I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed - if only because I had such high expectations for this game. Coming from Off-Peak I knew I loved the Cosmo D vibe, and this game delivers on that... But the gameplay loop doesn't make me want to play it more than the few runs I have.

You walk around and do skill checks in conversations with people, Yahtzee-ing your skill dice to get better results and using the money you win from the checks to upgrade your dice. Problem is, the actual act of doing the skill checks takes up so much of your time in this game and they are truly not interesting at all.

Your choice of which skills to upgrade could be one potential source of decision-making , but the way upgrades are priced, you're really incentivized to go for a generic build every time. Maybe the interesting decisions are supposed to be from the order in which you do things? But even then, I don't find it that fun to walk back and forth and see where I have a chance at a better than average skill check.

Really, this game makes me want to play Cosmo D's adventure titles - I appreciate the attempt at a sort of strategic CRPG inspired roguelike, but the mechanics needed more compelling decision points to be worth replaying more.

La premisa de Betrayal At Club Low es tan loca como su ejecución. El aspecto visual jincho esconde un juego de rol con dados surrealista y disparatado donde nuestro agente infiltrado de pizzero puede liarse a puñetazos con seguratas, distraer a gente con bailes hipnóticos o acabar siendo el DJ residente. El humor lo inunda todo en esta fantástica aventura ligera, no querría caer en una comparación fácil con Disco Elysium pero en cierto modo es una versión comprimida, las tiradas de dados te pueden llevar a resultados desternillantes y fallar no es el final, es una invitación a mejorar y volver a intentarlo. La escritura es otro punto fuerte enriqueciendo esas situaciones surrealistas que se suceden una tras otras, junto con las tiradas de dados que le dan un saborcillo especial porque a quién no le gusta tirar un puñado de dados y verlos rodar por la pantalla rezando para que salga esa tirada que te consiga rebuscar en la basura o beber de un charco con éxito.
Cosmo D demuestra su genialidad en un juego que debería estar en la biblioteca de cualquier fan del rol. Todo esto está enderezado con una banda sonora tremenda a la que ya he vuelto varias veces. No puedo recomendarlo más, me ha tenido tan entretenido que he buscado sacar todos los finales para luego quedarme alucinando con dichos desenlaces. Una experiencia casi única en la que la traición sabe tan bien como un buen estofado de muslo de flamenco.

Pizza, dados y surrealismo

Lo primero, quiero aclarar lo que es y lo que no, porque este equívoco hizo que fuera difícil de disfrutar la primera vez que me puse a jugarlo. La primera impresión es que es algo similar a Disco Elysium, donde pasar tiradas no es crucial la mayoría de las veces, sino que cambia la narrativa. Realmente, en Betrayal at Club Low el motor del juego es pasar tiradas para mejorar nuestras habilidades y así pasara tiradas todavía más difíciles.
La trama es simple; somos una especie de agente y tenemos que rescatar a otro agente en el club. Para ello, tenemos distintas habilidades, representadas por dados de seis caras que podemos mejorar individualmente gastando “dinero” (a todos los efectos, experiencia). La dificultad de la tirada es otro dado, y los modificadores a las tiradas son más dados. La gracia está en que una tirada tiene tres resultados posibles; tirada inferior a la del oponente (fracaso y repercusiones negativas), empate (éxito, pero con repercusiones negativas) y superar la tirada (éxito y a veces incluso dados positivos). Estas repercusiones son, generalmente, añadir dados negativos a nuestra tirada. En cualquier caso, en caso de éxito nos llevaremos el número total de nuestra tirada en dólares para mejorar nuestras habilidades.
Con dos rerolls por prueba en la dificultad base, ahí es donde entra la estrategia. ¿Queremos mejorar nuestros dados extra para que nos faciliten las tiradas, nos curen, o nos den más dinero? ¿Volvemos a tirar para sacar un resultado más alto, desempatar y librarnos de las consecuencias negativas? Además, hay algunas tiradas que solo se pueden intentar una vez, haciendo que tengamos que ahorrar para esa específica si queremos continuar por ahí.

