until the player has completed an achievement, but most are available from the start. Items are dropped by bosses, purchased, found in chests, or earned from shrines. When an item is unlocked, it appears in the Item Log, which shows details about the item as well as lore related to it.

Items fall into two categories: usable items and passive items.

Players can have as many passive items as they can afford, but only one usable item at any given time. Passive items grant special effects or buffs to the player whereas usable items give the player a fifth skill unrelated to the character. Duplicate passive items are common and the effects do stack. Players may switch usable items whenever a new one is found if they choose to.

Enemies

Risk of Rain has many different enemies to pit the player against. Most enemies are specific to a particular stage as well as level of the player. Not all enemies will only spawn in a given stage or at a given player level, though. There are also variations of the standard enemies that have a reduced chance of spawning. These special enemies will have particular abilities that other enemies will not. Special enemies are marked by being a different color than their normal variants.

The color tells the player what sort of effect the enemy will have. Red enemies will leave a trail of fire behind them as they move. Yellow enemies move faster than normal and have a chance to teleport directly to the player. Orange enemies have explosive attacks and launch projectiles toward the player. Blue enemies have lightning-based damage auras. Green enemies have more health and heal nearby enemies as well.

Bosses

Bosses are also somewhat randomized. Each level is guaranteed one boss spawn from activating the teleporter, but sometimes more will spawn. Certain other events will also force boss spawns, sometimes even forcing a named boss to spawn. Most bosses are not locked to a certain stage, but some are, such as Ifrit only spawning in Frozen Tundra. Bosses range in their abilities from summoning enemies to ranged attacks to high movement speed. Each boss is particularly large and has lots of health, easily distinguishing them from other enemies in the area. There is also a chance for bosses to spawn with elemental effects like normal enemies. The final boss, Providence, has many of these abilities as well as being the only boss to engage players in a multi-phase battle.

Difficulty

Risk of Rain features an unusual difficulty scheme. There are three choices for difficulty when starting a game: Drizzle (easy), Rainstorm (normal), and Monsoon (hard).

However, regardless of the difficulty the player choose, the game will become progressively more difficult over time, even if players are not progressing through the game. The amount of time each difficulty lasts for depends on the overall difficulty the player chose. The 10 time-based difficulties are as follows:

• "Very Easy"
• "Easy"
• "Medium"
• "Hard"
• "Very Hard"
• "Insane"
• "Impossible"
• "I SEE YOU"
• "IM COMING FOR YOU"
• "HAHAHAHA"

Soundtrack

The game features an electronic rock soundtrack that was composed by Greek composer Chris Christodoulou. The soundtrack was released on 4th September 2013 under the name Risk of Rain.

System Requirements

Minimum

• OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
• Processor: 2.5 GHz
• Memory: 1GB Ram
• Graphics: Direct X9.0c Compatible Card
• DirectX: 9.0
• Hard Drive: 130 MB available space