Reviews from

in the past


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.

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

v
v
v
v
v

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.

Cosmo D's colorful brand of surrealism is right up my alley, so I'm happy to say that this game is something super special. I was massively impressed with everything in this game, especially the intricate and brilliant gameplay design. Customizing the dice, taking risky chances, being strategic, real meaningful choices, it's all here and it's wonderful. During my final playthrough (on the hardest difficulty with random NPC dice) I had to constantly think outside the box to stay alive all while passing insane skill checks, I LOVED it. The gameplay loop is so satisfying and easy to master, which I will say may not be the case for everyone. It can certainly feel overwhelming at times, but with a little practice, the mechanics start to shine and build with the world around you.

Everything about this game is tuned to perfection with so much personality and color, and I couldn't recommend it enough. I'm excited to delve further into Cosmo D's discography, everything I've seen looks bonkers lol.

Funky. Weird. Stylish. Bizarre. Groovy. Ugly. Tasty. +2 $4. Stew. The VIBES are there.

Antes bizarro, desconcertante, agora vejo o universo displásico dos jogos de Cosmo D como estranhamente confortável, desprovido de surpresas, apesar de sua excentricidade exagerada: thrillers de espiões propositalmente vagos, com poucas palavras capazes de indagar a imaginação ao que deita debaixo dos panos; seres dísparates, bizarros, de diversos anseios e desejos, todos comunhando ao redor da música, pilar da criação em Off Peak; e claro, pizza.

Betrayal at Club Low introduz um novo elemento à equação: as plots e subplots agora se emaranham ao redor de um sistema elegante e divertido de dados, trazendo a fisicalidade do tabletop e o universo de possibilidades aquém de um imersim à fórmula de pizzaiolo 007 de seus jogos. O loop de um CRPG é condensado em um globo de neve, fazendo com que cada skill-check carregue muito mais peso e personalidade, e até o potencial de queijação desses atributos provém um ciclo engraçado de executar - save scumming aqui é um desserviço maior que em outros jogos mais “sérios”.

Ainda assim, o novo sistema não foi o suficiente para me impressionar assim como ele já havia feito no passado. Menor em escopo, Betrayal muitas vezes parece uma prova de conceito. Após três jogos explorando e comendo as beiradinhas de Off Peak, agora desejo por algo que me acerte em uma veia mais emocional - chega um ponto em que o divertido non-sense e desinteresse casual viram atrito em uma relação. Chega de só ficar: além das piadinhas e os bangers de serenata, para o próximo jogo espero que Cosmo D me conte sobre sua infância e do que gosta de fazer quando ninguém está olhando.


A silly game. The very act of playing it feels like going to a weird club and having a good time.

I like how an absolute comedy of bad rolls doesn't stop you from slowly building into a successful run. Failed rolls really just let you see more of the jokes.

I put the most points into Deception, which is funny. Isn't the whole thing pretending to be a pizza guy? Of course it's the most useful skill.

Brilliant dice-rolling RPG infused with Cosmo D's trademark style. The way you level up or put together a build by customizing the individual faces of your dice is inspired, the off-kilter strangeness of the setting is fun as always, and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by accidentally swapping my high dice roll for my opponent's low one is always hilarious.

The first of the Cosmo D games to not be a an adventure game/walking sim for better and for worse. All the hallmarks are here, excellent use of music, the surreal humour and colourful characters, purposefully stiff and silly animations, the lot. If like I you have played all the previous ones you will no doubt get a lot of the callbacks to those games.

This time though, Betrayal At Club Low is essentially a CRPG in a sort of Disco Elysium type model : skills and dice rolls etc. The main wrinkle is that you are a pìzza deliveryman and can make modifier dice with different effects and pizza ingredients. I'm going to be real though, this game and I do not really gel together in terms of the gameplay. At first I found all the dice rolling stuff charming, trying to manage risk and collect ingredients. Unfortunately at some point you realize you have to be really careful what dice rolls you do and what skills you choose to improve cause if you get one or two bad status conditions, you are fucked : Its a death spiral of fucking up and getting debuffs and losing morale and health and etc etc. According to the global achievement stats, the most common ending people got by far is the game over by lost morale (45%) And I just died this way like 3 times.

And I get that this was mostly my fault but geez it felt incredibly punishing and demoralizing. And its not like this is some grimdark ass Darkest Dungeon situation or hell even Disco Elysium where fucking up all the time is kind of the point. Anyways in the end I just bumped the difficulty down to the easiest and started to save scum every dice roll. This didnt make the gameplay feel great but it at least got me an ending without tearing my hair out. Admittedly the point seems to be the replayability and getting multiple endings so perhaps I will get to grips with the game at some point and play at the normal difficulty at some point.

I think its a good first step to try out new gameplay styles but I still feel like it isnt quite as engaging as Tales From Off Peak City or the Norwood Suite. The Architecture is a lot more coherent which seems paradoxically bizarre in a Cosmo D game. At least the various skill checks keep the game's signature humour and where most of the fun came from in my playthrough.