A pesar de esto, la variabilidad no es tan grande como esperaba. Si bien tiene varios finales, la mayoría de ellos son “game over” no tradicionales o decisiones del final del juego (al menos los que he visto, me quedan por descubrir algunos) y la mayoría de los fracasos simplemente requieren volver a intentarlo, por lo que los éxitos definen más la aventura. Además, por cómo están diseñadas las pruebas, es favorable guardar el dinero para mejorar los dados justo antes de tiradas cruciales que decidir en función de en qué atributos queremos destacar, haciéndose más mecánico que narrativo.

Betrayal at Club Low es como una partida de rol improvisada con un master algo pasado en estupefacientes y con un grupo de amigos con más ganas de hacer el gamberro que de crear unos personajes memorables que celebran cada crítico con más euforia que un medallista olímpico.

Nota: Para maximizar los tensión en cada tirada y hacerlo lo más similar posible a la experiencia intencionada por el desarrollador, recomiendo tras entender el sistema jugar en modo “Iron Pizza”. Con una duración de entre una y dos horas por partida, es más llevadero aceptar la "muerte permanente" pero hace toda decisión mucho más significativa.

Holy cow this was a huge jump in quality! Visually models have improved a lot and the animations are so on point and hilarious! Also the wild scenarios you could get yourself into whether you succeeded or failed at rolls made me feel even better when I won or not as bad at all even if I failed. This on top of the incredible dice mechanics that had me on my toes the entire time. The fact that you could retry rolls and rely on modifiers to turn the tables in your favor was so so much more enjoyable to me than other games where dice rolls happen instantly and you can't do much to affect their outcome. I had a smile on my face the entire time I was playing this.

In attempting to make a much more engrossing and complex game, Betrayal At Club Low trades surrealist elements for novel game design.

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Surreality is a hard thing to nail down I think. So much of it revolves around subverting and defying expectations, dancing in the sort of liminal space of your subconscious (you might even call it… subliminal….). Its no wonder however, that gameplay systems present some obstacles in performing notions of the surreal, because gameplay systems require some definition - players need to understand what theyre doing, especially as systems become more complex.

And Cosmo D takes a stab at mixing 2 of some of the most complex genres I could think of in terms of what I might call “mechanical intuitiveness”: Tabletop Role-Playing, and Immersive Sims.

In truth, this pairing is actually quite genius, because both genres revolve around “mechanical interplay”, what some people refer to in shorthand as “sandbox design” (tho thats often a vague term that could apply to many aspects). Another way to say this would be that both genres focus less on predefined situations and encounters and instead try to let things play out procedurally according to a collection of rules and parameters. In an Immersive Sim, structures are given many varied entrances and patrolling enemies are given complex behavior-based AI to sort of create a “sandbox” of possibilities that come together in a (hopefully) exciting and dynamic experience.

(Also I have to say, I fucking hate the term “Immersive Sim”. “Immersion” is a quality almost every genre could have, and “Sim” is maybe sort of accurate but not exactly how that word is typically used in video games genre I digress I digress UGH)

What results is like the ultimate realization of a spy on a mission: a game where you have to break into a facility and react on your feet when luck doesnt break your way. Games that use dice rolls to determine the success of an action arent new but I dont think Ive ever seen a dice rolling system like this. Instead of just upgrading a skill, you upgrade the dice values, roll bonus dice you can customize, and even have to contend with conditional dice you gain as penalties or as rewards from some of the interactions you can have at Club Low. Its incredibly engaging and turns luck into a pseudo-strategic affair.

But this is also a very dense set of mechanics to contend with and this expanded, elaborated complexity in the game design means theres less space for the uncanny and dreamlike experience Cosmo D’s previous work usually involves. With many more things to do and alot more things to understand, theres alot less “vibing” to do. Alot less soaking it in.

But!

I dont think this means the game has less personality. The situations are still patently absurd, its just a matter of the effort shifting into other sectors. Failing dice rolls is its own form of comedy and there is a much greater abundance of writing to read and enjoy and engage with. Its now less a thing you merely witness and much more a thing you participate in. That does feel different of course, but not “worse”. The challenge for Cosmo D might be figuring out how to do both at the same time - but alot of Off-Peaks surreal qualities were often also just creative storytelling concessions in games where you could only really walk around and look at things.

Theres room to innovate here and find ways to bring back the stronger atmosphere but it might be worth keeping in mind that vibing is sort of all you could do in the previous games.