Quasimorph is a brutal sci-fi extraction roguelike

Quasimorph is a classic turn-based roguelike with an 'extraction' twist: you deploy into each mission with your clone, level up and collect equipment, then finish the mission to extract with your clone and loot.

It's a fantastic mechanic to add to the roguelike genre and makes for a natural metaprogression while preserving the brutality of classic roguelike games. Equip your high-level clone with all your best equipment only to make a mistake and die? Say goodbye to your gear and your clone. This, combined with other modern roguelike mechanics and an excellent visual aesthetic makes Quasimorph one to keep your eye on. The prologue is available for free on steam, and runs flawlessly via Proton.

Quasimorph takes inspiration from Stoneshard with a pain system that applies debuffs on damage received, body-part-specific damage, detailed character and enemy sprites that portray different armour and weapons, and light crafting and equipment maintenance mechanics. Be forewarned: also like Stoneshard, the game is hard.

Visually, the game is a treat with great lighting effects and colourful maps. There are also excellent visual details: spent shell casings fly out of weapons and stay on the floor, walking over a bloodied corpse will have you trailing blood all over the place, doors and cover crumple under heavy fire, and empty loot containers look distinct from full ones.

Another excellent mechanic is the hunger system. Rather than simply being a passive requirement to occasionally eat food, your fullness acts as your energy store which you can use to take more actions per turn or regenerate health.

The story of the game also seems intriguing. You play a private military corp hired to find and extract the research data from a corporation that has just lost its war with your contractee (a particularly violently hostile takeover, your dispatcher notes).

Specifically, your employer is interested in extracting anything relating to "quasimorphosis," a technology relating to teleportation. It doesn't take long before you begin to discover some ugly truths about this research. Indeed, you'll realize something is off right in the first mission when you shoot a scientist only to have a skinless creature jump out of his corpse and hurtle towards you on all fours.

The game isn't perfect; there are still some missing quality of life features like rebindable keys, simpler ways to interact with the UI, and some much needed features (shortcut for changing stance, splitting inventory stacks, and a force-move option to, for example, step on a corpse instead of looting it). The crafting system also fairly sparse, with around a dozen recipes available.

The release date for Quasimorph is unknown. Due to Western sanctions (the development team Magnum Scriptum is based in Russia) the game is in something of a release limbo where the devs are unable to charge money for their game, but continue actively working on it.

An interesting side note: the devs refer to these sanctions (which are seriously impacting them) as "humanistic" in the steam forums, which likely gives you an inkling into their stance on the war in Ukraine. Trying the prologue is a great way to support this team and this game.

You can download the prologue free on Steam, and wishlist the full game.