Edit : Okay after a second playthrough on normal difficulty I've gotten the hang of the game more (though I still save scummed a bunch cause fuck you) and am bumping the score up by 0.5 stars

2nd Edit : This game rules, playing it on hard and iron pizza mode, once you get a hang of it its a really compelling experience. Its become my go to "yeah I can spare like 45 mins, lets do a run"

i heard "pizza dice" and got really excited but then i ran into resource management puzzles and felt like i kind of softlocked myself out of a winning branch, lost a bunch of risky challenges, got a bad ending and felt bad. this is not my genre.

This is, to date, Cosmo D's best title in terms of gameplay experience and mechanical design.

However - I found it the least narratively compelling. I still highly recommend you give Club Low a try, but I'm hopeful that Cosmo D's next game can marry this sort of gameplay with the strong writing of his previous work.

What an absolute flex to follow up three ambitious first-person adventure games with an isometric CRPG while losing none of the creative momentum or thematic depth. Manages to condense what is historically a 40+ hour game genre into a tight 2-hour heist, pulling drama from every dice roll as much as (if not more so than) its narrative. Would love to see more games adapt the streamlined stat system used here (to say nothing of how well its implemented into the UI). The nightclub background is a natural home for the sort of nu-human entities that make up Off-Peak, and now having control over how you engage with them only escalates the absurdity (love to indiscriminately fight everyone).

I've only finished a single run so I can't speak to if it holds up on replay, but as an expansion into a wholly new genre with significantly more mechanical emphasis than anything Cosmo D has done prior, it's quite the accomplishment.

I was really excited about this game like I am anytime Cosmo D releases something new, but I walked away a little bit disappointed this time.

Here, Cosmo D pushes into new territory with a short RPG built around dice-based skill checks. It’s as strange a take on that as you’d expect, with customizable pizza dice and a physique skill that’s frequently used to contort your body in weird ways to get people’s attention. It’s fun and unique, with some enjoyable writing that adds new layers to the Off-Peak universe, but the balance of the default difficulty is off - while the game is built to be replayed several times, I had a hard time progressing whether I built my character as a jack-of-all trades or focused on one or two skills, and I had to save scum once I hit the late game. I think I’d probably enjoy it a lot more on the lower difficulties, so I may give that a try when I inevitably come back to this.

Also, Cosmo D’s Off-Peak universe is one of the strangest and most creatively bizarre in video games, and that’s very much on display here. But the move away from a first-person perspective and the focus on RPG mechanics takes some of the focus off the game world, which means there’s not as much room for the details of that strangeness as before, and I found the game less engrossing as a result.

Regardless, I’m excited to see Cosmo D push into new territory, and I’m excited for what he does next!

Nice extension of Cosmo Ds visual style into something more resembling standard mechanics. Whilst the main mechanic is dice rolling its entirely possible with good strategising and a couple of replays to get to the point that luck rarely factors into your game. I found it very satisfying optimising my character build in a way that negated the RNG woes some of the other reviewers complained about. Its good!

Cosmo D is just so good at making enganging worlds and characters. This time I'm even more impressed by the gameplay though. I was a little skeptical initially of the gameplay taking a front seat in one of these kinds of games, but it's incredibly engaging. Most of it is simple dice rolls, relying mostly on luck, but there is definitely some strategizing that can be learned from multiple playthroughs. Also helps to have 11 endings, so there's more replayability to this one.

Another game from the amazing Cosmo D in his "Off-Peak City -verse", though this time the walking simulator gameplay is replaced by a point & click adventure with Tabletop RPG elements including the dice-rolls. For people who suffer with videogames RNGs I have good news, this game has options to tone down the difficulty (or make it harder if you are a masochist), and having beta-tested this game I can assure you it was harder.

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.

I'll probably write a proper review tomorrow but all you need to know for now is I stayed up until 3am in the morning playing this game all the way through in one sitting and getting 4 endings. It's really good for what it is, that being a Absurdist Walking Sim inspired by CRPGs

Cosmo D's games have become increasingly game-y ever since the somewhat nebulous Off-Peak. I don't mind (too much) since the game mechanics are incorporated in a similarly artificial way as the art assets, music, dialogue, etc. It has a detached quality: art for a community of the complacently rejected. RPG dice rolling as a path to your inner "truth" if dancing at 4 AM doesn't do the trick.

This one reminded me of Disco Elysium with that dice based gameplay and then add that Cosmo D brand of weirdness and you have another great adventure in Off-Peak Saga.

such a bizarre and fun RPG. it's all about embracing wacky and awkward situations, being confident that your stupid plan just might work out, and handling the even wackier and more awkward situation that arises when it doesn't.

Betrayal at Club Low is a short but fun ride into Cosmo D’s brand of games. If you are up for a unique one-shot experience, definitely get this game! It’s energetic, it’s funny, and it’s delightfully strange. Get this game!!

