"A possessed can of asparagus intends to stab Mechberto the Turtle Tamer with an asparagus spear, causing 7 poison." That's an extremely odd sentence to read unless you're playing Kingdom of Rogueing, a new roguelike from Zack Johnson, designer of long-running browser-based RPG The Kingdom of Loathing and 2017's wonderfully funny comedy RPG West of Loathing.
Kingdom of Rogueing sort of blends the two earlier Loathing games together. It's a fantasy-ish RPG filled with vampires, ghosts, snakes, skeletons, demons, and possessed cans of vegetables, and the combat works much the same as West of Loathing's, since it was built in SWOLE—the Standard West of Loathing Engine. So if you were hoping for more stick-figure RPG comedy, your wish has been granted.
After cobbling your character together, you venture out through five different randomized locations: a spooky series of caverns, a dusty gulch, a haunted cemetery, a mansion, and a wizard's tower, in whatever order you choose. Battle enemies in turn-based combat and loot the heck out of everything to acquire a mess of magical hot dogs, lasagna bandages, enchanted trousers, various cocktails, and of course, hats. Naturally you'll also accumulate Meat, the standard currency of Loathing, which you can spend in towns you'll come across between main locations.
You can play in Iron Adventurer mode, which means that if you lose even a single fight your game is over. In normal mode you can lose fights and still continue, but you'll lose some XP and Meat with each defeat. ("Don't worry about the details of how this this works," the game helpfully explains.) I've had a few runs through Kingdom of Rogueing, only one of which was successful, but if you get through all five locations alive a few times you'll begin to unlock new starting options for your characters.
Kingdom of Rogueing was created as part of the 7-Day Roguelike Challenge, and it's available now on Itch.io in a 'name your own price' fashion.
