Bingle Bingle

There are three things that are vital to how good a roguelike is. Are the synergies fun to play? Are there a substantial number of goals for you to work towards? When you finish a game, do you feel like going back in and trying again, whether you win or lose?

I wish I could say "yes" for all three of these for Bingle Bingle, I really do. But there's just not nearly enough on any front for me to say it confidently. The synergies can stack up to be really fun when you do them right, but there's really only a few synergies that will ever actually work. The unlocks happen seemingly at random, and the amount of items to unlock is devastatingly low. I find it painfully easy to stop playing after a round or two.

I have high hopes for this game, but I see so many inherent problems with trying to make what is essentially a roguelike deckbuilder with roulette. There are some balls that are just inherently underpowered, like the "disable adjacent slots" or even "bet against x, bet for some random other thing" balls, and some that will inherently be wildly overpowered, like "ball lands in 3 slots" or "ball lands in the same spot again". This game needs a lot of fleshing out in order to really get to where it needs to be. I can see them managing to do it, but it'll need work.