(full review https://doorplays.substack.com/p/door-reviews-betrayal-at-club-low)

This review contains spoilers

Some of the funniest, wildest environmental and encounter design I've ever seen wrapped in a genuinely tense push-your-luck game. It's all in the details - the weird aesthetic that straddles the line between lo-fi garishness and actual cool, the off-kilter architecture, the way characters will literally fly off-screen like they're wearing a jetpack when you fully complete their encounters. Just loved this, should probably play more Cosmo D games.

Loved that I finished it in one sitting. One of those games where I’m going to be musing “huh, that was a good game” repeatedly over the next week.

This review contains spoilers

8.5/10

Best Cosmo D game yet. It's not just a walking sim this time; I thought at first that the gameplay would be pretty shallow but it's an actual game with meaningful decisions and strategy. It's also very, very funny, while still hitting Cosmo D's themes of music, pizza, and struggling to maintain artistic integrity in a capitalist dystopia.

A game where having a normal conversation is actually a skill issue, no matter how many times you reroll. Very fun, hope you like dice and feeling unlucky.

Between this and Off Peak I have only started working my way through Cosmo D’s oeuvre, so I may view this game in a different light when it is more properly contextualised within the a more substantiated assessment of his project (and I’ll probably append a more graduated review onto this one for Betrayal once that roping back around occurs). Despite being relatively new to D however, I think, at least on 1½ playthroughs, the tenor of Cosmo D’s style is extremely vulnerable to the valuable plastic melodies RPG mechanics lend to the maintenance of orchestration and harmonic storage video game interactions (and particularly the anti realism of Cosmo D’s cityscapes) are intrinsically underscored by. I thought immediately after first rolling credits that the linearity and mostly inflexible shape of the narrative of Betrayal at Club Low ironically betrayed the RPG systems that were integrated and most commonly used not for enabling play styles or modes of aggressive progression but instead delivering context narrative - but on thinking about it for a while, I feel now that Cosmo D has worked a type of cubist portraiture that is inlaid through time as opposed to perspective: the RPG mechanics are not so much utilised for fleshing out the player as canvas subject but for shaping the subject canvas for player viewership. In simplest terms, if the typical role RPG mechanics take in games, say Fallouts 1 and 2 or Vampire: The Masquerade, is that of illuminating the what the boundaries are of the game world by way of empowering the player to make them, then Betrayal at Club Low’s mechanics work more as illuminating the game world via the role of PC for the player; instead of seeing a world tailored and navigated by choices made in your progression, the world is herein only lights up one of its fractal edges when investigated down a route of particular role, contrasting RPGs of broadening scope to this one of narrowing. In jerryrigging this restricted and somewhat obfuscated combination of mechanics, scope, and budget, Cosmo D makes an excellent case for disempowering play in the pursuit of more meaningful worlds and interactions. Of course there is more to be done, and whether or not chance in the form of die rolls is the best route for this type of play being best is certainly up to debate (even if that tension is tremendously fun in the moment to moment), in the refining and encountering prohibitive exploratory play beyond just this small game, but it is an interesting idea that sits far better once the session has ended than the facility and falseness other RPGs smoke around with after they have faded from sugary sensation.


very fun and stylish, always want more from Cosmo D

I loved Cosmo D's other games but I was worried that this game would be just a RNGfest that'd miss why the other games were rad and, yeah I was right. I'm glad this isn't going to be the series going forward because the dice mechanics are just not engaging at all and its way too easy to screw yourself on Normal. There are easier difficulties, mind you, but I just don't find the mechanics good to begin with so why would I bother?

Just pass unless you're really into heavy dice roll mechanics.

This review contains spoilers

everybody in this game is devoted to some kind of trade, whether it be cooking stew, djing, hustling -- boil it down, give it your upmost faith, and suddenly you lose yourself in it, like youre slipping on somebody elses creepy skin suit. you yourself adopt these roles by spending currency on skills which create increasingly high dice rolls, the primary mechanic through which all interactions take place. its a touch overwhelming at first, but the micromanaging necessary at higher difficulty levels makes you feel as addicted to making Forward Progress as the chef who can't let go of her stew or the dj who refuses to give up the boards. its a little eerie. nothing ive encountered yet in 'betrayal at club low' is Scary per say, but theres an underlying bit of unease found between interactions and skill checks, narrow, starkly-lit neon passageways and diorama-like sets that dont feel entirely Natural... i suppose in the same way as dreams. like dreams, too, all the interactions you have, where everyone is holding onto their little skills and hidden interests, is reduced into symbols and patterns. this bouncer... hes Fit and Observant, and harbors a secret love of Dance, all of which i can ultimately profit off of via dice rolls and absorb into the mental picturebook this games made for me. its a tad like the first leisure suit larry game but with less snark and more melatonin, a haunting little stage play that loops back in on itself. i played this all the way thru a few times on edibles in one sitting, and i do think that took away from the novelty a bit, as eventually i was just rushing past dialog to get to specific encounters. regardless, theres some wonderful dreamy stuff in here, thick, palpable bits of worldbuilding in a good point n clicky package. check this out if youre into passing out on the night bus or huffing pc duster