Have A Nice Death is a beautiful rougelite platformer about getting the afterline back in order

Most roguelites have a special relationship with death, however, Have A Nice Death has you taking on the role of Death themselves.

Running a company can be tough, especially when you don’t properly delegate things. Death, CEO of Death Inc., has learned this the hard way, and it’s up to you to stop the chaos and get your department leads and workforce back into order. Have A Nice Death starts off with a beautifully animated video that introduces you to Death’s issue… we’ve all been there, the workload is increasing and so you bring in some heavies to help out, however, they’re a little too heavy-handed and before you know it you’re stuck behind a mound of paperwork and some idiot’s left the wrong door open and there’re souls all over the place now, ugh. It’s very relatable. Either way, Death is on the edge of burnout and so decides to step away from the paperwork and get some things in order.

Have A Nice Death is a platforming roguelite at its core, one set entirely within the halls of Death Inc. You’ll use elevators to move between floors, offices and corridors will be your catacombs and labyrinths, and the bosses will be the department bosses or influential employees — head of security,  head of the pollution precinct and more. Each area is procedurally generated, and you’ll head through a handful of dungeons before coming up against the boss who gates the next area. Each stage ends with an elevator which (normally) gives you a choice between different rooms, with their names hinting at some of the items that you might find within.

Regardless of structure, when it boils down to it, Have A Nice Death is a platforming roguelite, which puts it in the same space as games like Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells, and if you’ve played either of those titles then you’ll have a fair idea of how progression works here. For each enemy you kill you bank some gold ingots at the end of your run, this gold can be used to unlock new items — once unlocked, these items are added into the generator, meaning they might show up in a run. It’s certainly closer to Dead Cells, although Have A Nice Death drops any metroidvania elements to instead focus on the core platforming combat. Similarly, your ingots persist from the get-go, unlike Rogue Legacy which serves its equipment randomness up in the run generation rather than room layout.

Aside from gold ingots, which you can also find as a drop from enemies, there’s an additional currency: Prismium. This is used instead of souls as a permanent upgrade item which lets you upgrade Death’s persistent companion, his scythe, as well as unlock more options at certain stores, and more. It’s incredibly scarce but allows you to shape your game into something that suits your playstyle, unlike the temporary upgrades like curses and weapon drops.

I mentioned the scythe. It’s the major gameplay standout within Have A Nice Death, a weapon that is with you at all time, which has a pretty fast combo and can be used for a very powerful charge attack. In fact, I’d argue that the charge-up attack might actually be a bit too powerful for the early game, with it only requiring a short amount of time before it deals out large damage to every enemy in the nearby area regardless of it they’re blocked by obstacles. It’s a quick and powerful way to deal with the larger brutes, especially if you can get your scythe damage up. Aside from that, you’ve got two slots where you can equip magic and weapons if you can find them, which work as great combo-boosters and slurp away at your (recharging) mana pool. Most items and weapons have a charge-up super move, which you activate by holding Q and then using the weapon. These look absolutely stunning and can clear entire screens if done well.

That said, unlike your recharging mana pool, health is incredibly hard to come by. There are only a few drops that can heal you at the start, and unlocking new ones is very expensive. You do have three slots for healing charges, however, these are incredibly few and far between… and they don’t even heal a substantial amount unless you use curses to boost them. Instead, the best method is simply not taking damage, which can either be achieved through RUNNING through the entire level, clever use of the dash (note, not really a dodge) command, or simply getting very good at combat.

Running is a good option and one that most titles block you from doing through continually gating off areas of their levels. Have A Nice Death approaches this in a different way. Firstly, you can’t run from the bosses or minibosses. Secondly, some areas lock you in until you clear all the enemies (but reward you with a prize). Thirdly, and most importantly, each of the items that you unlock with Ingots becomes cheaper as you complete mini-objectives, many of which are related to fighting enemies or the avoidable mini-bosses.

What else? Well, the elephant in the room is the absolutely stunning visuals. Different development teams prioritise different things when they go into Early Access; with some you’ll see the framework of the game and almost placeholder art draped over it, with others you’ll have an almost full game with temp visuals, and with Have A Nice Death you’ll see a well-balanced game with absolutely stunning animation and art design that is simply waiting for a few more content drops and tweaks before they hit version 1.0

An incredibly polished, 2D roguelite platformer, Have A Nice Death is definitely one to watch.

Have A Nice Death is available now for Windows PC through Steam Early Access